Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 61 of 115

Friday came. Kiersten walked up to Eduardo's porch as the sun dropped low. She stopped at the steps and did not climb them. Eduardo saw it in her shoulders. She had heard about the feast hall. The whole town knew now. She looked at his house, then at the road behind her, where anyone could pass and watch. "They're all looking," she said. "Every place I go to see you feeds their talk." "I know," Eduardo said. "I made it worse. I stood up in the hall and said your name." She crossed her arms. Her tattoos ran dark along her wrists. "I didn't come here to be a story." Eduardo waited. He wanted to fix it fast, the way he used to, with a clever plan. He held that back. "You pick," he said. "Wherever we meet, I'll meet you there. Or nowhere. Your call." Kiersten looked at him a long moment. Then she stepped up onto the porch. She sat on the top step of the broken house he had rebuilt from ruin. The old boards did not sag now. He had fixed them himself. "Here," she said. "On the porch. In the open. Let them look all they want." Eduardo sat too, a full arm's length away. He did not move closer. She stared at the yard. Her voice stayed flat, but her hands shook. "I'm scared to let you back in. You want to know the truth. The truth is I'm scared to be touched again. By anybody." Eduardo said nothing. He let her have the room. "You made me feel like a thing you used," she said. "You said I looked at other men. I never did. I only ever wanted you to be there. You made that into a crime." She turned and met his eyes. "My heart was clean. You made me carry your lie for years." "You were clean," Eduardo said. "I knew it and I called you dirty to save myself. That was mine, not yours." Kiersten nodded slowly. She did not soften, but she did not leave. "Then we do it here. On the step. No hidden rooms. If the town wants to watch a man and woman sit apart and talk plain, let them." "Agreed," Eduardo said. They sat in the cold until the sun was gone. She read his ledger by the porch light, and he did not reach for her, not once. A neighbor's cart rolled past. Kiersten did not flinch this time. The watching had stopped being a weapon. When she stood to go, she paused at the bottom step. "You didn't touch me," she said. "You didn't even try." "No," Eduardo said. "Good," she said. "Do that again next week." She walked into the dark. Eduardo stayed on the porch. The gossip could not touch a thing done in the open. But now she had told him her deepest fear, and next week she would come to see if he could sit with it without breaking her.