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We let go.

Slowly.

I wait for the feeling to ebb, but it doesn’t, and I find myself itching to reach for him again. To move closer and chase that feeling—that thrill—all the way to the source. More than that, though, I’m spellbound by the smile that hooked me in the first place. The way it brightens the longer we gaze at each other and…

Actually, I don’t know what else there is.

Just that he’s charming and ridiculously attractive, and I don’t want to let him go. But like most things I don’t want, they happen anyway, and Oscar’s smile morphs into a nod. “We have to go now. I am taking Aras to his grandparents in Cromer. It was nice to meet you, Uncle Poet.”

He’s leaving already?

Figures.

I suppress a sigh and return his nod with one of my own. Echo his sentiment. And then he’s gone and it’s just me and Ivy again.

She’s found more cake while I’ve been distracted. Chocolate this time and it’s everywhere.

I crouch to clean her up. “He was nice.”

“Aras is nice.” Ivy wipes chocolate on my face. “His daddy is like King Triton.”

“King Triton has grey hair.”

“Okaaaaay.”

“Okay. What else do you know about him? Daddy—Oscar, I mean. Not King Triton.”

Ivy gives me a sage look. The kind of appraisal that’s always made me think I knew her in a past life. “He sings a lot and he puts needles in his tummy before he eats—oh, there’s my daddy.”

She breaks from me to take a running jump at my new brother-in-law. A man I appreciate for his gentle nature and lack of opinion on how I live my life. He doesn’t seem to mind that his kid is covered head to toe in chocolate icing. He tips me a smile nothing like Oscar’s and sweeps Ivy away.

It leaves me alone, but it doesn’t last. Evening bears down on us, lubricated by my dad’s homemade wine and speeches that make no sense when you only catch a few words. Joy. Love. It’s heavy in the air again. Like it’s waiting for the next soul to reach out and grab it. It’s nice, I guess. But I’m done peopling by the time the moon comes out to play. And I still have work to do and sleep to find before I’m up with the birds tomorrow.

I escape the gardens, vaulting the fence behind the orchard, and make my way to the working yard of the farm. Without the balmy sunshine, the air is cooler now, sharp with the salt of the sea, damp creeping in over the fields. It’s dark too—so dark. Not my favourite thing. So I flip on some lights and watch the shadows tumble across the dusty concrete, and the predictability of it settles me. I head straight for the machinery shed and drag open the big doors. They groan and whine, I feel it, but the scent of oil and metal grounds me more, simmering beneath the smell of wet earth.

My favourite tractor—Edna.

She’s still caked in mud from yesterday and one of her panels has come loose. I grab tools, climb up, and get to work, though it’s nothing that can’t wait until morning. Everything can always wait, but then what? You die?

I run a hand over the panel. Find the loose bolt. Tighten it and check the hydraulics.

Good enough.

I hop down from Edna, searching for more work, but I’ve been through here twice already, and there’s not much left. So I take a walk instead, along the hedgerow line running against the horizon, a rough boundary between our land and the next farm over, soaking up the quiet that isn’t the same anywhere else.

At the wedding, and even alone in the machinery shed, it pressed in on me, heavy with things I have no hope of ever catching. Out here it’s wide open and honest, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to walk it slow, scuffing the earth with my boots, fingers brushing the leaves, and feel like I belong.

No guessing.

No staring at lips and teeth.

Just me and the trees as I enjoy something older than noise. For a little while, at least.

Close to the house, where the land dips and fields stretch out, I stop at a break in the hedge. When I was little, it felt like the end of the world lay beyond those fields. Now I know it’s a new world, one I’m not sure I want to fit in to, but for reasons I don’t understand yet, I’m going to try anyway.

I have plans.

Big plans.