Chapter
Nine
LEVI
Idon’t go looking for her. That’s the first mistake.
I tell myself she needs space. That pushing now will only make things worse. That this is already done, and the best thing I can do is let it settle where it fell.
I’ve lived by that kind of thinking for a long time.
Give it distance. Let it cool. Move on.
It’s always worked. But it doesn’t now.
I feel it all day.
In the way the barn sounds different. In the way my hands don’t settle right on the work. In the way I keep looking toward the path that leads to the cabins like I expect to see her coming back anyway.
She doesn’t.
By late afternoon, the quiet I usually long for starts to feel wrong. Tired.
I finish checking the last stall and step outside, wiping my hands on my jeans more out of habit than anything else.
The air’s thick and hot. Everything half-baked or burning.
I should feel better.
But I can’t deny it. I’m miserable.
Something moves at the edge of the paddock. I turn without thinking. It’sher.
Dakota stands at the fence, one hand resting on the top rail, the other stretched out toward Buddy.
He’s closer to her now than I’ve ever seen him.
Close enough that when she murmurs something soft, he lowers his head in her direction.
Not all the way, but enough to show trust.
Trust, in small pieces. How it always starts.
She laughs under her breath, the sound carrying faintly across the distance. “You’re doing better,” she says to the horse. “Look at you.”
Her voice is gentle. Proud. The kind of tone you use when something matters. How she used to talk to me.
My chest tightens.
She runs her hand along the fence, not quite touching him, but near enough that he doesn’t pull away.
“I guess that’s how it goes,” she says softly. “You think something’s too broken to fix… and then it isn’t.”
I shift my weight. Unlike Buddy, I’m a kind of broken she can’t fix.
Right?
Still it hits me. I can walk over there. Say something. Stop this before it ends the way I already know it will.
