Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 66 of 115

His book was clean and his hands were free. But when Eduardo woke, he found he did not know what to do with them. He wanted to court Kiersten. He wanted to build something honest with her. Yet every plan he made felt like his old plans—a way to steer her, to win. He had learned to stop taking. He had not learned how to give love without controlling it. So he drove to the feast hall, where the elders gathered, and asked the town for help. Inside, vines climbed the tall stone walls and light fell across long tables. Mother Angel stood near the door, her curls bright, her hands open the way they always were when someone needed her. She had signed his ledger for a year. She had watched him fail and rise. "I want to court her right," Eduardo said to the room. "But I only know the wrong way. Tell me how a man loves without owning." Mother Angel smiled. "You are afraid your wanting will become your grabbing," she said softly. "That fear is good. It means you are watching yourself." From a bench in the corner, an old woman rose. Her white hair fell past her shoulders. She was the Wise One, the elder who read the field of the town, who felt grief and change before words were spoken. The room went quiet as she stepped forward. She looked at Eduardo the way a person reads weather. "You still think love is a thing you do to her," the Wise One said. Eduardo held still. "Then what is it?" "A thing you offer. Then you let go." She pointed at his hands. "You want a plan. A plan is control. You cannot plan another person's heart." Eduardo's chest tightened. She had named the exact trap he stood in. "Then how do I begin?" "Ask her what she wants," the Wise One said. "Not what you can give. Give her the question. Then obey the answer, even if it hurts." Mother Angel laid a hand on his arm. "Court her by asking, not deciding," she said. "Let her set the pace. Every step, you ask. Every step, she chooses." Eduardo saw it then. His old love had been a fence he built around her. This was the opposite. He would build nothing. He would only ask, and wait, and let her lead. "I will ask her," he said. "I won't plan past her yes." The Wise One nodded once and sat back down. "Then you have started," she said, and went quiet. Eduardo left the hall with no plan and no ring and no speech. He had one question to carry to Kiersten's porch: what do you want? For the first time, his hands were free and empty on purpose. He drove toward her, ready to ask and ready to let her answer, whatever the answer was.