Jake gave me his back and started to walk away.
I charged after him. “Oh, no. You’re not gonna storm off and leave me here.”
“Looks like I’m doing just that.”
“Jake—”
“Leave it alone. You’ve done enough.”
“I don’t think I have. Please, stop.”
His pace was such that I was nearly jogging.
“Jake, I understand it’s not the same, but—”
“You don’t understand shit.”
I stopped dead, burning a hole in his back, and before I knew what I was doing, I chucked my paintbrush at him.
It hit him square between the shoulder blades at the exact spot my eyes were locked, bristles first. The second it hit him, he froze mid-stride. A pink smudge marred his white shirt, the mark disappearing as he pivoted to face me.
He glanced at my hand. “Did you just throw a paintbrush at me?”
I couldn’t tell if he was mad or just curious, he’d said it so evenly. Mad was probably the safe bet.
“Well, I had to get your attention somehow.” I folded my arms, my heart thundering with a strange mix of frustration and understanding. “This farm has been the exact same since you first knocked on that door ten years ago. That was the spot you first met him, isn’t it? And I went and painted it all pink, which you hate on a regular day. But on that door, it was too much.”
He turned his head to look off in the distance, thumbing his nose. “That color’s stupid and has no place on the farm.”
When the knot at his throat bobbed, it was all the answer I needed. My glare softened. I took a step toward him.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I didn’t understand, Jake. I should have talked to you about it.”
“Damn right you should have.”
“But you can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what exactly?”
“This.” I gestured to the length of him. “Never once have you come to me with a problem and carried on an actual conversation with me. You just yell, insult me, and storm off.” I paused, tracing the line of his profile with my gaze. “You don’t want to hurt me—you’re not cruel, even if you’re bent on running me off. But you’re hurting, and I’m the dog that gets kicked. We both lost Pop. I’m dealing with my pain by changing things because it’s just too hard to see them the same. To remember. But you’re seeing it all erased when all you want to do is hang on. Is that how you feel? Is that what I’ve done?”
His face turned to mine, his eyes hard and tight, his lips a line. “Stop it.”
My brow quirked. “Stop what?”
“Trying to guess what I feel.”
“If you told me, I wouldn’t have to.”
Those Herculean jaw muscles bounced as he considered. And when he finally spoke, it was clipped and as tight as the rest of him. “This is my home, and it’s been my home longer than it ever was yours. You left when you should have stayed, when I asked you to, when we needed you. And now you’ve been here a month, and nothing is the same. Nothing. We’ve got strangers all over the farm. Everything’s fucking pink, of all colors—who could take us seriously? You swooped in and touched everything, and when you leave, your fingerprints are gonna be all over this place. And don’t look at me like that. Like you don’t know for a fact you’ll get bored and run back to the city. You know as well as I do that this isn’t the life you want.”
“How could you say that?”
“You left once. Why wouldn’t you do it again? If the farm was so important, you would have come back sooner.”
Something in my chest ached so deeply, I couldn’t breathe. “I was getting my degree.”
A humorless laugh. “Sure, your degree. And then you went and got a job with your aunt without even coming home, without even considering that you might be needed here. Any excuse to stay away. You don’t really want to be here, and the sooner you figure it out, the better it’ll be for all of us.”
My throat squeezed shut, and I swallowed to open it enough to speak. “I was wrong. I should have stayed when you asked. I should have come home after school. And every morning since he died, I’ve woken up with regret. I thought I had more time. I … I don’t know that I can forgive myself for that, so I won’t ask your forgiveness, either. But I’m looking you in the eye and telling you I do want to be here.” I took a few steps toward him. “I’m here to right my wrong as best I can, and that means I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can say it all you want, but I don’t believe you. And deep down, you don’t, either.”
Gravity weighed me down, slumped my shoulders. “I’m so tired of fighting. I’m tired of holding myself together and running myself into the ground so I can avoid thinking about him. I’m so tired of arguing and pushing and being hurt by you.” My voice broke, damn it. “All I want—all I want in the entire world—is for you to take a real look at what I’m trying to do and trust me. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt the farm, and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
The tension in his face eased, his suspicion quieting just a little. “I know,” he said after a beat.
“Then why are you punishing me?”
A flash of surprise streaked behind his eyes. “Punishing you?”
“For leaving. For changing things.” I closed the gap between us, only stopping when I was close enough to touch his hand. But I stopped myself. “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
His chin lifted, his eyes meeting mine. “I don’t want you to hurt. I’m just …”
Scared. I heard the word hang in the silence.
And then I did take his hand. “Me too. But we have each other. And if we can figure out how to work together, we’ll turn this place around.”
“How?” he asked quietly.
“Well, you have to trust me, like I said. You need to believe I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t in the farm’s best interest. Deep down, you know that, right?”
A nod.
“And you have to talk to me. Talk,” I repeated, “not yell. Not accuse. Not insult. Talk.”
A smile flickered across his lips. “You don’t make it easy to keep my cool.”
“We both have our work cut out for us, don’t we? But the weight of the farm doesn’t fall on you alone.”
“It doesn’t?” he asked, amused.
“I mean, like ninety-five percent of it is you,” I joked, “but you’re right—I need to consult you before I change anything.”
“You should have been doing that from the start, you know,” he noted wryly.
“So you could tell me no? Like the goats?”
“Which you went and got anyway.”
“Because you didn’t listen to me.”
“Because goats are assholes.”
“So are you.”
An amused noise.
“And we have to agree—and we’re going to shake on this, so listen close—we have to agree that we’re going to hear each other out.”
“Because I come to you looking for permission all the time?”