Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Hazel
Three days pass before I realize I'm counting them.
Not deliberately. Not in any way I can point to or name. It isn't the kind of counting I did when I was younger, when waiting felt sharp and restless and full of expectation. Back then, time dragged because I wanted something to arrive.
This is different. This is quieter—a low, steady awareness that settles in without asking permission. The kind that slips into my thoughts while I'm doing other things. Folding laundry. Washing mugs. Standing at the sink and staring out across the yard longer than necessary.
Eli hasn't been around.
His absence isn't dramatic. There's no single moment where I notice him missing. It reveals itself slowly, in the way days move forward without interruption. In the way no one mentions him until Mae does, casually, over coffee on the third morning.
She says it like it's nothing, like she's talking about the weather.
"He usually comes by a few times a week," Mae says, reaching for the sugar. "Sometimes in the evenings after the sun dips. Sometimes earlier, if there's something that needs checking."
She doesn't look at me when she says it. Just stirs her cup and keeps talking, like the information doesn't carry any weight.
I nod, keep my face neutral, and stare into my mug like the answer might be waiting there.
I tell myself I'm grateful for the space.
And that's true, at least in part. My body has unclenched a little knowing I won't round a corner and run straight into him.
Knowing I can move through the house and the yard without measuring every step, without rehearsing neutral expressions or reminding myself to breathe normally.
The distance gives me room. Gives me time.
And yet there's guilt threaded through it.
Not the loud kind that demands attention—the quieter, more persistent kind that sits behind my ribs and hums there, steady and insistent.
It whispers his name when I pass the creek where we used to cool the horses after long rides.
When I work alone in the barn we used to fill with easy conversation.
When I saddle Blaze and remember Eli always checked my cinch without asking, his hands steady and sure, like taking care of me was just part of taking care of the horses.
The absence of him isn't just about distance—it's about losing the person who knew me when I still knew myself.
I thought coming back would mean facing my father's ghost. His voice in the barn. His absence at every turn. But it's Eli haunting me instead—the shape of what we were, outlined in everything we're not anymore.
Then there's the anger. That part is less tidy, less willing to stay quiet. The coldness that's settled between us since I came back. The clipped words when he does speak. The way he looks past me like I'm a problem he's already solved once and doesn't care to revisit.
I can hold gratitude and resentment at the same time. That surprises me—the way both emotions can exist without canceling each other out.
We were close. Closer than most people ever get to someone without naming it.
The Dawson ranch sits just east of ours, a smaller operation but well-run. Our fathers used to trade labor during busy seasons—one family helping the other through haying or branding. That's how Eli and I ended up spending more time together than apart.
I can still see it—summer heat and dust clouds rising behind us as we raced across the back pasture, neck and neck, horses straining beneath us.
Neither of us willing to lose. Neither of us cared who won.
Just the wind in our faces and his laugh cutting through the thunder of hooves, sharp and alive and so damn easy.
The way we'd pulled up at the creek afterward, breathless and grinning, collapsing into the grass like we had all the time in the world.
I exhale and anchor myself in the present. Focus on the dust motes drifting through the kitchen light, on the muted sounds of the ranch settling around me, on anything that doesn't reach backward.
The city feels like another life now.
I can still picture the cubicle if I try. The gray partitions. The hum of fluorescent lights overhead. The way the air never quite moved. The way my eyes burned by mid-afternoon from staring at spreadsheets, optimizing someone else's processes, making someone else's business run smoother.
I'd been good at it. Reliable. Efficient. Invisible, in the way offices quietly reward.
I've been checking emails when I can—early mornings before the ranch wakes up, late evenings after the work is done.
Responding to the urgent ones, keeping Lauren minimally satisfied.
The work feels distant, like something happening to someone else.
Three weeks. That's what I bought myself.
It felt like enough when I sent the message.
Now I'm not so sure.
The barn feels like neutral ground. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. Maybe no place that holds this much history could ever really be neutral.
Still, I go there anyway.
I let my eyes adjust, already cataloging what needs doing. The colt shifts in his stall, restless. Still untouched. Still waiting.
Then I see him.
Eli stands near the far stall, sleeves rolled up, one hand braced against the wood as he is retacking a loose board at the base of the stall. He moves with easy competence, attention fully on the work.
He looks like he belongs there in a way that makes my chest tighten. I let my eyes track over him before I can stop myself — the way his sleeves are rolled to the elbow, the easy competence in his hands, the set of his shoulders. I look away. What’s wrong with me?
For a moment, I stay where I am. Just inside the doorway. Long enough for the sight of him to settle.
God, I have missed him, I think.
He looks up.
Our eyes meet.
Something passes between us — not warmth, not anger either. Something older than both. My pulse does something inconvenient that I choose not to examine.
Recognition, maybe. The quiet acknowledgment of shared space. Of shared history. Of the fact that neither of us is a stranger here, even if we feel like strangers to each other now.
He straightens slowly, wiping his hands on his jeans. The movement is unhurried, but I catch the tension in his shoulders. The way his jaw flexes slightly before he speaks.
"Hey," he says.
It isn't unfriendly. It isn't anything.
"Hey," I reply.
The word feels thin, insufficient, but it's all I trust myself to offer.
I should move. Should head to Blaze's stall and go about my business like this is normal. Like we're just two people sharing a barn, nothing more complicated than that.
But I don't.
Instead, I stay where I am, hands curling around the halter I'm holding. The silence stretches between us—dense but not awkward. The kind that comes from history, not absence. From years of working side by side without needing to speak.
It makes my chest ache.
"We can't keep doing this," I say.
Eli's gaze sharpens slightly. "Doing what?"
"Pretending the other doesn't exist."
He doesn't look away. Doesn't soften. "I'm not pretending anything."
The words land heavier than they should. There's no anger in his voice, no edge. Just a flat statement of fact that somehow cuts deeper than if he'd yelled.
I swallow hard. "Eli—"
"You need something?" he asks, nodding toward the halter in my hands. "Or you just here to talk?"
It's not cruel. It's not even dismissive. It's just… controlled. Professional. Like he's already decided how much space to give this conversation and won't let it spill past those boundaries.
I stare at him for a beat longer, searching his face for something—anything—that looks like the person I used to know. The one who laughed with me in open fields and sat beside me in silence when words were too much.
Something hot pricks behind my eyes. I blink it back before it can become anything more.
He's still in there somewhere. I know he is.
But right now, he's locked down tight, and I don't have the key.
"I'm taking Blaze out," I say finally.
Eli nods once. "Gate's clear."
That's it. No questions. No commentary. No acknowledgment of the tension hanging between us like a held breath.
He turns back to the latch, dismissing me without another word.
I move past him toward Blaze's stall, acutely aware of every inch of space between us. Aware of the way his attention tracks me without being obvious. Aware of how careful he is not to step closer, as if proximity itself might say too much.
My chest feels tight—not from fear, but from the sudden, overwhelming urge to say more. To fill the silence with everything I haven't known how to say. To ask him how he is. To tell him I've missed his friendship more than I allowed myself to admit in years.
But he's made it clear that's not what he wants.
So I don't.
I reach for Blaze's halter, my fingers steady even as my pulse picks up. Blaze snorts softly, bumping my shoulder with his nose like he's reminding me I'm not alone.
"Easy," I murmur, smoothing a hand down his neck.
The horse leans into my touch, solid and warm, grounding me in the present. I focus on him deliberately, on the familiar ritual, on the comfort of something that never left.
Eli doesn't comment on my movements or ask where I'm headed. He just stays where he is, working the board with quiet precision, giving me room in the way he always has.
I lead Blaze out, the sound of his hooves echoing softly against the packed dirt. I saddle him quickly, movements practiced, muscle memory taking over. My body remembers this place even if my heart feels unsure.
When I swing up into the saddle and settle myself, the familiar weight grounding me, I glance back.
He's already turned away, back to his work. But the set of his shoulders is rigid, controlled, like he's holding something in that wants to break loose.
I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. What I do know is that my hands aren't quite steady on the reins, and it has nothing to do with the ride ahead.
The land opens up as I ride out, wide and unguarded, the sky stretching endlessly above me. The rhythm of Blaze's gait soothes something restless inside me, each stride pulling me farther from the barn, from the emotions I wasn't prepared to feel all at once.
Out here, I can think.
I let the wind sting my cheeks and tug loose strands of hair from my braid. Let the smell of grass and earth fill my lungs. I loosen my grip on the reins, trusting Blaze to know the path as well as I do.
My mind drifts despite my efforts to keep it anchored.
I remember Eli standing beside me at my father's funeral. Not in front, not hovering. Just there. Close enough that I could feel the heat of him through my black coat when the wind picked up. He didn't speak much. He didn't try to say the right thing.
He just stayed.
When my knees had gone weak at the graveside, he'd shifted closer without a word, his shoulder solid against mine. A quiet brace. A promise of balance. I hadn't leaned on him fully, but I'd known I could.
That had been the kind of closeness we shared. Easy. Unnamed. Deep enough to matter.
The memory settles in my chest as I ride, heavy and warm and painful all at once.
I don't want things to stay like this. The distance. The sharp edges. The way everything unsaid presses between us.
I guide Blaze along the lower fence line, letting the ride ease the anxiousness that's been sitting in my chest for days.
By the time I turn back toward the ranch, the sun has started its descent, my thoughts loosened into something manageable.
The ride helped. I'd forgotten how good it felt—the simple, physical rightness of it.
The way my thoughts quieted the farther I went.
When I step out onto the porch that evening, the anxiousness in my chest has settled. Not disappeared—just eased, like something that had finally been given room to breathe.
The sky has deepened into a soft wash of lavender and blue, the last light stretching thin across the land. The air has cooled, carrying the faint scent of dust and grass. I rest my hands on the porch rail and let myself be still.
Then I notice the light.
It glows warm and steady from the barn, cutting through the dusk.
Eli.
I don't overthink it. The thought comes fully formed and certain: It's now or never.
I'm done pretending time alone will fix what's been broken between us. Done waiting for the tension to dissolve on its own.
I miss my best friend. And I want him back.
Whether he likes it or not.
I push off the porch rail and step down into the yard, boots hitting the dirt with purpose. My heart beats faster, but my resolve holds.
I'm walking toward the silence that's gone on long enough. Toward the person who's known me best for most of my life.
The barn looms ahead, warm light spilling through the open door. I don't slow as I cross the yard.
I square my shoulders and keep moving.
This time, I'm not turning back.