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“Oh really? Packing?” I asked, my lip curling. “That’s a full-time, 24/7 job, is it? Is that why Connor’s been so quiet?”
“No,” Weston said in a low, heavy voice.
I shook my head and let my teary gaze drift to the table between us. “I feel like I’m on a roller coaster I didn’t want to ride in the first place. But once I got on, I took the ride. Up, down. High, low. And now I can’t get off.”
“I get it.”
“Do you?” I snapped. I held up my hand before he could answer. “Never mind. I don’t want to talk about him right now.”
“Understood. I came here to talk to you. How’s your dad? And the farm?”
“Dad’s better,” I said. “Still weak. I don’t know if he’ll ever be as strong as he was before. Not after a quadruple bypass. And the farm is suffering.”
“Tell me.”
“Not much to tell. It’s the same farm story since time immemorial. Things are tough, the debts pile up, and a bank pounces.”
“How much debt?”
“Not an impossible amount, but it’s more than we have.” I shot him a look. “And that’s all I’m going to say.”
“And what about your Harvard application?”
“Non-existent.” I gave him a tired smile. “I’ve been a little distracted.”
“I’m sorry,” Weston said quietly.
“Why are you sorry?”
He shrugged, cracking his knuckles. “As a friend. I’m sorry you’re in pain, Autumn.”
My vision swam and I swallowed hard. “I lied. I want to talk about him. How is he?”
“Scared,” Weston said. “We’re not supposed to admit that, but we are.”
“It’s no excuse to cut me off,” I said.
“No, it’s not.”
“I swear, Weston. It’s like the guy who wrote me from Boot Camp is gone. Vanished.”
Weston nodded slowly, fingertips worrying between his brows. And said nothing.
“You were with him,” I said. “You know him better than anyone. Why would he write to me like that if he wasn’t prepared for how it would affect me?”
“I don’t think he was thinking that far ahead,” Weston said. “Or how it would affect you. He wasn’t thinking about whether they were too much or not. Or what you would expect when he got back. He was thinking about himself. And relief. And getting through the day.”
“Why?”
Weston thought for a moment. “Basic was hell. All day long, every day, no thought was our own. We had only orders to follow. No opinions. No feelings allowed. Only pushing our bodies to their limits and beyond. Then classes. Then more PT. Total physical and mental exertion like that wrings you out. You can’t cry but some days you want to. At the end of the day, we had one hour of personal time to decompress. We poured ourselves out in that one hour.”
“You did too?”
He nodded.
“To who?”
Who do you pour yourself into, Weston?
