A swooping sensation moves through me. “What do you mean?”
“I think I’m stuck. I think I’ve always been stuck here, existing but not really living, at least not in a long time. I need to figure out how to fix that.”
“I get that,” I say, and her gaze snaps to mine once more.
“Yeah?”
I swallow. “Yeah, I don’t think I realized that’s how I felt until I got here. I’ve been stuck, too, running from Montana, running from my grief, running from…” I trail off. “From getting too close to anyone. I think going home is the first step for me.”
She nods. “I need to figure out what my first step is.”
“You’ll figure it out,” I tell her.
“You think so?”
“Yeah,” I say, voice rough. “And if you need someone to talk to about it, you can always call me. I’ll be figuring myself out too.”
It’sstilldarkwhenI open the door to the cabin the next morning, my suitcase rolling behind me, coffee mug in the hand, and shock ripples through me when I see Stevie climbing out of her truck. She’s wearing flannel pajama pants and a barn jacket, her braid sticking out of a wool beanie.
“You’re here,” I say, voice lifting through the cold, breath puffing in the air.
“I wanted to see you off.”
My heartbeat quickens as I make my way down the porch stairs, closing the distance between us. “You didn’t need to drive out here in the middle of the night.”
A grin hitches up one side of her mouth. “You know I’m a hiking guide right? I think I can handle a ten minute drive at five a.m.” The smile dims. “I just wanted to tell you bye.”
“You told me bye last night.”
We finished dinner and sat at the table playing card games before turning on something on the TV, neither of us really watching as we talked. I stayed until her lids were growing heavyand I knew I needed to get back to get some sleep before my day of driving.
When we hugged, she gripped the back of my shirt in her fist, and I held the back of her neck, breathing her in. I’m sure we both knew we were holding each other too long to be considered friendly, but neither of us backed away for a long time.
“I know.”
I set my coffee mug on my suitcase and step forward, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. “I’m glad you came.”
“I’m going to miss you,” she says into my shoulder, the words muffled by my jacket, but I feel them as if she’s whispering them directly into my skin.
My hands tighten on her. “I’m going to miss you, too, Stevie Lynch.”
I don’t know how long we stand there, tangled around each other in the darkness. Long enough that my hands start to get cold, and I feel Stevie shiver against me.
I pull back, my eyes still fixed on hers in the dim light from the porch. “I wish things were different.”
She nods, and I think I catch a sheen in her eyes. It tears something in my chest wide open. “I know. Me too.”
If there was a solution for us to be together, a way to make us fit, I think I would have found it by now. But there isn’t, because her life is here and mine isn’t. Her roots are planted so deeply in this soil that she doesn’t know who she would be without them, and I need to go back home, figure out where to go from there.
So I let her go, backing up to put space between us, and pick up my coffee.
“What’s this?” she asks, clearing her throat nodding in the direction of my mug. Her voice sounds ragged enough to make my heart throb.
I look down, realizing it’s the mug I got the day she officially moved out, when I was lonely and trying to fill my days with something besides her.
“My new coffee cup. I got it a few weeks ago.”
She lifts a brow, and I barely catch it in the darkness. “You’re leaving withtwosouvenirs?”
