Chapter 32
NOTHING’S PERMANENT
JOEY
Abysm by Unprocessed
Ilower the lunge whip, and Townshend slows to a trot, neck arching, hooves striking the dust in perfect rhythm.
“Beautiful,” Mom says from her perch on the fence rail. “He’s really responding to you.”
I click my tongue twice and Townshend transitions to a walk, his breathing steady, his dark eye tracking my every movement.
“Walk on,” I murmur. In this round pen, I’m the sun and he circles me like a planet.
It’s a beautiful moment. After months of patience and consistency, he’s learning to trust, but I can’t seem to find my focus. I woke up this morning like I do every morning, but seeing those two pink lines on the pregnancy test I know nothing will ever be the same again.
I step toward Townshend’s hindquarters, and he changes direction without hesitation, reversing his circle, never breaking stride.
I try to let myself get lost in the rhythm of it, the language between us that doesn’t require words.
My thoughts keep drifting and circling around my conversation with Maggie this morning. I needed her, but she needed me more.
Townshend’s ears pin flat and he breaks from the circle, trotting toward the far side of the pen, head high, and nostrils flaring.
“Easy.” I soften my stance, lower my shoulders, make myself non-threatening. Sometimes it’s one step forward, two back. It’s a process. “You’re okay. Come back to me.”
He snorts and paws the ground, his earlier calm shattered.
Outside the rail, a feed bag Mom must have left propped against the fence shifts in a gust of wind, catching and billowing just enough to make Townshend explode sideways.
All twelve hundred pounds of him lurching toward the center of the pen, and I’m not where I should be.
I sidestep hard, one boot catching in the soft dirt, and his shoulder clips mine as he blows past. Not hard enough to knock me down but hard enough that I feel it.
“Joey.” Mom jumps off the fence.
“I’m fine.” I hold up a hand, catching my breath. Townshend has spun to face me from the far rail, white showing around his eyes. I drop my shoulders, slow everything down, and wait until he blows out a long breath and drops his head.
“Hey,” Mom says with a worried tone. “What’s going on with you? You know better than that.”
“I know, I just got distracted for a minute.” I blow out a breath, casting my gaze to Townshend, who’s looking back at me probably wondering what the fuck is wrong with me.
Mom grabs the feed bag and tucks it under her arm. “I think that’s enough for today.”
She’s right, I have no business being in here with him when I’m so distracted. I know better. I clip the lead rope to his halter and walk him toward the barn, his hooves quiet on the packed dirt behind me.
I’m cross-tying Townshend in the barn aisle, working the brush through his coat in long, even strokes, when my phone starts going off in my back pocket.
I set the brush down and pull it out.
Maggie: Holy fuck did you know Jesse was performing as Silent Revenant???
I stare at it. How does Maggie know? My heart beats fast as I filter through my notifications until I see one from a music forum I used to follow.
brEAKING: Silent Revenant frontman identified as Jesse O’Donnell, son of rock legend Jack O’Donnell. Source close to the band confirms.
What the fuck? I dial Jesse’s number. It goes straight to voicemail. Shit.
Townshend nudges my shoulder with his nose, impatient. “Sorry.”
I put the phone in my back pocket, lead Townshend to his stall, check his water, and latch the door.
I pull my keys out of my pocket and run to my Jeep.
The studio is where Jesse hides. The ocean is where he’s always felt safe. The tide pools and cold water and the kind of quiet that has nothing to do with silence.
He stands at the water’s edge with his hands in his pockets, dark hair tousled by the wind. Even from the base of the stairs, I can see the stillness in him. Whatever the ocean was supposed to give him today, it isn’t working.
I kick off my boots and descend the stairs, the sand warm under my bare feet, the kind of heat that soaks in all day and lingers. He’s been out here long enough that the wind has smoothed the sand behind him, like he was never there.
When I get close, he doesn’t register me at all until I say his name.
“Jesse.”
His eyes are usually a clear ocean blue, the color of shallow water over white sand, but now they look like the sky before a storm rolls in.
“I saw the article,” I say, putting my hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t answer. He just leans into me, heavy and unguarded. The moment I speak, the weight of him shifts.
“I was supposed to get to decide,” he says finally, the words dull and flat.
“Do you know who it was?” I ask.
“Tommy,” he says. Flat. Like the name tastes like nothing.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I say, squeezing his arm. “Dylan can fix this. He can get in front of it, put out a statement, control the narrative before it gets any worse.”
“I don’t want him to.” He shifts, slowly, like moving through water, until there’s space between us. I feel helpless.
“It’s not the end, Jesse.”
“I’m not one of your rescue horses,” he says, in a distant voice.
“That’s not fair.” But I don’t have the space to be hurt right now. He’s drowning, and I’m the only one here.
“Nothing about this is fair.” He drags a hand through his hair. “You should go home.”
The words hit me like a door closing in my face. Something is going on and it can’t be just because of the leak.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, touching his face and making him look at me. “You’re upset, and you don’t have to go through this alone. I’m here.”
“I don’t want you to see me like this.” He shakes his head, holding onto me, but it feels more like I’m holding him up.
“Baby, what’s going on?” I press my face to his, breathe him in.
He lets out an exhausted breath. “Please just leave.” But his arms are still wrapped around me.
I run my hands through his hair, brushing away the pieces that had blown into his eyes. “I’m not going to leave you like this.”
“Your dad was right about me,” he says quietly, his lips brushing my cheek.
“What did he say to you?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Jesse. What did my dad say to you?” I hold his face in my hands, making him look at me.
“You deserve better.”
“My dad loves you,” I say.
“I ruin everything good in my life.”
“That’s not true.” Desperation courses through me to get Jesse to understand.
My dad is scaring him away and, combined with losing his anonymity, I can’t imagine anything worse.
I run my thumb along his jawline and feel the stubble, thicker now than it’s ever been.
“My parents will come around. I lied to them and they’re disappointed,” I tell him.
“I need you to go,” he says.
“Please, come back to me.” But he’s not listening. He’s somewhere I can’t reach.
I shove the sleeve of his shirt up and run my finger over his tattoo. “We’re permanent, Jesse. Remember?” He looks at it for a long moment, then slowly draws his arm back.
“Nothing’s permanent,” he says in a voice that’s void of emotion.
The words come out before I can stop them. “I’m pregnant.”
His arms slip from my grasp—not all at once, but in stages.
First his fingers loosen, then his wrists, then his elbows, like the message is taking the long way from his brain to his body.
He turns from me, shoulders caving into a shape I don’t recognize—slack, heavy, as if something inside him has given up the fight against gravity.
When he glances back, his eyes pass over me without landing.
I’ve seen this. In the round pen, in the hours after a horse has been pushed past what it can hold—the moment the animal stops fighting and goes somewhere you can’t follow. The body stays. Everything else leaves.
“Get rid of it,” he says.
The words land wrong—unfamiliar, as if they belong to someone else entirely. This isn’t the voice that whispered permanent against my skin, that sealed it with a kiss at my hip like a promise. I don’t recognize the man standing in front of me anymore.
I take a step back, but the ground feels unsteady beneath me, like it’s given way without warning, and there’s nothing left to reach for.
The wind whips my hair around my face. The sting behind my eyes is sharp enough to make me blink but I refuse to let them fall. Not here. Not in front of him.
“You don’t mean that.” I search his face for the Jesse I know and I can’t find him. There’s nothing there I recognize.
“I can’t be someone’s father.”
That’s what breaks me open. Not the rejection. The fact that he’s already decided—closed the door before he even looked inside.
“Look at me, Jesse. This is what it looks like to hurt the person who loves you most. Remember my face because this is the day you broke my heart.”
He looks past me like I’m some kind of ghost. I want to shake him, to slap him, to get some kind of reaction out of him, but I can’t seem to move.
“What are you doing to us?” I shake my head.
He turns away from me and faces the water again. “Go home, Joey.”
“I can’t give you what you need,” he says, and then he walks away.