Chapter 28 Twenty eight
Chapter 28 Twenty eight
REINA’S POV
The farm smelled like home the moment I stepped out of the rental car. Fresh-turned earth, hay drying in the sun, the faint tang of manure mixed with wild mint growing along the fence line. Bessie bounded out of her carrier like she had never left, bleating joyfully as she trotted toward the familiar pasture.
I stood in the driveway for a long minute, bag slung over my shoulder, breathing it all in until the tightness in my chest eased just a fraction.
Mom was on the porch before I reached the steps. She didn’t say a word, just pulled me into a hug so tight I could feel her heartbeat against mine. Behind her, Dad leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes soft in that quiet way he had when he knew I was hurting but wouldn’t push until I was ready.
Caleb and Jonah appeared from the barn, wiping their hands on old jeans. Micah came running from the chicken coop, straw still stuck in his hair. They surrounded me in a loose circle of hugs, back slaps, teasing about how city air had made me soft. No one asked about the ring that was no longer on my finger. They didn’t have to. The absence was loud enough.
Inside, the kitchen smelled of Mom’s cornbread and the stew she always made when someone came home wounded. We ate at the long oak table that had been in the family for three generations. Bessie curled under my chair, content again. Conversation stayed light and I laughed when I was supposed to, nodded at the right moments, but my eyes kept drifting to the windows, to the long dirt road that led up from the county highway.
Every time a dust cloud rose in the distance my heart lurched.
Every time it turned out to be a neighbor’s truck or the feed delivery, something inside me sank a little deeper.
He wasn’t coming.
I told myself it was better this way. I had left. I had meant it. I needed space to think, to breathe, to remember who I was before penthouses and private elevators and a man who once kept a door open for someone else. But logic didn’t stop the ache. It didn’t stop me from checking my phone under the table every few minutes, hoping for a message I had told him not to send.
Night fell soft and cool. After dinner the boys dragged me out to the bonfire pit behind the barn. We sat on old logs, passing a jar of Dad’s homemade peach moonshine while the fire snapped and sparks drifted toward the stars. Micah told terrible jokes. Jonah played lazy chords on an old guitar. Caleb kept the fire going with patient prods of a stick.
I stared into the flames and let the warmth soak into my skin.
Mom sat beside me on the log, close enough that our shoulders touched.
“He hasn’t called,” I said quietly.
She didn’t pretend not to know who I meant. “Do you want him to?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know. Part of me does. Part of me hopes he’s miserable. Part of me hopes he’s already moved on so I can stop hurting.”
Mom wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “You’re allowed to feel all of it at once. That’s what love does. It makes room for everything.”
I leaned into her. “I thought he was different.”
“He might still be,” she said. “But he has to prove it. Words aren’t enough anymore. You’ve seen what words can hide.”
I nodded against her shoulder.
The fire burned low. The boys wandered off one by one: Micah to bed, Jonah and Caleb to check the livestock one last time. Mom kissed the top of my head and went inside.
I stayed.
The stars were brighter here. No city glow to dull them. I pulled my knees to my chest and watched the embers pulse like tiny hearts. Every few minutes I glanced toward the road again, half expecting headlights to cut through the dark.
They never did.
The disappointment wasn’t sharp anymore. It was heavy. A slow, dull weight that settled in my bones and made every breath feel like effort.
I finally stood, brushed ash from my jeans, and walked back to the house. My old bedroom waited at the top of the stairs with the same quilt, same faded posters from high school and same creak in the floorboard by the dresser. I crawled under the covers without bothering to change.
Sleep came slowly.
Every time I closed my eyes I saw him: the way his face had crumpled when I dropped the ring, the desperation in his voice when he said my name, the way he had stood frozen in the doorway while I walked away.
I wondered if he was staring at the ceiling in the penthouse right now, wide awake, replaying the same moment.
I wondered if he regretted keeping that card.
I wondered if he was already planning how to explain it to Gran.
I wondered if he would come after me at all.
The next morning I woke to the sound of roosters and the smell of coffee drifting up the stairs. Mom had left a mug on the nightstand. I drank it sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the empty space where my ring used to be.
Outside, the farm was waking up. Dad was already in the field. The boys were loading hay bales. Bessie grazed near the porch, content in her old territory.
I pulled on boots and went to help.
Work kept my hands busy and my mind quiet, at least for a few hours. I mucked stalls, fed the chickens, checked the fence line for breaks. Every time I looked toward the road my stomach twisted with the same stupid, stubborn hope.
No dust cloud ever turned into his car.
By late afternoon I was exhausted, sun-warmed, and sore in the best way. I sat on the porch steps with a glass of iced tea, watching the sky change color. Bessie flopped beside me, chewing her cud with lazy contentment.
I rested my chin on my knees and let the quiet wrap around me.
He hadn’t come.
He might never come.
And somehow that hurt more than the betrayal itself.
I closed my eyes and let the first tear fall.
Then another.
I didn’t wipe them away.
I just sat there on the porch of the house I grew up in, surrounded by the life I had always known, and cried for the future I had almost believed in.
For the man who had almost been mine.
For the ring still sitting on a coffee table two hundred miles away.
For the wedding that would never happen.
And for the part of me that still waited for headlights on the road.