Chapter 25
SAWYER
It’s been five days since I found the first note.
Folded in half, left on the kitchen island—just sitting there next to the sink like it wasn’t going to rearrange the inside of my chest. I must’ve read it three times before I let myself laugh. Four before I put it in my back pocket.
Since then, the notes have turned into a thing.
Our thing. Quiet and small. Something we don’t talk about out loud, but something we both keep doing anyway.
She leaves one at the coffeemaker. I leave one on her bathroom counter under her retainer case.
She sticks one to the fridge with a cow-shaped magnet.
I tuck one inside the paperback she left on the couch.
None of them are long. Mostly just jokes and questions, something to say good morning without saying it. Something that makes me feel like I’m getting to know her.
What did the janitor say when he jumped out of the closet?
Supplies!!
Also: if you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
-W
I once knew a guy who was addicted to brake fluid. He said he could stop anytime.
I could eat breakfast burritos until I die and not get sick of them. Eggs, hash browns, hot sauce. That’s the holy trinity right there.
If you were a kitchen appliance, which one would you be and why?
-S
I’d be a toaster. Small, slightly unhinged, but usually reliable.
P.S. Thanks for always leaving the light on for me.
P.P.S. Your dog snores like an old man.
P.P.P.S - (wait, is it supposed to be more S’s or more P’s?? now I’m self-conscious) what’s one song you’ll always be excited to hear when it comes on the radio?
-W
Don’t trust stairs. They’re always up to something. ;)
Hank’s snoring is a part of his charm.
“Dancing in the Moonlight” by Toploader. No shame. What’s yours?
What’s your biggest irrational fear? Mine is hummingbirds. They’re tiny little demons with wings.
P.S. I tried one of your protein bars. They taste like drywall. How do you eat this shit?
-S
Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field (insert a knee slap and one of my legendary snorts ;) )
Song I’ll never skip when it comes on the radio: Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Doesn’t matter where I am. I will stop, I will sway, I will lip-sync like Stevie Nicks herself is watching.
Also, Gold In My Blood by Molly and the Sunshiners. It’s my favorite song by my mom (but also she’s my mom so I definitely do feel a teeny bit obligated to say that).
My irrational fear: that Hogwarts is actually real and I’m truly just a Muggle. :(
P.P.P.P.S. (Still no clarity on the P-to-S ratio. I guess I’ll suffer on). Your turn: what’s something you believed for way too long as a kid? Please say you also thought quicksand would be a bigger issue.
-W
She’s funny. She’s sharp. Her handwriting slants a little to the right and sometimes she forgets to dot her i’s.
Each note we leave gets a little longer. A dad joke, then a question. Then two. Then a sarcastic comment tucked into the margin like an afterthought. Which it never is. She writes like she talks—dry but intentional, like she doesn’t care if you get it, but secretly she hopes you do.
I find myself smiling when I read them. Like actually smiling. First thing in the morning, before I even lace up my shoes for my run, I check the kitchen counter. And if there’s nothing there, I check the drawer. She’s started tucking them away sometimes like it’s a game.
And the worst part—the part I’ll never admit to out loud—is I think about those notes all day.
Between appointments. On drives. While I’m elbow-deep in a horse’s molar or treating a goat with a limp.
One of her punchlines will loop back around in my head and I’ll smile like an idiot, and Hank will look at me like I’ve completely lost it.
I’ve kept every single one. They’re stacked neatly in the top drawer of the nightstand I don’t use for anything else. It’s basically empty except for those.
I feel like a goddamn middle schooler. Like I’ve got a crush on the girl who sits two desks over, and we’re passing notes between periods and pretending not to care. But I do. I care. It’s the first thing I’ve looked forward to in a long time.
It used to be the little things.
The sound of the shower running while I made coffee.
The smell of Julia’s shampoo lingering in the steam.
I’d open the closet and one of my sweatshirts would be gone, and I’d find it later in a heap on her side of the bed, sleeves rolled twice, the collar stretched out.
She’d leave notes too, once. Grocery lists with hearts next to items she knew I hated.
The occasional I love you written in Sharpie on a sticky note and slapped on the bathroom mirror.
I didn’t know they’d be the things I’d miss when she was gone. But that’s how grief works—it doesn’t just take the person. It takes the background noise, too. All the ordinary things you never realized made up your life until they’re gone and the house goes quiet.
And now—now, I find notes in a different handwriting.
Now, I hear her singing off-key in the kitchen when she thinks I’m not home.
I find faint paint smudges on the counter, a neatly folded dish towel moved just slightly out of place.
Sometimes she leaves her mug by the sink, rinsed out and lined up next to mine.
Little signs she’s been here. Little things I catch myself looking for.
Grief hasn’t left—I don’t think it ever does. But it’s shifted. It’s no longer this heavy, unbearable thing pressing down on every second. It’s become quieter. Softer. Like a shadow that only shows up at certain angles.
I think healing looks less like a straight line and more like a spiderweb. A hundred different threads of grief and joy and guilt and hope, stretched tight in all directions across the same frame, holding you up without you even realizing it.
For a long time, I thought I had to pick. Miss her or move on. Be heartbroken or be okay. But it doesn’t work like that.
These threads all live in you at once. Tense and shimmering and impossibly interwoven. And somehow, that mess—that impossible weight—is the only thing keeping you standing.
Not in spite of it. Because of it.
And Wren—she’s all precision and quiet intention and she’s blunt and strange in this way that keeps me guessing.
She makes me laugh without trying. Not in a loud way where it feels superficial—in the softer way, where your chest gets warm and your mouth tips up before you even realize it.
The sudden feeling that the day’s gotten lighter by a few degrees.
You’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention, but I am. With her, I always am.
She’s not replacing anything, but she’s adding something I hadn’t expected: color. Noise. The quiet company you don’t realize you’ve needed until it’s just…there.
She makes it easier to breathe. Easier to want something again.
And maybe that’s why I’m elbow-deep in a mushroom lentil shepherd’s pie.
Which, according to the vegan and gluten-free cookbook I found on a whim in Bozeman, is “cozy and hearty, perfect for chilly evenings.” According to me, it’s a test of endurance and possibly a cry for help.
The cutting board is a mess. There are lentils soaking in a bowl.
Mushrooms that I’m ninety percent sure I was supposed to chop more finely.
A sweet potato that’s currently resisting all logic and my shitty knife skills.
And carrots—don’t even get me started on the carrots.
Who knew dicing could feel like a full-body sport?
Wren stayed late on the ranch to train Zeus tonight, and I wanted her to come home to something…nice. I don’t know. Something that makes her feel like someone gives a damn. Even if I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.
I press my palm flat on the top of the knife like I saw on YouTube and try to get the carrot into something that vaguely resembles uniform pieces. It’s not going well.
I can’t even begin to fathom how she eats like this. I didn’t even know what tapioca starch was until five minutes ago. And nutritional yeast? What the hell is that?
Still, I think about her as a kid, reading the backs of candy wrappers and potato chip bags, trying to figure out if she could eat the same junk everyone else got to devour without thinking twice. That had to suck. Not just the physical part. The feeling part. The otherness of it.
I drag the diced carrots into a pile and stare at them, trying to decide if I should go back in and make them smaller. Hank lets out another low whine from his post near the fridge.
“I told you, buddy,” I say, flicking a mushroom slice in his direction. “You’re not going to like it.”
He sniffs it with all the hope in the world, then looks back up at me, disappointed.
I huff a laugh and shake my head. “Should’ve held out for the carrots.”
There’s a click at the front door, then the familiar sound of boots and the quiet shuffle that always tells me it’s her.
I hear her before I see her, humming under her breath, something off-key, as usual. She rounds the corner into the kitchen, tugging off her gloves with her teeth and pausing when she sees me standing at the counter, elbow-deep in the most suspicious pile of root vegetables she’s probably ever seen.
She’s in one of those big sweatshirts again—gray and slouchy, sleeves nearly swallowing her hands—and a baseball hat pulled low so I can barely see her eyes.
The name of her family’s ranch is printed across the front, letters cracked and soft with age.
Her cheeks are pink from the cold, and a few strands of red hair have worked loose and stuck to her face.
She looks tired. And beautiful in a way that catches me off guard, all quiet and unintentional.
She blinks. “Uh…what’s happening here?”
I glance at the cutting board. “I’m trying to make shepherd’s pie.”
She raises a brow.