Page 61 of Broken Cedar

I set the shirt down on the bed. Don’t put it in the hamper. Can’t put it in the hamper. Some evidence is worth keeping, even if keeping it hurts, especially if keeping it hurts. So I fold the shirt neatly, and set it in the top drawer of my dresser.

* * *

The elevator doors open with a soft ding. It’s nine-thirty on a Monday, which means everyone is already in meetings or pretending to be in meetings. I walk to my office and set my bag down on the desk. Everything is exactly as I left it.

I power on my laptop and begin sorting through emails. All two thousand and seventy-three of them. I quickly scan subject lines. Project updates. Client requests. My eyes skate over the words without landing.

“Welcome back.” Sophie, my assistant, sets a coffee on my desk. Her eyes look me over, likely taking in my slightly less put together than usual appearance, the dark circles under my eyes.

“Thanks,” I say eyeing it warily. I’ve already had two coffees this morning, I’m not sure a third would be wise.

“You’ve got a meeting in five,” she says. “Conference room C. Davidson project.”

I nod and decide, screw it, who cares if I overcaffinate myself. I take a sip of the coffee. It’s too sweet. She always makes it too sweet. I’ve never told her that. Mom and Colt always knew how to make—

I stop myself just in time.

Stop thinking about the ranch. That’s not your life anymore. This is your life, and it’s time you get back to it.

I sigh, collecting my laptop and coffee, and decide to head to the meeting a few minutes early. I take my usual seat around the conference table and take another sip of overly sweet beverage.

Everyone greets me when they enter, relieved to have me back. My boss enters and visibly sags with relief at the sight of me sitting in my usual chair. When the meeting starts, I nod at the appropriate intervals, but I have no idea what anyone is saying. My thoughts are somewhere else.

Somewhere else being the top step of the porch. Colt’s shoulder against mine. The sunset burning itself out over the ridge, turning the east paddock gold, then pink, then deep purple.

“Thoughts, Hallie?”

I look up. Seven faces are looking at me, waiting for a response to a question that I didn’t hear. “Sorry,” I say, swallowing audibly, my heart stuttering in my chest. “Could you repeat the question?”

Steven repeats the question and Sophie is looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind, which maybe I have. I snap out of my reverie and answer the question, putting all of my attention into the rest of the meeting.

When the meeting ends, I return to my desk to find that I have even more emails to respond to. I take a deep breath, pushing all thoughts of Colt, of Mom, of the ranch down deep, and get to work.

I drop my bag and kick off my shoes the second I enter the apartment. The dead plants are still dead. I haven’t thrown them out. Throwing them out would require admitting they’re dead, and admitting they’re dead would require acknowledging that I killed them, and I am not, at seven-thirty on a Monday evening, equipped for that level of self-examination.

I carry my Thai takeaway to the couch and eat straight from the container. It’s still as good as I remember. The green curry is just spicy enough to make my nose run, the rice perfectly cooked. The owner has recognised me for years now. Tonight he’d smiled when I walked through the door.

“Long trip?”

“Just the week.”

“Welcome back.”

It should have felt nice to be remembered. Instead, it just made me think of Mom and Colt. I turn on the TV for background noise so that I don’t have to sit in silence. Some movie is already playing from a channel I didn’t select. It’s a cheesy romantic comedy—a meet-cute that involves spilled coffee and apologetic laughter.

I watch it for a few minutes while eating my dinner, but then the main male character starts making me think about Colt. I should change the channel. I don’t change the channel. Instead, I just mute the TV, my thoughts becoming too loud to process.

When I left for college the second time, I didn’t leave the ranch because I wanted something bigger. I left because I was afraid of wanting it. The ranch was never what I was running from. The ranch was what I was running toward. I just wasn’t brave enough to admit it. I wasn’t brave enough to want something that much—to want Colt that much, to want that life that much. Wanting it felt dangerous. Wanting it meant the possibility of losing it could break me. So I spent years constructing walls against exactly that kind of breaking. They worked. They kept me safe. Mobile. Independent. Alone. And alone is its own kind of breaking—but it’s one you choose, which somehow makes it easier to live with.

Leaving the first time was easy. I was twenty-two. The world was wide, and every road led somewhere new. I thought new was what I wanted. I packed a bag. I got in a car. I pointed it east and I didn’t look back, and not looking back felt like strength, and strength felt like identity, and for eight years I built a life on the foundation of that departure, and the life was good. It was. It is. Good apartment. Good job. Good friends. A version of Hallie Walker who is competent. Independent. Exactly the woman I thought I wanted to become when I was twenty-two and terrified of wanting anything too much.

But it could be so much more, if I were brave enough to want it. Brave enough to admit that staying isn’t the same as being trapped. That belonging isn’t the opposite of freedom. That loving Colt wouldn’t cost me myself—it would only ask me to set down the armor I’d been wearing for so long I’d forgotten what it felt like to breathe without it.

The TV plays silently. The romantic lead has agreed to go on a date with the male lead. She’s supposed to look hopeful. Instead, she looks lonely. I turn off the TV and pick up my phone, opening my messages. Colt’s name is there. Our last exchange is from yesterday at noon. Don’t forget to text me when you get home so I know you’re safe. Sent at 12:17 PM. I never replied. I did text Mom when I got home, but I couldn’t bring myself to text Colt back.

My thumb hovers over the keypad. I type three words. Delete them. Type two different words. Delete those too. My thumb hovers while it waits for my brain to work out what I’m supposed to say. Instead I say nothing, just set the phone down, letting the screen go dark.

Tuesday arrives with the familiar rhythm of alarms, traffic, and coffee. By eight o’clock I’m standing in line at the café on the way to the office.