Wearing This Manure #2
She smiled, cool and professional. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
I glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to see my mom and half the staff following behind her, but thankfully it was just Angie. Damon, blessedly, had made himself scarce. The horses watched her approach with the same wary fascination they reserved for thunderstorms and unfamiliar dogs.
“Nope. Just chores,” I replied.
She glanced at the hay in my hair and the dirt on my hands. “You always this hands-on?”
I shrugged, not sure what she was getting at. “’Fraid so.”
She held out the tray. “I brought coffee. And bagels. And some donuts, in case you haven’t eaten.” She hesitated, just enough for me to notice. “You haven’t eaten, have you?”
I shook my head, accepting the coffee. The cup was still warm, and I took a long sip before answering. “Thanks.”
She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, scanning the barn behind me like she was searching for someone. “I, um—” She stopped, recalibrated, and flashed the customer-service smile that usually meant she was about to deliver bad news. “I tried texting you last night. You didn’t answer.”
I blinked, caught off guard by the directness. “I was… busy.”
“With your phone off?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, and she didn’t wait for one.
“Well, anyway,” she said, smoothing her windbreaker. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” She shot me a look I couldn’t read. “It’s not like you to just go dark.”
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone.
I’d been so distracted by the text from Gio I woke up to, I hadn’t paid attention to any other notifications.
The screen was spattered with hay dust, battered like it had survived a tour in Afghanistan, and it took a few tries before my thumbprint even registered.
Right at the top of my notifications, there it was: a text from Angie, timestamped at 1:13 a.m.
Angie
Just checking in. Let me know when you get home.
My stomach sank a little. I hadn’t seen the text because I’d been with Sadie. We weren’t exclusive, but I could already feel the guilt rising even before I looked up to meet her eyes.
She caught the shift in my face instantly. “Did you see my message?” she asked. Her voice was even, but I could tell she already knew the answer.
I swallowed. “I didn’t,” I admitted, holding up the phone as if the missed call log might serve as evidence. “I’m sorry.”
Something in her jaw unclenched, and for a second, her whole posture softened. I could almost see her wanting to excuse the behavior, but that wasn’t fair to either of us, and I knew it.
A wind kicked up outside, lifting the smell of hay and sweat and the distant brine of the ocean and funneling it through the open barn doors. I took another sip of coffee, trying to get my mind straight, but it tasted bitter now. I set the cup down on a fence post so I wouldn’t spill it.
“Angie,” I started, and then stopped, because this was a conversation that required something beyond my usual grunt and nod repertoire.
I looked at her—really looked—and I saw the tiny lines around her mouth, the tension in her shoulders.
She wore her sunglasses like armor, but nothing could hide the way she braced herself for what was coming next.
I owed her honesty. However, I didn’t feel comfortable disclosing what had happened with Sadie the night before. That was no one’s business but ours. Not my mom’s. Not Damon’s. And not Angie’s.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get your message,” I said again, slower this time, hoping it would land. “To be honest with you, I’m not in a place to continue this.”
Through the lenses of her glasses I saw she blinked, once, twice, and then she took them off completely, tucking them into the scoop neck of her sport’s bra.
Her eyes were sharp, intelligent. In that moment, I remembered all over again why I’d started seeing her in the first place.
She was fun, and beautiful, and could run laps around most people in a conversation.
But she wasn’t Sadie, and I think we’d both known that from the start.
“Is this because your ex is back in town?”
She asked it without a drop of bitterness, like she was confirming a clinical diagnosis. I almost laughed, because wasn’t that what she did for a living? Make things make sense, even if they hurt?
I nodded, voice rough. “Yeah. It is. I’m sorry, Angie.”
She looked down, fiddling with the bakery bag in her hand, and then back up at me, her eyes clear and steady.
“You know, I’m not an idiot, Dawson. When I started seeing you, people told me about her.
And I could tell something was going on with you when you saw her at the wedding.
I just hoped because it had been so long that you’d gotten over her. ”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized again.
She exhaled a slow breath, processing. For a second, neither of us said anything, the barn filled with nothing but the sound of horses flicking their tails and the low, distant hum of a riding mower somewhere on the other side of the property.
“Can I ask you something?” she finally said.
“Sure.”
She squared her chin, the way I’d seen her do in the E.R. when she was treating a patient. “Are you in love with her, or are you just in love with the idea of her?”
I didn’t answer right away, because the truth was, I’d spent years trying to hammer that difference into a shape I could live with. But standing there, with the dust motes hanging in the air and Angie’s question echoing in my skull, I realized the answer was as obvious as it was pathetic.
“I’ve been in love with her since the sixth grade,” I admitted. “I wish I could say it was just an idea, but it’s not. I love her.”
She absorbed my answer without flinching, her face a masterwork of composure. Then she nodded, once. “Well. At least you’re honest.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated once more, because it was the only thing left to say.
She smiled at that, a sad, elegant little curve of her lips.
“Don’t be. I’d rather hear the truth now than drag this out for months and then find you making out with your ex in the alley behind the movie theater.
” She referenced the latest town scandal that had included the married mayor and his assistant, twenty years his junior.
We both laughed, awkward and short, but the ice broke enough for me to breathe again. She reached out and squeezed my bicep, a gesture of affection so casual and so final it felt almost like a blessing.
“I hope you get what you want,” she said, and meant it.
I watched her walk back to the car, her stride as unhurried as it had been when she arrived.
She collected herself with the precision of someone who’d spent a lifetime being observed, got in, and drove off without looking back.
The horses in the barn resumed eating as if nothing had happened, but it felt like a chunk of the world had just shifted three inches to the left.
For the first time in months, or maybe years, I felt lighter and more optimistic than I had any right to, and it scared me.