thirty-five #3
When I looked again, I practiced the easy smile—the one I used at restaurants, in elevators, in rooms where I wasn't supposed to exist. It didn't stick. My mouth tried and then fell flat, like my face was tired of the job.
I turned sideways, tugged the sweater hem straight, like the right angle might make me feel aligned.
It didn't. It only showed me the bruise on the inside of my arm, darkening at the edges now, fading the way people promised things would.
Sometimes they did. Sometimes the outline stayed even after the color left, a memory pressed into skin.
I thought about Evelyn's voicemail. About the email drafts that never got sent because I kept rewriting the part where I sounded sure of myself.
About the link in my notes app with ten possible storefronts and nine reasons each wouldn't work.
About the way I'd started telling people, "I'm taking my time," like it meant I was choosing patience.
I pressed my fingertips to the glass, then pulled them back because the mirror felt too cold.
I wanted Sam's voice in that moment. Not advice—just her dumb laugh about something small to pull me back into my body.
I wanted my dad's locket, too; I hadn't worn it since we moved because I told myself I didn't need it here.
I missed the weight at my throat like a person.
I turned off the light and waited a second for the dark to thin, then padded back to bed.
He'd rolled to my side in his sleep, one hand out like he'd been reaching for me without knowing.
I slid in carefully and let his palm find my ribs under the blanket.
It settled there, warm and heavy. I stared at the ceiling until the shapes blurred and the room got that late-night float, when the borders of things get fuzzy and thoughts seem truer for it.
"Hey," he mumbled, not awake, voice thick with sleep. "You okay?"
"I'm okay," I whispered, because that part was still true.
He hummed—one of those small, animal sounds—and tucked closer, nose in my hair, breathing me in like a habit. I let my eyes close and tried to borrow his calm. Tried to believe the simple math: love plus effort equals enough.
But even when the edges softened and the heaviness in my limbs turned into the slow drop toward sleep, something stayed bright and sharp behind my sternum. The part of me that kept inventory. The part that knew the difference between quiet and silence. Between being held and being kept.
I don't know when I drifted. At some point, the clock slid past one, then two, and the house settled deeper onto its bones. His hand never left my side. It felt like promise and pressure in equal measure.
When I woke again—briefly, in that thin blue hour when the heat ticks and the street outside is empty—he was still wrapped around me, the world still pretending it could be simple if we let it.
I closed my eyes and pretended with it. Just for a few more minutes.
The water shut off, but I stayed in the steam another minute, palms braced on the tile, head tipped forward. I thought about the look she gave me downstairs—how it wasn't anger exactly, just that quiet measuring, like she was asking herself if she could still believe me.
Margot's name still hung between us. I could tell myself it's my dad's fault for bringing her up every damn time, but the truth is, I let it live in the air. I don't shut it down fast enough. I don't tell him to stop like I should. And that's on me.
I don't blame her for hating it. If the positions were reversed, I'd hate it too—knowing my partner's parents didn't want me at the table, hearing about someone they thought would fit better.
She left her own life to move into mine, to try and make space in a world that was never designed with her in mind.
And I'm still learning how to protect that space.
Still figuring out how to hold her steady without making it worse.
By the time I walked into the bedroom, she was sitting in that same place on the bed I'd been in earlier, sweater loose around her shoulders. I wanted to go straight to her and say all of it, but I didn't know where to start without making it sound like another promise I might not keep.
So I changed, slid in beside her, and let my arm settle around her waist. She came closer, but I could feel the distance under her skin. I kissed the top of her head, slow, hoping it read as more than a reflex.
"C'mere," I murmured. She did, but I could tell she wasn't all the way here.
I lay there listening to her breathing, thinking about how new this still is for me—letting someone into my life past the edges of comfort, past the careful version I know how to manage. I don't want to take a wrong step, but doing nothing feels just as dangerous.
Somewhere in the drift toward sleep, she slipped out of my arms. I almost called her name, but I didn't. I just listened for the bathroom light, the water, the faint hum over the sink. I stayed still until she came back.
When she slid under the blanket again, I found her without opening my eyes. My palm on her ribs felt like the only thing I could offer right then—steady, warm, here. "You okay?" I asked, knowing she might say yes even if she wasn't.
"I'm okay," she whispered.
I hummed and pulled her in. Maybe too tightly. Maybe just enough.