Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 67 of 115

Eduardo drove toward Kiersten's porch with one question and no plan. But halfway there, his hands started to sweat on the wheel. He knew himself. A question could still be a trap. He could ask what she wanted and then steer her answer with his face, his silence, one wrong word. So he turned the truck around. Before he faced her, he needed to steady himself. He needed to ask the question first without any weight behind it. He stopped at his own house instead. The porch still sagged in places he had not reached. He set a kettle on the stove and dug out the tin of tea Tealy had given him, a blend for nerves. He let it steep dark. He drank it slow at the table and practiced the question in the empty room. Not "can I," not "would you like." Just: what do you want. He said it until his voice stopped leaning. A knock came at the door before he could leave. Kiersten stood on the broken steps, arms crossed against the cold. She read endings before people spoke them. She had left him once because she felt the end coming and he had proven her right. Now she watched his face the way she watched weather. "You turned around," she said. "I saw the truck." Eduardo did not lie. "I got scared I'd push you. So I came home to fix myself first." Her eyes moved over him, checking. "You have tea," she said. He poured her a cup without asking if she wanted one, then caught himself. "You don't have to drink it." She drank it. She sat on the edge of a chair. The steam rose between them. Eduardo set his own cup down. He kept his hands flat on the table so they could not reach for anything. "I want to ask you one thing," he said. "And I want to mean it plain. No plan behind it." "Then ask." "What do you want?" he said. "Not what I can give you. Not what I hope. What do you want, Kiersten." He stopped. He did not fill the silence. He did not tilt his head or soften his mouth to pull an answer his way. He let the room stay quiet and waited. Kiersten looked at him a long moment. She was waiting for the old Eduardo to lean in, to shape her, to make her small. He did not. "A picnic," she said finally. "Someplace open. Just us. No fixing. No proving. I want to see if I like you when nothing is at stake." "Then that's what we'll do," Eduardo said. "You pick the day. You pick the place." She set down the cup. Something in her shoulders loosened. "Wednesday," she said. "I'll bring the food." She left without another word. Eduardo sat with the cooling tea. He had asked and not steered. For the first time, the answer was hers, and it opened a door instead of closing one.