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A sharp gust cut through the property, and a bucket rolled across the yard. We watched it bounce like a white tumbleweed and then disappear behind the barn.

“I wasn’t what she needed,” I said so quietly I didn’t think he heard me.

“Yeah, you were,” Doug said. “She’s just got other shit going on, shit that doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

I shook my head. “Yes, it does. She was embarrassed of me. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t worth the trade-off.”

“You know what?” Doug said from next to me. “She loved you. I don’t care what you think. I saw it. Everyone did.”

I stayed quiet. She did love me. I knew that. I believed that. But what does love matter when it can’t outweigh the rest of it?

The rain started to fall. It came down in heavy sheets so thick tiny creeks started to form in the grass. Dragonflies darted around in the downpour.

Doug squinted out at the yard. “What’s up with this weather? I haven’t seen it like this since the month your grandparents died. This shit’s ridiculous.”

I didn’t answer. Because the answer didn’t matter.

Nothing did.

“I’m going,” I said, getting up. Hunter rose like his bones hurt and dragged after me.

“Well, when are you leaving?”

“I don’t know. Tomorrow maybe. The day after. I need to pack up my tools.”

“Don’t go,” Doug said. “Stay for dinner. Or let’s go out, do something fun. We can go to Jane’s.”

It must speak to my mental state that Doug was the one worried about me.

I shook my head. “I’ll call you when I land somewhere.” I paused, looking at my friend. “Thank you. For everything.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. I turned and walked with Hunter through the rain to my truck. I got in, drenched.

I peered up at the clouds as I pulled off the property and started driving home along the river, my wet shirt clinging to me.

I didn’t know where I would go when I left. South. That’s all I had. South. I’d just drive until I ran out of gas or out-drove the rain. The thought of coming up with a plan felt so exhausting to me, I couldn’t even consider it.

Maybe it would get better the farther away I got from here and her. Maybe it would lift like a fog, and I’d be able to breathe and think enough to function again.

When I got home, I peeled off my wet clothes and climbed into bed. It was only six o’clock and I was more weary than tired, but I didn’t want to be awake anymore.

I fell into one of those sleeps of the brokenhearted. The kind that breathes in and out, between here and gone. You want to dream about them but then regret it when you do, because waking up hurts too much. So you hope for nothing but black. The temporary reprieve from existing without them.

It was dark outside when my phone rang. Rain was tapping on the roof.

I almost didn’t answer the call. I was glad I did. Because it was her.

“Hello?” I said into the darkness.

There was a long pause before I got a quiet “Hi.”

My heart didn’t pound the way I would have thought at getting an unexpected phone call from her, a month since the last time I’d heard her voice. But it didn’t feel like this was actually happening. It felt like a dream. Like I wasn’t fully awake. And then when I started to realize that I was awake, my heart didn’t pound because it was in pieces in my chest and it didn’t work anymore.

We just sat there, quiet. Like just being on the phone not saying a word to each other was its own form of communication.

It was.

A thousand words passed through the silence.