“Fire should hold for a few hours,” I say. “I’ll add more logs before bed.”
“Beforeyourbed, you mean. Since you’re apparently sleeping on the floor like some kind of medieval knight guarding the castle.”
“The couch?—”
“Is too short for you. I saw you measuring it with your eyes earlier.” She pats the cushion beside her. “Sit. Keep me company. Unless you have important hermit business to attend to.”
I should say no. I should retreat to my workshop corner, find something to sand or carve, maintain the distance that keeps me functional. But her eyes are warm in the firelight, and she’s looking at me like my presence is wanted rather than tolerated, and before I can stop myself, I’m crossing the room and lowering myself onto the opposite end of the couch.
Not too close. But closer than I’ve been to another person in months.
“There,” Marcella says, satisfaction in her voice. “Was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
She laughs again, and I feel it somewhere behind my ribs. “At least you’re honest.”
We sit in silence for a moment, watching the fire. The wind has settled into a steady howl, background noise now rather than the screaming assault it was earlier. Snow ticks against the windows in a rhythm that’s almost soothing.
“Can I ask you something?” Marcella’s voice is softer now. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
I tense, waiting for the question I’ve been dreading.What happened to you? Why do you live alone? What’s wrong with you?
“The furniture,” she says instead. “When did you start making it?”
The breath I didn’t know I was holding escapes slowly. “Four years ago. After I got out.”
“Got out of what?”
“Marines.”
She’s quiet, processing. I can see her fitting pieces together—my posture, my clipped speech, the military precision of my routines. “How long were you in?”
“Eight years. Three deployments.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Felt longer.”
She doesn’t push for details. Doesn’t ask about combat or injuries or any of the things civilians usually want to know. Instead, she asks, “What made you start building?”
The question catches me off guard. Most people want the war stories. The drama. They don’t care about the quiet moments after, the slow work of putting yourself back together.
“Needed something to do with my hands,” I say finally. “Something that wasn’t—” I stop, unsure how to finish.
“Destructive?”
I look at her sharply. She meets my gaze, those brown eyes soft with understanding rather than pity.
“Yeah,” I admit. “Something to create instead of... the alternative.”
“That makes sense.” She pulls her legs up onto the couch, tucking them beneath her. “I started my food blog for a similar reason, I think. I needed something that was mine. Something I could build that nobody could take away from me.”
“Your ex?”
It’s not exactly a wild guess but from the way she flinches when she mentions him, the casual cruelty she references like it’s normal, I’m pretty sure I guessed right.
“Stephen. Yeah. He didn’t—” She pauses, starts again. “He didn’t hit me or anything. I want to be clear about that. But he had a way of making me feel like everything I did was wrong. Too loud, too much, too passionate about stupid things. Every time I got excited about a recipe or a new idea for the blog, he’d sigh. This little sound, like I was exhausting him just by existing.”
