“Sounds like that’s a burden.”
“And yet I’m walking into this with my own two feet and making my own decisions along the way,” I say. “I have nothing to complain about.”
“Sometimes things feel out of our control.” The words come out raw. “Don’t you think?”
“Sometimes. I guess sometimes when I’m with my fiancé, I feel like I have to be somebody I’m not.” It’s the first time I’ve confessed that out loud to anyone before, and I feel like I’m betraying Phillip just for speaking it.
“Like a scientist?” Brayden asks me.
“Like a saint,” I say without meaning to. “Like I have to be exactly what he wants, or else he’ll reject me. I guess that’s sort of how I felt growing up in my family, so it’s a pattern I’m working on changing. Being myself no matter what.”
Brayden’s warm hand touches my arm. “Do you believe in following your heart?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I do.” I could add that I’m not sure I love Phillip enough to marry him, that I’m not sure I’m in love with him at all, and that I didn’t really know any of this until I ran into Brayden again after twelve years of walking through life half-numb.
Like he always does, Brayden finds a way to soothe me. “You want to lie down on the truck bed and look at the sky?” he asks me.
Lying down and looking at the ceiling—or the sky—together has become a bit of a tradition for us. And I love it. I love doing nothing with somebody and having it feel so important.
“Yes,” I say. “That sounds nice.”
I lie down next to him and shut my eyes. I hear Brayden settle next to me, and I open my eyes and look at the sky.
“Beautiful day today,” he says.
“It is. Nothing better than a clear sky in Montana.” I point to the lone cloud off to the left. “That cloud looks like a cheetah.”
He lets out a low chuckle. “Cheetahs are fast. I’m not sure how I feel about fast.”
“You like to take your time?” I say, wondering if that statement holds true in the bedroom as well.
“I guess it depends on the situation. Or the moment.” Brayden stops, almost as if he’s fighting himself. But then he says in a voice laced with longing, “I’m not that picky if it feels right.”
Me neither.
Unconsciously, I reach for my left ring finger.
And I freeze.
I never bought any red string. I didn’t even go out to try to find any red string because I saw Brayden in the parking lot and I forgot. I rub at my finger in a panic as if I can bring back the ring magically.
Brayden picks up my left hand and touches my bare ring finger. “What happened to it?”
I jerk my head up to look at him, wondering when he noticed, but his expression is blank.
“It’s gone.” I shrug. “Sometime between yesterday and today, it disappeared. Phillip had sworn his knot couldn’t come undone.” I glance down at my bare finger. “But it did.”
The loud ring tone of Save the Soil breaks the thick silence between us.
I wrestle my phone out of my coat pocket and answer it as I sit up. “Hello?”
“The test results just came in,” Patsy says. “It’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“As bad as it could be. You know what that means.”
“Jesus,” I say quietly.
