Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 78 of 115

Eduardo had learned to speak about the past. He had told Kiersten about the belt, the closet, the fights. But Friday came again, and a harder question sat in him. He knew how to name what he had been. He did not know how to name what he wanted them to become. Every time he reached for the future, his mouth went dry. Kiersten arrived with her kettle and the ledgers. She read while her tea steeped. When she finished, she looked at him. "You said ask another one." Eduardo nodded. But the old fear rose. If he spoke about tomorrow, he might wreck it. So he said nothing. He turned his cup in his hands and looked at the floor. Kiersten watched the silence stretch. Her mouth tightened. "You still hold back." "I don't," he said. Then he stopped himself. That was a lie. "I do. Not about before. About after." "After what." "This." He raised his eyes. "You here. Me here. I don't know how to say what I want it to look like. Every time I planned a future for you, I ruined it." She set the cup down. "So you say nothing. And I sit here wondering if you're done or just quiet." That landed. She had felt an ending coming, the way she always did, because he had gone still. His silence read as a wall. He had built enough of those to know. "There's a thing I never told you," he said. "When we were together, I blamed you for the men before me. I said you gave yourself to people who didn't deserve it. Like it was a flaw in you." Kiersten went very still. "You did." "It wasn't a flaw." His voice held steady. "You were kind. You were looking for love. You couldn't say no to people who took it. That's not the same as being loose. I told myself it was, so I could feel bigger than you." She did not soften. But her shoulders dropped an inch. "That's what it always was. I wanted to be loved. Not used." "I know that now." She turned the cup once. "Then say the future. Plain. No plan you make for me." Eduardo breathed. He looked at the walls, at her mother's photo, at her quilt on the chair. "I want you to stay. Not as a guest. As someone who lives here. I want mornings where you don't have to earn the door." His hands shook. He let them. "That's all I've got. I don't have it fixed. I just want it." The quiet came back. This time it did not feel like a wall. "That's the first future you've handed me without a leash on it," she said. She stood. At the door she stopped. "I'll think about staying. Not visiting. Staying." She left. Eduardo sat with the two cups on the shelf. He had finally spoken the future out loud, and she had not walked away from it.