Page 48 of Wilder

Some slow shift between us, some moment where we’d stopped reaching for each other?

The realization settled like a rock in my stomach.

Maybe our year apart had done irreparable damage. Maybe we had gotten so used to being separate that the space between us had stretched into something permanent.

“Ash?” His voice cut through the spiraling thoughts, grounding me just for a second.

“What?”

He paused for a moment. “You good?”

It wasn’t an accusation. It wasn’t even suspicious. Just a simple question—a brother asking his twin if everything was fine.

I was tempted to tell him no, since he should’ve already known that answer. He used to know without asking.

But what good would it do to force my brother into feeling guilty for going off and doing his own things?

For living life without me just like we’d been doing for the past year and few months.

Making him feel bad would do nothing to change the emptiness in my chest, the fill the longing for my family that I was now beginning to realize was slowly shifting into something different.

Swallowing, I forced the words past the tightness in my throat. “Yeah. All good.”

A lie.

A small one, but still a lie.

He didn’t say anything at first. The silence stretched between us, long enough to make my pulse pick up. Long enough for me to wonder—hope—if he could hear the cracks in my voice. Like maybe, just maybe, things weren’t changing as much as I feared they were.

“All right. I’ll probably be out for a while, so I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

My chest ached, a slow, dull pressure that made it hard to breathe around. “Yeah. No problem. I’ll leave the deadbolt unlocked.”

I shouldn’t care. He was allowed to live his life away from me. It wasn’t his fault I was clingy.

“Thanks.”

And just like that, the call was dropped.

Slowly pulling the phone away from my face, I stared down at the call log.

Four minutes and nineteen seconds.

A year ago and a half ago, that number would’ve been different. That number would’ve stretched past an hour, filled with easy conversations, inside jokes, and the kind of effortless connection that never needed explaining.

But that was then and this was unfortunately now.

My new reality.

I was beginning to realize maybe I was the only one still holding on to it.

Sighing again, I dragged a hand down my face, the weight of exhaustion pressing heavy behind my eyes. A sharp, subtle tick nagged at the back of my head, a telltale sign that I was spiraling again.

What I really needed was sleep.

I was getting way too overly emotional, reading too much into things and turning a simple phone call into something bigger than it needed to be. Maybe this wasn’t some irreversible shift between us. Maybe it was just me—tired, restless, stuck in my own damn head when I should’ve just let it go.

Back at the ranch, I was worked hard enough that by the time I made it back to the bunkhouse, there was no room for this kind of overthinking. No space for my mind to wander relentlessly, picking apart every little thing, twisting it into something heavier than it needed to be. By the time my head hit the pillow, I was out before I knew it.