Page 56 of That’s My Orc, Tusk Off

And that was why I hadn’t told her. She’d be disappointed, and I didn’t know how to face that.

“What do you believe?” Greth’s face was as unreadable as always, but his eyes held a touch of understanding.

“I’ve spent most of my life building systems to keep everything controlled and organized and safe. Those systems work.”

“And?”

My voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. “Willa looked at them and understood something I’d missed despite working with them for months.”

Greth nodded. “So you’re afraid.”

“I’m—” The word stuck. “Yes. I’m afraid of being wrong about this. No, wrong about more than that. My filing system. My labeling. The way I handle everything. This is my job. I thought I was good at it, but maybe I’m not.”

Greth stared forward, giving me time.

“If I’m wrong about Rue and Fern, what else have I been wrong about?”

“Nothing,” Greth said.

I turned to face him.

“Your systems work,” he said. “The facility runs because you built it to run. You. No one else. Own that. The creatures are safe because you made them safe. None of that is wrong, but systems aren’t the same as understanding. Data isn’t the same as seeing. You can study every aspect of a bond and still miss what makes it real.”

My teeth met, steadying something that wanted to break loose.

“Willa didn’t just look at Rue and Fern and know. She also looked at you.”

My breathing sounded too loud again.

“I don’t know how to tell Willa about the application,” I said. “We’re handling the morning adoption meeting together. We could handle the afternoon one, too. She deserves to know. Instead, I—” I gestured at the over-labeled shelves surrounding us. “I’m doing this.”

“You’re worried about what she’ll think if she discovers you processed it without her. Of what it means that you want her input. You don’t want to admit you might be wrong.”

I wanted to argue. The words lined up, ready to defend myself. But he was right about all of it.

“You can’t control what she thinks when she finds out,” Greth said, standing. “But you can tell her why you did it. Or you can keep labeling things until the sun rises.”

He walked to the door, but paused with his fingers on the handle, not turning back.

“The label maker doesn’t fix things,” he said. “It just makes the broken parts look more organized.”

He shut the door.

I sat in the supply room, surrounded by perfectly labeled shelves that didn’t need labels, in a space that was already organized, and nothing felt fixed or in control.

The words came out before I could stop them.

“I need to tell Willa about the application.”

My voice echoed off the metal shelving.

“I’m scared to tell her.”

The admission made heat blaze in my chest.

“I don’t know how to stop being scared.”

I let the words exist in the space around me before I got up, placed the label maker on the shelf, and turned off the lights.