He pulled me close again, and I let my head rest on his chest. The steady thump of his heart anchored me, a beat I could trust. I traced his scars, the puckered line at his shoulder, the ridge on his left bicep. He shivered under my touch but didn’t stop me.
“Will you be here in the morning?” I asked, surprised by how small my voice sounded.
He didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, Carter. I’ll be here.”
My eyes stung, but not in a bad way. I let myself believe it, just for tonight.
He tucked the blanket higher around our bodies, then pressed a kiss to my temple. “Sleep,” he ordered.
I closed my eyes and let the sound of rain on the roof lull me under.
This time, when I dreamed, I wasn’t invisible at all.
* * * *
When I woke, the light was gray and thin, like the world had been wrung out overnight and left to dry. The barn was freezing. My breath hung in the air, white and fragile, and the horse blanket was twisted around my hips, half-sliding off onto the dirty straw. The first thing I noticed was that I was alone.
Macon was gone.
For a second, I told myself he’d just stepped out, maybe to piss, maybe to check the goats. But the spot where he’d been—pressed so close to me I could feel his heartbeat hours ago—was cold. There was no dent in the blanket, no trace of his scent except the fading aftertaste of sweat and sex and hay. Just me, sticky and sore, shivering in the morning.
I sat up, waiting for the world to tilt back into place.
It didn’t.
My throat ached, tight with something I refused to call grief. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, felt the grit from the floor scrape my cheekbone, and pulled my knees to my chest.
I’d dreamed about him, dreamed about being wanted, about being seen. And he’d promised, “I’ll be here.”
I didn’t know what was worse: that he’d lied, or that I believed him.
I got dressed without thinking, each motion precise and clinical, as if I could scrub last night from my skin with enough effort. My underwear was inside out, and I left it that way. My shirt smelled like barn and Macon, and I almost stripped it off and left it in the stall, but I couldn’t. Instead, I yanked it tighter, as if it could hold me together.
The goats were awake, clustered near the gate. They eyed me with their alien, sideways pupils, indifferent to my heartbreak. Beyoncé tried to chew my cuff as I fumbled with the latch, and the brush of her fur against my knuckles made my eyes sting.
“Good morning,” I said, voice thin and papery.
They didn’t answer. Of course they didn’t.
The storm had scrubbed the world clean. Outside, the pastures were streaked with puddles, the river swollen and wild. The sky was empty, a washed-out blue, and the old house hunched at the top of the hill like it was bracing for bad news.
I walked back alone, each step heavier than the last. There were no cars in the drive, no sign that anyone but me had ever existed out here. I waited for a car to appear at the end of the drive, for Macon to come striding up through the mud, sheepishand beautiful, maybe with an apology or an explanation or a reason.
I waited for the universe to right itself.
It didn’t.
I knew better than to wait for anyone, but that didn’t stop me from hoping. Or hurting.
I pressed my nose to my shirt that still smelt faintly of Macon and sex and tried to remember the feeling of his arm around me, the sound of his voice in my ear, the way he made me feel real.
But it was already fading.
I convinced myself it was better this way. Safer. I’d always been a ghost, even before last night.
And ghosts don’t need anyone.
