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I spent more time in the barn before I returned to the main house. I thought for sure Austin was done with the phone calls he needed to make, but he was still at it when I found him in the office. I was going to leave him alone, but he got up from the desk and motioned for me to join him on the couch. I listened to him finalize arrangements to test drive some car, and then he hung up.
“How’s my beautiful girl doing? You get your fill of all the animals?”
“No, not really.” I pouted playfully, laying my head against him.
“You didn’t? You mean we should hold you hostage here and tell your school you’re not coming back?”
“You would do that?” I asked eagerly.
He laughed and said, “Sure, if that’s what you want.” He moved us apart so he could look at me. “Nova, what’s going on? You don’t want to be at school? I mean, I sensed you were a little disheartened about leaving, and you even said you were bummed out, but I thought you wanted to be at school.”
“I do, I just...I’m not sure how I feel.”
He bobbed his head. “You love working here so it’s hard to leave and go back to school, right?”
“Not only that, but I feel so misplaced right now,” I finally admitted. “I feel like I know what I should do, but it’s just hard because I don’t want it to be that way.”
“What way?”
“I know I should finish school, but I guess the more appealing choice would be to keep working here instead.”
I could tell he was surprised to hear me say that. All along I’d been saying I wasn’t going to give up my education. But there was also something I wanted to hear him say, and if he did, it could very well change everything for me.
“Well, what’s telling you to keep working here?” he asked. “Your head or your heart? What’s swaying your decision?”
I guess that was a fair question, but I felt at a loss with either answer. But I truthfully answered, “My heart, I guess.”
“Then you need to finish school.”
“What?”
“You know in your head that you should, you already said so, but being torn between what you want and what you know you should do is what trips a lot of people up. You go with the logical plan, Nova. You’ve got it figured out, so just stick with it.”
Over a month ago, he wasn’t so enthused about “the plan.” What changed? Now he wanted me to stick with my plan of four-and-a-half more years of school? Four years. That seemed so long to me now. How come? How did my plans suddenly change without me realizing it?
“Maybe I should just finish this semester and then return here full time,” I said. “I’m not sure if I have it in me to go four years of vet school.”
“Sure you do. You’ll sail through it because you’re that smart.” He gently tapped my forehead.
“But what if I don’t want to do it anymore? What if I’d rather just...be here. With you.”
He stared at me for quite a while, and then I think he finally got the gist of what I was hinting at. He seemed to falter at what to say though, so eventually he replied, “Nah, you’re just having second thoughts. You’ve always wanted to finish school, Nova. You’re only hitting a little speed bump right now.”
I could feel myself deflate. Six weeks ago, I wanted to hear that kind of encouragement. I wanted to hear him support me a little more than he actually had. Now, when I wanted him to tell me that he felt the same way too—that we should take the next step in our relationship—he was only telling me what I didn’t want to hear.
“What?” he asked when I stood from the couch. “What did I say wrong?”
“Nothing—”
“Don’t give me that.” He scoffed. “Your face, like, literally fell. Why? Talk to me.”
He stood too, and made me face him, but I was too afraid to be honest aloud. Obviously, his feelings had changed within the last few weeks and he no longer needed, or wanted, that kind of sacrifice from me. But it didn’t even feel like a sacrifice anymore because I realized it’s what I truly wanted.
“Nova, you’re weirding me out right now.” He smiled cautiously. “This has to do with school? Are you feeling a little frustrated about it, or even overwhelmed? You’re a smart girl, babe. You can get through it.”
“It doesn’t have to do with school,” I finally groaned.
He was surprised by my tone. “Okay, so what does it have to do with?”
“You.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Okay. And what about me?”
“I love you.”
“Well I love you, too. And that’s why you’re pissed off right now?”
“I’m not pissed off.” I partially smiled.
He smiled too, but continued to search my face for an explanation. “If this has to do with what we talked about a while back... Nova, I don’t expect you to give anything up for me. That was really selfish of me to ask that, and I’m sorry I was so stupid about it. It wasn’t fair.”
“Maybe it was.”
“Hmm?”
“Maybe it was the right thing to ask, but you didn’t quite finish it the right way.”
He tilted his head with confusion. “What do you mean? Finish what?”
“Your request. You wanted me to consider giving up school to be with you. Because of how I feel about you right now, maybe it really was the right thing to do. But maybe you should have added something more to it. There should have been one more thing that would have made the offer complete.”
He stared at me for a long time, and even though I knew he just had to know what I was talking about, my heart was starting to panic because his reaction wasn’t what I wanted it to be.
“Nova, I...”
He paused again, and that’s when I felt the severity of what I’d just done. He didn’t know how to tell me no. At first, I was a little too stunned to believe it, but then I was angry with myself for being so careless. But how could that be careless? I tried to reason with myself. What was wrong with talking about marriage? We’d mentioned “our future” before... Isn’t that what we were both referring to?
“I better get going,” I finally mumbled. I wasn’t sure how long I could take the torture of his silence, and fleeing the scene was my only option.
“Don’t go,” he said, grabbing my hand. “I’m sorry, I just...I don’t know. I’m an idiot when it comes to talking about stuff like this. I don’t want to disappoint you.”
“By telling me you’d rather not marry me.”
“No, that’s not it.” He sighed. “It’s just...I...”
“Austin—”
“Okay, look. Yeah, that night by the creek I really considered bringing it up. But it didn’t sound like that was what you wanted. I guess I decided you were right, and I shouldn’t have asked you to give up your education—”
“But if you had just added that, maybe it would have made the difference.”
“And what if it didn’t? I didn’t want you to feel like you had to make a choice between the two. Do you realize how that might have sounded at the time? ‘Nova, if you choose not to go to school, we can get married.’”
I guess I saw his point. “Okay, I understand how that might have felt, but the important thing is that I don’t feel that way, Austin. I look at what we have, our options, and see things clearer now. I guess it took making the wrong choice for me to realize what the right choice was.”
“I don’t think you made the wrong choice. I just think...maybe you’re feeling a little homesick right now after being away for a week. You need to give yourself some time to adjust.”
It was my turn to be silent, and I think I felt a tiny little break starting to form in my heart. I never would have had this conversation with him had I known where it was going to lead.
“Nova,” he said, softly gathering my hair in his hands. “I don’t want you to lose your focus because of me, okay? I don’t want you to end up resenting me because I made you give up your education.”
“You’re not making me give up anything. I’ve already made my choice. I just need to hear you agree.”
He just stared at me.
Because he couldn’t say it.