Suddenly, my wet eyes were met with a wooden fence. I had reached the end of this stretch of grapevines. Instead of turning around and facing our ending like a grown adult, I kicked my heels off, threw them over the fence, and hurled my body upward, onto the other side.
Apparently, using my mother’s Peloton bike twice a month hadn’t adequately prepared me for a five-foot fence-hop. My cheek hit the sandy ground with a thud. I winced, blinking back the night’s swirling blue-and-yellow sky above, which lit up a gorgeous stretch of empty paddocks and horse stables.
I stumbled upward, seeing stars in my eyes as I held my side—scalding pain stinging inside my ribs. I snatched my shoes and lumbered toward the row of horse stalls in front of me, exhaling under the dark wooden roof, which housed cooler air, with the romance of hay and horse shit swirling inside. There was a horse for each respective stall, and I was relieved to find most of them sleeping and uninterested in my presence. I leaned my back against one of the stall doors, letting the metal lines edge into my back—cold against my sweltering skin.
A white miniature pony stuck her head out of the opening in her stall, jolting my body from its moment of peace. Her excitable wide brown eyes were just inches from mine, and while the other horses were getting their eight hours of sleep, this lady was eager to party. I took in the bronze plaque on the stable door, reading: DOLLY. Under her name there was a framed newspaper article all about Dolly, who was apparently W?lffer Estate Stables’ mascot, and the happiest bitch on the block.
“How’s it going?” I asked her, breathless.
She tilted her head at my sandy face with squinted eyes, then looked sadly down at her hoofs.
“Yeah, me, too.”
I wiped the sweat from my temple, my cheeks red hot, my fingers tingling, and my insides racing. I clenched my eyes shut, and my chest pounded harder as I heard his heavy footsteps echo on the barn’s concrete floor.
“Fence hopping?”
I peered up to find Garrett panting in front of me. He caught his breath with his hands on his knees, then shook his sweat-soaked head at me as he leaned the back of his neck against the stall opposite me. I was grateful that he wasn’t coming any closer, terrified that if Garrett set one wingtip shoe inside my personal bubble, it would break me. At the same time, I longed for him to come the fuck closer and throw my body against the stable doors.
I wiped the fresh sand off my arm, biting my lip, choosing to be passive-aggressive. His blue eyes apologetically searched my face as he took deep breaths in and out.
We stared at each other for a tense minute, until a beautiful black mare poked her head through the opening in the stall next to Garrett. He turned toward her to tenderly pet her nose. His eyes stayed on the mare as his lips opened.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you. Not like that,” he said, just low enough so I could barely hear it.
I waited for his eyes to find mine. They steadied on me as he loosened the tie around his neck with an exhale, clearing his throat and standing up straighter.
“You followed me all the way here to tell me you shouldn’t have kissed me?” I asked, incredulous fire on my tongue. “You’ve had weeks.” I held up my phone. “It works, you should try it.”
“It was a mistake. I made a mistake that night, and I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You showed up to my birthday and let me kiss you when you had no intention of changing the state of our relationship. And not for nothing, we talked about showing up on my thirty-fifth birthday when it would mean forever—not as a way of gifting me emotional turmoil.”
Garrett began to pace in a tiny circle, as if he were tortured. I stared directly at him, my eyes cold, my chest pounding with fury. He didn’t have a right to be the one clenching his fist. He had me in the palm of his fucking hand—he always did, and he knew it.
“I don’t know how to lose you, and I don’t know how to be with you,” Garrett finally said.
I shook my head, narrowing my eyes onto his. “What does that even mean?”
He shifted uncomfortably, placing one hand in his pocket and opening and closing his mouth.
“Just say it, Garrett. Just fucking say it.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
“Maggie, it’s not like you haven’t turned me down.”
I felt my diaphragm expanding with anger, with words fighting to escape from my lungs. Finally, they lost a battle with civility.
“Fuck you,” I said, tears making their way from my throat to my eyes. “You’ve only hovered around my lips when it’s been conveniently the most inconvenient time for one of us. You never go all-in when the timing is right, you just dip one toe past the line when you know the outcome can’t be successful.”
“That’s not true. And you know it,” he said.
“You can’t hold my thirtieth birthday against me. That doesn’t count—”
“IT COUNTS FOR ME! I WAS IN LOVE WITH YOU.”
The words left his mouth forcefully, so loudly that they echoed against the dark stable walls, bringing surrounding horses up to their feet. The horses poked their noses through the open stall windows, wide eyes darting between myself and Garrett, as if they were waiting for my reply.
Garrett’s body tightened, like I was weaving it in a knot and pulling harder and harder. His face went red, and he threw his hands in his hair, exasperated.
“We—you and I—we should have happened years ago. But…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
I took a step toward him, anger in my throat.
“Finish the sentence.”
The vein on his neck was pulsing and he studied me as if he were staring down the barrel of a gun.
“But what, Garrett? You could have had me. Fuck”—I threw my hands in the air—“you could have me. I’m standing right in front of you telling you that I’ve been in love with you for twelve years,” I cracked, tears falling. “Even when I couldn’t be with you…I loved you.”
He opened his mouth, with anguish pulling his face down.
“I’ll never be enough for you.”
He said it so softly that it took me a moment to piece the words together.
“That’s…that’s a bullshit excuse. It’s like…like telling someone they ‘deserve better,’ when really, you don’t want them the way they want you, and you’re trying to be nice about it.”
“Goddamnit—MAGGIE, I WANT YOU,” he exploded.
Garrett stepped toward me, now inches from my shaking body, his wet eyes meeting mine. “I hate that I’m not enough for you. I hate that I’m not more like you—you know I’m not what you want. I gave up the things you love—and I know you look down on me for it.” I shook my head desperately to argue, but he kept going, pain wrapped around every vowel. “I hate that we’re not together. I hate that I can’t be brave enough to just reach out and grab you and never let go. Every moment I spend with you, I love you, and then I go home, and I hate myself.”
The tears strangled my throat, and I felt my heart twisting like a damp rag. I’d imagined this a hundred different ways—how it would feel when Garrett said those three words to me. The skies would part, doves would cry, it would be biblical. This was a punch in the gut. “I love you,” with a qualifier.