Page 74 of Wild and Wrangled

For the first time in a while, I also thought about my parents. They knew where I was, but I hadn’t spoken to them since a few weeks after I left. And even then, they didn’t act like they were worried about me or wanted me to come home. My mom just reminded me that my decision meant I was not fulfilling the requirements ofmy trust fund. After that, they shut off my phone and froze my bank account—which made sense. It was their money.

I didn’t know why I thought they would care more. They never had before.

A long sigh escaped my lips—one of those sighs where you felt your entire body deflate, and you didn’t know if you could even hold yourself up anymore.

I made my way to the bathroom and turned on the shower, cranking the handle so that the water was as hot as it could be. When I pushed back the curtain and stepped inside, I sank to the shower floor. I let the hot water rain down on me until it started to turn cold.

The mattress dipped as Dusty climbed into bed with me later that night. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me to his chest. I felt his lips on the back of my neck. I didn’t know what time it was—late, probably, but I hadn’t been able to fall asleep yet.

I wound my fingers through his. “You still awake, angel?” he whispered in my ear.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I choked out.

“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, pulling me tighter.

I took a deep breath. “Are you happy, Dusty?”

He stilled behind me. The world had never been more deafeningly silent than it was then. I could almost feel the fissures forming in my heart as I waited for him to respond.

“I love you, Cam,” he whispered. “I love you so much.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Are you happy?”

“I don’t—” A tear slid its way out of the corner of my eye and onto my pillow. “I don’t think I am, Dusty.” Suddenly, being closeto him, being held by him, felt like too much. I sat up, breaking his hold on me, and got out of the bed.

“What can I do?” he asked.

I didn’t look back at him. “I want to go home,” I said. “I want to go back to Meadowlark.” I didn’t know that’s what I wanted, but now that I’d said it, I felt like I had a fishing hook in my sternum, and it was pulling me back. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be with Dusty, but I didn’t want to be here.

In Meadowlark, I could at least take University of Wyoming satellite classes. I could at least start working toward something.

“Okay,” Dusty said quietly. “I can take you back this weekend, and we can…we can figure out the distance thing, all right?”

My brows knitted together as I finally turned toward him. “No,” I said, confused. “I want us to go back to Meadowlark.”

Dusty ran his hands through his blond hair. I couldn’t really see his face in the dark—only what was lit by the moonlight coming in our bedroom window. “Cam…I have a job.”

“I know. We can go home when the season is over next week.”

I heard Dusty sigh. “I…I don’t want to go home, Cam. This was my plan. I’ve been waiting for this my whole life—a chance to explore.”

It felt like someone had kicked me in the back of my knees.

“Okay,” I said, frustration bubbling under my skin. “But my plan was to go to college, and I changed it for you. For us.”

“I never asked you to do that,” Dusty snapped. He’d never snapped at me like that before. Whenever we fought, he stayed even-keeled. I was the one with the temper.

“But I did,” I snapped back. “And I regret it every single day.”

“We talked about this before we came here, Cam. I told you that I was worried about you not going to school, that I wasworried about us taking on too much too soon, and you brushed it off.”

“Well.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I thought it would be different.”

“Whose fault is that? I didn’t ask you to come here with me. I didn’t ask you to give up on school. I was ready to do the long-distance thing. I was ready for us to move forward that way.”

“Okay, well, I’m sorry for loving you, I guess,” I said, hating the way it sounded coming out of my mouth.

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