Chapter 13 #2
"Yes." I paused. "And they're sleeping with each other."
She choked on her coffee.
I handed her a napkin and waited while she coughed, wiped her mouth, and stared at me.
"Griffin," she said slowly. "Blond, blue-eyed, looks like he walked out of a J.Crew catalog Griffin. That Griffin is sleeping with a man."
"It surprised him too."
"I bet." She shook her head, processing.
"Can I ask you something?" Jenna's voice was careful. "What happens when one of them gets jealous? Not hypothetically, really jealous."
"We talk about it. We've already had those conversations."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Are you happy?"
The answer came without hesitation. "Yes."
"No hesitation?"
"None."
Jenna studied my face. Whatever she saw there made her exhale slowly, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.
I thought about waking up between them. About the way Griffin's hand found Ivan's across my stomach. About the silence in the house that used to feel like grief and now felt like peace.
"I spent three years living in a museum," I said.
"Everything exactly where my parents left it.
Everything preserved. I thought that was how you honored what you'd lost, by keeping it frozen.
But the house isn't a museum anymore. It's full.
It's loud. It's messy. And I'm not scared of that.
I'm not waiting for it to end." I met her eyes.
"I know this isn't what you pictured for me.
I know it's a lot to take in. But this is real, Jenna. This is what I want."
"I'm not going to pretend I understand this," she finally said.
"And I'm not going to pretend I'm not worried.
You're asking me to watch you do something that could blow up in your face, and smile while it happens.
" She took a breath. "But I love you. So I'll be here.
Just... don't ask me to act like everything's normal yet. I need time."
It wasn't the enthusiastic acceptance I'd hoped for. But it was honest. And honest was better than pretending.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said. "And neither are they."
She nodded slowly. Didn't look entirely convinced. But she didn't leave, either.
She stood, then paused, her hand on her bag. "I want to meet them. Together. Not yet, I need more time, but eventually."
I blinked. "Really?"
"If they're going to be in your life, I should know them." She slung her bag over her shoulder. "Just... give me a few weeks, okay? This is a lot."
She hugged me, quick, tight, and then she was gone.
I sat in the booth for a while after she left, staring at my cooling coffee. It hadn't gone perfectly. But Jenna was still Jenna. She'd come around. Or she wouldn't. Either way, I'd told her the truth.
My phone buzzed. A text from her, sent from the parking lot.
Still processing. But I'm trying. Love you.
I smiled. Typed back: Love you too. Take all the time you need.
* * *
Three weeks later.
I woke to sunlight streaming through the window and the sound of Griffin's soft snoring beside me. His arm was draped across my waist, his face pressed into the pillow. On my other side, Ivan lay on his back, one hand behind his head, the other resting on Griffin's forearm.
I slipped out of bed carefully, not wanting to wake them. Padded to the bathroom. Looked at myself in the mirror, the same mirror I'd stood before two months ago, getting ready for a two-month anniversary dinner, unable to stop thinking about my ex.
The woman who looked back at me now was different.
Same dark hair. Same pale skin. But the shadows under her eyes had faded. The tension in her jaw had eased. She looked like someone who slept well. Someone who laughed often. Someone who wasn't alone.
Behind me, reflected in the glass, I could see the bed. Griffin had rolled into the warm spot I'd left, his arm now draped across Ivan's chest. Ivan had turned toward him, their foreheads almost touching.
This house used to be a museum. A shrine to my parents, to what I'd lost, to the past I couldn't let go. Every room held a ghost. Every silence reminded me how empty it had become.
Now, it was full.
Full of Griffin's books stacked on the coffee table. Ivan's motorcycle gear in the hallway. Two extra toothbrushes by the sink. The smell of breakfast when I came downstairs. The sound of laughter in the evenings. The weight of two bodies in bed beside me every night.
I opened my laptop for the first time in days. The Whitmore deck stared back at me, and beside it, the Hartley rebrand files I'd finally delivered last week. Both projects that had felt impossible a month ago. I'd asked for extensions on both, and somehow, I'd made the deadlines work.
But the fog had lifted. I could see it now, what the brand needed, what I'd been missing. I started typing. The ideas came faster than my fingers could move.
Two hours later, I had a draft. Not perfect, but close and I had a clear direction and focus.
Funny how that worked. I'd spent weeks trying to figure out who I was supposed to be. Turns out the answer was simpler than I thought: someone who stopped pretending.
My phone buzzed on the counter. A text from Jenna.
Dinner Friday? I'm ready to meet them. Both of them.
I smiled. Typed back: They can't wait.
I set the phone down and looked at the mirror one more time.
Six weeks ago, I'd stood here wondering if I'd ever stop feeling haunted by what I'd lost.
Now I understood. I hadn't been haunted by Ivan. I'd been haunted by the fear that loving fully meant losing fully. That giving myself completely to someone meant complete devastation when they left.
But they hadn't left. Neither of them. They'd stayed. They'd chosen me. Chosen each other.
And I'd chosen them back.
From the bedroom, I heard Griffin's voice, sleepy and amused: "Maya? Did you leave us?"
Ivan's response: "She better not have. I'm too comfortable to move."
I laughed. The sound filled the bathroom, bright and real.
"Coming," I called back.
I took one last look at my reflection. At the woman who had learned that home wasn't a place you preserved, it was a place you built. With the right people. Day by day. Choice by choice.
Then I went back to bed.
Griffin shifted to make room. Ivan reached for me without opening his eyes. I settled between them, their warmth surrounding me, their arms pulling me close.
Outside, the morning light fell on my parents' photographs on the dresser. On the books and the clutter and the evidence of three lives woven together.
Inside, two heartbeats synced with mine.
The house was full.