Unclench Me Softly

Chapter Thirteen

Sticks, Stones, and Unexpected Feelings

I’m seated on my cushion, swaddled in The Womb Cloak? like a woman reborn in lavender-scented dignity, when the flap of the dome lifts with a gentle shfff.

Asher enters slowly, hands cupped in front of him like he’s carrying something fragile or sacred or both, eyes wide with the kind of soft reverence usually reserved for vintage records and hummingbird sightings.

He sees me and smiles.

Not the bright, bouncy grin from earlier, but something smaller. Quieter. Like he’s still inside the stillness and doesn’t want to scare it away.

“I found it,” he says.

I nod, shifting slightly to face him, heart already climbing into my throat like it’s afraid of what he found.

He approaches with careful steps, kneels beside me, and holds out his hands.

There, nestled in his palms like an offering, is a small pinecone, half-covered in moss. Not fancy. Not rare. But the moss has grown in just the right shape that it curves gently, softly, unmistakably, into a heart.

I blink.

“Oh,” I say, because my brain has gone offline.

“It was wedged between two stones,” he murmurs, brushing a bit of dirt from its side like he’s afraid of hurting it. “Like… tucked there. Hidden. But growing anyway.” His eyes flick up to mine. “I think it’s been there for a long time. Waiting.”

I open my mouth, close it again. The pinecone is small, slightly damp, oddly beautiful, and absolutely devastating. “And you thought it… called to you?”

He shrugs, a little sheepish. “Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to find something that felt like… I don’t know. Like softness that survived.”

I have to breathe carefully or I will cry.

He holds it out, like he’s not giving me forest debris, but a piece of his inner cub’s goddamn soul. “For you,” he says.

I take it gently. “Asher, I, this is…”

He cuts me off with a nervous laugh, rubs the back of his neck. “It’s just a mossy pinecone. I know. Not super impressive. But it felt important. And I guess I wanted it to be yours.”

He looks down, then back up, and there’s something there, something almost aching, like he’s trying so hard not to say too much. “I know I’m not…” he pauses. Swallows. “I’m not the intense one. Or the mysterious one. Or the one who walks around like he just emerged from a tragic origin story.”

I blink, caught somewhere between a laugh and heartbreak.

“But I meant what I said earlier,” he continues, softer now. “You deserve to be held. Not just by a robe. Or a job. Or a ritual you made up because the world made you hustle too young.” He looks at me then. Really looks. “And I’d do it. If you let me. I’d hold space for you.”

Something in me cracks. Not in the sharp way. In the quiet way.

The kind where you realize someone has been paying attention while you were busy pretending you weren’t unraveling.

I clutch the pinecone a little tighter. “Thank you,” I whisper, and I mean it.

He nods. “Okay. I’ll, um… let you sit with that.”

And just like that, he stands, bows slightly, bows, like a goddamn sacred fox cub, and turns to leave.

But at the flap, he pauses, looks back, and smiles that soft, real smile again. “Stillness achieved,” he says, and disappears into the trees.

I sit there, heart pounding, a mossy pinecone in my hands and the dangerous sense that I might already be falling.

I’m still holding the pinecone when Seb enters.

No footsteps. No rustling. Just presence.

He moves like a shadow made of bark and breath, slow and quiet, like if he steps too hard the woods might take it personally.

He stops a few feet from me. Doesn’t say anything. Just lifts his hand and holds something out.

I rise instinctively, like you don’t meet Seb in stillness by staying seated. You meet him with gravity.

He places it in my palm.

It’s a stone.

Small. Heavy. Smooth along one side, jagged on the other.

The kind of thing the forest might’ve held tight for a thousand years before letting it go.

I blink. “Is this your stillness token?”

He nods. Once.

I turn it over. It’s cool to the touch. Dense. The kind of object that asks nothing of you but weight.

“It’s intense,” I say softly.

“So’s stillness,” he replies. His voice is deeper when it’s quiet. Slower. Like each word gets permission before it leaves his mouth.

I look up.

He’s watching me, but not in the way Jax does, not like he’s trying to unmake me. Seb watches like he’s waiting to see if I’ll give myself away.

“Why this?” I ask, turning the stone over again. “Why this one?”

He shrugs. “Didn’t plan to find anything. Then I stepped on it. Hard.”

I blink. “Oh.”

“But I didn’t throw it,” he adds, eyes still on mine. “I picked it up.” He pauses. Fingers twitch slightly at his side. “Stillness isn’t always gentle. Sometimes it bruises.”

I might forget how to stand.

We just look at each other for a moment, neither of us smiling. Neither of us moving.

And then he says, low, “It felt honest.”

My throat tightens. I nod, because I can’t speak.

He doesn’t linger. Just steps back, nods once more, and leaves the dome like the conversation wasn’t the most disarmingly raw thing I’ve experienced since the forest decided to emotionally curate my dating life.

I sit back down slowly, place the stone beside the pinecone, and stare at both like they’re trying to tell me something I’m still too afraid to hear.

I hear him before I see him. The steady crunch of boots on forest floor. A heavier gait. Loose. Unapologetic.

Jax doesn’t walk, he arrives.

He ducks into the dome, holding something behind his back, mouth already curled in that barely-there smirk that says he knows exactly how wrecked I am and isn’t above enjoying it.

He looks like he’s been rolling around in wild intention. His hair’s a little messier than it was this morning. His shirt’s damp with heat and a little dirt-smudged. There’s a scratch on his forearm that looks fresh.

He doesn’t speak at first. Just stands there, watching me, one brow slightly raised.

I raise one back, but my face is warm. My robe is heavy. And I’m acutely aware that every muscle in my body still hums with the memory of his name.

“You look cozy,” he says, voice low.

“It’s a weighted robe.”

His gaze flicks to the pile beside me. Asher’s pinecone. Seb’s stone. He nods toward them. “Getting offerings now, huh?”

I flush. “Stillness tokens. It’s part of the…”

“Oh, I know,” he cuts in. “You’re the High Priestess of Moss and Emotional Detonation. I read the vibes.” He steps closer, still holding something behind his back.

I cross my legs tighter. “You find your token?”

He grins, pulls his hand around, and in it… is a stick.

A gnarled, half-burnt stick, with a forked end and a knot near the top that honestly looks vaguely obscene if you squint.

He holds it out with both hands like it’s sacred.

I blink. “Really?”

“This is my truth,” he says solemnly. “I almost tripped on it. Then I looked down, and it looked back at me.”

“That stick looked back at you?” I ask.

“It whispered,” he adds. “Said, ‘You don’t need a rock. You need a weapon.’”

I stare at him.

He cracks a grin. “Or a walking stick. Or possibly something to threaten Miles with.”

I exhale. “Jax, this is not a weaponized scavenger hunt.”

“Isn’t it?” he murmurs, stepping closer.

Too close.

I can smell him, pine and smoke and sin.

His eyes dip to the robe. Linger. His voice drops. “So… about last night.”

I freeze.

Here it is. The awkward. The regret. The “let’s pretend it didn’t happen” talk.

But instead, he says, “I keep thinking about the sound you made. Right when you came.”

My stomach drops to my knees.

“You said my name like it was a fucking prayer, Bliss.”

My breath stutters.

He steps in, doesn’t touch me, but I feel him anyway, every molecule of heat between us vibrating like it wants another round.

“I don’t do feelings,” he says, voice rawer now. “I don’t do soft.”

I nod like I understand, even though I absolutely do not.

“But last night…” He looks down. Then up. “You didn’t feel like a mistake.”

My throat tightens.

“And I don’t know what the hell to do with that,” he says.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

He watches me for one more beat, then shoves the stick into my hand, rough, real, his. “You can burn it if you want,” he says. “But I found it for you.”

And he turns and walks out like he didn’t just take the breath out of my body and stab it into a piece of forest debris.

I stare at the stick.

It’s ugly. Sharp. Possessive.

And I clutch it tighter than I mean to.

The dome is quiet again, but the air feels watchful.

I don’t hear Jonah enter. I just feel him.

The shift in temperature. The awareness at the base of my spine. That uncanny sense that someone just looked directly at your soul and found it wanting in a way that makes you want to beg them to do it again.

He steps into the space like the shadows let him go reluctantly.

No fanfare. No sound.

Just Jonah. Cool, composed, and holding something small in his hand.

He doesn’t come straight to me. He walks the circle. Slow. Methodical. Like he’s testing the air for intention.

Then he stops in front of me. Looks down. Not at the robe. Not at my hands, still clutching Jax’s sharp offering.

At my eyes.

Like he knows I’m still buzzing from whatever the hell Jax just did to my nervous system, and that he wants to pull me out of it without ever touching me.

“This is for you,” he says simply. He places the object in my palm.

It’s a feather. Long. Pale gray. Unusually clean.

I frown. “You found this in the woods?”

He nods. “Wedged between stones. It wasn’t lying out in the open. It was caught. Snagged on something. Held tight.”

I turn it slowly in my hand.

It’s delicate, but not frail. Sturdy spine. Smooth texture. No fraying. Almost unnaturally intact.

“And this… made you think of stillness?” I ask.

He crouches in front of me then. Low. Calm. His voice drops. “It made me think of you.”

My stomach flips so hard it might need a seatbelt.

“It was fighting to get free,” he says, gaze locked on mine. “But it wasn’t torn. It was just held. Waiting.”

I can’t breathe. Not properly.

He leans forward slightly, not touching, but closer than comfort. “And I thought, maybe you’ve been caught like that. Between places. Purposes. Personas.” His eyes don’t waver. “But you’re not fragile. And you’re not broken. You’re just not where you’re supposed to fly from yet.”

I blink too hard.

His voice softens, and that’s the part that kills me, the gentleness under the precision. “And I thought… maybe you need someone to see that.”

I open my mouth to speak. I have no idea what I was going to say.

He reaches out, finally, finally, and lifts the end of the feather with two fingers. Light. Barely touching my skin. “You’re not stuck, Bliss. You’re just not done becoming.”

He drops it gently back into my lap, rises, and walks away without another word.

I sit there, robe tight, breath shallow, a feather of existential awakening in my hand and the disturbing certainty that Jonah Vale just dissected my soul and left it neatly folded on a sacred pillow.

And now I have to keep pretending I’m in charge.

By the time Miles walks in, I’ve stopped pretending I’m emotionally stable.

I’m sitting cross-legged in my sacred Womb Cloak?, a pinecone of feelings, a bruising stone, a weaponized stick, and a soul-baring feather arranged in a semicircle in front of me like some kind of emotional shrine to my impending breakdown.

He enters like he’s early for a meeting. Calm. Controlled. Carrying something in one hand and a mug in the other.

I blink. “Is that… coffee?”

He nods. “I figured your third eye was going to need a caffeine assist.”

I stare at him. “I love you.”

He shrugs. “I know.”

And for one horrifying moment, I can’t tell if he’s joking.

He crosses the dome with quiet confidence and kneels, far enough not to touch me, close enough to make my skin hyper-aware of the not touching.

He holds something out.

It’s… not beautiful.

At first glance, it’s just a flat piece of wood. Smooth. Simple. Worn at the edges. About the size of my palm. Faintly charred on one side, like it was part of something else once.

I take it carefully. “Driftwood?” I ask.

He nods. “Most likely.”

I turn it over. There are grooves in it, lines that look like they were worn in by time or water. Almost patterns. Almost letters.

“It doesn’t look like much,” I say softly.

He shrugs again. “It was the only thing that made sense.”

I glance up at him.

He’s not looking at me. Not directly. His eyes are on the piece of wood in my hands. “I like it because it’s been somewhere else,” he says, voice low. “It had another purpose. A structure. Maybe even a function.” His mouth tilts, just a little. “Now it’s just… still. Just itself. No use. No pressure. Just being.”

I don’t say anything.

Because that?

That is everything.

“And maybe that’s part of stillness too,” he adds. “Not having to prove you’re useful. Just… existing. With no performance metrics.”

I’m going to cry. I’m absolutely going to cry and he’s going to analyze it in real time.

I try to hold his gaze, but it’s too steady. Too smart. Too intimate in the way that only someone who never gives too much can be when they finally give anything at all.

“I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff,” I whisper.

“I don’t,” he says. “I believe in you.”

I blink. Hard.

He finishes his coffee and stands. Before he goes, he nods at the driftwood. “There’s a groove on the back. Could be used to hold something. A ring. A note. A key.”

My heart tries to escape through my throat.

He pauses at the flap. “Not all stillness is spiritual,” he says over his shoulder. “Some of it’s just peace.”

And then he leaves.

I look down at the wood in my hands.

It’s warm where he held it.

Heavy in a way that has nothing to do with weight.

And somehow, impossibly, it’s the one that feels the most like me.