Enzo:Processing what?? The overwhelming joy of watching grass grow?? The THRILLING EXCITEMENT of cow maintenance!??
Despite everything, I found myself smiling. Enzo had a gift for cutting through my tendency to overthink with his perfectly-timed absurdity.
Me:Something like that. How’s Alex?
The response came immediately:
Enzo:Busy…. working too much. Missing her fake boyfriend tho she’d never admit it.
Missing me. The thought should have been comforting, but instead it made the weight in my chest heavier. She was missing someone who wasn’t being completely honest with her. Someone who was breaking down piece by piece while pretending to have his life together.
I pocketed the phone and walked toward the truck, leaving the hangar doors open behind me. The morning was getting warmer, and I had a few more hours of fence work planned before heading back to the house for lunch.
At least physical labor made sense. Posts and wire and systematic repairs—problems with clear solutions and measurable outcomes.
Unlike everything else in my life right now.
Chapter 22
Peggy has some thoughts about my life choices
Alex
The waiting room chair was made of concrete and disappointment. I shifted my weight, crossed my legs, uncrossed them, picked up a magazine about mindful living that made me want to throw it across the room, and set it back down on the small table next to a diffuser pumping out lavender that was doing its best to choke me out.
Tabitha had driven me to my psychiatrist’s office because apparently, I’d lost the ability to make rational decisions about my own transportation. Or much of anything else, really. She’d taken one look at me after I’d completely lost my mind over a printer jam that morning and decided, “That’s it. We’re going to Dr. Stewart. Today.”
I’d tried to argue that I was fine, that I just needed the printer to work so I could get the quarterly reports printed for Oliver so she didn’t have to worry about it, that everything was under control. Tabitha had pointed out that I’d been standing in front of the machine making sounds that weren’t quite words for two solid minutes while Lennon watched me with a concerned expression reserved for people having a mental breakdown.
Which, in hindsight, I probably was.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead with the frequency of winged insects burrowing into my brain. I pulled my phone out to check for messages from Finn.
Nothing since yesterday’s:Sorry. Ranch is keeping me busy. I’ll call later
Words that told me absolutely nothing about why he’d beenso distant before he left, why he’d pulled back from our usual conversations, why every text exchange felt like I was bothering him.
I’d been replaying the two days before he left over and over, combing through every moment for clues about what I’d missed. The way he’d kissed my cheek and gone straight to bed when we got home, how he made breakfast in the morning but said nothing, how he’d opted to stay at the house while I went to the office. The detached way he’d said goodbye when the rideshare arrived, like he was already halfway gone. Something had happened at the dance recital, more than telling my family to shove it in his polite but dry way, but he wouldn’t tell me what, only promising to do so when he was ready. And now he was in Wyoming dealing with whatever was going on there while I was falling apart in Salt Lake.
I’d buried myself in projects in an effort to ignore it all, but my brain ping-ponged between Jordan’s increasingly suspicious behavior and Finn’s near-radio silence. I’d thrown myself into investigating every anomaly Casey and Jason had flagged, eating whatever appeared on my desk without tasting it, staying at the office until Tabitha practically kicked me out of the building, and falling into bed at two in the morning only to lie awake replaying text conversations that revealed nothing.
My phone buzzed with a message from Marcus:You need to call Mom. She’s worried about you and wants to talk about what happened at the recital. Just call her when you have a chance so she stops calling me.
I’d been ignoring my mother’s attempts to “process” the recital aftermath for days. Letting calls go to voicemail only to delete them without listening. She never listened, why should I? The last thing I needed was another conversation where she acted like my response to her comments was just me “getting upset,” where she downplayed the fact that she’d basically told Finn I was running out of time to have babies and I’d called her out on it.
The restroom door opened, and I caught my reflection in the full-length mirror as someone walked out. Dark circles undermy eyes like I’d been punched, skin pale and drawn, hair that I’d forgotten to wash yesterday morning because I’d been too focused on getting to the office to deal with the crisis du jour. Speaking of, I’d missed my hair appointment completely, which my roots reminded me of with their obvious non-descript color against the fading pink. I looked exactly like what I was: someone whose carefully maintained life was completely falling apart. Someone who didn’t have the energy to care.
“Alexandra,” a woman’s voice called from the doorway leading to the offices.
I looked up to see Dr. Stewart… Peggy… watching me as if she’d already diagnosed half my problems just from observing me in the waiting room.
I shoved my phone into my bag and stood up too quickly. The room tilted slightly, reminding me that I’d forgotten to eat lunch… again. I scooped up a few candies from the bowl on the reception counter.
“Come on back,” she smiled, stepping aside to let me pass as I unwrapped the first hard caramel and shoved it in my mouth. “How are you doing today?”
I huffed. I was in my psychiatrist’s office because my assistant had staged an intervention after I’d lost it over office equipment that couldn’t be bothered to work right. I was obsessing over a man who’d decided I wasn’t worth explaining things to and had run away back to where his high school sweetheart still lived. I was doing my best to run a company while investigating whether one of my key employees was stealing from me while fighting off what felt like hostile acquisition threats. I still had to pick a venue for Enzo and Dom’s bachelor party. I was ignoring my family and forgetting to eat and sleeping four hours a night if I slept at all.
“Fine,” I responded automatically, following her down the hallway.
