He stops for a second and then keeps going.
“I’m sorry about your dad. I just wish you’d told me. I was…” I let that linger and he finally stops and turns to face me.
I’m expecting something angry, but his eyes shine like two pieces of ocean, and he unrolls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt sleeve and lights one.
I walk up to him, closer. “I thought we were…” I hold it there, watch his expression remain. “Friends.”
“It just happened real sudden, that’s all,” he says, after a minute. “My brother called me, so I left as soon as I could.”
“You couldn’t have told me?”
“You weren’t home.”
“Is that all?”
He looks away, off to some meadow to his left.
“I’m not stupid,” I say. “It’s not like I thought we’d ever be —”
He turns back to me.
I hang my head, unable to finish.
“This is the north pasture,” he says, like he’s giving a tour. “For the horses to graze.” He points off to his right. “South pasture for the cows and chickens.”
I wipe the sweat collecting on my forehead and my glasses slip. I push them up.
“You need to see it?”
I stare down at my shoes, already muddy and grass stained. “I don’t want it to be like this.”
I hear him inhale, exhale. “You should get home. Your aunt probably misses you.”
“She doesn’t.”
We’re quiet for a long while. The gentle breeze and birdsong are intrusive, annoying me. It’s too pretty of a day for everything inside me to feel so dark.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he murmurs finally, stomping out his cigarette. “If that’s what you came for. Now you know.”
“I came here for you.”
And there it is. I feel like I’ve cracked open my chest and showed him what waits for him there. And all he can do is stare at it, like an object at an auction. I’m not handling this well. I know it. He knows it.
“One of us can drive you to the bus station,” he says quietly.
“You really want me to leave?” I say, not as quietly.
“You weren’t invited here.”
“I know. But you were gone, and…”
He waits a beat. “And?”
“And what else was I supposed to do? Just…let you go?”
There’s a flicker of emotion across his face
I look down at my grass-stained shoes. “I couldn’t let you go.”
