I used to believe in second chances.
I was wrong.
There are some things you just don’t come back from, no matter how much you believe in yourself.
The chair’s rhythm was hypnotic, but she knew the creak of the runners against the porch was really a countdown to whatever conversation her dad wanted to have.
Ignore him.
Maybe he’ll leave me alone.
Enya kept her gaze fixed on the corral, on Rain standing motionless in the far corner, his head still lowered as if the weight of the world had settled between his ears. His coat, once glossy and shiny, now looked dull and lackluster.
Someone else could love him enough to go down there and groom him.
I don’t have the strength.
He deserves so much better than the me I am now.
“I see you watchin’ him.” Her dad’s voice cut through the quiet like a hot knife through softened butter.
Her fingers twisted in the fringe of the afghan, the yarn rough against her skin.
Of course, he noticed.
He always notices.
The tension coiled in her stomach, the same way it always did when someone mentioned Rain or when they wanted her to be the old version of who she was now.
“Yeah.”
Camden exhaled through his nose, a sound that wasn’t quite a sigh but carried the weight of frustration. “He’s wastin’ away.” His words were low and heavy. “Just like you.”
The truth landed like a kick to the ribs. Enya flinched, her breath catching in her throat.
He’s right.God, I know he’s right.
But I can’t fix it.
He’s better off without me.
She could feel the sting of tears behind her eyes, but she blinked them back and swallowed them down. She wouldn’t cry. Not now. Not ever again.
“Ain’t sayin’ it to hurt you, baby girl,” her dad’s voice dropping to a rough murmur. “But you know it’s true.” He paused, the chair still rocking, relentless. “That horse loves you… and you’re killin’ him.”
The air left her lungs in a rush, as if she’d been punched.
I know.
I know, and I don’t know how to stop.
She could taste bile at the back of her throat, bitter and burning. She wanted to argue, to scream that it wasn’t her fault, that she was trying, that she didn’t knowhowto fix any of this. But the words stuck in her chest in a tangled mess of guilt and grief that refused to release the grip it had on her soul.
“You ever think about what he’d say if he could talk?” Her dad’s chair kept moving, back and forth, back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock counting down to something inevitable.
Like time’s running out.
“He’d tell you to get your damn boots on and ride.”
