Page 30 of Heartland

“No, just time.”

Ah, the most precious resource. “I’ll plan accordingly.”

* * *

It’s a hundred miles from Weston back to Moo U in Burlington, and the drive takes two and a half hours, because the roads in Vermont don’t always go where you need them to.

Chastity reads her econ textbook in the passenger’s seat. I’m glad one of us can make good use of the time.

It isn’t easy being Chastity. She’s trying to tackle college with only a GED. Everyone wants her to make it—especially Leah and Isaac. They never got a chance to go to college.

It’s a lot of pressure. I’m familiar with pressure, and I’m not a fan.

This morning when Griffin and I were milking cows together, he told me a long story about why the price of winter feed keeps going up. I nodded and said “uh-huh” in all the right places, because I already know these details.

But I worry that Griffin is trying to lay the groundwork for shutting down the dairy. He already sold off our other herd when the lease on the land got too expensive. These days we only farm on our own land. But Griffin might be sick of cows. He’s probably already done the math on how many more apple trees he could plant if we didn’t need to graze cows.

I always thought I’d grow up to be a farmer like my dad and then my brother. I never even questioned it. But now I wonder if there’s room for me in this scenario.

And he won’t stop asking me to pick a major. If I pick something that requires me to go to graduate school, I think he’d put my cows on the block the next day.

But all this deep thinking is depressing me, so I turn up the radio and ponder another question—which restaurant should I take Kaitlyn to later? I shouldn’t spend money on fancy dinners, but I deserve a little splurge once in a while. And it will keep the girlfriend happy.

My phone rings just as we reach the outskirts of Burlington. “Could you put that on speaker?” I ask Chastity.

“Sure.” She grabs the phone out of the cupholder and answers the call.

“Hey man,” Rickie says as I slow down for a traffic light. “Good weekend?”

“Totally.”

“Got a minute?”

“What do you need?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Rickie says, “I saw Kaitlyn last night.”

“Yeah?” That’s nothing unusual. They travel in the same circles. I take my foot off the brake and follow the traffic through the light. “And?”

“I saw her liplocked to a lacrosse player.”

Chastity takes a quick breath. But it honestly takes a moment for me to realize what he’s saying. “Wait, what? She was with another guy?”

“Sad, but true,” he confirms.

“Where was this?”

“A party. I was in the basement of the multicultural house, smoking a bowl.”

Of course he was.

“And there she is, sitting on this guy’s lap. No shame.”

I feel sudden pressure in the center of my chest. I’d been wondering why I didn’t get any calls or texts from her last night. And mine went unanswered. “What then? Do I even want to hear this part?”

“She left with him.”

My heart starts to hammer. It’s actually pretty hard to get me angry, but I swear my blood is already simmering. She was in my bed on Thursday night. And in someone else’s by Saturday?