Petra Holt's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Petra Holt had made Milo Brant coffee every morning for ten years, and this was the morning she planned to tell him she loved him. She stood in her workshop behind the house, sawdust on her overalls, two mugs steaming on the bench beside a half-planed board. Ten years of sanding the same secret smooth. Today she would hand him the coffee and the truth together, and either he would kiss her or she would lose the only person who knew how she took her own. She rehearsed it against the wood. "Milo. I need to say a thing." Her hands shook. She set down the plane before she ruined the board. Through the open workshop doors she could see the path he took every morning, the one that cut past the florist's back gate. He was late. Milo was never late. A hummingbird darted through the doorway, hung above the mugs, and shot out again. Petra took it as a sign, then laughed at herself for needing one. She was halfway across the yard with both mugs when she saw them at the florist's gate. Milo, silver needle behind his ear, tape measure loose around his neck. And a woman Petra hadn't seen in years — Nola Jasper, back in town, ink on her apron, a bundle of yellow clover blooms pressed into Milo's hands. Nola, who had left Vinemaw at seventeen. Nola, whose name Milo used to say like a bruise he was proud of. Petra stopped on the path. Milo was laughing the loud, open laugh he usually saved for her. Nola tucked a stem behind his ear next to the needle. He let her. Petra's coffee went cold in her hands. She could turn around. She could go back to the workshop and sand the board and never say it. That was the safe plan. That was ten more years of mugs on the bench. Instead she walked up to them. Her boots were loud on the gravel. Milo turned, saw her, and his whole face changed — pleased, guilty, something else she couldn't name. "Petra," he said. "You remember Nola." "I brought your coffee," Petra said. She held out the mug. Her voice came out steady, which surprised her. "Milo. I need to say a thing. I've needed to say it for ten years." Nola's sharp eyes went to the clover in Milo's hand, then to Petra's face, and she took one careful step back. Milo's mouth opened. Closed. He looked at the yellow blooms like he'd forgotten he was holding them. "Say it," he said quietly. Petra had planned this in the workshop, alone. She had not planned it in front of the woman he used to love. She set the second mug down on the gatepost so her hands were free. "I love you," she said. "That's the thing."