He just shrugs. “I can’t do it right.”
I fight the urge to reach out and hug him, and another urge to smack some sense into him. But I know it’s not his fault.
An overwhelming anger builds inside me, and I want to unleash it on the world for making him feel this way. For making him think he can’t do anything, he fails at everything he touches, and that when life gets hard, he needs to give up.
I was always the one to hold him up and never let him slip under.
But now, it looks like he just lets himself sink.
Well, not anymore.
“I’m not taking it,” I say with a shake of my head. “You’re not giving up.”
He rolls his eyes and leans his head back against the wall with a sigh.
And I have to fight off a smile. Fuck, I missed that sass.
“But Iwillhelp you,” I say. “If you’ll let me.”
His gaze slides back to mine, and he watches me like he’s waiting for more.
“You know this land better than I ever will,” I continue. “Like today. You knew that zone needed more seed. Instinct like that doesn’t show up in my numbers. It can’t. And all I know are numbers.” A soft smile spreads over my lips. “I need you.”
Something flickers to life behind his eyes. And although it’s subtle, I catch it, and my smile grows.
“You and me?” I ask him, my heart thumping harder as I lay it out between us and hope he chooses to take it.
His eyes flick between mine for a moment, and the entire world seems to still as I wait.
Then he nods.
“You and me.”
THIRTY-TWO
The blank pagefeels like it’s taunting me.
I shift in my seat on the porch of my cabin and tap my pencil against the edge of the sketchbook as I stare down at the empty page, willing something to come to me.
But nothing does.
My focus wanders across the trees standing tall around the cabin, their branches now filling out as we approach the second half of May. I let my gaze rest on the narrow opening between the trees that leads towards the hollow heart field before dropping it to the small table beside me.
I reach over to sift through the scattered pages of the field report until I find the drawing I did of the field and pull it out.
It’s still missing something…
I take in the lines of the soil, the rise and fall of the rows, and the way the land fades beneath the wide stretch of sky, trying to assess both the whole picture and the smallest details at the same time. Everything is there. This is the field, and if I walked between those trees to look at it right now, it would look just like this. So I have no idea what’s missing. It’s just… not right.
I let the drawing fall back to the table with the report and release a sigh. Another day, another failed attempt at trying to make sense of this fucking thing.
My pencil taps the edge of my notebook again as I tip my head back and stare up at the ceiling of the covered porch.
Ineedto make sense of it. Ineedto understand this… I’m planting this field next week, once all the other fields are done. And I really want to go through this report in case there’s anything I haven’t seen or thought of. Al and Dad agree with everything I’ve suggested, and with the planting plan so far, based on their read of the data. But…
Something is missing.
My leg starts bouncing where my foot presses against the railing, and a knot twists in my stomach. Tingles spread from my palms up my arms, and my heart thumps as thoughts push their way in so fast I don’t have a chance to even try to stop them.
