Page 32 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
I blink. The words hit like cold water down my spine.
“Noneed,” I echo, voice sharper than I mean. “Gods, you sound just like you did before.”
His brows draw together. “Tessa?—”
“No,” I cut in, stepping back before I do something dramatic like throw a bundle of baby’s breath at his chest. “Don’t ‘Tessa’ me with that voice like I’m a fragile root about to snap. You’redoing it again.”
“I’m trying to keep you from worrying,” he says, the box in his arms tightening like it’s the only thing keeping him steady.
“And who asked you to decide what I get to worry about?” My voice wavers, and I hate that it does. “You think just because you gave me a blueprint and a dream, you can still choose what part of the world I see?”
He looks like I just slapped him. Not furious. Just… gutted.
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Doesn’t matter what you meant,” I whisper, the words scraping my throat. “You’re still keeping me in the dark.”
And I can’t help but remember being twenty-three, alone and aching, waiting for letters that never came while he chased power and cities and god-knows-what without ever looking back.
He steps toward me, slow, hands open like he might reach for mine if I just give him the space.
But I don’t.
I retreat to the safety of my doorway like it’s a shoreline, and I’m too soaked to let myself be pulled back into deep water.
“Don’t,” I say, barely audible. “I can’t do this again.”
And then I close the door—not hard, not in anger. Just enough to say:Not today.
I don’t cry. Not right away. I busy myself rearranging eucalyptus and pulling dried pomegranates from their bins. I scrub the sink. I sort twine. I count stems twice.
But by sundown, I’m curled up in the back room, the tin with the acorns resting on my lap, and my chest too full of words I never said.
Why didn’t you tell me?
Why don’t youtrustme?
Are you still the boy who left, or the man who came back?
I don’t open the tin.
I don’t burn it either.
I just sit with it, like it holds some answer I haven’t figured out how to hear yet.
Over the next few days, I pull back. I don’t do it with icy glares or door slams—I just drift. I leave before he arrives at meetings. I pass the orchard on a different route. I make excuses about inventory and schedule tea dates with Tara I don’t fully commit to.
He doesn’t chase me.
And that might be what hurts the most.
By the end of the week, the town’s begun to buzz.
Some folks defend him. Say he’s brought business, donated lumber to rebuild the community center roof, even bought pie from every booth at the gala.
But others aren’t sure.
They’ve seen the trucks. The clipped conversations. The uncertainty.
