Page 81 of The Pumpkin Spice Spell
Rowan takes a deep breath, “You’re bringing our trauma into this. Tate isn’t Dad or Phil. He’s safe. And he knows what he’s doing. And to be fair, you know that he’s a fisherman. It’s what he’s done for years. You know this. You can’t make him stop doing what he loves just because you’re scared. That’s not right, and you know it.”
I don’t like being called on my shit by my sisters but deep down I know they’re right.
Ivy hums. “To be fair…you’re kind of at fault here, too.”
I whirl on her. “What isthatsupposed to mean?”
She shrugs, totally unfazed. “You didn’t exactly put up a fight, Willa. You said ‘then go,’ not ‘stay.’ You didn’t ask him to choose you. You practically shoved him out the door. How do you think that made him feel? Like he’s not even worth fighting for. You were supposed to fight for him.”
“I’m not going to beg someone to stay with me,” I snap. “If he doesn’t want to stay with me, that’s fine. He can just go.”
“Clearly it isnotfine,” Ivy mumbles.
Rowan, perched on a stool behind the counter, tilts her head. “No one said anything about begging. But have youevertold him you want him to stay? That he’s your person? That you’rein it?”
“I thought I was showing him,” I say, quieter now. “I thought that was enough.”
Ivy arches a brow. “Sometimes people need the words. And you can always jump his bones, too.”
I feel the pressure building in my chest. Like every carefully balanced emotion I’ve been holding in has just shifted. This is dumb. We’re not kids anymore. We’re freaking grown-ups, and I can tell him what’s on my mind. And he can either decide or break my heart again. And that is the part that scares me.
“Okay, you know what?” I hiss, hands flat on the counter now, shaking. “Maybe I didn’t say it or spell it out. But why is it alwaysmewho has to go first? Who has to be brave? I’ve been building a life here from nothing. I’ve been trying,really trying,to let someone in for the first time since everything with Dad.”
Ivy and Rowan just watch me and wait.
“I’ve let him in more than I ever thought I would,” I whisper. “I’ve made space for him in my home, my work, my everyday life. I watch him tuck my cat into a blanket and laugh with me. And every time he looks at me like I’m the best thing that ever happened to him, Iwantto believe it’s real. But then he gets on the phone and talks about leaving like it was nothing.”
I blink fast. Too fast. The tears come, anyway. “He’s already thinking about going,” I say, crumpling into the nearest chair like my bones gave out. “I was stupid to let myself fall for him again. What if I’m the only one who cares this much?”
The words echo in the room.
Rowan gets off the stool and crouches beside me, her hand warm on my arm. “He’s lost a lot, too, Will. His boat and his home. His dad, too. And his mom totally sucks. That kind of grief doesn’t just disappear. Maybe he’s scared of what it’ll mean to stay and let things be good again.”
Ivy settles on the arm of the chair beside me, sipping from her cup. “You’re both in unchartered territory and have to learn to trust.”
I don’t answer. Most of all, I’m scared of loving someone who might leave. Someone I could lose this easily.
I’m scared of believing in something and being wrong again. I’m scared ofhope.“I don’t want to lose him,” I whisper.
“But you don’t want to be the one left standing on the dock, either,” Rowan finishes for me.
My throat closes. I nod. And then I cry. Not the quiet kind. Themessy, ugly, snot-wipe-on-your-own-sleevekind.
Ivy gently slides me a tissue from her coat pocket. “There, there. Let it out.”
“Shut up,” I sniffle.
“Love you, too,” she says.
The bookstore is quiet for a beat. Just the creak of the old heater and the rustle of leaves outside the front door.
Then we hear it. A throat clears softly. We all turn. Mom stands in the doorway to the back room, arms crossed, eyes knowing. Her presence hums like candlelight in a storm and always has. She looks at me for a long moment.
Then she says, “It’s going to be okay.”
I blink at her.
She walks in slowly, heels clicking on the wood floor, a half-folded scarf in her hands like she was doing some mundane task and justheard things.And she does that sometimes. Her intuition about her daughters is usually spot on.
