He hadn’t needed to say more than that.
The details on the position had been like icing on my fulfillment cake. Working with small businesses, helping them establish their digital channels—this new position is exactly what I’ve been doing, but better. More time building relationships. Stronger resources to support initiatives. And an entire Rolodex of small business owners across the country just trying to figure it all out.
Countless stories to tell.
And support for me. Rest, when I want it.
I had been humming with excitement when I left the interview, bursting at the seams with a feeling I thought was gone forever. I walked to my car and dialed Beckett’s number, picturing him sitting on the back porch, one of the cats on his knee and his hand curled around a beer, socked feet crossed at the ankles and his long legs stretched out. I imagined what his face might look like when I told him the news, the way his eyebrows would lift. That quiet smile in the lines by his eyes and the divot in his cheek.
But he didn’t answer.
I turn the wrench with a grunt and loosen the last bolt, a bead of sweat sliding down between my shoulder blades. I drop the wrench to the cement and one of the crows launches itself off the top of the gas station in a flurry of ruffled feathers. I frown at his friends and then down at my flat tire.
“So far so good,” I mutter.
It comes back to me in pieces as I work. My mom’s voice in my ear, instructing me how to crank the jack, how to hold myself away from the car, how to pull the tire off and gently push the new one on. A thrill of satisfaction runs through me as I move through each step, secure the new wheel, and tighten the last of the bolts. I roll the popped tire to the trunk and lower the jack again, and the car releases a groaning, heaving sigh.
Maybe I should have changed a tire sooner. The pride burning in my chest has me short of breath, a fierce burst of energy that zips through my entire body. I stand there with my hands covered in grease and my arms burning from the effort.
I feel fantastic.
I almost laugh when I hear the growl of a car engine behind me, a bright red truck tearing down the backroad. It slows to a stop by my side and an old man with a faded baseball cap pokes his head out the window, his tanned arm hanging over the door. He looks at all the tools scattered across the ground and gives me a quizzical look.
“You need any help?”
I shake my head. I don’t. For the first time in a long time, I’m not left wanting for a single thing. I am firmly here, in this moment. Not planning for what’s next, not thinking about all the things I’m missing out on by standing still. Everything is exactly where it should be.
I give him a grin that he mirrors with a bewildered twitch of his lips. A strange lady standing outside of a boarded up gas station with grease on her face, smiling at nothing.
“I’m good, thanks.”
I call Josie from a rental shop exactly halfway between Durham and Inglewild, a styrofoam cup of coffee in my hand and a stale donut cradled in my arm.
“He offered you the job?”
I glance through the glass window at the service center, my little blue car receiving a proper tire replacement. I’m impatient to get back on the road, another couple of hours left of driving before I’m back at Lovelight. Beckett still hasn’t answered his phone, and I don’t know what to do with that.
I left a note on the kitchen table when I left, my own attempt of a doodle at the bottom. I had to leave on short notice, I wrote. An interview, three exclamation points after. We can celebrate with burgers when I get back.
I hesitated beneath that, my hand hovering over the scrap of paper. Talk soon felt incomplete. Miss you felt silly. I stared at that piece of scrap paper and chewed on my bottom lip, clueless as to how to sign the damn thing.
In the end I settled for a tiny heart with lopsided edges, a circle of tulips curling at the bottom.
“Informally,” I reply to Josie, nibbling at the edge of my boston creme donut. It pales in comparison to Layla’s flaky, buttery dough and a punch of longing hits me right in the chest. What I wouldn’t give to be sitting in her cafe right now, my boots propped up on the seat across from me and Beckett leaning heavily into my side, his scruff catching in my hair and his fingers toying with the sleeve of my shirt. I sigh. “He said he’d send me an offer letter in the next couple of days.”
“That’s good, right?”
I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.”
“Then why do you sound weird?”
“A lot to do,” I mutter, peering out the window again to check on my car. There’s a guy in coveralls half-tucked beneath it, another mechanic approaching. I wish I had taken the replacement they offered. It’s ridiculous to feel a sense of camaraderie with a car. “A lot of details to sort out.”
Josie hums. “Like if you’re staying in Inglewild or not?”
“Hopefully that won’t be one of the details that needs sorting.” Once I talk to Beckett. Once he answers his damn phone.
I’d like to stay. Not at his house, of course. A new place, maybe somewhere in town. Somewhere I can step off the porch and press my toes into wet grass. Flowers in the garden. Lots of windows.
“I’ll have to fly out to California,” I tell her. “I need to close out the contract with Sway. Sort out a couple other projects.” Collect the rest of my things from my barely-used apartment. Probably visit that empanada shop.
“I’ll fly down and meet you.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“And miss your break up with Sway? I don’t think so.” She snickers on the other end of the phone and I hear the creak of a screen door opening.
“I’m proud of you, you know.” Her voice is quiet, a smile in every syllable. “I know you haven’t been feeling like yourself, but you’re—you’re getting back there. And I’m proud of you.”
I blink at the pressure behind my eyes. I’m proud of myself, too.
A conversation whispers back to me. Worn flannel tucked around my shoulders and that old porch chair rough beneath my palms. Borrowed socks on my feet and Beckett in the chair right next to me.
“I’m trying.”
By the time I make it back to Inglewild and the single dirt road that leads to Lovelight, the sun is setting over the farm, the big red barn by the road turning a faded rust in the dwindling light. Relief blossoms in my chest, a warmth radiating all the way out to where my hands grip at the wheel. Two days and I missed this place. Missed the wide open space and Beckett in the spot right next to me. The cats and the trees and the lightness I feel as the road changes from dirt to gravel, my car rumbling along.
It feels like coming home.