"No, just stop assuming everyone's an enemy before they prove it." Cole thought about that. "Hard habit to break." "I know, but you should try. We're building something here, Cole."
"That means learning to live with people, not just survive them." She was right, though it grated on him to admit it. He'd spent so long treating the world as hostile that he'd forgotten there were other ways to move through it. Watching Kaya work, seeing how she balanced firmness with respect, made him realize how much he still had to learn. Lyra and Sani, meanwhile, were thriving on the freight runs.
They'd taken to the work with an ease that surprised everyone, including the freight company owner, who'd been skeptical about hiring women until they proved they could handle a team of horses as well as any man. Within a month, they were getting assigned the longer, more lucrative routes, and the money started adding up faster than Cole had expected. But the work kept them apart more than together. Days would pass where Cole barely saw Lyra and Sani except in passing, a quick meal, a brief conversation before one of them had to leave again. It started to feel less like a partnership and more like four people who happened to share the same address.
One night after a particularly long shift at the mine, Cole returned to the boarding house to find all three women waiting for him. They sat around the table in their shared room, and the expression on their faces told him something was wrong. "What happened?" he asked. "Nothing happened," Kaya said. "But we need to talk."
Cole sat down slowly. "About what?" "About this." Lyra gestured at the room, the space between them. "About how we're barely seeing each other."
"About how this doesn't feel like what we agreed to." "We're working. That's what we agreed to." "No," Sani said quietly. "We agreed to build something together."
"Right now, we're just working in the same town." Cole frowned. "What do you want me to do? Quit the mine? We need the money."
Kaya said, "What's the point of saving for a future if we're not living in the present?" "The point is having that future." "At what cost?" Lyra leaned forward. "We didn't follow you for ten years just to become strangers who share a roof."
Cole felt frustration rising in his chest. "So what's the solution? We all take the same jobs, work half as much, and save half as fast?" "Maybe," Kaya said. "Or maybe we find work we can do together. There's got to be something."
"Like what?" "I don't know. But sitting here arguing about it isn't helping." The conversation devolved from there, voices rising, old frustrations surfacing. Lyra accused Cole of caring more about money than people.
Cole shot back that money was how they'd survive long enough to care about anything. Sani tried to mediate, and Kaya eventually stood up and walked out, slamming the door behind her. Silence fell like a hammer. Cole sat there staring at the closed door, feeling the weight of failure settling over him. This was exactly what he'd been afraid of.