Silence stretches.
Then he says softly, “And then there was the tree.”
I blink.
“The fig tree you planted.”
My breath catches.
“For the three days you were gone,” he says, “I went back to the house and watered it.”
He looks directly at me.
“Before coffee. Before anything.”
My chest tightens.
“Before I knew how I felt.”
The kitchen is silent.
“That’s not fear of loss,” he says quietly. “Fear of loss is loud. Urgent. It arrives in a crisis and leaves when the crisis does.”
He holds my gaze.
“I was out there in the ordinary morning. Because it needed water. Because you asked me to.”
A pause.
“Because taking care of the thing you made felt like the most natural thing I’d ever done.”
My throat tightens.
“That’s not a crisis response.”
My ribs hurt.
“Fox,” I whisper.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
I give him a long, deliberate look. “You’re an idiot.”
He lets out a short laugh. “Yes.”
“A spectacular one.”
“I’ve been told.”
I fix my gaze on him, weighing my next words before I say them. “You had something real in front of you and talked yourself out of it for two years because it wasn’t dramatic enough.”
“Yes.”
“I’m also an idiot,” I mutter.
“Why?”
“Because I never believed someone like you could love someone like me.”
