Chapter 47
Beau
When I woke up, I hadn’t heard from her. Even after my dad wheeled me home, the silence continued. Despite my better judgment, and even with my dad staying in the guest room, the day I got home from the hospital, I had to see her.
I didn’t know why Fable never came, why she never texted or did anything after the accident. Dad said she fell apart in his arms, that she and Harleigh left after he gave them the hospital info, but when I woke up, it was him in the chair next to me.
Harleigh had called once. Told him Fable was home—processing. That stupid-ass word. Processing. What the fuck did that even mean? I was the one with the concussion. I was the one who spent two weeks in the hospital.
The longer I sat with it, the more it gnawed at me.
My arm was fucked—broken clean through in two places—and the concussion still made everything spin if I moved too fast. I popped a couple pills for the headache and walked anyway.
Through the back gate, across the pasture that separated my place from the guesthouse behind the Twisted Spur.
We used to walk it together. Me and her.
Barefoot, sometimes. Careful not to get too close to the bulls grazing along the fence.
I could’ve done it blindfolded, every dip in the land, every creaky board in the fence burned into me, but this time felt heavier.
She never came.
I woke up in that damn hospital, dazed, hurting, hoping. There was nothing. Not a text. Not a call. Not a knock on my door or a stupid get well card. Silence.
Yeah, I was pissed, but more than that, I was wrecked because when people loved me, they left.
My mom didn’t mean to die, but she still left.
My dad was gone long before she was. Not physically, but emotionally, yeah.
He checked out when shit got hard. When she got sick, it was like he didn’t know what to do with a broken wife or a scared kid, so he worked the circuit, rode his bulls, and left me to deal with the pieces.
So yeah. People left. I guess I thought maybe she’d be different, but she didn’t come.
Not when I needed her. I know I shouldn’t be walking to her.
My dad was in the guest room, and he’d come check on me.
I was supposed to be resting, healing, staying out of trouble.
But I couldn’t sit still, couldn’t breathe with all that silence. Not when she was right fucking there.
So I walked. Broken arm. Concussion. Didn’t matter. Now, I was standing outside her door, my chest caving in, wondering if I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.
Because even if she didn’t come for me, I needed to come for her.
I stood on the tiny front porch of her guesthouse, shifting my weight, my arm throbbing like hell despite the pills.
The air smelled like hay and cedar, the kind of scent that should’ve been comforting, but all I noticed was the pounding in my chest. I could hear noises inside—movement, rustling, something dragging, maybe. My stomach twisted.
If she was in there, living like nothing had happened while I spent days flat on my back, thinking I might never see her again, I was going to find out what the hell that meant.
The door opened, and my heart fucking dropped into my stomach, but it wasn’t her. Not the honey-gold hair I knew like the back of my hand. Not the familiar eyes that used to soften when they looked at me. Instead, it was blue eyes and black hair.
“Harleigh?” I asked anyway, stupidly.
“She’s not here.”
I blinked. Behind her, more noise, footsteps, the muffled clatter of something being moved.
I hesitated. My throat was dry. “I thought something happened to her,” I said. “She never— she didn’t come to the hospital. I thought maybe she was hurt. Or gone.”
Harleigh stepped out just enough to block the doorway more. “She can’t see you.”
Can’t. Not won’t. Not doesn’t want to.
Can’t.
Suddenly, it wasn’t just my arm that felt broken. It was all of me.
“She can’t see you,” she said again, like that would be the end of it.
I shifted, staring past her into the dim hallway. “What does that even mean? Is she hurt? Sick? What the hell happened?”
Harleigh crossed her arms and leaned one hip against the doorframe. “You really gonna stand here, all busted up on her porch, demanding answers she doesn’t owe you?”
“I almost died,” I snapped. “She didn’t show up. I just want to know why.”
“Yeah, and maybe she almost broke in ways you didn’t see,” she said, tone sharp as glass. “You think you’re the only one that got hurt?”
“I didn’t say that. But I sure as hell thought she gave enough of a damn to at least text.”
“News flash,” Harleigh huffed, rolling her eyes. “Not everything is about you, rodeo boy.”
I clenched my jaw. “Is she okay?”
She hesitated, and in that tiny pause, I knew the answer was more complicated than she wanted to admit.
“She’s not well,” Harleigh said finally. “No, I’m not telling you why. She can.”
I took a step forward, ignoring the dull throb in my skull. “She was my business. Or was that just something we said when it was convenient?”
Harleigh’s mouth twitched into a humorless smile. “God, you’re stubborn.”
“She loved me,” I murmured. “I know she did.”
Harleigh sighed, eyes darting past me like she was checking to see if anyone else was watching. Then her voice dropped, low and tired. “Sad.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “She’s struggling . . . she’s . . . sad.”
I stared at her, breath stuck somewhere in my lungs.
“She can’t see you,” Harleigh repeated gently. “Not because she doesn’t care. Because she does. Too much. So, please—for her—leave. Don’t call. Don’t text. When she’s ready, she’ll come to you.”
I stood there, silent, her words sinking like stones.
And for a second, yeah, I felt that same aching loyalty I always did with her. That pull to be patient. To be kind. To wait like she’d waited with me. I told myself I’d sit on this porch as long as it took, even if she never opened that damn door, but then something twisted.
God, this was almost exactly what happened with my dad. When shit got hard—really hard—he bailed. He shut down, disappeared into himself, stopped showing up for me, and called it “grief.” Left me to take care of everything else while he drowned in silence. She was doing the same damn thing.
When I got hurt, she vanished. When I needed someone, she looked away. Yeah, maybe she wasn’t okay. Maybe her world had cracked open and no one saw it but her. But you know what? So did mine. I was the one in the hospital. I was the one who woke up wondering if I mattered to her at all.
I wanted to comfort her—I still did—but fuck, was it so much to ask that someone comfort me back?
That someone saw me when I was broken too?
I was human. I bled, I ached, I spiraled just like the rest of them. I wanted to be the strong one, the steady one, the guy who waited in silence, but part of me . . . part of me just wanted to be held. Just for a minute.
She couldn’t even face me.
I closed my eyes, jaw tight, the heat in my eyes sharp and sudden. I shook my head, the bitterness catching in my throat.
“Whatever,” I muttered.
I turned my back on that door. On the noise behind it. On the girl who once looked at me like I was hers.
I walked away.
Not because I stopped loving her, but because sometimes, loving someone wasn’t enough when they left you standing out in the cold.