Chapter Twenty-Eight
brEANNA
DEAD GRASS crunches underfoot behind me, and I already know who it is. Everything always seems quieter in the wintertime, maybe muted is a better word, but the summer crickets, cicadas, and birds are gone, making it easy to hear the little things.
My breath is hanging in the air in front of me, and I pull my sleeves down over my hands to shield the chilly breeze coming from the north.
I haven’t been to this spot in so long that I don’t really remember when I was here last. There were a few times I wandered down here wrapped in heartache after Mato left because I felt closer to him, but I don’t think I came back after I left for college.
This was our hiding spot we used to sneak off to at night to watch the stars and just be together, before his dad died and we had the convenience of the cabin. It hasn’t changed much, we’re the ones who changed.
Everyone went to bed a couple of hours ago, and the silence in the house was driving me crazy. My mind started spinning with recaps of the weekend, what-ifs, and oh-nos. So, I grabbed my coat, thinking fresh air might help.
But air really isn’t the issue.
The issue is having Mato back in my family’s house. So close. Like he never left.
My feet led me to this place on autopilot. This place was our sanctuary, our own little world away from the world. The place where I crossed that invisible line from a girl to a woman.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Mato’s deep, velvety voice blends with the soft ripple of water in the stream that flows behind the barn and stables.
I hate how my heart flutters in my chest because I know he’s there, and I push my hands into the pockets of my old Carhartt coat, keeping my back to him, as I lift my shoulders. “No. You?”
He steps up next to me, the elbow of his coat brushing my arm, and we stand in silence. The almost-full moon sparkles on the water, the dead grass swishes like shredded paper in the breeze, and somewhere far away a coyote yip cuts through the peaceful night.
“Anything I can help with?”
My first instinct is to tell him I don’t want to talk about it. Not with him, anyway. But he’s partly the reason I’m out here. “Just wrapping my head around everything.”
“Everything happened so fast today that we didn’t really get to talk.” He pauses before he goes on. “I know you didn’t have to offer to help, and that it’s a lot, so thank you.”
I want to snap at him and tell him I didn’t do it for him, but it wouldn’t be true, it was a little for him. “I don’t want to see anything bad happen to them either.”
He nods in my periphery. “I know you don’t, but I need you to know I’m going to be there every step of the way. This started with me and Koda, and I’m going to do everything I have to.”
Calm wraps around me like a layer of security, and I realize I forgot how soothing his presence is. Once upon a time, he was my safe place, and I believed we could do anything together. Did I really forget? Or did I bury it with all the other memories?
How am I supposed to keep my sanity while helping with the kids when I feel like my heart is being pulled in different directions every time he’s in the same room as me?
Every time I turn around, he does something that reminds little pieces of my heart why I used to love him.
I need to clear the air so I can keep my focus on my hospital and the kids without distracting thoughts about us.
“I can’t do this,” I pull my hand out of my pocket and wave it between us and then up to the house where the kids are sleeping, “with you. This close with you. Every day. Without working through what you did. I don’t want to guess anymore.
I don’t want to wonder what I did to deserve that.
I want to know what happened. You owe me that, Mato. Why didn’t you call?”
He immediately turns his body to face me, and I turn my head to look at him.
His eyebrows are furrowed, and he shakes his head.
“You didn’t deserve any of that, Breanna.
As fucked up as it sounds, I really thought I was doing the right thing.
” He looks out over the water and huffs a breath.
“I didn’t want to rely on your father for the rest of my life, I wanted to stand on my own two feet and support us like a man should.
But I had no skills outside of being a ranch hand.
“And I knew you had already decided to throw all your hard work away to stay here with me. For weeks we fought about it, and for weeks I racked my brain trying to figure out how to get you to change your mind. The only solution was to remove myself from the ranch. You go to school, and I enlist and…” He throws his hands out to the side and huffs a laugh.
“And I fucking grow up. I didn’t leave here because I didn’t love you, Breanna.
I left because I loved you more than anything, more than myself. ”
A gust of wind blows through the treetops, and I don’t respond. My eyes are hot and the back of my nose stings as I turn my head away from him and watch the water flow peacefully, completely opposite of the flood of emotions churning inside me right now.
His sigh hangs in the cold air in front of him for a moment before the soft north breeze carries it away.
“When they transferred me after bootcamp, things started moving so fast, the days blurred together, but I knew every day I put between us was just adding to… everything. It was ripping us further apart, and I knew your anger would eventually turn to indifference, if it hadn’t already, and I didn’t know if I could bear to hear that in your voice.
I couldn’t bear to hear you say you didn’t love me anymore.
I wanted to remember how your voice sounded when you did love me, and how you looked at me when you said it. ”
Anger blends with the other emotions I’m trying to control, and I swallow around the lump in my throat as my eyes fill with tears.
“You think my anger turned to indifference in just a few weeks?” I turn my head to look at him again.
“I promised myself I’d never tell you this, but it was years before I could even go on a date, Mato. But you ghosted me after a few weeks?”
He pauses and looks down at the ground between us.
“I was so scared of losing you, but at the same time I was scared that you would be so mad you’d tell me to never call you again.
” He shakes his head. “I know it sounds bad, stupid even, I know that, but I never stopped loving you and, God, I missed you so much.” His eyes lift to meet mine again, and his voice dips an octave.
“And I’ll die on this fucking hill, Breanna - if I had known you were pregnant with our child,” His voice cracks, making my heart pinch.
“I would have walked through hell to get back to you. Never doubt that.”
I swallow the sob that tries to work its way up my throat, making me hiccup, because I know he would have, and a tear I’m trying to hold back breaks away and slips down my cheek.
I quickly lift my shoulder to wipe my cheek with the collar of my coat.
“I would have loved to hear that ten years ago, hell, maybe even seven years ago, but I finally saw everything for what it was: I wasn’t enough. ”
He reaches up and grips my shoulders, his palms tight, and his eyes locked on mine. “That’s not true, you’ve always been everything.”
With a sigh, I watch my breath cloud the air in front of me for a second. I hate how hearing that is melting walls I’ve had up for a long time, making me feel things I shouldn’t be feeling.
I have to tell him.
Wrapping my arms around my waist, I look out over the stream. “I’m not the same girl I was back then, Mato.”
“I know.”
Tipping my head back, I look up into his dark eyes shining in the dim moonlight. “You don’t know everything.” Another tear slips down my cheek.
He lets go of my shoulder and gently swipes his thumb across my cheek, a trail of warmth tingling my skin. “Then tell me.”
I don’t want to do this. Closing my eyes for a second, I know I have to. If I don’t stop this now, I don’t think I can stop myself from falling in love with him again, and I can’t chance going through that again.
Taking a step back, out of the invisible bubble around us that’s making my chest tight and my pulse race, making it hard to stop the tears from falling. He lets his arms fall to his sides. “I can’t have children, Mato.”
He goes still, his eyes volley between mine.
“Do you remember how I would end up in bed for days when I had my period? And then I had to take iron pills?”
“Of course I remember, it killed me that you were in so much pain.”
Clearing my throat, I take a deep breath and look down at my feet, one boot toeing the ground.
“Well, it’s uncommon for it to happen so young, but I have a condition called adenomyosis; the baby never had a chance.
” My composure slips as I say those words out loud, and I almost choke on them.
Just the thought has brought tears to my eyes so many times I’ve lost count.
I take a deep breath of courage and look back out over the water.
“I’ll spare you the gory details, but after many, many doctor’s appointments, I found out I can’t carry a child.
In fact, recent conversations have hinted at needing to have my uterus removed. ”
He is quiet, the only sound the mellow purling of the stream next to us and the breeze through the grass, and I look back up at him; the silence crushing me.
His eyebrows are pulled together, and he is scanning my face.
Assuming his look of concern is from disappointment, he surprises me when he takes a step to erase the space I just put between us. “Is that meant to push me away?”
The walls I’ve carefully constructed are cracking, and I take a shaky breath. “It’s a big deal for a lot of people, and I know you always wanted a family.”
Lifting his hand, he pushes a stray curl behind my ear and cups my cheek. I don’t pull away. “My love for you was never and will never be conditional. What you can give me is not what makes me whole, Breanna, it’s you that makes me whole.”
Until he starts to feel like something is missing.
Setting my palm over the back of his hand on my cheek, I curl my fingers over his and enjoy how he feels for a moment. I would have given up everything that was important to me for this moment ten years ago.
His eyes are dark as the night right now, and let myself slip into the girl who loved him more than life itself, and I enjoy the connection for a few heartbeats.
Then I pull his hand from my face, and I see his shoulders sag ever so slightly.
“After I found out, I researched it. Infertile couples are three times more likely to separate than other couples.”
He sucks in a breath to say something, but I squeeze his hand and talk over him.
“I’ve had years to come to terms with it, Mato.
After you left, I lived a half-life, feeling like part of me was missing.
But when I found out there would never be more, no large family around the Christmas tree, no picnics with kites, and no weekend morning cuddles and giggles in bed, I’ve accepted it.
” That’s kind of a lie, I don’t think I’ll ever truly make peace with it.
Lowering our hands, I take a step away and let go as I shrug my shoulders. “And anyway, I would never be able to trust that I wouldn’t wake up one day and you’d be gone. I wouldn’t survive you leaving me again. I can’t imagine a more horrible life than living with that cloud of fear over my head.”
Hurt moves across his face. “Breanna…”
I shake my head. “Please, Mato, I can’t.”
Before he can say anything else, I lower my eyes and walk past him to go back to the house.