Page 113 of The Goat Next Door

His eyes flare, and for a second, his expression cracks. He steps toward me, his hands reaching out as if to catch me. “Emmy, don’t say that. It isn’t—I never saw you as a secret. I was trying to—God, I was trying to keep some of the best parts of my day away from the mess.”

He stops himself, pulling his hands back as if he’s been burned, his face hardening again. “But that’s exactly the problem. Now people are starting to notice. It’s bleeding into the job, and it’s bleeding into my house. This can’t keep happening. This has to end, Ember.”

There’s a moment of silence before I whisper, “I’m not asking you to neglect your daughter or your job. I just thought we were… I thought we were building something.”

“Building what?” he asks. “You’re a girl who won the lottery and bought a farm on a whim, Emmy. You’re temporary. Look at this place. Look at you. This valley… this is my whole life. It’s her whole life. I can’t risk her getting attached to someone who’s going to realize by November that the snow is too deep, the mud is too thick, and the electricity goes out for three days at a time.”

The words land like a slap.

After weeks of him learning every inch of me like I mattered.

Temporary.

“You don’t know that,” I say, a tear finally slipping down my cheek. “You haven’t even given me a chance to show you I can stay. You’re just deciding for both of us because it’s easier to be alone.”

“It’s safer,” he corrects me.

He looks down at the wooden board in my hands, at the neat little wedge of cheese I’d cut so carefully before I walked over, and for a split second, I see a flash of the man from this morning.

His chest heaves, his fingers twitching against the door frame like he wants to reach out and wipe my tears away, but he forces his hands into his pockets instead.

“Let’s just… go back to how things were,” he says, his voice flatting out again. “It’s better for both of us.”

“Is it?” I ask, my voice trembling. “Is it really better for you, Brooks? To just live in this perfectly structured, lonely little box where nothing ever surprises you?”

“Yes,” he says.

He doesn’t hesitate, and that’s the part that hurts the most. There’s no doubt in his eyes. Just a cold, stubborn determination.

“Go home, Ember.”

I stand on his porch, holding a piece of dairy product like a fool, while the man I thought was opening up to me closes every single shutter in his soul.

The rejection is heavy, a dull, crushing weight in my chest that makes it hard to draw a full breath.

I nod once because if I open my mouth again, something humiliating is going to come out.

Like please.

Or don’t do this.

I don’t wait for him to close the door. I turn around and walk down the steps. I don’t look back at his window. I don’t look at the light.

When I get back into my kitchen, the room feels massive. Cold. The box fan is still whirring on the floor, rattling against the baseboard, but the air feels dead.

The block of goat cheese is still sitting on the counter where I left it. Because of the heat in the room, the hours of standing out in the humidity, it’s completely melted now.

The edges have collapsed, the pale, clean structure turning into a soft, ruined mess that’s past the point of saving.

It looks exactly how I feel.

I grab the cheese, walk over to the trash can, and drop it inside.

He wants to go back to how things were? Fine.

He wants to be the grumpy, professional fire chief who ignores his neighbors? He’s got it.

I am not going to beg a man to take a risk on me.