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Yet again, my body reacts involuntarily as my heart bounces off my ribs. “You aren’t serious.”
“You don’t want to be touched. I want to feel connected. Compromise.”
It is a compromise. An excellent compromise.
Like, sincerely, it’s a really wonderful and amazing compromise.
I can’t believe he’s actually going so far to meet me where I am.
Huh.
I grasp the other end of the cloth, look ahead, and continue out of the maze.
Weird.
Chapter 13
No, I don’t think I will.
– Finnegan
I’m uncertain what I expected baking together to look like. On the ride home from the pumpkin patch, while watching Marcella hum to herself and hug the carving pumpkin she picked out, I convinced myself today might continue to be a romantic experience.
After all, she accepted my compromise, and I deluded myself into thinking she was blushing as she did. Despite all my efforts, the fantasy came to an abrupt end five seconds after I dug the puree out of the three baking pumpkins we bought.
Before I could ask what the next step was, she banished me to the other side of the kitchen island, where she has only permitted me to mix the dry ingredients for the crust.
“They’re beautiful,” I say as Marcella trims the dough around the pie pans.
“Shut up.” She gathers the scraps, rolls them into a ball, and tosses that ball to me. “Make yourself useful and turn this into little leaves.”
My brow rises. I stare at the lump. My mother always rolled out the crust scraps, put cinnamon sugar on them, then gave them to Dad and me as snacks while we waited for her pies to finish baking, setting, or cooling. “You want me to make these into leaves?”
“Yes.”
Okay then.
I insult all of creation with what I make, but Marcella places them on the smallest cooking tray in this place and…
She sprinkles them with cinnamon. And sugar.
Using a toothpick, she marks veins into the vaguely leaf-shaped mounds, magically correcting the disgrace of my abilities until they look somewhat lovely.
While the warm, spiced scent of pumpkin pie fills the kitchen, she tosses together the leftover puree with some apple cider we brought home, brings the mixture to a boil, stirs in an array of ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon, then dumps ice into two tall glasses.
Once the concoction has cooled enough, she pours it over the ice and pushes one cup to me beside the finished collection of steaming cinnamon sugar leaves.
My heart squeezes.
When I don’t move, she says, “Don’t worry. I forgot to poison yours.”
I close my fingers around the glass. “I’m not worried.”
“Are you sure? You haven’t smiled in the past ten minutes. In another ten, I’ll have to take you to the hospital.”
Light catches the glistening sugar just so, and nostalgia calls me.
“Marshi,” Marcella states. “What’s wrong?”
