Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
The tractor bumps along the uneven soil as I cross into a new zone, the colour on the map shifting to blue while numbers change across the display and new graphs fill the screen, and my head spins.
But it’s not spinning just because of the display in front of me.
My mind is replaying last night on a loop, over and over, as I try to make sense of it.
Levi kissed me.
And… I kissed him back.
What the fuck…
I watch the target population number drop on the screen, and I barely even care that I don’t understand what it’s adjusting to. Because there are bigger things holding my attention. I need to understand what happened last night.
We were sitting on my porch, and everything felt so… right. My chest was torn open, and every dark cavity was exposed as he saw all my pain, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he leaned in and pulled me closer. He turned on the light instead of leaving me in the dark and made me feel… comfortable.
I’ve never felt like that with anyone before.
Except with Levi. I’ve always felt like that with Levi.
I keep checking out your ass and your arms.
His words echo in my mind, and I grip the steering wheel tighter as it vibrates under my touch from the rough soil beneath the tires. What does that even mean? He’s attracted to me…?
Am I attracted to him?
His eyes appear in my mind, crystal clear like they always do.
Every detail is vivid; from the way they squint when he smiles to the shifting colours in the sunlight.
The rest of him slowly fills in around them, as I see his dark hair, longer on the top and perfectly pushed back with one single strand falling over his forehead, like it’s just begging me to reach out and brush it away.
My fingers twitch on the steering wheel as I shift in my seat, keeping him in my thoughts while my attention drifts lower along the faint shadow of stubble lining his jaw, which he’s been wearing more often lately.
My heart picks up its pace as I picture his shoulders and his lean, strong frame in a crewneck, which has slowly been replacing his button-up shirts.
But I immediately go back to his eyes. Everything about him is beautiful. I can’t deny that. I never have. I always thought he was good-looking.
But… it’s his eyes.
It’s always been his eyes.
They’re the place I go when I need to feel safe and calm. The place that makes me feel a way I can’t even describe, which nothing else has ever even come close to making me feel.
I’ve always been drawn to him, for as long as I can remember. As kids, I couldn’t get enough of him. We’d spend a whole weekend together, and I’d feel sad that he had to go home, even though I’d see him on the school bus the next morning.
Even now, even after spending weeks thinking I hated him, and working through everything that kept me from him, I want him next to me. I let fear get in the way, and I want to make up for this lost time. I want him where he belongs… with me.
I watch the soil disappear under the tractor as I move along this zone and let my mind continue to wander through this mess of thoughts. I don’t know how to make sense of any of this… but it all just keeps coming.
I’ve never been attracted to a guy before.
I repeat his words in my head again, and knowing this is as new for him as it is for me settles some of the anxiety swirling around inside me, while also just increasing my confusion.
I haven’t either. I actually don’t know how much I’ve ever really been attracted to anyone. I was with Bell for a bit, kind of… but I could never commit to her. It just never felt right. A part of me was always holding back.
And I can’t ignore the little voice in the back of my mind telling me it’s because of Levi.
I love Levi. I always have. But now… I find myself wondering what that love really is. Or what it might be turning into.
Everything suddenly feels way too overwhelming, and I hit the brakes on the tractor and shift it into park. I rub a hand hard over my face as I try to get my head back into this and just focus on what I’m supposed to be doing out here. Planting.
But all I can picture are his eyes. And the feeling of his lips on mine.
“Fuck,” I mutter, tipping my head back against the seat and looking out the window to my left, where the hollow heart field stretches out beside me. The field I’m planting right now shares a border with a long section of it, and from this spot I can see almost the entire thing.
We never did go over the report.
I wonder if we ever will.
I wonder if… I might lose him now. Just when I got him back.
My finger picks at my thumb at that thought, and I quickly push it away. I can’t. I can’t lose him again. And I know he’s not going to walk away. I just know it. He’s a part of me, and now he’s a part of this farm.
I need him. And this field needs him.
But I don’t know what to do from here. I don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling. I don’t know what I’m thinking or feeling.
I’ve never kissed a guy… my best friend. I don’t know what the fuck is happening…
I pushed him away, and he left.
But I want him back.
With a sigh, I drop my gaze to the display in the cab, trying to force myself back to work and make this jumbled disaster in my head wait.
The coloured map of the field fills the screen, with each zone laid out in blocks of colour while rows of numbers and graphs track things like target population, ground seed, seed spacing, and all the other shit I don’t really know how to follow.
I wait for the usual feeling of frustration to settle in at not understanding it.
But instead, I just see brilliance.
Levi’s brilliance.
He did this. He created this. It’s something I’ll never be able to fully understand, but I’ve felt the results enough to know it’s working.
I’ve noticed the planter running smoother in heavy soil, and fewer skips or doubles in tricky patches.
And really… I don’t have to understand it.
Because I trust him, and I’m slowly getting used to using this new way of doing things.
His job is to optimize the farm, and I can’t deny that this new system is helping with that.
I’m just sad it took me so long to realize it.
My eyes drift across the coloured zones on the screen again as I move to shift the tractor back into gear, but I pause when my gaze lands on the section I’m sitting in right now. A long stretch of blue runs along the entire border where this field meets the hollow heart field.
That’s… interesting.
I lean forward to try to make sense of what this prescription is doing.
It looks like the system is lowering the seeding rate through this stretch because the soil here holds more moisture.
Which is what I’ve always noticed when I worked this field.
The planter drags harder along this edge, the soil is generally a bit slower to warm in the spring, and it typically breaks into heavier clods.
Which is different from the rest of the field.
And fields often have sections like this.
But what’s interesting is that it’s actually quite similar to the middle section of the hollow heart field.
I turn to look at it, letting my gaze sweep over the large, open space. It would make sense if this zone expands into the field, since I’ve noticed the soil responds similarly along the middle strip.
But… then why have we never had hollow heart in this zone in this field?
I look to the far edge of the hollow heart field, where it borders the long dirt road that leads down to the beach.
That stretch always dries out faster than the rest of the field, since the wind pulls moisture out of the soil before irrigation can keep up.
Water runs off quicker there, too, and anything planted along that edge always seems to push ahead faster than the rest.
Then I shift my focus towards the far side along the tree line. That section is the complete opposite. It stays cooler longer into the season because of the shade, and the ground holds moisture longer. Tree roots also creep into the field, pulling nutrients and water before the crop gets at them.
And the section closest to the beach also responds differently.
The sandier ground there drains in a completely different way, and it gets more wind than any part of any field.
That whole side responds differently to irrigation, always needing to be managed a little more just to keep it even with the rest.
And the middle part of the field is its own zone. And it’s a large one.
Colours begin to spread across the field in my mind as I trace each zone with my eyes, the way they show on the map in the cab.
Each one reaches towards the centre of the field, overlapping and stacking on top of each other.
The fast-drying ground from the roadside, the cooler, heavier soil along the trees, and the wind and drainage pulling from the beach side.
And suddenly the picture in my head shifts.
Those issues aren’t stopping at the edges. They’re all pushing in towards the middle.
All these zones are overlapping in the middle of the field.
Each zone has its own stressor. And on their own, they don’t produce hollow heart.
But when they’re all stacked together like that strip down the middle… they could. Especially in the wrong kind of season.
A colder spring when the soil takes longer to warm up, heavy rain that shifts where the moisture sits, wind drying one side faster than the other, irrigation trying to even it out…
My eyes quickly move over the field as my thoughts start moving so fast, I can barely keep up.
There are too many things going on in the same section of this field.
And when the conditions line up just wrong, the plants there would go from slow growth to fast growth too quickly. Which is when hollow heart shows up.
If this is true, the inconsistency finally makes sense. All the stressors are always there, pressing in from every side. It’s just that some seasons push that middle strip over the edge, and some don’t.
It’s that zone that’s unpredictable. And because it runs through the middle of the field, it makes the whole thing look unreliable.
Holy shit.
I need to find Levi.