Chapter Sixteen
Burn the False King, But Not Before I Finish This Bread
I am emotionally concussed.
That’s the only explanation for how I ended up curled in my Womb Cloak?, on the floor of the dome, eating a piece of dry bread like it’s a ritual sacrament and muttering to myself about fire safety and emotional exposure therapy.
“I’ve just been spiritually railed by a man with CIA energy and now I have to teach emotionally volatile men how to write farewell letters to their toxic masculine selves. I’m definitely qualified.”
I take another bite of the bread.
It’s stale.
It’s grounding.
It’s symbolic.
I write that in my notebook.
Day Four. Burn the False King to Free the Wounded Boy.? The sacred journey of letting go of performative masculinity through stationary reflection and exposure to flames. Also: bread.
I sip my raspberry-adjacent water and squint at the activity outline I made in a fugue state at 2am.
The Sacred Bonfire of Rebirth.?
Each man will write a letter to the version of himself that performed masculinity to survive.
They will read it aloud.
They will throw it into the bonfire.
While I play the didgeridoo in the background wearing a shawl made of thrifted silk and ancestral trauma.
I am not prepared for any of this.
But they are.
They’re bonding. Healing. Being introspective and possibly unionizing.
So I do what any slightly unhinged retreat leader does when she’s emotionally wrecked and under-lubricated:
I send the men into the forest.
By late morning, they’ve all gathered outside the dome, looking suspiciously well-rested and spiritually moisturized.
Jax is eating something from a tin with his fingers.
Asher is vibrating with the need to emotionally overshare.
Jonah is leaning against a post like a man who absolutely did not make me come until I forgot my own name less than 12 hours ago.
I step outside. Robe. Bread. Fake clipboard.
“Today’s work is sacred,” I begin, in the voice of someone who has not cried in a towel this morning. “You are each going to spend the day in intentional isolation, at the pond, in the woods, wherever your wounds whisper best.”
They nod, surprisingly serious.
I continue. “You will write a farewell letter. A goodbye to the version of yourself that performed masculinity for the world. The man who pretended to be something harder, louder, more palatable. The King you built to survive.”
Jax raises an eyebrow. “And we burn him?”
“You burn him,” I confirm. “With intention. With compassion. While I do breathwork on the didgeridoo.”
Miles actually writes that down.
Asher clasps his hands to his heart.
Jonah doesn’t move.
Seb grunts. Which I think is agreement.
I finish the last bite of bread and point my clipboard at them dramatically. “Go forth. Write your truths. Do not return until you’re ready to burn the King.”
They scatter. Some head toward the woods. Some toward the pond.
And I?
I return to the dome. Pull the robe tighter. Sit in a sunbeam like a lizard with too many feelings. And whisper to the universe, “Please don’t let one of them write a poem.”
I’m mid-realignment snack when Miles knocks.
It’s a soft knock. Courteous. Like he doesn’t want to interrupt my robe-based crisis, which is thoughtful considering I am currently sprawled across a floor cushion, half-eating a fig and half-planning a fire-based masculinity exorcism for five emotionally wounded forest men.
“Miles,” I call out. “Enter the sacred chaos.”
He steps through the flap like he’s arriving for a medical consult, not walking into a cloud of incense, fruit peels, and the faint scent of spiritual desperation. He’s barefoot, naturally. Shirtless, unfairly. And carrying the exact energy of a man who’s come to tell me that the assignment is flawed and his spreadsheet has concerns.
He crosses his arms. “I can’t do it.”
I blink. “Can’t do what?”
He gestures in a vague circle. “The letter. The King. The... farewell to performance. I’m not performing. This is just who I am.”
I pause mid-bite. “So... what I’m hearing is that you think you were born optimized?”
He nods. “Yes.”
I swallow my fig and the scream rising behind it. “Sit down, Miles.”
He eyes the cushion like it’s been cursed.
“You are not above the floor,” I say. “No one is above the floor. That’s where the healing lives.”
He sits, barely. Like he’s doing science on it.
I take a deep breath, adjust my robe into its most ceremonial drape, and grab the nearest pen that doesn’t have teeth marks on it. “Alright,” I say, very professionally. “When you were a child, what did you want to be?”
“A theoretical physicist.”
I stare at him. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Not a cowboy? Not a rock? Not a raccoon with a PhD in emotional damage?” I ask.
He blinks. “No. Just... me. But with more books.”
I press the pen to my lips and consider whether I can legally prescribe chaos. “So you never wanted to be someone bigger than you were?”
He lifts a shoulder. “I’ve never seen the point in pretending.”
“Okay, well that’s terrifying.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“Because I make up a different version of myself depending on the phase of the moon and my access to carbs, Miles.” I tap my pen against the notebook like it’s a wand and I’m about to summon the emotional beast he’s keeping locked in his logic tower. “Close your eyes.”
He doesn’t move.
“I’m serious. We’re going in.”
He sighs, softly, like he’s indulging me and not terrified of what lives in his own frontal lobe, and closes his eyes.
“Picture your inner kingdom. Your masculine domain. What does it look like?” I ask.
“A library.”
“Obviously,” I mutter. “Is it color-coded?”
“Organized by discipline.”
“Of course. Now, walk to the throne. It’s probably ergonomic. See the man sitting on it?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What’s he wearing?” I ask.
“A tailored suit.”
“What’s he holding?” I ask.
“A pen.”
“And what’s he hiding?” I ask.
He flinches.
It’s subtle. A micro-flinch. But I see it.
And suddenly, I am very interested in this man’s metaphorical interior.
I lean forward. “What is your King hiding, Miles?”
He opens his eyes, and something in them, something normally filed under “do not access without permission,” is suddenly showing.
“Fear,” he says.
I freeze.
He continues, voice steady but low. “He’s hiding fear. Because if I’m not this, organized, efficient, controlled, version of myself... I don’t know what’s left underneath. No King. No mask. No boy. Just... space.”
Oh.
Oh no.
I might cry.
I can’t cry.
Not in the robe. If I cry in this robe, it loses its power and I have to burn it in the Sacred Bonfire of Emotional Collapse?.
“Wow,” I say, trying to sound normal and not like my insides are molting. “That was both profoundly honest and emotionally destabilizing. You good?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It just came out.”
“Yeah, it does that sometimes,” I mutter. “Feelings are sneaky like that. Like raccoons. Or overdue taxes.”
He looks at me then, really looks, and for the first time I see something behind the logic, behind the diagrams, and hypothesis testing and masculinity flow charts.
He’s scared. And he wants to stop being.
“What if there’s nothing to burn?” he asks.
I reach out and grab his hand before I can talk myself out of it.
His fingers twitch but don’t pull away.
“There’s always something to burn,” I say softly. “Even if it’s just the idea that you don’t get to be anything else.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “Will you help me write it?”
I nod. “Only if we start it with: Dear Capitalism, I’d like to unsubscribe from your performance model of manhood. Love, Miles.”
He huffs out a surprised laugh. “You’re serious?”
I shrug. “Only in the robe.”
He stays. That alone is wild. Miles Sinclair voluntarily sitting on a floor cushion, robe-adjacent, with a pen in hand and trauma on the table. I half expect him to start talking to the incense.
Instead, he opens his notebook and stares at the page like it’s offended him.
I pour him some raspberry not-tea and refill my fig bowl like a hostess at a grief buffet.
He writes one line, crosses it out, then writes another, crosses that one out, too, and then just sighs and stares at me like I’m responsible for the state of his emotional Word doc.
“How do you start something like this?” he asks.
I take a fig half, dip it in honey, and chew like I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life. “Start with what your King would never admit,” I say. “Or alternatively, open with a poetic insult. Like: Dear King, your reign was a PowerPoint without transitions.”
He blinks. Writes it down.
Oh gods.
He’s using it.
He writes a few more lines, jaw tight, then pauses again. “Does it have to be... dramatic?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “The sacred fire demands dramatic syntax. This is your Oscar monologue. Your villain backstory. Your rebrand.”
He glances at me, skeptical.
“Fine,” I say. “Then at least make it weirdly specific. The King doesn’t need ‘you were emotionally distant.’ He needs: you always adjusted your tie before saying something cruel.”
Miles freezes. Then, slowly, he writes that down too.
My chest tightens, because oh no, I’m accidentally good at this.
He keeps writing. His mouth is slightly parted. His brow furrows when he’s deep in it, and I have the devastating realization that watching Miles process emotion is kind of… hot?
No. No no no. This is a sacred space. I cannot be turned on by a man writing about his shadow self in lowercase italics.
He exhales. “Okay. I think I have something.”
I nod. “Read it.”
He hesitates, then, softly, he does.
It’s not long. It’s not polished. But it’s him. It’s precise and broken and so painfully restrained it makes my heart do this annoying fluttery thing I thought I burned off during my first moon ceremony.
He finishes.
I say nothing, because I’m afraid if I open my mouth it’ll come out as an apology to every man I’ve ever written off for having a tight handwriting style.
He looks at me. And for once, he isn’t trying to analyze what I’m thinking. He’s just… there, raw, and waiting.
I reach out, just to touch his wrist. Just to ground him. Just to keep from bursting.
He shifts forward slightly. His knee brushes mine.
And it’s so small, so nothing, but it feels like an inhale I’ve been holding for a week.
“You’re good at this,” he says quietly.
“Spiritually manipulative men’s therapy? Yeah, I’ve got a gift.”
He smiles. Just barely. “No. I mean... seeing people.”
I don’t have a smart reply for that. Which is dangerous, because silence is where feelings live.
He leans in a little more.
I don’t move away, because I want to see what he does next.
And what he does is kiss me. Soft. Quick. But real.
A moment that doesn’t ask permission, but still feels like a question.
And when he pulls back, eyes wide like maybe he didn’t expect it either, all I can say is, “Well. That complicates the fire ceremony.”
He smiles again, and I hate how much I like it. “I’ll rewrite the ending,” he murmurs and leaves.
I’m still reeling from the fact that Miles kissed me after writing a farewell letter to his inner capitalist dictator, when the dome flap flutters again.
It’s not Miles returning for a round two thesis kiss.
No. It’s Toad with a package under one arm and his usual aura of unfiltered apathy.
He grunts. “Delivery.”
I blink. “From who?”
He jerks his head toward the edge of the retreat. “Said not to tell you until you open it.”
That’s never a good sign.
He drops the box on my table and walks out like he’s just delivered spiritual contraband.
I stare at the package and then open it.
Inside there are boxes. Six of them. Labeled in tidy handwriting: The Flame of Inner Liberation – Bonfire Night Tools?
There are custom matchbooks, each one unique, tucked in velvet, and labeled with names.
Jax’s says “Burn with fury, rebuild with joy.”
Seb’s is black with silver foil that reads “Let silence be the spark.”
Jonah’s is plain. Just “Truth is heat.”
Miles’s has a minimalist sketch of a key on fire.
Mine is gold. Etched with “You carry the fire, even when you don’t believe in it.”
I sit down. Hard.
There’s a note tucked beneath mine in Asher’s handwriting:
I thought we should all have something real to light it with. Something that reminds us why we’re here. I hope yours reminds you, too.
I hate him.
I love him.
I want to spiritually sob into his shirt while he explains my own inner purpose to me in footnotes.
I place the matches beside the fig bowl, stare at them, and whisper to the universe, “They’re unionizing again. And I’m not ready.”