I stop that train of thought before I can think about what she looks like ridingme.
I probably look like an idiot beside her, still clutching at Lyra’s sides with my knees like I’m scared I’ll fall off and holding the reins too tight, but the important thing is that I’mbeside her. That’s all I care about right now.
We plod along in silence as the sun slowly sets, nothing but the low hum of insects and the steady clop of hooves to fill the air between us. It stretches out until I can’t ignore it, and I open my mouth before I even know what I’m going to say.
“So what have you been up to?” I cringe immediately at my own awkwardness, clearing my throat and continuing, “Since high school, obviously. Not, like—I mean, I know you do the books around here, and Wayne said something about California when you got back. We haven’t really gotten a chance to catch up, but I’m curious about what you got up to after we graduated.”
After we broke up, I very carefully don’t say.
I kind of expect her to completely cold shoulder me, especially since she hasn’t seemed receptive to any discussion about what happened when we went our separate ways. She throws a glance my way, the fading sunlight sliding over her golden skin in a way that makes me ache.
She was always too beautiful for me to look at for long.
“I went to school,” she says, resigned and tired, but not cold. “Got my bachelor’s, graduated top of my class. Thought about joining a firm in Billings or moving out of state, but Wayne had already run off by then, and Dad needed me here. Couldn’t just let the ranch fall apart, so I stuck around.”
I expected her to be bitter about that, but she sounds like she hardly cares. She was always a math whiz, so I’m not surprised she did so well in school, but it still sparks pride in my chest to know she graduated top of her class. I couldn’t manage gradeslike that even if I chained myself to a desk and did nothing but study.
“That makes sense,” I say, trying to choose my words carefully. “You always talked about wanting to get out of here, so I was surprised when Wayne said you still lived on the ranch.”
She was always closer to her family than I was to mine. She was closer tomyfamily than I was to mine, considering Dad was all I had.
Still, she never made it a secret that she wanted to go do her own thing. I guess she was better at commitments than I was, too.
“Dad couldn’t handle it on his own,” she says with a shrug, like that’s all that matters. “I still get to go on business trips occasionally, and that’s enough of a break to keep me mostly sane.”
I chuckle along with her at that, even if she sounds more resigned than honest.
If I hadn’t torn my ACL, my life probably would’ve been nothingbuttravel, and I’d been relying on that. All of my plans came back to her, aiming for teams that would bring me close enough to visit, whether she was here or in Tallahassee. My dreams were filled with off seasons spent cozying up in the living room of a place we shared, maybe even getting Jenny a gig crunching numbers for the team I played on.
That all went out the window before I even had a chance to bring it up to Jenny. She wrote off any chance of a long distance relationship without even letting me ask, and I just rolled with the blows.
“Is it ever disappointing to come back here?” The question comes out almost hopeful, like I’m begging her to feel the same way I do—uncertain and itching to get out of here, to find something better. “It’s probably pretty boring compared to California.”
“Not… Not disappointing,” she says, a mournful tilt to her mouth as she stares blankly ahead at the slowly darkening trail. “Frustrating, sometimes, depending on Dad and Wayne. Exhausting. A little lonelier, now, without Al. I don’t think it’ll ever feel right without him here.”
I startle at the mention of my dad, accidentally pulling Lyra to a halt when I freeze up. Jenny pulls Ernie to a stop moments after I go still, glancing back with an apologetic wince.
“Fuck, sorry,” she says, not quite meeting my eyes. “I didn’t mean—he wasyourdad. I’m not trying to… He was like family to me, but I know I sounded like a dick.”
“I—no,” I choke out, shaking off my surprise and the flash of grief. “No, you didn’t. Sound like a dick, I mean. I know you miss him.”
Jenny spent more time with him when he was alive than I did. He was a great dad, and he put me first no matter what, but he worked so hard that I barely got the chance to know him. And then I left, and then he got sick, and then he died. We didn’t get the kind of time together that we should have, and I’m more torn apart about missing out on what could have been than missinghim.
She remembers the real person that he was, but all I have are the things I wish we could have shared.
She deserves to grieve just as much as I do.
“Are you holding up okay?” Her voice is soft and tender like it used to be when we were younger and I needed someone to hold me before I shook apart with all of the what-if’s and the anxiety that came along with becoming an adult. “I know we… We don’t have to talk about ourselves. We don’t have to be us. If you need to talk, I can listen.”
I don’t quite tear up, but it’s a near fucking thing.
Even after all this time, she still knows exactly what I need to hear. She still knows how to get me to talk even when I don’tknow what needs to come out. That hurts almost as much as the lump in my throat.
I ignore the urge to brush off the offer like I would with anyone else. Maybe it’s because the twilight makes it easier to hide the emotion on my face, or maybe it’s the privacy that comes with being on the trails so late. Maybe it’s just because it’s her.
It’s probably because it’s her.
“I’m okay,” I say, and it’s true even though the words come out thick with emotion. “Notgood, but okay. Going through the motions. I feel like an idiot most of the time, and a failure all of the time.”
