The morning air held the scent of iron and pine, sharp and dry. We broke camp without speaking, the silence between us no longer delicate, but dense—as if conversation had weight we couldn’t afford to carry. I watched Billy struggle with the cinch strap of his saddle and didn’t offer to help. He didn’t ask. That’s where we were now: side by side, yet each of us in separate stories.
The desert stretched out before us, pale and endless. I should have found beauty in it—the colors, the shape of the light—but my eyes refused to meet the world. I rode like a ghost, my thoughts folded into themselves. Billy hummed under his breath, tuneless but persistent, a signal fire I refused to turn toward.
By midday, we came across a dry creekbed riddled with animal tracks. Billy squatted down to examine them, muttering something about coyotes. I stood a few paces back, trying not to exist. Eventually he looked up at me and grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You know,” he said, brushing off his hands, “you’re real bad at pretending you’re fine.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how. He didn’t push.
That night, we made camp beneath a stunted cedar tree. Billy cooked—badly—and we ate in silence. When he finally drifted to sleep, his back to me, I lay awake under a sky I no longer trusted. The stars used to whisper truths. Now they only watched.
