Chapter 15
Eris
Even after all this time
the Sun never says to the Earth:
"You owe me."
Look what happens
with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky.
― Hafiz
She had tried to envision it, never quite succeeding.
It was too far-fetched, like trying to make up a colour that didn’t exist—in her case, like trying to make up a colour in a world of black and white.
To her, happiness had always been nothing more than a myth that people chose to believe in. Like God. Like destiny. Like karma.
She could’ve never imagined that one day she would get to touch happiness with her own hands, and give it a name.
Under her ear, the steady rhythm of Denny’s heartbeat had lulled her through the night, a tide of serenity that had made her sleep unusually deep and peaceful. She was curled along Denny’s side, a leg tangled between hers and an arm swung around her waist, Denny’s breath warm upon her hair.
Everything felt disconcertingly perfect.
Denny stirred in her sleep, drawing Eris closer as a content little sigh eased out of her nostrils.
She was solid and hot, her sunlight burning quietly beneath her skin, free for Eris to borrow and revel in as she thanked every star in the sky for aligning at the right time to allow their paths to cross.
She would never ask for anything more than this. There wasn’t more than this. This, as small and simple as it was, was everything.
A smile stretched her cheek against Denny’s breast. Her body felt too small to contain what she was feeling. She was still learning to adjust and make room for the foreign good that Denny kept pouring into her, even as she slept.
Eris had screwed herself over by getting this close to her. If for any reason things between the two of them went awry, she would never be able to switch back to her old self. All the space that Denny had carved herself inside her… Nothing would fill the void that losing her would leave.
It used to be so easy—having nothing to lose, crawling through each day with blood-stained hands and a knife between her teeth. New dawn, same drill.
She had almost forgotten her knuckle knife.
She had felt so helpless and vulnerable without it at first, a cripple without a crutch.
Now her hands were full of flowers and fluffy blankets and more love than she deserved.
The knife was buried in the box, like the part of Eris that had clung to it for dear life for such a long time that she had believed that blade had become her entire personality.
Whenever she stood in front of the mirror, however, she was reminded of how much her edges had blunted since meeting Denny.
Denny’s unconditional trust had changed her to the marrow, one act of kindness at a time, and now all perspectives Eris had had about life had turned upside down.
She wanted to live.
She wanted to devote herself to someone else.
She wanted to love and be loved.
A hum reverberated under her ear. Denny stirred again, awake, this time.
Bleary eyes fluttered open seeking Eris’.
So up close, in the milky morning light, Eris could distinctly make out the brown halo around the pupils and the dark specks floating in the green.
She could’ve sworn the brown appeared out of nowhere on certain days, when the sun was shining and the sky was blue.
On rainy days, the green took over, the outer ring of emerald fading to lime towards the centre, then olive.
“Hey.” Denny’s greeting was hoarse with sleep. She stretched, only to curl right back against Eris. “What time is it?”
“No idea. None of your five alarms have gone off yet, so we might have a few minutes.”
“I want a few days,” mewled Denny, hooking a leg over Eris to draw her closer.
“Deal.” Eris skimmed her nose up her neck before kissing it. Egged on by a content sigh, she trailed up until she reached Denny’s lips.
“Sorry, morning breath,” Denny murmured.
“Don’t give a fuck.”
A giggle poured into the deepening kiss, its glee contagious. Eris felt oddly light, as if she’d shed an armour she’d been wearing since birth.
“We should do this more often.”
“Sleep together?”
“Mmh-hm.”
“We should.” Denny stroked Eris’ side up to her ribs. “Like, every night.” A hint of blush scattered across her cheeks. The light seeping through her hair painted a golden halo around her head. She was holding her breath, her expression growing anxious as the seconds ticked by.
It wasn’t just about sharing a bed. It was the first step into something more, something Eris had never done before. She needed to know exactly what she’d be walking into. She needed to hear it.
“Denny.” Her fingers curled around the side of Denny’s neck, thumb tracing the jawline back and forth. “What do you expect from… us?”
“What do you mean expect?”
“I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”
“I thought we were.” Denny’s eyebrows knit in bewilderment. “That being together was what we both wanted.”
“But together…” Eris faltered. “What is together for you?”
There were too many nuances to that. Eris was too inexperienced in that field to trust her own intuition. She wasn’t asking for an oath of eternal love. Just reassurance. And Denny—clever, wonderful Denny—didn’t need any further elaboration.
“You need words.” Eris dropped her gaze, but Denny claimed it back without missing a beat. “It’s okay to ask for words.” A soft smile stretched her lips. “Cards on the table, yeah?”
There was a pause, so brief it was barely there, but the whole universe stopped within it.
“I’m in love with you, Eris.”
Eris blinked. It shouldn’t sound so foreign. She already knew about Denny’s deep affection for her. She saw it every day, at any given moment. But hearing it spelled out loud hit differently.
“In love with me.”
“Very, very much.”
“Why?”
Denny surprised her with a hearty giggle. “That’s not the response I was anticipating.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Eris, this is…” Denny placed a hand on Eris’ chest, rubbing gently. “Love isn’t about making sense, you can’t… calculate it. It just… happens.”
That was the theory, and it was more than clear.
What Eris didn’t get was what about her was lovable or even interesting.
‘Just trust me on this one’ wasn’t an acceptable answer, not when she knew so precisely why she loved Denny: her intelligence, her wit, her selflessness and compassion…
There was so much to love. Loving Denny made sense.
Denny loving Eris didn’t.
“How do you know you’re in love with me if you don’t know why?”
Denny sighed. Sometimes it was like they spoke different languages.
“Okay: words.” She took a breath. “You’re…
so good to me. To me and for me. You didn’t speak a single word for one month and still managed to…
I don’t know what to call it.” Her voice caught, breaking for a split second.
Her fingertips dug into Eris’ chest. “Since I’ve had you in my life, it’s like it’s easier to breathe.
You make me feel less… outnumbered in the world. Does this make any sense?”
“No.”
Denny ducked her head with a titter. “Well, this is how I feel spelled out in words. You make my life better just by being a part of it.”
Eris blinked away the damp mist in her eyes. “I never make anything better.”
“You do for me.” A shy smile brightened Denny’s expression. “I’m not saying I’m planning to marry you within a year, but you feel right. I can see us building a future together.”
A future. That had never been anything worth looking forward to in Eris’ future. But a future like this present… She could get behind it. A future where she got to fall asleep in Denny’s arms and wake up to a kiss and a loving caress, cherished, safe…
Her heart skipped. None of her daydreams had ever gone that far.
“Too soon for this talk, mh?” Denny noted, a bit nervously.
“No, it’s… I’ve never looked that far ahead. I’ve lived the last decade or so thinking every new year would be that last.”
Denny stroked her face. “I hope I changed your mind.”
Here was the love. So much of it. So strong, so blinding.
“Sunshine,” Eris breathed, half laughing, half sniffling. “You changed everything.”
She pulled Denny into a kiss that Denny broke with a groany chuckle.
“I need to pee so badly.”
And Eris couldn’t help but chuckle, too, because this was a level of intimacy she’d thought she’d never experience.
Much like everything else Denny had given her.
* * *
She loitered in the shop for half of the morning and most of the afternoon while Rocco was out doing deliveries.
The longer she spent observing Denny dealing with customers, the harder it was to deny that Denny was right: Eris wouldn’t have lasted in a customer service job.
She lacked Denny’s patience and grace and couldn’t hold up an accommodating facade to save her life.
She enjoyed being helpful, though, and what little manual work she could do, she did gladly, if only to take some load off Denny’s shoulders.
Watching Denny struggle to keep up with the current customer’s overdetailed instructions for her bouquet, Eris checked another box on a mental list of behaviours she’d been tracking for a while now.
There were plenty more she had already checked.
She’d been paying attention since stumbling into a TikTok video of a psychiatrist discussing the most common signs of ADHD in adult women.
The more she educated herself about the subject, the more certain she was that most of Denny’s ‘quirks’ were in fact ADHD symptoms.
In between a rush of customers and the next, she managed to snap a few photos of the broken phone and send them to an old acquaintance who might be able to help her with it.
Will Tech
That’s nasty
Tough luck with an extraction?
No, dimwit, just need to fix the screen
Will Tech
Hello, Keane, I missed you, too
Lock in, Will