Page 14 of Unravelling: Aria & Crispin
Crispin:
Can't see you this week. Swamped. Next week maybe?
She put it away. She showed Lule the opal necklace. Lule admired it, but muttered something about her Sherlock Holmes antenna going up.
Later, they lay in bed, squeezed into the same double mattress. Lule's hand found hers in the dark. "You, okay?" Lule asked softly.
Aria squeezed back. "I will be."
She stared at the ceiling, the opal pendant glinting in her mind like a secret promise.
Next week, she would talk to Crispin.
And maybe, just maybe, she needed to move on. No matter how much it hurt to do so.
Chapter 11
Aria
The week passed in stops and starts.
Aria worked her usual shifts at the café-the small corner place smelled of fresh bread and espresso. The regulars were mostly gentle, the rush manageable. She spent much of her time wiping down tables and trying not to spill milk on her apron.
Gallen, the café's owner, was in one of his rare good moods. Gruff and usually preoccupied with stock counts and broken suppliers, he shuffled around with less muttering than usual. On Wednesday morning, he handed her a warm cinnamon bun straight from the tray.
"You look knackered," he said, though not unkindly. "You fasting? Or just dealing with mad people again?"
Accepting the pastry, Aria smiled tiredly. "Bit of both."
He grunted in reply and disappeared behind the till, already deep in a spreadsheet.
Meanwhile, Liz had been her usual unpleasant self-snapping orders, scoffing at tips, and making thinly veiled remarks about "Illegal migrants who clung to part-time jobs like barnacles." Aria had long learned to tune her out, but her tone grated more than usual.
Then there was Jacob.
Still sitting in his usual spot. Still kind. Still not him.
Jacob, the accountant-quiet, neatly dressed, always with his laptop open and spreadsheets glowing on his screen-didn't work at the café, but he might as well have. He came in like clockwork three times a week, always tipping generously, and always sitting at the same corner table with a clear view of the counter.
Aria had caught him watching her more than once. Not in a way that made her uncomfortable. Just quiet, attentive. Patient.
He had a calm presence. Clean hands, a soft smile, eyes that noticed things without making a show of it. He once flagged her down to say they'd undercharged him, and another time, he had offered to walk her to the bus stop when it was pouring outside. She declined, but not unkindly.
He made her laugh once over a typo on her name tag, when he noticed it was printed "Aira."
"Like a luxury airline? " he'd quipped with a half-smile that stayed in her head longer than it should've.
He was good.
But he wasn't the one who made her breath catch in her throat. He wasn't the one who left her replaying conversations in bed at night. He wasn't the storm.
And she didn't know why she couldn't make herself want the safer choice.
Back at home, in the quiet evenings between shifts and small domestic rituals, Aria had finally completed the baby quilt.
It had taken nights of hand-stitching on the floor with aching knees and pricked fingers, patching together soft pastels and leftover floral scraps. It wasn't quite a story quilt-not like the elaborate kind her grandmother used to make-but it was beautiful in its own quiet way, gentle. Waiting for the baby it was meant for.
She folded it neatly and placed it on the side chair by her ancient desk, where the sunlight fell in the mornings.
