"I'm not that good. I'm selfish as hell, actually. I want you whole and healthy and choosing me because you want to not because I’m the only option."
"You think you're convenient?" She laughed, watery but real. "Lee, nothing about you is convenient. You're the most inconvenient person in my life. You make me feel things when numbness would be easier. You make me want things whengiving up would be simpler. You make me believe I can be myself again when becoming someone else entirely would be safer."
"Good. Be inconvenienced. Feel things. Want things." I squeezed her hand. "Be yourself."
"You're the best man I've ever known," she said, the tears spilling over now. "The best friend I've ever had. When everything else in my life turned fake and complicated, you stayed real. You stayed you. You stayed."
"You make it sound like I did something special. All I did was come get you when you called."
"You dropped everything. You flew to LA in the middle of the night. You carried me when I couldn't walk. You brought me here, sat by my bed for five days. You gave me Poet. You gave me a notebook and space to fall apart and songs to sleep to and..."
She had to stop, overwhelmed. The tears were really coming now, and I pulled her against me, held her while she cried into my shirt. Not the broken sobs from her first week here, but cleansing tears, grateful tears, the kind that washed things clean instead of drowning them.
"You held my hand at my parents' funeral," I said into her hair, breathing in her scent, memorizing the weight of her against me. "Sat with me in that church for three hours, never let go, even when your hand must've gone numb. You sat with me in the basement while I cried. You didn't try to make me talk or tell me it would be okay. You just held on."
"I remember," she whispered against my chest.
"That's what we do. We hold on to each other. Then, now, always."
She pulled back enough to look at me, mascara smudged but beautiful, more beautiful than any magazine cover because this was real. "I love you. You know that, right? Not... I mean, yes, that way too, but also just... I love you. The person you are. The way you move through the world like goodness is thedefault. The way you make everyone around you feel safer just by existing. The way you see me—not Stevie Wilson, not the commodity—just me."
A shaky breath left me. Those words…I’d wanted to hear them for the better part of my life. My throat closed, my chest ached, my heart soared. “Steph?—“
"I know we can't... not yet. Maybe not for a while. But I needed you to know. Needed to say it out loud where the creek and the trees and God himself can witness it. You're my best friend, Lee. The best friend I've ever had. The love of my life, probably, but that's a conversation for another day."
I kissed her forehead, gentle, chaste, but let my lips linger just a moment, feeling her skin warm under them. "You're mine too. Always have been."
Poet chose that moment to investigate what we were doing, sticking her head between us, looking for treats or attention or just wanting to be part of things. Her muzzle pushed against Stephy's shoulder, leaving another green smear, making us both laugh. The emotional intensity broke into something lighter but no less meaningful.
"Your horse has terrible timing," I told Stephy.
"My horse is perfect." She fed Poet a peppermint from her pocket—another habit Louisa had started that was going to rot the mare's teeth. "Aren't you, beautiful? You're absolutely perfect."
Poet preened like she understood, tossing her white mane and making Stephy laugh again. That sound—I'd never get tired of that sound. It was better than any song she'd ever recorded, better than any music that had ever been made.
We rode back as the afternoon started cooling toward evening, taking the long route that wound through the oak grove where the trees were old enough to have seen all this land’s history. The light went golden and soft, that magic hourphotographers paid thousands to capture, but that happened free every day out here.
Stephy was confident now, moving with Poet instead of just sitting on her. She even tried a little trot when Poet offered it, though she squealed and grabbed the saddle horn when the gait changed, bouncing like a sack of potatoes for a few strides before finding the rhythm.
"Post!" I called out. "Up down, up down, with the outside shoulder!"
"I don't know what that means!" But she was laughing, and somehow her body figured it out, finding that rise and fall that turned a trot from torture to dance.
"You're a natural," I told her as we unsaddled the horses back at the barn, the building filled with that golden late-afternoon light that made everything look blessed.
"I have a good teacher." She was brushing Poet, long strokes from neck to rump that had the mare practically purring. "And a patient horse. She takes care of me, doesn't she? Like she knows I need it."
"You take care of each other."
It was true. Watching them together in the barn's golden light, I could see the healing happening both ways. Poet had been a good horse before, well-trained and willing, but with Stephy, she bloomed into something more. She stood straighter, moved with more confidence, whinnied when she heard Stephy's voice from across the pasture. And Stephy... she was finding pieces of herself she'd lost, or maybe pieces she'd never known were there. The part that could be brave. The part that could trust. The part that could love without fear.
"Same time tomorrow?" she asked as we walked back to the cabins, the sun painting everything rose gold.
"Wouldn't miss it."
At her door, she turned, went up on her toes, and kissed my cheek. Not romantic exactly, but intimate. Familiar. A promise of what could be when the time was right. Her lips were soft, warm, and they lingered just long enough to make my heart skip.
"Thank you," she said. "For the ride. For the patience. For being exactly who you are."
