Page 92 of Unclench Me Softly

Oh no. Not the damn heart.

He reads the whole thing. Clear. Controlled. Like he practiced.

Then, at the very end, his voice falters, just once.

He throws the paper in, watches it burn, and walks back to his seat like he didn’t just make me want to build him a library of affirmation stones.

Jax comes forward with the second twig effigy, this one clearly dressed in cut-up denim and wrapped in electrical tape.

“This is Rage-King Riot,” he says. “Built him in rehab. Thought I’d keep him around for emergencies. But I think it’s time.” He flicks the effigy’s tiny sunglasses off. “Later, asshole.”

Into the fire it goes.

I swear the flames roar louder, like even they know that version of him was exhausting.

Then he grins at me, all teeth and relief, and says, “Felt good.”

It does. It does feel good.

I fan my face with a birch leaf and try to remember how to exist.

Jonah is last. Of course he is.

He steps forward with no letter. No stick. Just a small, sealed envelope.

He meets my eyes, walks right up to me, and hands it over. “You can burn it. Or read it. Your choice.”

I blink. “What is it?”

“The part of me I thought I could hide from this,” he says and then he turns, just like that, and walks back to the others.

I stare at the envelope.

It’s light. Small. But somehow weighs everything.

I want to lie down in the fire and be reborn as a woman with less emotional responsibility.

The fire’s lower now. Still glowing. Still hungry. Like it knows there’s always more to burn.

They’re quiet, my five rewilded disasters, watching the last of their kings curl into smoke and rise above the trees. There’s ash on the wind and intention in the dirt, and I know I’m supposed to say something profound and final and vaguely therapeutic.

So I do. “Tonight, you shed the skin of performance. You burned the armor. The noise. The fear.”

I take a breath and try not to think about the envelope in my hand, or the way my legs are shaking from the weight of all this attention. “What rises now is yours to shape. To reclaim. To rebuild.”

I look at each of them.

They’re glowing. Literally. The firelight makes them all look like holy problems. Like altar boys who found sin and decided to climb inside it shirtless.

I spread my arms, fully robe-engaged. “Go forth. You are no longer kings pretending to rule. You are wolves learning to run. You are the cubs. The healed. The unclenched.”

There’s a pause. A silence. A moment where it might all settle.

And then of course Jax creates chaos.

“Should we anoint you with ash and a word of devotion?” Jax asks, tone pure mischief wrapped in muscle. “You know. For balance.”

I blink once.

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