The things that meant something, I handled more carefully.
Brad's dog tags came first. Tarnished and worn from years around my neck, then years in my pocket, then years tucked in the corner of whatever bag I was carrying. I hadn't worn them since the funeral—couldn't stand the weight of them against my chest. But I couldn't throw them away either. They were the only piece of him I had left, besides the dog sleeping in the doorway.
I ran my thumb across the stamped letters of his name. The metal was warm, and for a moment I could almost feel him—that big laugh, that easy confidence, the way he'd look at me when I was being an idiot and not say a word because he knew I'd figure it out eventually.
You'd like her, I thought.You'd probably tell me I'm being an idiot right now.
Maybe I was. But I couldn't stay where I wasn't chosen.
The photograph came next. My family, the last Christmas before the crash. Mom was laughing at something Dad said—her whole face lit up, that particular joy she got when he was being ridiculous. Dad had his arm around her, looking at her instead of the camera. And Sarah—my sister, nineteen and dramatic and rolling her eyes at both of them with that particular teenage exasperation that was really just love in disguise.
I'd been deployed when this picture was taken. Somewhere in Afghanistan, doing things I couldn't talk about, missing holidays and birthdays and all the ordinary moments that made up a life. Mom had sent it in a care package with cookies that arrived half-crumbled and a letter that made me homesick for a month.
We miss you, she'd written. The tree looks wrong without your ornaments. Come home soon, sweetheart. We'll save you some pie.
Three months after it was taken, a small plane went down in bad weather over the mountains. My parents and sister were on their way to visit family in Wyoming—a trip they'd made a dozen times before, in a plane my father had been flying for fifteen years.
There were no survivors.
I found out by phone call—some Army chaplain with a soft voice and practiced sympathy, telling me that everything I came from was gone. I remember my knees buckling, Brad catching me before I hit the ground, the strange distant roaring in my ears that blocked out everything else.
I didn't get to say goodbye. I got paperwork and an inheritance I never wanted and a hole in my chest that still hadn't closed.
The letter from Sarah was last. Folded and refolded so many times that the creases were wearing through, the ink faded from years of handling. She'd written it the week before she died—chatty and ordinary, full of complaints about her college roommate and excitement about a boy she'd just met. She'd signed it, Love you, big brother. Come home soon.
I never made it home.
I tucked all three items into the corner of my duffel.
Then I stood in the middle of the bunkhouse and looked around at the space I was leaving. A bed I'd slept in for weeks. A window that looked out on Blackwood land. The hooks by the door where Sully's leash was coiled.
It didn't look like much. It had felt like everything.
Sully watched from the doorway, silent and patient, the way he'd watched me pack up and leave a dozen places before.
"Ready, buddy?"
His tail thumped once against the floor. Ready.
I shouldered the duffel and walked out of the bunkhouse for the last time.
The path to my truck took me through the heart of Blackwood Ranch. Past the barn where I'd spent hours gentling horses that had finally started to trust me. Past the paddock where Maggie and I had argued about breeding strategies three weeks ago—ended up laughing, somehow, standing close enough to touch. Past the spot near the stock tanks where the water fight had happened, where I'd felt like part of something for the first time since my family died.
I didn't let myself look toward her cabin. Looking back would only make me question what I was doing. Would make me climb the porch steps and crawl back into her bed and pretend that loving her secretly was enough.
It wasn't. It never would be.
I loaded my duffel into the truck bed. Sully jumped into the passenger seat without being told, settling into his usual spot with a soft exhale.
I stood beside the truck for a long moment, looking at Blackwood Ranch spread out before me in the pale morning light. The main house, where a light had just come on in the kitchen. The barn, where someone was sliding the doors open for morning chores. The cabin, where Maggie slept.
This was the first time leaving felt like leaving home.
I got in the truck. Started the engine. Pulled slowly down the drive, watching Blackwood Ranch shrink in my rearview mirror.
The ranch disappeared behind a curve in the road.
Something in my chest cracked and sealed over at the same time. Grief and resolve, braided together the way they'd been braided since I was twenty-three and lost everything.
