I tell myself it’s okay. Because he loves me.
And I love him.
I don’t tell him, because I want to look him in the eye when I do. I want to be touching him and be able to finally kiss him. I want his hands and his mouth. I want the way he makes me feel and how his eyes light up when he smiles. I want it all with him.
Sunrise is an hour away when we finally hang up, but I can’t sleep. Guilt and a heaviness I can’t quite name are gnawing at me. Dread, I think. A looming fear that I’ve made the wrong decision.
I need air.
It’s cold when I step out into the darkness. It snowed last night, but the skies are clear now, stars pinpricking the blackness spreading out as far as I can see. I stare up at them, my blanket wrapped around my shoulders, breathing in the chillednight air. My breath comes out in clouds, and each inhale feels icy in my lungs. It helps, just a little.
My eyes focus on a pattern in the sky, one of the constellations Jack pointed out—Cassieopeia. I search the skies for Andromeda and Pegasus, which aren’t as bright as when he showed me. It’s easy to see them now, when before they were just a blanket of stars. A memory from a few weeks ago, Jack’s voice in my ear as he told me stories over the phone of constellations, flashes through my mind. I was sleepy, but I remember the one he told me of Taurus.
I pull my phone from my flannel pajama pants pocket and type the name of the constellation into the search browser. I find an image of the constellation and then peer up at the night sky, trying to find it myself. It takes a minute, but when I see it, it sticks out to me, stars forming a bull.
I can hear Jack like he’s here now, saying, “You can’t just run off with the person you love.”
He was right, of course. You can’t just take someone and run off with them because you love them. You also can’t hold them close to you when they don’t belong.
I sit down in the cold dirt, letting it seep into my bones as I stare at the bull in the sky, thinking. I told Jack this isn’t the life he wants, and I’m sure it’s true. He may think he’s been running all this time, and I don’t doubt that, but I’ve also seen the way his face lights up when he talks about the places he’s been, the places he wants to go. He didn’t move away to college because he was grief-ridden, he moved away because he wanted out of his small town. He wanted to experience what the world had to offer him. He left for all the reasons I wanted to.
This isn’t the life Jack wants, and I’m not sure it’s the one I want either. I haven’t allowed myself to think that, not in so long. Not when choosing something else, something for myself, felt so impossible.
But Jack is worth it.
The life I dreamed about when I was in high school, taping photos from travel magazines on my walls and researching recipes of foods we couldn’t get in restaurants or the grocery store in my little town in the mountains, is worth it.
The thought scares me, sends fear spiraling through my stomach, but it also exhilarates me in a way I haven't felt before. Not when standing on the edge of a mountain, looking out at the world below. Not when standing in front of Jack, wondering if either of us were going to give in and let ourselves have what we really wanted.
I wantmore.
My mom and dad are both awake when I show up at their house at dawn, exhausted yet pumping with adrenaline.. They’re farmers, and rising with the chickens for three decades is a habit they won’t give up even though they no longer have to.
They’re surprised to see me, and possibly a little worried by the manic look in my eyes. They both look up when I walk into the kitchen, their hands wrapped around mugs of hot, black coffee, and newspapers spread out before them.
“Can I talk to you?” I ask.
“Stevie, what’s wrong?” It’s Mom, her face pinched in concern.
Dad stands, pulling out my chair, and I lower myself into it, leg bobbing beneath the table.
“Mom, Dad,” I say, looking at them each in turn. My voice is surprisingly calm, even though my insides feel like confetti spilling from a piñata. “When I was in high school, I wanted to move away. I wanted to leave North Carolina and travel.” I shake my head. “You know all of this. But then Dad got hurt and thefarm needed help, and I started my job and…I don’t know. I was happy with my life here, too comfortable to leave.”
Mom’s eyes are sad, and Dad looks like he’s drowning in guilt. I know it wrecks him that I stayed because of his injury, but I don’t want that for him. Staying was my choice.
“I’ve been happy,” I say again. “I don’t regret staying here, getting to be close to you both all this time. I know how lucky I am to have that.” Jack’s broken voice when he talks about his mom plays on a loop in my mind. “I’m so happy to have gotten to witness my friends falling in love and having babies. I love that I’ve gotten to watch them grow up and be their Auntie Stevie.” I think of Jack again, finally getting to know his niece after all these years.
“I don’t regret any of it,” I tell them emphatically. Their gazes lock on mine, and I think I see them grasping hands below the table. I think they know what’s coming. We all do. “But I think I want to go now.”
The words hang in the air, and I see a tear fall down my mom’s cheek. She swipes it away with her free hand, and Dad watches her, his face so full of love it feels like I’m intruding.
“I want to see what’s out there. And I want to do it with Jack.”
Neither of them look surprised, and it’s how I know I’m making the right choice. I think they knew I loved him long before I did.
“It’s not full-time,” I say, and both sets of eyes snap to mine.
It’s what I thought about, sitting in the cold, staring up at the stars. Jack wasn’t entirely wrong, and I wasn’t entirely right. Neither of our lives fit the way we’re trying to live them now, but it’s not one or the other.
