“But don’t punish yourself for still being capable of caring,” she adds. “Because that’s not something to be afraid of. That’s something some people never get back.”
I nod, needing her to know that I hear her, but unable to find the words to respond.
After the ranch settles into quietness, and the sky stretches dark and endless above the bunkhouse, I sit at the small desk and open the journal before me. I flip through Rosie’s beautiful words, pausing to read some of the passages, even though I’ve already committed them all to memory.
It feels like I haven’t written for weeks, even though it’s only been a few days. When I reach a blank page, I pick up the pen and write her name at the top. I pause before the first sentence, staring at the page until the words gather in my brain.
Dear Rosie,
I don’t want to be alone anymore.
The confession sits there, in ink, impossible to take back.
For so long, I told myself that my self-imposed solitude was loyalty.That moving forward meant leaving you behind. That if I let someone else into the spaces you once occupied, I’d be erasing you.
But that isn’t what it feels like. This feels like I’ve been holding my breath for years, and Teagan makes me want to inhale.
I press the pen harder into the page.
I think she’d be good for me.
The sentence looks fragile and enormous all at once.
Teagan is fire and stubbornness. She challenges me and doesn’t let me hide. She sees the broken parts and doesn’t flinch.
She makes me feel alive, andthatscares me most of all.
Loving you taught me what it can cost. Opening my heart again means accepting that cost a second time. It means knowing that joy and loss are twinedtogether so tightly, you can’t have one without risking the other.
I’m afraid that if I let myself love her, I’ll lose her. That once we build something real, the universe will take her from me as payment. Like it did with you…
The fear sounds irrational as I read it on the paper, but grief rewires a man. Mourning teaches you that happiness is fragile and that the ground can give way without warning.
I close my eyes and listen to the soft ticking of the clock on the wall as I picture them both. Two women, both so different, yet both having the ability to change my life in the most profound of ways.
I open my eyes and write the last thing I’ve been avoiding.
She makes me want to do more than just survive.
I lean back in the chair and twirl the pen between my fingers, staring at the final sentence, when there’s a soft knock at the door. “Easton?” Teagan’s voice drifts through the wood.
My heart stumbles.
“Yeah,” I call, clearing my throat. “Come in.”
The door opens slowly. She steps inside, closing it behindher. She’s changed into an old T-shirt and worn jeans, her hair loose around her shoulders.
She glances at the journal, then back at me. “You’re writing? I don’t want to interrupt."
“I just finished.” I set down my pen and close the journal.
“You okay?” she asks. The simple question carries a lot of weight, coming from her. She’s one of two people in this world who know what this journal is to me.Her and Dr. Patel.
“I think so,” I answer honestly.
“You don’t have to figure everything out tonight.”
“I know.”
