The pace is steady and ruthless. Chris drives the tractor that pulls the flatbed we walk beside. It’s not a blistering pace, but when having to heave heavy blocks of hay from the ground to the flatbed while keeping up with the trailer in a 110 heat index...it’s grueling.

I slam the hooks into yet another block of hay and drop it off at Ryan’s feet. He’s on the flatbed stacking. Besides driving the tractor, no job back here is easy. It’s the type that causes blisters that pop open and bleed. It’s the type that causes you to pass out at night without the thought of eating. It’s the type that drives you into your own mind and causes you to question who you are as a person...as a man, and I keep hearing my father’s words over again... You don’t know who you are.

The tractor halts and so do we. In front of me, Isaiah wipes his arm across his forehead and a new rain of sweat plummets down.

I glance up and there’s no more room for hay. It’s stacked six by six up and down. Now we head to the barn and begin the next torture of tossing into the loft. Isaiah swears as he removes his gloves and my hands feel just as raw and red as his.

Ryan offers me a hand. I accept it and pull myself up and onto the side of the stacked bales of hay. When he lets me go, he gives the same offer to Isaiah. Isaiah eyes him, but then accepts. The two of them have a strange relationship. Ryan loves Beth, Isaiah once loved her too, now Isaiah and Beth are friends. That makes Isaiah and Ryan friends by default.

It’s fucked-up logic, but fucked-up describes this group well.

Once Noah is on, Chris takes off for the barn. I support myself against the hay, my feet feel hot in my boots, matching the rest of me that’s sunburned. The flatbed jostles over the lazy hills and dips abruptly with the camouflaged holes. It takes time to reach the barn, but not enough for my body to have rested.

Work like this is nonstop, demanding, and constant. Chris’s grandfather pays us good money for a week’s work, but when I’m in the middle of doing it, I’m not sure it’s worth the cash.

Chris shuts off the engine when we reach the barn and it’s understood we’re taking a short break. My blood sugar was low this morning, and by the slight shake of my hands and weird sensation in my head, it’s still running low.

Every year, I’d make an excuse to go use the bathroom or wait until everyone was absorbed in conversation, be silent, and then quietly move away to test, but somehow that feels wrong—especially since, thanks to me, everyone knows about Abby.

Speaking of, she exits the blackness of the barn and steps into the light. She’s had hours of doing nothing but being lost in her own thoughts. Isaiah told me he swiped her cell. “How many days are left of living in the dark ages?”

“Four,” answers Chris while Ryan mutters, “Too many.”

Abby waves her hand in an annoyed way at the flatbed. “We’re curing cancer, can send people to the moon, but there isn’t an easier way to do this?”

“Nope,” Chris says, and then drinks continuously from a gallon jug filled with water.

“Barbaric,” she retorts and I snort. Hay baling is barbaric. Her getting shot and kidnapped—routine.

Abby glances at me, but there isn’t much love hanging out there. I jump down from the flatbed and go for my stuff. Next to it is my couple gallons of water. I also drink like I’ve walked the desert, then root through my pack to find what I need.

Conversation starts as everyone gathers in the shade of an old oak that’s towering near the barn. Chris opens up a cooler and tosses out cold sandwiches and packs of ice. Noah tears a hunk out of his sandwich and Abby picks at hers. I remain standing as everyone else sits and the nausea builds. This is going to suck.

I crack my neck to the side and crouch next to my pack. I pull out my tester and the sound of the needle popping out causes everyone to go silent. There’s a beep and my glucose level isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It’s within normal range, but with the amount of physical activity I’ve done, I would have bet my right leg it would be lower.

I do some math in my head, calculating how many carbs I’m about to put in my body, dig out my insulin from the cooler, and measure out my dosage. I stand, yank my shirt that had been sticking to me over my head, toss it to the ground, then inject the insulin into my arm.

I toss the needle and garbage into a container I keep for this shit, sink to the ground and open the jar of peanut butter I brought with me. Protein. Protein is what will keep me from tanking.

Like I’m a science experiment, everyone gawks. I’m brewing as if I am some chemistry lab beaker over a flame and I stab the spoon in the jar harder than needed.

“I thought diabetics had to take their shots in the stomachs,” Chris says.

I mumble through a glob of peanut butter, “You can use the arm, too.”

They’re staring. Every single one of them.

“Do you need a break?” Ryan asks. “If so—”

“Not any more than any of you. I have diabetes, not cancer. My body doesn’t make insulin so I have to shoot it into my body through a needle. That’s it.”

Each of them look away, chewing slowly because I’m not who they know anymore. I’m diabetic—that’s what I am to them now, what I’ll always be.

“Bet you can’t reach that bird’s nest,” says Abby.

My head jerks up and I glance around, wondering who she was talking to. My heart stops when her hazel eyes remain on me. A breeze blows over the pasture and it lifts several pieces of her long chestnut hair. Abby’s testing me...she could be saving me, but I don’t understand why.