Page 33 of All You Need Is Macchiato

I look up sharply. "How did you?—"

"Small town." She sips her tea. "And Lisa has excellent hearing."

Of course she does.

"Want to tell me why you're out here brooding instead of fixing it?"

"I'm not brooding."

"No?" She gestures to the wish card I'm slowly destroying. "Just redesigning paper products?"

The mountain night wraps around us, cricket-song and owl-calls filling the silence. In the distance, a whippoorwill starts its evening chorus.

"I thought..." The words stick in my throat. "When I saw her with Cam, I thought it was happening again. Corporate partnerships, strategic alliances. They make their money and they leave."

“Ah, that’s what this is really about,” Aunt Evie says. "You’re afraid of being left behind. And it was easier to push her away than risk being wrong?"

"Than risk watching her leave." The admission costs me something. "Everyone leaves eventually. When they get what they came for."

Aunt Evie's quiet for a long moment. "Did I ever tell you about the first time your mother met your father?"

"Only about a thousand times."

"Then you'll remember she almost didn't give him a chance." There's a gentle understanding in her voice. "She was so sure he'd leave once the novelty of mountain life wore off, she nearly pushed him away first."

"Until he proved her wrong."

"No." She sets down her tea. "Until she was brave enough to risk being proven right—and discovered she was wonderfully wrong instead."

The wish card is barely legible now, wrinkled and worn by restless fingers. "It's not the same."

"Isn't it?" She reaches over, smoothing the card gently. "You wished for courage to trust again. But trust isn't about being certain. It's about being brave enough to risk uncertainty."

"I saw how she looked at me before she left." The memory twists in my chest. "Like I'd confirmed every bad thing she'd tried not to believe about me."

"Then prove her wrong."

"How?" The word comes out rougher than intended. "How do I fix something I broke because I was too scared to believe it could be real?"

"By being honest." Aunt Evie's voice gentles. "With her, and with yourself."

"About what?"

"About why you really wrote that wish. About why seeing her with Cam hurt so much. About why you're sitting out here in the dark instead of sleeping."

The whippoorwill's call echoes across the valley, lonely and persistent.

"She deserves better," I say finally. "Better than someone who runs at the first sign of complication."

"Probably." Aunt Evie stands, gathering our mugs. "But she wants you. Complications and all. The question is, are you brave enough to want her back?"

She leaves me with the night and the crickets and a truth I've been avoiding since I pinned that wish too high for anyone to reach.

I pull out my phone, thumb hovering over Kathryn's name. But what do you say when sorry isn't enough? When you need to explain why you built walls so high even you can't see over them anymore?

The wish card catches a breeze, nearly escaping. I smooth it flat, reading my own words in the porch light:You wished you had the courage to trust again.

Maybe trust starts with admitting you were wrong.

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