I froze. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? Terry had told me her dad died in an accident, but he hadn’t shared the details. “Christ, Chloe. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” She nodded. “And, just so you know, my mom doesn’t want you to get crushed by a tractor, or Terry or mybrothers, either. She knows it’s dumb, but she’s worried I’ll die like that because my dad did. She knows tractor accidents aren’t hereditary, but anxiety isn’t rational. We both struggle with it.”
I turned back to the lug nuts. “That’s what wakes you up at three a.m.? Worrying you’re going to die by tractor?”
For a moment I worried that I sounded like an asshole, being flippant about something that was entirely serious, but she laughed under her breath.
“No. Evil tractors are my mom’s thing, not mine. I’m more concerned that I’m going to forget something vital or screw up something small that has huge consequences.” Her face shadowed for a moment, but then she laughed again. “Like, I hardly ever use my oven, but I’m always paranoid that I forgot to turn it off. So I’d check the knob every morning before I left the house and say out loudI am checking the knob. The oven is off. Because that makes it real to my brain. And then one day I was in the middle of an English exam and it occurred to me that maybe I was gaslighting myself, and I hadn’t reallylookedat the oven knob, I had just sort of faked it. So now I take pictures of the knob.”
I blinked up at her. “Jesus, Chloe. Maybe you should see someone about that.”
She nudged my knee with her boot, not hard enough to knock me off balance. “Idosee someone about that. It was one of the requirements for my master’s degree in social work. We can’t be good therapists without knowing what therapy feels like from a patient’s point of view.”
“That makes sense.” One tire down, three to go. I maneuvered the tools to the rear tire and Chloe pivoted to follow me with the light.
“My dad likes you, you know,” she said. “But he likes everyone, even the people he shouldn’t. Quite frankly, he’s a shitty judge of character.”
Something in her voice made my gut tighten. I peeked at her over my shoulder. Pinched brows, squinty eyes, flat lips. That was not the face of a trusting woman. Goddamn it. She was going to ruin my life.
“What is it you want, Chloe? To protect your dad because you think I’m going to hurt him? Or do you just want to keep punishing me for James?”
She considered that. “Both,” she decided.
I snorted. “Of course you do,” I muttered. I rolled the old tire out of the way and lifted the new one into place. “If you really think I’m going to somehow hurt your dad, then go ahead and do what you have to do. Hell, I’ll do it for you. But here’s the thing, princess.” I pushed to my feet. “If you just want to punish me, this isn’t the way. Because it punishes your dad, too. He needs a partner, and I’m good at this and getting better. We work well together. Do you really want to take that from him?”
Her eyes spit green fire at me. “How do I know you’ve really changed?”
“Changed? I haven’t changed, Chloe. I’m still the same guy I was two years ago.” I cocked my head, considering. “Maybe I’m less angry. I wasted a lot of time feeling like the world had done me wrong in one way or another. It took me a while to realize I was paying attention to the wrong things. The world is unfair to everyone in some way or another, and fuck, I got sick of hearing myself whine about it. It sounded like—”Him.
Chloe looked at me. “Like what?”
“It sounded like someone I don’t want to be. Now, I just want to do my job. I want to keep horses sound and pain-free. I want to put some good in the world instead of worrying about what I can take out of it. But spooking James’s horse? It wasn’t some other guy who doesn’t exist anymore. That was me making a huge, thoughtless mistake that I can’t take back.”
For a long moment, she stared down at the flashlight, rolling it between her palms, frowning. Then she heaved a sigh. “Goddammit. Why do you have to make it so hard for me to hate you?Fine. I won’t say anything to my dad.”
“And Amy?” I asked gruffly.
Something flashed across her face, there and gone again before I could decipher it. “No. But I think you should.”
I grunted noncommittedly. “I’ll think about it.”
But I already knew I never would. I could live with Chloe hating me. But Amy? Not a fucking chance.
12
CHLOE
This week was kickingmy ass and it was only Tuesday. All I wanted to do was change into my comfiest sweats and eat my weight in olives while bingeing a TV show I had already watched a hundred times. I didn’t care what it was, I just wanted something familiar. Something that wouldn’t require brain cells—because mine were currently barely operational—but would still make me laugh.
But no, I couldn’t do that because I had to be an adult and go to the grocery store and buy real food like chicken strips and sweet potatoes, which I had planned to do over the weekend but instead I had napped, lazed around, and napped some more. That had been delightful and exactly what I needed, but now I didn’t have so much as a box of cereal in my house, and Aspen Springs was not the kind of town that had an abundance of takeout options.
I hadn’t felt this tired since I had first started taking on clients. Back then, it was hard not to carry the weight of their emotions home with me. Eventually my brain learned to set emotional boundaries and got into a rhythm. I loved my work. Iwoke up every morning with a sense of purpose. This was what I was meant to do. What I wanted to do. What Ineededto do.
And yeah, maybe I needed it a little too much, cared a little too much, and that was why I came home bone-tired every day, and the past eighteen months of working 5 a.m. to noon at Jo’s, and 2 to 7 p.m. at the clinic had finally caught up with m.. But I also suspected I was coming down with something. I didn’t feel feverish, but every now and then my stomach flipped around a bit.
I drove straight to the grocery store from work because if I went home first and changed out of my “therapist on duty” uniform, as I liked to call my blazer, embroidered Chucks, and nice jeans, then I wouldn’t leave the house again until tomorrow, even if it meant dining on ice cubes for dinner.
Damn, being an adult sucked.
