The flame goes out.
Gretchen stares down at the envelope. “Do you... want to read it first?”
“Do you?”
“No, no. Definitely... definitely not. I just... If this letter is what I think it might be, my father isn’t going to pull any punches. He’s going to be blunt about who I am. About the things I’vedone. And you deserve to know. We aren’t going to bemarriedmarried, but you should still know. If you want to.”
“Why would I care?” he asks. But his voice holds no harshness. “Why would I care what your father has to say about anything when I already know you, Acorn?” The hand that isn’t holding the lighter comes up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I already know that you pick the peas out of your vegetable soup, and you don’t know how to whistle.” Their eyes lock in the reflection of the window above the sink, the darkness outside making it almost mirrorlike. “That you take ridiculously long showers no matter how many times I remind you we’re on well water. I know that you’re still a little nervous around the dogs, but that you’ve really taken to the cats. That you sing goofy made-up songs to the goats when you think no one can hear you, and that you’ve started bringing them almonds after lunch every day.” His voice goes quieter as he bends toward her ear. “That you always bite your bottom lip right when you’re about to come.”
Gretchen swallows, heat flooding her as she takes in the words. “Do I?”
“You do,” he whispers. “And I know that you care intensely about people, that you hate to see anyone suffer when there’s something you can do about it.”
“We don’t have to pretend I’m a good person, Charlie,” she says, looking away, his eyes in their reflection seeing too much.
“How could you think— Jesus, you’re not a good person, Acorn, you’re thebestperson. You could have easily walked away from all of this and left me to die, but you didn’t. You refused to give up on this place. You refused to give up on me.” Out of her peripheral vision, Gretchen can see that Charlie’s focus is still entirely on her face, watching her as he speaks. “You have such a big heart.It isn’t your fault that your father exploited that from the moment you were born. That he taught you how to wield it to benefit him.”
“But I still decided to do the things I did. Maybe not as a child, but I was in my twenties by the time I stopped working with him. I knew better, and I conned people anyway. And I really fucking enjoyed it. You don’t need to pretend I’m some sort of saint, or a... avictim.”
After a moment’s pause, Charlie replies, “No, you’re certainly neither of those. But the part that matters is that you stopped. As soon as you understood just how much you were hurting people, you stopped, even though it meant losing the only life you knew. And you found a way to use the tools you were given to make people’s lives better. You have consistently tried to find your way to what is right, Gretchen. You have given upso muchto do that. Youaregiving up so much. That’s what I know, and I don’t give a fuck what your asshole father has to say about any of it.”
At this, she turns her head. Her cheek brushes against his jaw and she closes her eyes, savoring the wiry softness of his beard on her skin. Possibly for the last time.At this point, she thinks,almost everything could be for the last time.
“Okay,” she says. “Yeah. Okay.”
Charlie straightens behind her, breaking the contact, and flips on the lighter again. Gretchen holds the envelope in the flame until it catches, then lays it in the basin of the sink. She knows, due to a misadventure while cooking a frozen pizza last week, exactly how much smoke will trigger the fire alarm in the hallway. So once the paper is curled and black, she turns on the faucet and douses it. The soggy mess sits there like the world’s largest and most disgusting spitball.
She turns around and is surprised to find Charlie still standing so close; she thought he would have moved back after lighting the envelope. Cautiously, she leans forward until her forehead rests against his shoulder. He doesn’t touch her in response, but he doesn’t step away either. “He’ll find me again,” she says. “Eventually.”
“How?”
“Oh, it’ll be super easy. He’ll find the marriage license within a week. Won’t be hard for him to do the research from there, uncover your connection to Gilded Creek, realize I’m living here. I’m good at that kind of thing, but my father is next-level. He would’ve made a hell of a private investigator had he ever wanted to go straight.”
Charlie’s silence prompts Gretchen to peek up at him. She finds him frowning down at her.
“It’s okay. He’d never hurt me. Not physically. And I could always sic the dogs on him. You know how absolutely vicious they are.”
The corner of her mouth kicks up, matching his. Both probably thinking about Clyde snoozing in the sun the other afternoon, barely reacting as baby goats climbed and jumped all over and around him.
Charlie’s hand hovers momentarily before it settles on her upper arm, his thumb brushing over her skin. “I don’t want—” He cuts himself off and changes direction.What was he going to say?“I don’t feel great about you being here alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” she says without a moment of hesitation. This is, of course, the mantra she’s used to reassure herself over and over the last few days. “I’ll have Everett. He almost killedsomeone once, by the way. I’m sure he’d be willing to give it another shot.”
The joke falls painfully flat. Charlie stares at Gretchen with something in his eyes that she can’t quite identify. She suspects whatever is behind it isn’t particularly complicated, just too unfamiliar for her to parse. Because no one has ever once in her life looked at her quite like this.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” she says, sliding her fingertips into the short hairs of his beard. He tenses, then permits himself to relax into her touch. “Really, Charlie. I promise I’ll be okay.”
“But what if I’m not?” he whispers.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, he lowers his mouth to hers.
Gretchen always wondered what it would feel like to return somewhere and feel like she was home. Like she belonged to a place and it belonged to her. She thought that she was close to feeling that way about the farm. But when Charlie kisses her, she realizes that it’s this.Thisis the feeling she’s wondered about her whole life.Thisis what it feels like to be home at last.
And it’s yet another place she can’t stay.
She breaks the kiss and takes a step backward, then another, until there’s nothing between them but empty space. Then Gretchen turns and runs for the stairs.
