Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 104 of 115

The letters sat finished on the table the next morning. Eduardo had read his to no one. Kiersten kept hers folded by her cup. The wedding was one day off now. He watched her across the window table and saw something he had not seen before. Her hands were shaking. "Kiersten," he said. "What is it?" She did not answer with her usual short line. She stared at the locket at her throat. Then her face broke. She covered it with both hands and began to cry. Not quiet tears. Deep ones, the kind held back for years. Eduardo did not move to fix it. He had learned that. He waited. "I'm here," he said. "Take your time." When she spoke, her voice came out cracked. "I loved you the whole time. Even when I left. I never stopped." She wiped her face and kept going. "Every day I hoped. I watched from far off. I told myself not to. I did it anyway." "You never said." "I couldn't." She looked at him, eyes red. "If I said it and you broke me again, I wouldn't come back from that. So I kept the wall up. I kept it up eight years." Eduardo set down his cup. His own throat went tight. "And now?" "Now it's gone." She laughed through the tears, a short wet sound. "I feel safe. I didn't know what that felt like. I kept waiting for the bottom to drop. It didn't." Then she stood. She crossed the small space between them and grabbed him. She held him so tight he felt her whole body shake against his. He wrapped his arms around her and held on. "I couldn't lose you a second time," she said into his shirt. "I couldn't. I built this whole wall just so I'd never have to feel that again." "You won't lose me." Eduardo pressed his hand flat against her back. "You're safe. I'm not going anywhere. Not when it's hard. Not ever." She cried harder then, and he let her. He did not shush her or rush her. He stood in the warm room they had built board by board and held the woman who had waited for him longer than he deserved. The kettle ticked. The dress and coat hung on their walls. When she finally pulled back, her eyes were clear. The wall was down. He could see it in her face, open in a way it had never been. "Tomorrow," she said, her voice steady again. "We say the chapel words. Then we read our letters." "Tomorrow," Eduardo said. She picked up her cup. Her hand did not shake now. Something between them had finished and something new had opened. The last wall was gone, and nothing was left to hide behind but each other.