Page 36 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
“No,” I snap. “You don’t get to shut me down like I’m some underling at a board meeting. I’m not one of your employees. I’m not some land parcel you canprotectwith red tape and secrecy.”
His face hardens, mouth flattening into that unreadable mask that used to make headlines when he was still stomping through cities and building empires like he could muscle the world into something quiet.
And that’s what shatters me.
Not the silence.
Not the lies.
But the fact that I canseehim slipping back into that man—closed-off, unreachable, carved from stone and wrapped in ambition.
“Say something,” I whisper, hating how small I sound. “Sayanything.”
But he doesn’t. Or maybe he can’t.
And that silence? It breaks the last thread holding me together.
I turn and walk away, fast, furious, blinking hard against tears that sting like windburn.
He doesn’t follow.
By the time I get back to Maple & Mallow, it’s dark. I don’t bother with the lights. I don’t take off my coat. I just head straight for the back room, where my tin of tea leaves still waits on the windowsill—like it hasn’t been holding the weight ofeverything.
I open it.
The two acorns rest there—one from before, smooth and aged, worn soft by years of memory.
And the new one.
Shinier. Carved with more skill. Still unfinished in one corner like he ran out of time or nerve.
I stare at it, heart hammering, and all I can think isyou made me believe again.
I loved him again.
Iletmyself love him again.
And now it feels like I’ve been pulled into some story where I’m just another proof of concept—one more piece in his carefully curated life plan.
I grab the new acorn and hold it tight in my fist.
Then I tear it in two.
The crack is soft, but it echoes like thunder in the quiet room.
I press the splinters into the center of a rosemary bundle, then curl into the floor with the scent of shattered wood and broken trust filling my lungs like smoke.
And I cry.
Ugly, messy, whole-body sobbing that’s like trying to wrench something out of me by force.
Not just grief.
Not just betrayal.
Buthope.
Hope that I could have both love and safety. That I couldtrusthim again. That we’d found our way back not by accident, but because we’d changed.
