Page 58 of The Inevitable Us

Rory: Oh, what’s the name of the ranch?

Rosalie: Small Paws Ranch.

Rory: Are you serious?

Rosalie: As a heart attack. The owner has all these rescued farm animals. It’s insane.

Rory: Dad’s still pissed, by the way. He was so busy being mad at you he didn’t yell when Nevaeh spent the night last night. He just said “not happening” and told me if I wanted to do that, I could get my own place.

Rosalie: Are you going to get your own place?

Rory: Yeah, soon with Austin.

Rory: Call me later?

Rosalie: If I’m not dead asleep in my bed.

After I finish feeding the animals, taking the time to pet the domesticated ones as I promised Taylee I would, I head back to the cabin to spend the evening practicing my cuts.

Three hours, and one gigantic pile of vegetables later, I’m confident I’ve made a mistake with my choice of schools. The question is, what am I going to do about it.

Sawyer: You done with classes yet?

Rosalie: Just walking out and about to head to the ranch.

Sawyer: Stop by and get me first. I’m at the airport.

I look up, surprised at his text, and with quick feet, hurry to unlock his SUV and drive to the airport. When I see him waiting outside for me, I park and rush into his arms. I haven’t seen him in four days, and it feels like four weeks. “Why are you home?” I ask.

“I hired two new guys with a lot of experience while I was in Los Angeles. I convinced Taylee to keep them there. I’m tired of sleeping without you in our bed.”

He leans down, claiming my lips for his own. He drapes his arm around my shoulders and rolls the bag behind him. The trunk is unlocked, so he stores his luggage in the back. “Let’s go home?”

He holds my hand in his while we drive. At a red light, he stops to kiss the palm and sees it red and swollen. “What happened to your hands?” he asks, his forehead creased with a deep vee.

“Chopping,” I huff out. They’re still red and tender from hours of cutting up produce. Small calluses were beginning to form, but not quickly enough.

He scowls down at them. “I’ll heat something up for us tonight.”

“I understand learning the chemistry of cooking and the math. I don’t like it, but I understand why we have to learn it. It’s the stupid kitchen labs and learning the front of the house I despise,” I confess to Sawyer later that evening, once I’m done caring for the animals on the ranch.

We’re lying on his couch together, my feet in his lap, and he’s rubbing the sore spots. He stops for a moment to look at a blister and scowls. “Are your shoes the right size?

What?“Yes, Sawyer, my shoes fit properly. It’s all the time I spend on my feet in those shoes!”

He laughs at me and moves onto the other foot, kneading away. “If you hate it this much, do you think you’ll enjoy working in a kitchen?”

Biting my lip, I answer softly, “I don’t know, Sawyer. I only made a decision because I was pushed into it. Mom and Dad wanted me to choose before I was ready, and then….”

And then you kept telling me to go to Knoxville.

He runs his hands down my leg in slow strokes. “If you don’t like it, and you’re miserable, figure out what you want to do. But until then, I think you need to give it a little bit more time.”

Moving my feet out of his lap, I scoot up and move from lying to sitting on the couch, sideways facing Sawyer. “I already went to an academic counselor. The money from the semester is gone, no matter what I do, and I can’t start anywhere else until the Spring. I just need to wait it out, I think.”

IneverthoughtIwould learn to hate something as simple as the kitchen basics my mom taught us as small children. I used to love it. Now I know it was slow-paced cooking with my family I adored.

The biggest thing I’ve learned in my (very brief) time in culinary school is that the hours are very long and lonely. I’ll almost certainly have to work all nights and weekends, the opposite of my family, current and future. It’s the part where I’m with my family that I love, working in tandem to put together a meal before we enjoy it together. A job that isolates me further from my family isn’t what I want. No, I’m changing my major.

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