8. Mira
MIRA
Six weeks later.
The rooster crows and I roll over, smiling into my pillow instead of groaning. Six weeks ago, I would've thrown something at the window. Now I stretch, already thinking about which horses need their hooves checked and whether the feed order arrived.
The farm became mine somewhere between mucking stalls and bottle-feeding the orphaned calf Matt named Trouble.
I stopped seeing dirt and started seeing life—animals that depend on me, routines that matter.
Last week I called the college registrar and re-enrolled in my vet program for fall.
Not because Mom demanded it, but because I actually want it now.
I want to understand every muscle, every bone, every treatment option. I want to be good at this.
Matt made me fall in love with all of it. The land, the work, the purpose.
And him. Especially him.
We sneak around like teenagers. Quick kisses in the barn when Mom and his dad drive to town.
Frantic, silent sex in the equipment shed during afternoon chores, my hand pressed over my mouth while he pins me against the workbench.
Late-night visits to my room where he has to muffle my cries with his palm because the walls are thin and our parents sleep two doors down.
"We should tell them," he whispers last night, still buried inside me, his forehead pressed to mine in the dark.
"Not yet."
"Mira—"
"I said not yet." I kiss him hard to shut him up. "Please. Just a little longer."
I don't know how to explain the fear that sits in my chest. That once everyone knows, everything changes. That Mom will see it as another failure, another reckless choice. That his dad will look at both of us with disgust. That Matt will realize I'm not worth the fallout.
So I keep putting it off.
I swing my legs out of bed now and the room tilts. Just slightly, but enough that I freeze, gripping the mattress edge.
My stomach lurches.
I bolt for the bathroom, barely making it before I'm on my knees, retching into the toilet. Everything from last night's dinner comes up in acidic waves. When I finally stop, I'm shaking, cold sweat on my forehead.
No.
No no no.
But even as panic claws up my throat, I remember Matt's voice in the dark, his hand splayed over my belly. "I want you pregnant. Want everyone to know you're mine."
I stumble to my sink, rinse my mouth, stare at my reflection. My breasts ache, fuller than usual even without the galactorrhea. I'm late. I've been ignoring it, telling myself it's stress, change in routine, something else.
The test is shoved in the back of my bathroom drawer, bought two weeks ago in a moment of paranoia. I dig it out with trembling hands.
Three minutes later, I'm staring at two pink lines.
Pregnant.
Matt's baby. Growing inside me right now, real and undeniable and terrifying.
My hand drifts to my stomach, still flat but not for long. Matt will be thrilled. He'll want to tell everyone immediately, claim me and this baby in front of the whole world.
And I'm absolutely not ready for that.
But ready or not, it's happening.
I shove the test back in the drawer and grip the sink edge, breathing hard. Matt's still asleep in my bed—he snuck in after midnight and passed out with his arm draped over where I should've been.
I need to tell him. Now. Before I lose my nerve.
I turn toward the bedroom, hand still pressed to my stomach, when a massive crash shakes the whole house.
Metal screeches against wood. Glass shatters. Then—laughter. High and drunk and familiar.
"Oh my God," I whisper.
I sprint to the window and yank the curtain back. A sleek black SUV sits crookedly in the driveway, front bumper pressed against the side of Matt's pickup. The truck's taillight is smashed, red plastic scattered across gravel. Two figures tumble out of the SUV, shrieking with laughter.
Harper and Jade. My city friends.
"No no no." My pulse hammers. "What are you doing here?"
Another figure—Tyler, Harper's boyfriend—climbs out and kicks the barn door. Just kicks it, like it's funny. The old wood splinters under his boot.
"Mira!" Harper cups her hands around her mouth. "Get your ass out here! We came to rescue you from hillbilly hell!"
Behind me, Matt's already on his feet, pulling his jeans on. His face is stone.
"Who the hell?—"
"My friends." The words taste like ash. "I didn't know they were coming, I swear?—"
More voices now. Mom's panicked shout from down the hall. Heavy footsteps—Matt's dad. The whole house wakes up while my drunk friends stumble around the property like it's some kind of joke.
Jade climbs onto the fence rail, wobbling dangerously. "This place smells like shit!"
"Get down from there!" I'm already running, not bothering with shoes, my bare feet slapping tile then hardwood then the front porch steps.
Matt follows, silent and furious. I can feel his anger rolling off him in waves.
Harper spots me and squeals. "There she is! We've been texting you for days, babe. You went dark so we figured we'd come get you ourselves."
"You can't just—" I stop in the driveway, staring at the damage. Matt's truck. The barn door. Jade now poking at the chicken coop, making the hens shriek and scatter.
"Jesus Christ." Matt's voice cuts through everything. Low and deadly. "Get off my property. Now."
Tyler laughs. Actually laughs. "Whoa, is this the scary stepbrother? Mira, you didn't say he was so?—"
"Leave. Right now." Matt takes a step forward and his whole body radiates threat. Six-four of pure muscle and rage.
The front door bangs open. Mom appears in her robe, face white. "Mira, what on earth?—"
Then Matt's dad, taking in the scene with dawning horror. The crashed vehicles. The broken barn door. My city friends, still giggling like this is all some hilarious adventure.
"These your people?" Matt doesn't look at me. Just stares at Harper and the others with cold disgust.
My stomach twists. The positive test burns in my mind. Our baby. Our secret. And now this—my old life crashing into the new one, destroying everything in its path.
"I didn't invite them," I whisper. "I promise, I didn't?—"
"Mira!" Jade waves from the coop. "Come on, pack your stuff! We're getting brunch!"
Matt's jaw grinds. His fists clench at his sides.
Everything I've built here—every hour of work, every moment of trust—shatters like his truck's taillight.
"You need to leave." Matt's voice is ice. He walks straight toward Tyler, who stops laughing real quick. "Get in your car and get off my land before I call the sheriff."
Harper steps between them, phone already out. Always documenting everything. "Whoa, calm down. We're just here for Mira. She's been stuck out here for weeks with no?—"
"Nobody asked you to come." I'm shaking now, cold despite the morning heat. "Harper, please. Just go."
"Not without you." She turns to me, eyebrows raised. "Babe, you stopped answering texts. We got worried. Remember what you said about this place? About him?"
My blood turns to ice.
"Harper—"
"You called him a controlling hick." Jade pipes up from the fence, finally looking uncertain. "You said he made you shovel actual shit and bossed you around."
Matt goes completely still. That terrible, frozen stillness that means something inside him just broke.
"Wait." Tyler pulls out his phone, grinning. "I screenshot some of it. Hold on?—"
"Don't." I lunge forward but he's already reading, voice carrying across the whole yard.
'My stepbrother is a total psycho about this farm shit.
He is a hick. Had me up at 4:30AM to carry things around.
And this place is like, actually hell on earth.
He's gross, ew.' Tyler scrolls. "Oh, here's a good one—'He's a hick who smells like hay and probably hasn't read a book since high school. '
Mom gasps. Matt's dad stares at me like I'm a stranger.
But Matt—Matt just looks at me with those dark brown eyes that have watched me grow and change over these past weeks.
Really looks, like he's seeing someone completely different than who he thought I was, like every tender moment we've shared, every laugh over morning coffee, every quiet conversation in the barn is dissolving before his eyes.
The man who taught me to gentle a spooked horse, who patiently showed me how to read the signs of labor in the cattle, who held me when I cried over my first difficult calving—that man is staring at me like I'm a complete stranger.
The silence stretches between us, heavy and suffocating.
I can hear Harper's sharp intake of breath, Jade nervously tugging at her sleeves, Tyler still scrolling through his phone with that satisfied smirk.
But all of it fades into background noise because Matt's looking at me like his world just shifted on its axis.
"Did you write that?" His voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, but it carries across the farmyard like a gunshot. Broken. Raw. Like something fundamental inside him just cracked clean through. "Is that what you think of me? Is that who I am to you?"
The truth sits in my throat like glass. I could lie. Say it was a joke, that I was venting, that I didn't mean any of it.
But he'll know. He always knows.
"Yes." The word barely makes it out. "I wrote it. Six weeks ago, after the first day. I was angry and tired and?—"
"Six weeks ago." He nods slowly, jaw working. "Right. When you were still the spoiled brat who thought she was too good for honest work."
"Matt, please?—"
"I have a doctorate." His tone is flat. Matter-of-fact. "Business administration and agricultural economics. I worked in New York for three years. London for two after that. Had a corner office, six-figure salary, the whole thing."
My mouth falls open. "You—what?"
"Chose to come back here because I was tired of people like them." He jerks his chin toward my friends. "Image-obsessed. Shallow. Cruel for entertainment. I thought the farm would be simple. Honest."
He looks at me and the disappointment in his eyes physically hurts.