Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 103 of 115

The dress hung on one wall now. The coat hung on the other. The wedding was two days off. But this morning Eduardo woke before the light and found Kiersten already up, boiling the kettle. The table by the window held two cups. She poured for them both. He sat across from her the way he did every morning. Only today felt different. There were no debts left to clear, no boards to nail. There was only the two of them and the quiet. "I want to tell you something," Eduardo said. His voice shook. He let it. The old Eduardo would have cleared his throat and made it smooth. "Not a speech. Just the truth." Kiersten set down her cup. "Then say it." "For eight years I ran from needing you. I called it strength. It was fear." He looked at his own hands, then at her face. "This house isn't proof I changed. You are. Every morning you sit here and I don't have to perform. I didn't know a person could feel that." Kiersten watched him. She did not soften her eyes. "Keep going." "This marriage isn't me winning you back. I'm done trying to win you." He breathed. "It means I stay. When it's hard. When I'm scared. I don't run and I don't make you small so I feel big. That's what I'm promising." She was quiet a long time. The kettle ticked as it cooled. Then she reached across and touched the locket at her throat, the rose gold one he had given her empty. "I feel endings," Kiersten said. "My whole life. I feel them before anyone says a word." She met his eyes. "I don't feel one now. I keep waiting for it. It doesn't come." Eduardo did not reach for her. He had learned that too. "Then let me ask you something." "Ask." "At the chapel, in front of the town, we'll say what they expect us to say." He paused. "But I want our real words to be ours. Written. In our own hands. Not for the crowd. For each other." Kiersten looked at the two cups between them. She looked at the dress on the wall. "Letters," she said. "We each write one. We read them. No one else hears." "Those are our vows," Eduardo said. "The chapel words are for the town. The letters are for us." She did not smile wide. She never did. But something in her shoulders let go. "Yes." She found paper. She set a sheet in front of him and kept one for herself. They sat at the table and began to write, not looking at each other's pages. The pen felt strange in Eduardo's hand. For once he was not hiding a word. The wedding was in two days. But their truest promises were already being written, in silence, by the window where their life had begun.