Chapter 10 A Rehearsed Routine #3
"I work with sharper tools than this every day," Theodora said, "on actual human organs," which would have been more convincing if she weren’t currently mangling a mushroom.
"That’s an entirely different principle." Catherine came to stand beside her, watching Theodora attempt another cut that made her wince. "You're going to hurt yourself. Stop."
Theodora put the knife down. "Fine. Go ahead, I’ll watch.”
"No. I'll teach you. It's not difficult once you understand proper technique."
She moved behind Theodora before her brain could catch up with her body's decision.
Theodora went rigid immediately, and Catherine felt it, the way every muscle tensed like she was bracing for impact.
"Relax," Catherine said quietly into Theodora’s ear, reaching around to reposition the knife in her hand. "You're holding it wrong. See? Grip the handle here with your thumb and forefinger. It gives you more control."
Her hand wrapped around Theodora's wrist, not thinking, just correcting, and the contact sent electricity up Catherine's arm with unexpected intensity.
Theodora's skin was warm under her palm, pulse point jumping against Catherine's fingertips in ways that suggested Theodora was as affected by this proximity as Catherine was trying not to be.
"Like this." Catherine guided Theodora's hand, demonstrating the proper rocking motion of the knife through vegetables. "Let the knife do the work. You're not trying to force it through, just guide the blade and let the movement do the cutting."
Theodora said nothing. The sarcasm that usually characterized her responses had evaporated entirely, leaving just shallow breathing.
Theodora was concentrating hard, her shoulders tense with the effort of trying to do it properly, and then she got it right and exhaled, this small satisfied sound, and Catherine felt it more than heard it, the warmth of it, the closeness of her.
She stopped giving instructions for a second.
Just long enough to become aware of how near they were standing, Theodora's back against her chest, Catherine's chin level with her ear, close enough that she could see the curve of her jaw and the small gold hoops she wore and the way a few strands of hair had come loose at the nape of her neck.
She stepped back quickly and went to the sink, turning the faucet on, washing her hands with considerably more focus than was strictly necessary.
"Practice those cuts," she said, and her voice came out almost normal, only slightly breathless in ways she prayed Theodora wouldn't notice. "I need to check the pan."
She returned to the stove with her back to Theodora, focusing on olive oil that didn't need her attention while trying to steady breathing that had gone embarrassingly uneven.
Behind her, Theodora continued cutting with improved technique, and neither of them spoke about what had just happened.
What had passed between them in that moment of contact, brief as it was.
"How are those cuts coming?" Catherine asked without turning around, giving Theodora privacy to compose herself the same way Catherine was trying to.
"Better, I think."
“Good. Bring them over when you're finished. Everything else is nearly ready."
Catherine drained the noodles, the steam rising to heat her flushed face. Behind her, she could hear Theodora scraping vegetables from the cutting board into the bowl Catherine had provided, the small domestic sounds filling the space between music tracks.
The rhythm of it settled in again after that, knife against board, the low hum of the stove, something almost normal reasserting itself between them.
“How was your teaching week?” Theodora asked as she brought the vegetables over, the question landing lightly, like it had been waiting for a moment that felt safe enough. “Any child prodigies making you question your life choices?”
Catherine smiled despite herself, adding the vegetables to the noodles and beginning to build the sauce. "Actually, yes. Though not in the way you're imagining. I have a seven-year-old student, Oliver, who's technically quite good but has the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel."
She felt Theodora lean against the counter beside her, close enough to watch but not interfering with Catherine's cooking. "What happened?"
"He made it exactly twelve measures into his assigned piece before stopping to inform me with complete seriousness that he'd discovered he could play Für Elise entirely with his elbows.
" Catherine kept her eyes on the pan, stirring teriyaki into the vegetables.
"Then proceeded to demonstrate. For ten minutes.
While I sat there wondering what one says to a child who's technically creating music but also absolutely destroying Beethoven. "
Theodora laughed, the sound easy and unrestrained, filling the kitchen. Catherine glanced over to find her bent slightly at the counter, one hand braced against it, eyes bright.
“With his elbows,” Theodora managed, still laughing. “Jesus Christ, Catherine. What did you do?”
"I let him finish." Catherine heard the dry amusement in her own voice.
"Then I explained that while creative expression is valuable, his parents weren't paying me to teach him experimental percussion techniques.
He looked appropriately chastened for approximately thirty seconds before asking if he could try playing with his toes next. "
Theodora laughed harder, the sound too big for Catherine's controlled apartment, too honest for the careful space Catherine usually maintained. But Catherine found herself smiling wider, enjoying Theodora's reaction more than she'd expected, pleased that she could produce this response.
The laughter eventually subsided, leaving Theodora wiping tears from her eyes and Catherine turning back to the stove to hide her own pleasure.
They worked in comfortable silence for a few minutes, Catherine finishing the sauce while Theodora set out plates, and then Theodora said, quietly, "I miss that," and the lightness had gone out of her voice.
Catherine glanced over. "Miss what?"
"Laughing like that."
Catherine plated their food and let the silence sit, not rushing to fill it. They took their plates to the table, and Theodora settled into her usual chair with the ease of someone who'd stopped noticing they had a usual chair.
After a few bites, she said, "Nat told me I don't laugh enough. That I need to be careful or the hospital will hollow me out."
"Your friend from med school?" Catherine asked, though she knew the answer.
"Yeah." Something in Theodora's face softened.
"I genuinely don't know how I would have gotten through without her.
She talked me down from so many ledges. Convinced me I wasn't actually the worst medical student alive when my parents suggested otherwise.” She paused.
"She was actually the first person I came out to.
And the first one who showed up with wine when I broke up with Sarah, a nurse in the radiology department. " She gave a small smile at that.
Something in Theodora's tone made Catherine's chest tighten in ways she couldn't quite identify.
The obvious affection, the way Theodora's whole demeanor shifted when talking about Natalie, suggested a depth of connection that Catherine found herself responding to with discomfort she didn't want to examine.
"She sounds important to you," Catherine said, keeping her voice neutral.
"She is. She just gets me, in that way that's hard to explain without sounding like you're twelve." Theodora turned her fork slowly. “I don’t know. It’s rare to find a friendship like that."
Catherine knew it was rare. She also knew, with uncomfortable certainty, that she was cataloguing every word Theodora said about this woman.
The warmth in her voice. The ease of it.
The way talking about Natalie seemed to cost Theodora nothing, while talking to Catherine—even now, even after months—still sometimes carried the careful quality of someone navigating unmarked terrain.
It was unreasonable to mind. She minded anyway.
"You remind me of her, actually," Theodora added, glancing up.
Catherine felt it before she could name it. Not quite jealousy, or not only that. Something older and less flattering. The quiet sting of being compared to someone else, filed neatly into a category that made her easier to understand.
You remind me of her. As if what Catherine was to her could be explained by resemblance. As if what was happening between them was that simple.
She picked up her wine glass and set it down without drinking. "Did you two ever date?"
She heard how it sounded the second it left her mouth: too direct, too careful in its casualness. Theodora's expression moved through surprise, then something more amused.
"Nat? No. She's very straight. Has terrible taste in men and makes me listen to her analyze their various inadequacies in exhausting detail." She paused. "Why?"
"You spoke about her with a lot of affection." Catherine kept her voice neutral. "I wasn't sure."
Theodora looked at her for a moment, that green-eyed steadiness that Catherine had stopped being able to dismiss as merely observant. "She's like a sister. There's never been anything romantic between us. Not even close. I never wanted there to be."
"Good," Catherine said, and then caught herself. "I mean, that's good. That you have that kind of friendship. Uncomplicated."
The word sat between them, slightly misshapen. Catherine knew they both felt it.
Theodora tilted her head. "Is it?"
"Is it what?"
"Uncomplicated." Her voice was quiet, not quite a challenge. "Friendship."
Catherine looked back at her plate. The noodles had gone cold, and she focused on that fact with more attention than it deserved. The boombox had shifted to something slower in the other room, a radio station playing The Cure’s Just Like Heaven.
"Sometimes," Catherine said finally.
It wasn't an answer. They both knew it. But Theodora didn't push, which was its own kind of answer. She was learning, Catherine realized, when to leave space. When not to reach for a door just because it wasn't locked.
Catherine held onto that for a moment before standing to clear the plates.
Theodora followed without being asked, and they moved into the kitchen together, falling into a rhythm without deciding to, Theodora rinsing, Catherine drying, steam rising from the sink between them. Neither of them saying anything.
Then Theodora reached for a glass at the same moment Catherine did, fingers brushing, a spark too brief to name, and Catherine felt it with disproportionate intensity.
"Sorry," Theodora murmured, stepping back to give Catherine space.
“It’s fine.” Catherine kept her voice level, polite, giving nothing away, even as her pulse picked up and the brief contact left warmth blooming across her skin.
Catherine reached for the towel and made the mistake of looking up.
Theodora was watching her, eyes fixed on her in a way that made the air feel different.
"Careful," Catherine said, trying to keep her voice normal. "If you keep looking at me like that, we'll never get through the dishes."
Theodora blinked, color rushing to her face, and the warmth that moved through Catherine had nothing to do with the kitchen. It was a relief, honestly, to know she wasn't the only one, that whatever this was went both ways, even if neither of them was quite ready to say so out loud.
"I wasn't—" Theodora started, then stopped, apparently recognizing that denial would be pointless. "Sorry. I was just thinking."
“Dangerous habit.” Catherine turned away before Theodora could see how much it had landed, moving back to the breakfast bar. She kept her movements measured, her expression composed, as if nothing had shifted at all.
The quiet behind her didn’t last.
The faucet shut off with a groan, and a second later she heard Theodora’s footsteps crossing the room, felt the shift before she saw it, that familiar pull of her presence drawing closer.
Theodora stopped just behind her shoulder. Close enough that Catherine could feel the warmth of her, the same warmth that she'd become embarrassingly attuned to over the past months. Close enough that turning around would have been an answer to a question neither of them had asked yet.
"Catherine."
She'd heard her name in Theodora's mouth hundreds of times now, in every register: exasperated, delighted, sleepy, sharp with laughter. This version was new, quieter, careful in the way of someone choosing a word they couldn't take back, and Catherine stilled.
"Mm." Catherine kept her eyes down, her voice neutral, as though her hands weren't pressing into the marble hard enough to whiten her knuckles.
Theodora moved, not away, but around, slowly, until she was at Catherine's side rather than behind her, and Catherine had no choice but to be aware of her.
The distance between them was nothing. Four inches. Three.
Catherine looked at her. It was a mistake, she knew it the instant she did it, but knowing didn't help because Theodora was looking back with that quiet, certain expression, and Catherine was so tired of being careful.
The wanting was enormous and exhausting, and she had been managing it for months with such consideration, and for a long, suspended moment, she stopped.
Theodora's gaze dropped, just briefly, to her lips, just for a fraction of a second, and came back up.
Catherine felt her breath go shallow.
Theodora let out a small breath, like someone easing out of a thought.
Then she reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair back from Catherine's face, her fingers grazing her cheek and then staying there, just for a moment, resting light against her jaw.
Not quite a hold. Just a stillness, like Theodora had forgotten to move her hand or had decided not to.
Catherine was aware of everything at once: the warmth of Theodora's fingertips, the distance that wasn't between them, the fact that she was standing in her own kitchen at eleven at night willing herself not to turn into the touch.
Theodora's hand dropped. Neither of them moved. The boombox carried on from the other room, indifferent to all of it.
Then Theodora exhaled, quiet and unsteady, and reached for her sweater from the back of the chair. "It's late," she said.
"It is."
But Theodora didn't rush. She stood there a moment longer, looking at Catherine in that way she'd stopped bothering to disguise, and Catherine looked back and let herself, just briefly, not disguise anything either.
They said goodnight the way they always did, easy and familiar, the back and forth that had become its own language between them. But when Theodora stepped into the hallway and turned back, hand resting on the doorframe, the look she gave Catherine before she turned away didn't belong to any of it.