Chapter Fifty-Three: Kale, Crumbs, and the Space Between

This is Mira’s story — part fiction, part reflection, wholly honest.
(Each chapter will end with a note from her writing, signed as your trusted friend.)

🎧 Listen while you read: “Opaline” by Novo Amor
For the hush between questions, and the softness we try to trust

Mira’s Story: Kale, Crumbs, and the Space Between
Where domestic softness meets the ache of unspoken things

Mira didn’t even say hello.

As soon as Halley picked up, she launched in:
“Did he text? Did you text? Did you kiss him in the parking lot while pretending to argue about modular synths?”

Halley groaned. “It is 9:04 a.m.”

“You were literally DJing at 1:04 a.m. Don’t act like I’m disrupting your sacred morning tai chi.”

“I don’t do tai chi.”

“You should. It might help with all that emotional repression.”

Halley sighed, long and theatrical. “There was no kiss. No parking lot pining. No emotional confession soundtracked by The 1975. We shared fries and then I went home.”

Mira narrowed her eyes, even though Halley couldn’t see her. “You like him.”

“I like a lot of people.”

“You barely looked at him all night.”

“Exactly.”

That gave Mira a half-second pause. Then: “Oh no. You’re scared.”

“I’m tired,” Halley corrected. “There’s a difference.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Silence. Not the comfortable kind.

Then Halley said, quieter, “It’s just… Theo isn’t a playlist or a fling. He’s the type you talk about taxes with.”

“Hot,” Mira said, deadpan.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for… something that might actually work.”

Mira softened. “You don’t have to be ready forever. Just ready enough to say yes.”

There was another pause. Halley didn’t confirm or deny. Just muttered something about coffee and hung up.

Mira let it be. But as she set the phone down, she noticed how easy it was to spot Halley’s avoidance and how much harder it was to notice her own. Maybe cheering Halley on was also a way to sidestep her own quiet fear about the threshold she was standing in.

A few hours later, her phone buzzed.

Okay. I told him I’d meet up. No expectations. Just music and maybe a coffee and definitely a new level of vulnerability I’ll resent you for later. Don’t make it weird.
P.S. Don’t tell Rowan. He’ll smirk.

Mira grinned at the screen like it had personally flirted with her.

Then she padded barefoot into the kitchen and opened the fridge to start a grocery list that wasn’t just hers.

---

They started with coffee. Obviously.

Then the co-op down the street, where the kale was overpriced but the bulk bins felt oddly grounding.

Rowan pushed the cart. Mira wandered ahead, tossing questions over her shoulder as she hunted for things that might feel like home.

“Do you think kids ever really eat lentil pasta?”
“Are you a cilantro person or a soap-hater?”
“Wait, how do you feel about fennel?”

Rowan barely blinked. “Fennel’s fine. In moderation.”

Mira turned and pointed at him dramatically. “That’s the most stable sentence anyone’s ever said to me.”

He shrugged, amused, and kept moving.

She watched him for a second. He looked good here in a plain white tee, hair a little longer than usual, forearms doing distracting things with the cart handle. Solid. Present.

Her gaze snagged on a candle display that held lavender and something called “moonflower.” She slipped one into the basket. Rowan raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, just gave a small shake of his head and pushed the cart on.

At checkout, he added two lollipops.
“For Pepper and Cal,” he said, then paused. “Or for us. Depending on how today goes.”

Back at Rowan’s place, the groceries got unpacked in a slow, almost meditative rhythm. Mira chopped vegetables while he washed greens. The windows were open. Music played low. The silence was soft, not empty.

At one point, Rowan said, “We should get one of those big bins. For compost.”

Mira looked up.

“We?”

He didn’t notice the pause. Or maybe he did and pretended not to.

“I mean,” he said casually, “we’ve basically created a bioregional snack hub.”

She smiled at that. Let the we settle into her bones without naming it.

The list on the counter was still there. She glanced at it, half-filled with her slanted handwriting and his additions. Not just hers anymore.

Later, she found him fixing a drawer that had been sticking. She leaned in the doorway, arms crossed.

“Do you ever not build things?”

Rowan looked up at her, smiled. “I like making stuff work.”

It was meant to be simple, maybe even flirtatious. But, for some reason, it held meaning. Mira didn’t answer. She just crossed the room, sat on the floor beside him, and handed him the screwdriver.

That evening, after dinner, Rowan’s phone lit up. He took the call in the hallway.

Mira didn’t eavesdrop, but she heard the way his voice changed. It was lower, softer.

When he came back, she was loading dishes.

“Everything okay?” she asked lightly.

He nodded, handing her a mug without looking up from the kettle. “Yeah. Paige just checking in about Cal’s homework. He’s having a tough time with fractions.”

Mira nodded. “Poor kid. Fractions are a scam.”

Rowan smiled, but there was something behind it. Something he wasn’t saying.

He kissed her cheek, touched the small of her back, and went to start the kettle again.

Mira stared down at the sponge in her hand. Something warm in her chest was cooling just a little. Not disappearing. But shifting.

Not a red flag.

Just a quiet question.

She remembered the message she’d sent the day Paige had been upset about Mira’s advice to Ellie. Rowan never responded. Not directly.

She didn’t press. Not because she didn’t want to know, she did. But because it had been a good day. Easy. And part of her wanted to let it be that. To believe that ease didn’t have to mean avoidance. That sometimes love meant trusting what wasn’t said.

She finished the dishes without saying anything, dried her hands on a towel, and walked into the living room, where Rowan was lighting the ridiculous moonflower candle.

It flickered awkwardly. Smelled like lavender and something vaguely nostalgic, like a childhood memory you couldn’t place.

He was quiet, too.

Not withdrawn. Not distant. Just… elsewhere.

They curled up on the couch, Mira with her legs tucked under her, Rowan resting a hand on her knee. The kettle hissed in the kitchen, forgotten. Outside, rain started tapping lightly against the windows.

Mira tilted her head toward him. “You ever feel like everything’s good, but you still don’t know if you’re missing something?”

Rowan didn’t answer right away. Just traced his thumb in a slow circle on her leg.

As Rowan’s thumb traced circles on her leg, Mira thought about Halley saying yes to Theo. Not forever. Just enough. Maybe she was doing her own version of that here.

“Sometimes I think being okay is the scariest part,” he finally said. “Because you stop bracing for impact, and you start wondering what happens if it lasts.”

That made her chest ache. Not in a bad way.

In the way that meant he got it.

She nodded and leaned into him.

But still, her thoughts circled. Paige. The softness in his voice. The compost bin. The drawer he fixed before she even realized it was broken.

He was always steady. Always doing. Always showing her things.

But there were still places she didn’t know if she was being let into. Places where the door was closed, not because she wasn’t wanted, but because he didn’t think to open it.

She wondered if she’d done the same.

In bed, she reached for him and he came easily, warm, familiar, grounding.

He kissed her shoulder and murmured something sleepy.

She didn’t answer. Just let her body rest against his and stared into the dark.

The room still smelled like moonflower and rain and that something she couldn’t name.

She tried. Reached for a word that might hold it.
Loneliness? No.
Doubt? Too sharp.
Ache? Too far.

It was softer than that. Quieter.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t gone.
Just buried.
Growing roots.

And beneath it all, something else bloomed too,
Not certainty. But a quiet awe.
For the way ease could hold so much.

---

Letters from The Clever Confidante: “On Ease, Moonflower Candles, and the Questions That Whisper”
When easy feels unfamiliar, and the heart still braces for what’s no longer coming

Sometimes, the scariest thing isn’t heartbreak.

It’s happiness.

Not the kind that comes with fireworks. Not the overwhelming, shout-it-from-the-rooftops kind. But the quiet kind. The kind that sneaks in while you’re rinsing lettuce and realizing someone else brought home lollipops just because they thought of your kid. The kind where you’re curled on a couch with your knees tucked under you and your whole body exhales without permission.

And then, right in the middle of that stillness, your mind whispers, Is this too easy?

Because maybe you’re used to proving yourself. To holding your breath. To loving people you had to win or fix or keep from slipping through your fingers. I’ve been the woman who called that kind of ease “boring” just so I wouldn’t have to trust it.

But what if the test this time isn’t endurance?

What if it’s receiving?

What if it’s letting someone in before you spiral?

What if it’s trusting the hand on your knee and the smell of moonflower and the simple sentence: We should get a compost bin.

I’ve been that woman, scrubbing dishes while wondering what wasn’t being said. Feeling the softness of a kiss and still wondering if I’m too much or not enough or just temporarily tolerated. And I’ve also been the one holding back. Not to be cruel. But because some parts of me are still learning how to stay open, even when I feel safe.

Here’s what I know:

Sometimes love sounds like a drawer that finally stops sticking.
Sometimes it smells like rain and candle wax and someone else making tea.
Sometimes it aches because it’s working.

And sometimes, it’s bravery to let yourself feel okay, and still ask the questions.

So if you’re in the thick of something quiet and tender and good, but not perfect, this is your reminder:

You don’t have to ruin it to prove it’s real.
You just have to stay soft enough to keep listening.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend 🖤

Have you ever felt a soft unease inside something good? What did you do with it?
(Drop a line or send a whisper. I’d love to know.)

☁️ New here? You can start Mira’s Story from the beginning with Chapter Zero.

➡️✨ Continue Mira’s Story with Chapter 54: Something Off

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