Page 27 of Oops, I Fell For The Ranch Hand Next Door

“Louanne’s asking where you are.” Sloane settles onto the step beside me without invitation. The wood creaks under her added weight. “Said you were supposed to help prep lunch.”

“I forgot.” The lie is automatic, hollow. I didn’t forget. I couldn’t face walking into that kitchen and pretending everything was fine while my entire world tilted sideways.

Sloane’s quiet for a long moment. The silence stretches until it becomes its own pressure. Then: “Eli came by the office this morning. Looked like someone had kicked his dog.”

Guilt twists in my ribs. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me.” She’s direct without being unkind. “Whatever’s happening between you two, that’s yours to figure out. But Jessie?” She waits until I look at her, and her eyes are kind but firm. “Running away and healing sometimes look the same from the outside. You need to figure out which one you’re doing.”

She leaves. I stay on the porch watching the afternoon shadows stretch across the meadow. The question circles: Am I healing or hiding? The distinction should be obvious. Should have a clear answer. But every time I reach for certainty, it dissolves before I can grasp it.

My phone buzzes. Text from Dr. Meekins: Just checking in. Offer stands through the end of the week. We miss you.

The message sits on my screen, simple and professional. A lifeline back to the person I used to be before I shattered into pieces I can’t reassemble.

I type three different responses and delete them all. Then I set the phone face-down on the step and press my palms against my closed eyes until colors burst behind my lids. Pressure builds behind my temples in the beginning of a headache I’ve been earning since the argument. My jaw aches from clenching. My stomach is empty because I haven’t eaten since yesterday’s dinner, and hunger registers as just another discomfort to override.

What do I want? The question should be simple. It should have an obvious answer. But every time I reach for it, my mind spirals into calculations of cost and consequence instead of desire.

I want to stop measuring my worth by how much of myself I can give away until there’s nothing left. I want to stop being terrified that the moment I choose happiness, it’ll be ripped away. I want to stop waking up reaching across empty sheets toward warmth that isn’t there.

I want Eli.

The thought surfaces clear and undeniable. It terrifies me more than any other truth I’ve faced. Because wanting him means staying. Means choosing this life over the career I spent years building. It means risking everything on the possibility that I might be worth loving just as I am, broken edges and all.

And if I’m wrong, if I stay and it falls apart, I’ll have lost the hospital and him and any sense of who I am in the wreckage.

The sun crawls across the sky. My phone buzzes again. I don’t check it. Instead, I sit on the porch of a cabin I’ve been living in for less than a month, trying to focus on things other than the effort it takes to put one foot in front of the other. Trying to remember what choosing myself might actually mean.

I look up at the sound of boots on gravel. Eli stands at the edge of the path, backlit by golden hour sun. The sight of him makes my ribs contract. He doesn’t approach. Doesn’t speak. Just stands there with his hands loose at his sides and an expression on his face I can’t decode. Waiting, maybe. Or saying goodbye.

Three seconds pass. Five. Ten. The silence between us is its own language, speaking truths neither of us can voice.

Then he turns and walks back toward his cabin without a word. I track his retreat. His shoulders carry tension visible even from this distance. He moves like every step costs him, like walking away is the hardest thing he’s done, and I’m the reason for that pain. The knowledge sits in my belly like a stone, but still I don’t move. Don’t call out. Don’t close the distance and tell him I’m choosing him, choosing this, choosing to believe I might be worth the risk.

I stay on the porch, counting his footsteps until they fade. Counting the ways I’m failing everyone, including myself.

My phone screen lights up. Another message from Dr. Meekins: Sleep on it. Call me tomorrow.

Tomorrow. The deadline looms like the end of borrowed time. I pick up the phone and stare at the screen until the words blur and my eyes burn and I have to blink to clear my vision. My thumb hovers over the call button. I catalog everything that hangs in the balance: Eli’s hands on my face this morning, the way he said I’m trying to love you like it was the simplest truth in the world, how he walked away because I couldn’t promise to stay. The hospital. The ER. The version of myself who knew exactly who she was even as she burned down to ash. The nineteen-year-old’s mother screaming why while I did compressions on a body that was already gone.

Then the image of myself standing in a wildflower meadow, feeling like I was trespassing on someone else’s peace. Eli saying you’re allowed to exist without an emergency to solve.

The phone goes dark in my hand. I set it on the step beside me and wrap my arms around my knees. The question circles: What do I want?

The answer rests in my soul, clear and terrifying and impossible to ignore.

I want to stay.

But wanting and choosing are different animals. I can’t tell if I’m brave enough to risk everything on the belief that I might deserve the life I’m building here.

The sun touches the horizon, bleeding orange and pink across the sky, painting the meadow in shades of fire and honey. I track its descent while the temperature drops and evening settles over the ranch. I stay on the porch because moving requires making a decision I’m not ready to make.

Somewhere in the distance, Eli’s cabin glows with lamplight. I can see it through the trees, warm and inviting and exactly where I want to be. The wildflowers on my railing have started to droop, petals curling inward as the day’s heat fades. He cut them for me this morning after I pushed him away. He kept showing up even when I couldn’t promise to stay. The gesture sits in my peripheral vision, accusation and invitation in equal measure.

I don’t move toward his cabin. Don’t acknowledge the flowers. Don’t call Dr. Meekins back or delete her number or make any of the decisions that would move me forward instead of keeping me suspended in this terrible in-between.

I stay on my porch in the gathering dark, phone beside me and question unanswered, and let myself sit in the uncertainty of not knowing what comes next. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be brave enough to choose. Tonight, I exist in the space between staying and leaving. I try to forgive myself for not having an answer yet, for hurting the man who really looked at me, broken parts and beautiful alike, and decided I was worth keeping anyway.