Page 74 of Always Meant for You
“Some farms still went under,” she finishes.
“Yeah.”
The silence between us is heavier now, drawn long across the gravel road as headlights carve into the dark.
“Is your grandmother doing okay in town? My dad mentioned she was there.”
My hands tighten on the wheel. “She is.”
Elias didn’t elaborate.
Good.
And I’m not about to say more. I’m not ready.
“I’m glad,” Mabel says, leaving it there.
The quarry curves into view around the bend, shrouded in quiet. The wind has died down, and the stillness feels heavier than it should. I don’t come here often. But even with night pressing in, my gaze drifts to the tree. To the place where everything split wide open. I wonder if Mabel remembers it how I do.
A week after I ran and left her in the rain, I noticed the shift in her. She started wearing makeup and looking at old fashion magazines in the library. Jamie called it a phase. “She’s figuringherself out,” he’d said. But I knew better. I saw it in her eyes. Something changed. And I caused it.
I pull off to the shoulder and kill the engine. The moon vanishes behind a bank of clouds, dragging the last of the light with it. I’m about to make some half-hearted comment about the weather when the passenger door swings open and Mabel steps out, fast.
“Where are you going?” I call.
She doesn’t look back. “I need a minute, Cal. Being here is . . . it’s too much.”
Her voice shakes, and before I can say anything else, she’s moving even faster.
I catch her in the wash of the headlights, her posture straight, her stride hard. She’s not wandering. She’s choosing to move through this the only way she knows how—alone.
Clouds continue to choke the moonlight, leaving the road in deep shadow. My high beams reach forward, but they don’t touch her anymore.
Thunder rolls across the sky. A storm’s been building for weeks.
I squint, trying to track her.
Each step takes her deeper into the dark, farther from the truck, farther from me. She doesn’t pause. Doesn’t turn around.
I could stay here. Let her go. Give her space. Wait for her to come back.
But I won’t. Not this time.
Not when I can see her shoulders locked in tension, her body clenched against whatever’s rising inside her.
I won’t let her go off like a wounded animal.
She’ll tell me to leave. She’ll push me away.
It won’t work.
I’ve waited. I’ve stayed quiet.
But none of this feels quiet now.
Not the ache in my chest when she’s close.
Not the hollowness it leaves.
