Chapter 29 - Chase Me, Cowboy

It’s getting cold in Wyoming. I wear the clothes he bought me almost every day, washing them at night so I can put them on again come morning. It’s pathetic. But it’s warmer than my other clothes. I like to think it smells a little bit like the windswept, salty cliffs in Maine. Some nights, I wonder whether he’s up there now, walking around that big, dim house all alone. Or worse, with someone else. Someone a lot less complicated than I am.

Sabrina and I work on planning the wedding. It’ll be in the spring, in the yard, beneath the two oak trees to the west of the house. She says she wants a small wedding, but Coen has a handful of friends and acquaintances he’d like to be included. It all adds up to about thirty people in total. Of course, one of them is Jamie. There’s no world where his best friend, agent, and basically brother isn’t invited to his wedding.

“Are you okay with that?” she asks.

We’re at the table, scrapbooks laid out and coffee cups steaming.

“What?”

She frowns. “Being my maid of honor. You know Coen will want Jamie as his best man.”

I didn’t actually think about that, but she’s right. Looking down quickly, I shrug, like it doesn’t bother me.

Oh, it bothers me. Right to my bones.

“I’m an adult. I don’t care,” I say primly.

“There won’t be a weird vibe?” She doesn’t take her eyes off me.

“Nope, I chose to come back,” I say, getting up and pretending I need a warm-up. It’s giving me a chance to face the microwave, not Sabrina. “I’m over him; it just never worked out.”

She doesn’t say anything, but Sabrina knows me better than to believe me. I know that. I do appreciate that she doesn’t pursue it, though.

Later that night, I’m going down the hall with a cup of tea and my nightly chocolate bar and hear concerned whispers from behind their bedroom door.

Rolling my eyes, I walk on by.

I’m fine, really, I am.

The next morning, I dress in my same old pink sweatsuit and pull on a flannel coat, jamming my feet into my boots. Not exactly a fashion statement, but functional. From the kitchen, I gather a handful of apples and put them into my pockets. The sun is just peeking through the trees, casting blue light through the windows. Sabrina used to get up around this time, then came Coen. Now she stays in her room with him until chore time. I can’t blame her, I’d do the same thing if I wasn’t single.

It’s quiet. I pop a cup in the coffee maker and hit the button, cringing at the squeal. Then, mug in hand, I slip out the back door and walk across the frosty lawn.

I wonder what he’s doing right now, at this moment. We’re in different time zones, if he’s at home, that is, but it’s hard to know. His life is a blur of planes, trains, and cars back and forth across the country. Does he even know what time zone he’s in?

I wonder if I could do that, really. The idea of getting a shot at pursuing music sounds like a dream. But because I know Coen and Jamie, I can’t help but think of all the negatives.

Never being home.

The constant pressure.

The loss of privacy.

Ever since I left, I weigh all those things in my head. But I never come to any conclusion. It’s hard to choose if it’s worth it because I’ve never known what those negatives are like in reality.

He does. He tried to tell me.

I pause outside the barn, jamming the mug and apples into the crook of my arm, and pulling open the door. Inside, it’s cool, dark, and sweet like the hay stacked upstairs. The door rolls aside, making a little crash. It rouses the horses; I catch their hooves rustling in their bedding. Samson pokes his head over the railing, closely followed by Gabe. One of the new horses, Matty, dips his bay nose into the hall and whinnies.

I wonder if he would like slow mornings like this. When he was here, he went out and helped Coen with the chores. But could he live like this and appreciate it? The way Coen does, because they seem as different in that way as Sabrina and me.

After I feed the horses, I sit on a straw bale in the middle of the hall and listen.

It’s so, so quiet.

I wonder if it’s quiet where he is. Maybe if I imagine him as hard as I can, he’ll feel my thoughts like a little nudge. I close my eyes tight and remember how it felt to stand outside his house on the cliffs with the wind whipping. With him so near, it felt as if nobody else in the world existed. I remember it like it’s happening now, I can almost taste the salt on my lips.

Indescribable.

That night, I go through the file cabinet in my closet until I find a stack of thin faux leather notebooks. I take one out, remembering how Coen always keeps one of these folded in half in his back pocket. Sometimes, he takes it out and writes something down, a concentrated frown on his forehead.

I climb into bed and pick up a pen, opening the notebook. Usually, when I try to write my own music, I stare at the page with the melody in my head, but no words. Now, the words spill out like I’m a vessel and they’re water flowing through me. It’s a rush, it’s also a relief. All the longing, the loneliness, the little nagging thought that I don’t belong here, all come out on the page. The words paint a picture of the coast, of a lonely girl searching. Forever searching, never finding.

It’s depressing, but it’s raw and real.

I scribble out the title—Last Cowboy on the Coast—and slam it shut.

It’s past midnight. I set the notebook on the bedside table and roll to my side. My phone sits beside it. Never lighting up with a message from him. I didn’t think it would. I hoped it wouldn’t, and then, I’m disappointed when it doesn’t.

The next day, everyone is gone, leaving me alone at the ranch. I make myself a cup of coffee, crawl into one of the sweatsuits he bought me, and start working on the melody. It’s already interwoven into the lines I heard in my head while I was writing. Everything disappears around me and time flies by, hours gone in seconds. Coen’s truck coming up the drive startles me out of my trance. Everything hurts. My fingers are all cramped up. Maybe I should invest in a laptop with a keyboard if I’m going to be doing this much writing.

I put the notebook away and hang my feet off the bed, thinking.

Maybe I was right. There’s something about music that heals me.

I don’t think I could give up the opportunity to do this.