Page 68 of Unclench Me Softly

“Oh,” I say, because my brain has gone offline.

“It was wedged between two stones,” he murmurs, brushing a bit of dirt from its side like he’s afraid of hurting it. “Like… tucked there. Hidden. But growing anyway.” His eyes flick up to mine. “I think it’s been there for a long time. Waiting.”

I open my mouth, close it again. The pinecone is small, slightly damp, oddly beautiful, and absolutely devastating. “And you thought it… called to you?”

He shrugs, a little sheepish. “Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to find something that felt like… I don’t know. Like softness that survived.”

I have to breathe carefully or I will cry.

He holds it out, like he’s not giving me forest debris, but a piece of his inner cub’s goddamn soul. “For you,” he says.

I take it gently. “Asher, I, this is…”

He cuts me off with a nervous laugh, rubs the back of his neck. “It’s just a mossy pinecone. I know. Not super impressive. But it felt important. And I guess I wanted it to be yours.”

He looks down, then back up, and there’s something there, something almost aching, like he’s trying so hard not to say too much. “I know I’m not…” he pauses. Swallows. “I’m not the intense one. Or the mysterious one. Or the one who walks around like he just emerged from a tragic origin story.”

I blink, caught somewhere between a laugh and heartbreak.

“But I meant what I said earlier,” he continues, softer now. “You deserve to be held. Not just by a robe. Or a job. Or a ritual you made up because the world made you hustle too young.” He looks at me then. Really looks. “And I’d do it. If you let me. I’d hold space for you.”

Something in me cracks. Not in the sharp way. In the quiet way.

The kind where you realize someone has been paying attention while you were busy pretending you weren’t unraveling.

I clutch the pinecone a little tighter. “Thank you,” I whisper, and I mean it.

He nods. “Okay. I’ll, um… let you sit with that.”

And just like that, he stands, bows slightly, bows, like a goddamn sacred fox cub, and turns to leave.

But at the flap, he pauses, looks back, and smiles that soft, real smile again. “Stillness achieved,” he says, and disappears into the trees.

I sit there, heart pounding, a mossy pinecone in my hands and the dangerous sense that I might already be falling.

I’m still holding the pinecone when Seb enters.

No footsteps. No rustling. Just presence.

He moves like a shadow made of bark and breath, slow and quiet, like if he steps too hard the woods might take it personally.

He stops a few feet from me. Doesn’t say anything. Just lifts his hand and holds something out.

I rise instinctively, like you don’t meet Seb in stillness by staying seated. You meet him with gravity.

He places it in my palm.

It’s a stone.

Small. Heavy. Smooth along one side, jagged on the other.

The kind of thing the forest might’ve held tight for a thousand years before letting it go.

I blink. “Is this your stillness token?”

He nods. Once.

I turn it over. It’s cool to the touch. Dense. The kind of object that asks nothing of you but weight.

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