Chapter Fifty-Four: Something Off

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.)

Mira’s Story: Something Off
The ache of what isn’t said

The house wasn’t loud exactly, but it was full.

Pepper had returned from her grandparents’ with sun-chapped cheeks and a bag full of dirty laundry, and Rowan’s kids were back from Paige’s. Ellie was already on her laptop. Cal had spread half a Lego city across the coffee table and was explaining its infrastructure like a small, chaotic mayor. Mira stood at the kitchen island slicing strawberries, pretending she didn’t feel slightly… peripheral.

Not excluded. Just not quite of the space. Not yet.

It was such an odd feeling to come after the recent moments of feeling as if she ‘fit’, to now feel as if she were wearing shoes half a size too big.

Rowan moved easily through it all. Checking in with each kid, tossing Mira a quiet smile as he passed, kissing her temple in the soft way he always did. He looked comfortable. Steady.

And Mira… kept noticing things.

Her chest tightening when he glanced at his phone. The way her ears pricked at small pauses, as if stillness itself was saying something. She couldn’t tell if anything had shifted in him, or if it was just her pulse catching on the edges of things, an evenness too even, a calm she kept testing for cracks

It was probably nothing.

But the “nothing” was loud inside her.

---

Later that afternoon, Mira texted Halley.

How’d the non-date go? Did you survive feelings?

She expected a snarky emoji or at least a gif of a dumpster fire. Instead, Halley’s reply was delayed. And short.

He’s great. That might be the problem.
Let’s talk later. Work’s insane.

Mira stared at the screen, thumb hovering. She almost replied, then didn’t.

Instead, she thought of Theo’s message from the night before, the one he’d sent Rowan, which Rowan had read out loud with a quiet kind of pride.

She’s magnetic. But I think she’s scared of being seen.

At the time, Mira had smiled. Now, she just felt… tired.

---

That evening, after dinner, Mira and Rowan stood side by side folding laundry. He was better at it than she was. Of course he was.

She rolled a shirt the wrong way and said casually, “I think Halley’s retreating.”

Rowan didn’t look up. “Yeah. Theo mentioned she bailed early. Said she seemed… far away.”

Mira nodded. “That tracks.”

A moment of silence passed between them.

Then Rowan added, “He asked me if it’s a bad idea to care about someone who flinches when you get too close.”

Mira paused mid-fold. “What did you say?”

“I told him it depends if they flinch and run… or flinch and stay.”

He said it simply, without any subtext. But Mira felt it anyway, like something brushed the edge of her heart without quite touching it.

---

That night, after the kids were asleep and the dishwasher hummed in the background, Mira lay beside Rowan in bed.

His back was to her. Not in a cold way. Just… the way people sleep when they’re tired. When they think everything is fine.

She watched the curve of his shoulder in the moonlight and thought about Halley. About Theo. About the way intimacy isn’t always a grand gesture. Instead, it’s a tiny act of staying, of telling the truth, of letting someone all the way in.

She’d always thought that letting someone in would feel like relief.

But sometimes, it felt like disorientation.

Like moving into a house that was already furnished, beautiful, warm, but not quite arranged for your rhythm.

She wasn’t used to “we.” She was used to “I’ll handle it.”

To doing the dishes herself. To slicing strawberries alone, in silence, without Lego cities or the hum of someone else’s life layered into her own.

She wanted this. God, she wanted it.

But wanting didn’t erase the ache of adjusting.

Didn’t mean she knew where she fit yet.

Rowan stirred slightly, and Mira reached toward him.

Paused.

Lowered her hand.

He shifted in his sleep, the weight of his back warm against her. Mira studied the curve of his shoulder, wondering if he felt her hesitation. If he noticed the way she sometimes lingered just shy of touching him.

He probably did. Rowan always noticed more than he said.

Maybe that was its own kind of fear… his, not hers. That if he named the space between them too soon, she might bolt.

The room was quiet. Still. The moonflower candle had burned out. The air smelled faintly of cedar, like it always did. Like Rowan.

Mira closed her eyes.

Everything was good.

But something was off.

She knew enough now to wonder if the whisper was about him at all, or if it was hers, rising from the old ache of being on the outside, even when she was already inside.

---

Letters from The Clever Confidante: “The Goo“
For when something feels off, and you don’t know why

Change is hard,
and it’s never been my strong suit.

Not the kind that’s tidy and exciting, with Pinterest boards and neat little timelines.
I’m good with controlled change. The predictable planned sort.

No, I’m talking about the real kind.
The kind that asks you to step away from what’s familiar and stand in the raw, untested middle.

To hold steady in the discomfort of becoming,
in that middle part that feels like goo.

Recently, someone asked if a butterfly was my spirit animal.
I laughed. I’ve never thought of myself as delicate or floaty or light,
and I don’t resonate with the beauty in the wings.
Not because I doubt it exists, but because it’s hard to believe it could describe me.

When I asked her why, she said: beauty, joy, transformation.

The last word resonated,
but not in the way she expected.

Because when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it doesn’t simply sprout wings.
It enters the chrysalis and dissolves. Completely.

From the outside, it looks calm, still.
But inside, everything is changing.
Its body breaking down into a nutrient-rich soup before it reforms into something unrecognizable.

In that moment, it’s no long a caterpillar.
Not yet a butterfly.
Just… goo.

I admire the caterpillar.
It has no concept of what it will become.
Before it can imagine wings, beauty, or flight
the potential is already there, dormant.

All it has to do is follow instinct.
Trust a future that it can’t see or predict,
but that already exists within it.

Meanwhile, my human brain wants to make sense of everything.
It plants doubts like time bombs.
Whispers that I should be further along by now.
It clings to the illusion of control, proof that the wings are coming,
even while knowing that transformation can’t be rushed.

It requires surrender.

The universe keeps sending me reminders to let go.

Let go of control.
Let go of over-efforting.
Let go of rationalizing the unknown into something safe and familiar.
Let go of the fears and doubts.

To sit in the goddamn goo.

Because the goo is the work.
It’s where the old form dissolves so something new can take shape.
The butterfly future is already here, even if I can’t see the wings yet.

So, I’m going to sit in the discomfort of becoming,
Appreciating the gooey-ness of it all.
Not rushing through it.
Not pretending I’m already a butterfly.
Just letting myself dissolve into whatever comes next,

and trusting in the becoming that is already within me.

Always,
Your trusted friend 🖤

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

➡️✨ Continue Mira’s Story with Chapter Fifty Five: The Question and the Weight

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