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Her eyebrow went up at that, and I wished I could take it back. Luckily, she went on talking. “Even the fights I managed to win, and there were a couple, it’s not like anything good happened. I was suspended for two weeks the last time, ostracized as the girl with the temper. Then boys were even more of jerks trying to get a rise out of me after I got back.”
I shook my head. “Kids are ruthless. It’s a miracle any of us survive to adulthood.”
“Right?” She knocked my shoulder with hers. “But look. Both of us made it.”
I scoffed. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly the paradigm of mental health and stability. Until I get that paycheck, I still only actually have a single pair of clothes to my name. I’m twenty-nine years old and starting completely over again from scratch with nothing. And I have no idea what the hell I’m doing most of the time.”
Ruth’s left eyebrow rose. “Then it sounds to me that you shouldn’t be running away from the few friends you’ve managed to actually find. Maybe good friends and situations are a dime a dozen wherever it is you come from, but around here—”
“They aren’t,” I said quickly. “I promise you, they aren’t. I’ve never—” I shook my head. “I mean, I can’t even remember the last time I had a conversation like this with someone who was just, totally real and nonjudgmental. It feels amazing. And refreshing. And, yeah, amazing.”
Ruth nodded. “Exactly, besides Olivia, I haven’t had anyone else either till you and the boys came along.”
“You call what you and Jeremiah do having genuine conversations?”
She grinned. “Arguing is the best kind of genuine conversation. I can be my most ornery, crotchety, opinionated self and he’s not intimidated. He just gives back as good as I give. In a good argument, there’s a level of respect, else why bother?”
“And Jeremiah’s a good arguer?” I asked, not getting it as anything I would ever want but trying to understand it for her sake.
She grinned. “He’s the best I’ve come across. And he actually listens to what I have to say. That’s a new one.”
Then she wagged her finger at me. “I see you trying to get the conversation back on me. Back to the point. So you’re staying, right? That’s where this conversation has been circling round to. We’re worth it, trust me.”
“It’s not that,” I sighed. “It was never that. I know you’re worth it.”
“So why leave then?” she cut in, eyebrows raised like she knew she had me in a checkmate.
And the truth was, she had me stumped. Because if I started trying to go into how the problem was me, how I was broken and not fit to be around good people, how I was too selfish, a disease that seemed to infect every situation I was a part of…
Well, of course I knew what she would say. That I was being ridiculous. Of course I wasn’t a disease. It was what I would say to any friend who told me those things.
…so why couldn’t I say them to myself?
I’d left, hadn’t I?
I believed I was worth more. I knew there was more. And I’d felt that more-ness almost every day since I’d been here.
I felt it when I stepped out the door on the crisp, cold mornings and looked at the rolling hills bathed in the morning sunlight, wide eternal sky overhead.
I felt it when I fed the newborn calves who sucked so eagerly at the bottles and then ran rambunctiously around the yard together, playing and rollicking from the simple joy of being alive.
I felt it when I looked around the kitchen table and Reece and Jeremiah made jokes at each other’s expenses and laughter was easy and common.
I felt it when I rode the ATV and felt the wind biting against my face and my muscles burning by the end of the day from doing true, useful work out under the sun instead of being trapped, imprisoned inside all day.
I felt it last night when my body shuddered in orgasm and then I clutched to the warmth of another human being and listened to his heartbeat steady underneath my ear through the hours of the night.
I’d been so brave, and maybe I could be brave just a little longer.
Maybe I could… stay.
I breathed out, long and low. “Okay,” I said, peace coming as soon as the decision was made. “I’ll stay. A little longer, anyway.”
Ruth hugged me and let out a little, “Woo!” and then dragged me to my feet, saying she was starving and it was time for breakfast.
Chapter Fourteen
So I stayed. And a week later, I was still mostly glad about the decision. I’d started taking over the counter sleeping pills again. Okay, yeah, so I took twice the recommended dose. Sometimes with a glass of wine. But I just couldn’t handle the nightmares. Maybe that made me a coward, but I didn’t care. There was only so much I could deal with at once.
