Eli hasn't been around.
His absence isn't dramatic. There's no single moment where I notice him missing. It reveals itself slowly, in the way days moveforward without interruption. In the way no one mentions him until Mae does, casually, over coffee on the third morning.
She says it like it's nothing, like she's talking about the weather.
"He usually comes by a few times a week," Mae says, reaching for the sugar. "Sometimes in the evenings after the sun dips. Sometimes earlier, if there's something that needs checking."
She doesn't look at me when she says it. Just stirs her cup and keeps talking, like the information doesn't carry any weight.
I nod, keep my face neutral, and stare into my mug like the answer might be waiting there.
I tell myself I'm grateful for the space. And that's true, at least in part. My body has unclenched a little knowing I won't round a corner and run straight into him. Knowing I can move through the house and the yard without measuring every step, without rehearsing neutral expressions or reminding myself to breathe normally.
The distance gives me room. Gives me time.
And yet there's guilt threaded through it. Not the loud kind that demands attention—the quieter, more persistent kind that sits behind my ribs and hums there, steady and insistent. It whispers his name when I pass the creek where we used to cool the horses after long rides. When I work alone in the barn we used to fill with easy conversation. When I saddle Blaze and remember Eli always checked my cinch without asking, his hands steady and sure, like taking care of me was just part of taking care of the horses.
The absence of him isn't just about distance—it's about losing the person who knew me when I still knew myself.
I thought coming back would mean facing my father's ghost. His voice in the barn. His absence at every turn. But it's Eli haunting me instead—the shape of what we were, outlined in everything we're not anymore.
Then there's the anger. That part is less tidy, less willing to stay quiet. The coldness that's settled between us since I came back. The clipped words when he does speak. The way he looks past me like I'm a problem he's already solved once and doesn't care to revisit.
I can hold gratitude and resentment at the same time. That surprises me—the way both emotions can exist without canceling each other out.
We were close. Closer than most people ever get to someone without naming it.
The Dawson ranch sits just east of ours, a smaller operation but well-run. Our fathers used to trade labor during busy seasons—one family helping the other through haying or branding. That's how Eli and I ended up spending more time together than apart.
I can still see it—summer heat and dust clouds rising behind us as we raced across the back pasture, neck and neck, horses straining beneath us. Neither of us willing to lose. Neither of us cared who won. Just the wind in our faces and his laugh cutting through the thunder of hooves, sharp and alive and so damn easy. The way we'd pulled up at the creek afterward, breathlessand grinning, collapsing into the grass like we had all the time in the world.
I exhale and anchor myself in the present. Focus on the dust motes drifting through the kitchen light, on the muted sounds of the ranch settling around me, on anything that doesn't reach backward.
The city feels like another life now.
I can still picture the cubicle if I try. The gray partitions. The hum of fluorescent lights overhead. The way the air never quite moved. The way my eyes burned by mid-afternoon from staring at spreadsheets, optimizing someone else's processes, making someone else's business run smoother.
I'd been good at it. Reliable. Efficient. Invisible, in the way offices quietly reward.
I've been checking emails when I can—early mornings before the ranch wakes up, late evenings after the work is done. Responding to the urgent ones, keeping Lauren minimally satisfied. The work feels distant, like something happening to someone else. Three weeks. That's what I bought myself. It felt like enough when I sent the message.
Now I'm not so sure.
The barn feels like neutral ground. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. Maybe no place that holds this much history could ever really be neutral.
Still, I go there anyway.
I let my eyes adjust, already cataloging what needs doing. The colt shifts in his stall, restless. Still untouched. Still waiting.
Then I see him.
Eli stands near the far stall, sleeves rolled up, one hand braced against the wood as he is retacking a loose board at the base of the stall. He moves with easy competence, attention fully on the work.
He looks like he belongs there in a way that makes my chest tighten. I let my eyes track over him before I can stop myself — the way his sleeves are rolled to the elbow, the easy competence in his hands, the set of his shoulders. I look away. What’s wrong with me?
For a moment, I stay where I am. Just inside the doorway. Long enough for the sight of him to settle.
God, I have missed him, I think.
