Chapter 28 #4
“You’ve mentioned that you help teach the coursework.
Are you teaching this time?” Grier asked timidly, wishing she had more energy to fully engage in the conversation.
She knew it was more of a distraction than genuine curiosity, but Tobin didn’t seem to mind.
They both understood the chatter was a diversion, filling the silence before Grier’s phone interjected with the solemn news neither of them wanted.
“Yes, but I’m also testing in hazardous landings,” Tobin explained as she buttered the bread and gracefully placed it onto a hot pan.
She glanced over at Grier as the sandwich began to sizzle.
“I’ll be required to land on graded slopes—on glaciers and volcanoes.
Not the most practical for application in Aetheridge, obviously, but it can be assumed that if I can land a bird in those conditions, I can apply the skills to landings in our forest and cliffs. ”
“That sounds simultaneously treacherous and exhilarating.” “And that is the long and short of it, my love,” Tobin declared with a playful smile, lifting her butter knife into the air and jabbing it lightly in Grier’s direction for emphasis.
Grier warmed with Tobin’s use of my love. Their declarations were still so new—not even a week old—and she hoped the rush of affection she felt, both in hearing and saying the words, would never fade.
“I bet the views are incredible,” Grier offered, momentarily allowing her brain to envision the landscapes of Iceland.
She’d never been, but she’d seen some of Tobin’s pictures—especially the ones she’d posterized and hung as artwork throughout the house.
The colors were vivid, intense. She loved the idea of traveling there with Tobin someday.
“Breathtaking, if I’m being completely honest,” Tobin replied as she layered some cheese onto the bread now perfectly toasted in the pan.
“I’m also really excited to see Njáll and his family.
” Grier recognized the name from some of Tobin’s earlier stories.
“I can’t wait to cook with his mom and catch up with his sister. ”
“And your tattoo?” Grier pried gently. Tobin had repeatedly mentioned her excitement over the tattoo that Njáll’s sister, Dagny, was planning to complete while she was abroad.
Though Tobin had described the general idea, she’d also shared that Dagny was keeping the final design a secret as some sort of surprise.
That gesture alone spoke volumes about the trust and respect Tobin held for Dagny, Njáll, and their mother, Salka.
Grier found herself intrigued by their bond and deeply hoped she’d be accepted by them as readily as she had been with Harrow and Elodie.
“My tattoo!” Tobin exclaimed, wistfully throwing her head back with exaggerated glee and letting her shoulders drop dramatically.
Grier could hear the joy in her voice—but then watched Tobin correct herself.
She straightened, blanked her expression, and softened her tone, clearly trying to temper her excitement out of sensitivity for Grier’s grief.
It hurt—right to the heart—that Tobin felt she had to shield her from her joy.
“Dagny says she has it under control. I can’t wait! It just feels so…” Tobin paused, and Grier admired the softening of her features—the gentle tilt of her head, the dreamy haze in her eyes—as she searched for the right words. “… complete. Like—of course Dagny would be the one to finish my sleeve!”
Grier accepted her meal from Tobin. She managed to get most of the soup down, but the sandwich stuck in her throat.
A lump had formed there. She was realizing just how much she was going to miss Tobin when she left.
The aching of absence settled in her core—dense, familiar, and unbearably close to the grief already weighing on her today.
Then Tobin’s warm hand found her thigh—a soft triplet of squeezes. A reminder: she was still there, and they still had tonight.
“What time do you have to leave tomorrow?” Grier asked, her voice timid.
“Not until mid-afternoon. I fly to Grayport, then direct to Reykjavík from there.” Another gentle squeeze from Tobin followed—this one coaxing Grier to look at her. “I’ll land early the following morning.”
Tobin’s eyes brimmed with concern again. Grier offered her a smile, but she didn’t need a mirror to know it was the most pitiful smile she’d ever attempted.
Tobin immediately slid an arm around her and pulled her in, cradling her against her chest. They stayed on their own stools at the kitchen island, a small abyss of space between their bodies, their meals forgotten.
“I feel pathetic,” Grier admitted—more to herself than to Tobin.
She needed to voice it, so she could accept it and correct it.
“You’re not pathetic, Grier,” the admonishment in Tobin’s voice was gentle but assertive. “Everything about the last two weeks has been trying. You’ve been shouldering a burden that shouldn’t be yours to carry. It shouldn’t exist at all…”
“You’re wrong.”
The conviction in her voice startled even her. But she had to correct Tobin.
Tobin’s grip around her torso tightened, a flicker of confusion passing through her at Grier’s abrupt tone. Grier gently unwrapped herself from the embrace, needing to meet her eyes.
“Not everything in the last two weeks has been trying,” she said, steady now. “Before…” She stilled, unsure how to name the situation. “… before Jonah, I told you I loved you. And a few days later, you told me the same. That’s not trying. That’s our story.”
Tobin smiled softly. She reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind Grier’s ear, her hand lingering. The pad of her thumb gently stroked Grier’s cheek.
Grier leaned into the touch, her heart catching in her throat. She wanted to close her eyes, but she didn’t—she was clinging to this portrait of intimacy, wanting to lodge it in her brain before the aftermath of Jonah consumed her over the next week.
Her reverie was interrupted when she felt the soft tap-tap of her watch, followed by the more invasive staccatoed buzz of her phone. A text.
Her stomach plummeted before she even saw Maren’s name flash over her watch.
The lump that had been lodged in her throat swelled until it nearly choked her.
Her breath hitched. Nausea rose, dizzying and sudden, as she gasped for a breath that wheezed pitifully, refusing to fill her lungs.
It took her an unsettling amount of time to recognize that the keening sound she heard was coming from her.
Maren—6:17 p.m.
Clearance has been granted for Jonah’s final
takeoff. May he soar in peace.
Grier crumpled.
Her body slid gracelessly off the stool, too fast for Tobin to react and catch her. Her knees hit the floor with a sharp crack, but the pain barely registered. Her brain was consumed with the sadness of loss; her body was irrelevant.
Jonah was gone. This reality had been inescapable from the moment of diagnosis—she understood that. But this loss, this one, specific, catastrophic theft of innocent life, would burrow into her heart and her memory and forever change her.
Grier lay on the floor, wailing—unable to maintain her perfectly composed silence any longer. She let her grief consume her, slipping into a dissociative state she hadn’t experienced since Nora’s death. She bellowed. She pounded her fists. She gasped for air that refused to fill her lungs.
She scratched and clawed and dug into the pit of her soul. There, in the midst of her darkness, in the blackest, bleakest void of her being… she found a spark.
She reached for that spark. And she ignited.
Grier opened her throat and screamed—screamed until there was nothing left, until the air was gone and she tasted blood in her mouth. She turned that spark into a flame, and with it she breathed the fire of her despair into the abyss.
And then everything turned black.
Grier came to with the emotional free-fall sensation of visceral displacement, like her consciousness had been slammed back into her body by a rollercoaster loop. She was shaking—or no, not shaking. Being shaken.
A hand was tapping her face. Her name echoed through a tunnel, distant and panicked.
It took her a few moments, but she slowly began to focus. Tobin was calling to her, slapping her cheeks, rubbing her sternum uncomfortably, trying desperately to bring her back.
Back to Aetheridge.
Back to a world without Jonah. Back to her.
Grier’s eyes flew open, and she gasped—opened her throat wide as cold, vital air rushed in.
A sob tore loose from Tobin’s throat the same moment Grier felt her body being lifted into Tobin’s arms. Tobin collapsed backward onto the floor, cradling Grier’s torso as she rocked them both, wailing bone-shattering sobs of relief into Grier’s hair.
Grier slowly came back into herself. Her consciousness sharpened, the edges of her vision growing clearer, more defined.
She felt her limbs start to twitch as blood and oxygen returned to her nerves.
The numbness slipped away, replaced by awareness—of Tobin’s tears, of the anxious tremors running through her body as she continued to rock them.
Cautiously, Grier experimented with her body: she wiggled her fingers and toes, then took long, slow breaths, trying to steady the frantic rhythm of her heart. The moment when she felt the faintest semblance of control, she reached up and fisted her hands into Tobin’s shirt.
“Grier!” Tobin choked through her sobs. Her voice was pitched and guttural. She was wrecked.
Grier felt Tobin’s hands clamp around her shoulders, steady and strong, and then push them apart just enough to look at her.
“Wh—” the words snagged in Tobin’s throat.
Grier saw the devastation on her face, and her heart clenched with the shame of knowing it was her actions that caused Tobin this distress.
“What was that?” Tobin demanded, her voice cracking with fear and fury.
Tobin’s green eyes were wide, the whites stark and bright, emphasizing her panic.
In that moment, Grier saw everything she feared—everything she knew Tobin wasn’t saying.
She saw her brokenness, her fear, her withholding.
She watched as Tobin’s eyes stared back at her, swirls of gray and brown mingling with the green she loved to lose herself in.
She watched as they morphed into something she didn’t recognize.
Grier saw the colors mix and harden. She watched Tobin’s eyes go cold.
She watched, helpless, as the woman she loved rebuilt her walls and locked her out.
Grier unfisted her hands, releasing Tobin’s shirt.
She let them fall. Then, inch by inch, she slid herself away, feeling the immediate shift in the air between them.
She curled her knees to her chest, drawing inward, making herself small—retreating to the security of her singularity.
Her body instantly recognized the same in Tobin.
She looked at Tobin, already feeling the prick of tears stinging at her eyelids. Her stomach roiled—the acidic remnants of her soup now mixing with the last bitter dregs of trust. It made her nauseous.
Tragedy had found them. And the inescapable notion that it might destroy them hung heavily between them.
Tobin rose to her feet, wiping tears from her cheeks, a shuddering breath betraying the emotion she was fighting.
Grier looked up at her, the pain of the pending words already making her tears return.
She reached out toward Tobin, a quiet question in the gesture.
But when Tobin turned her back, Grier let it fall.
Answered.
“I…” Tobin started and stopped. Her shoulders hunched forward. Defeat was emanating from her, and Grier couldn’t look away. She could still see her beauty, even like this. She was so vulnerable, so broken. Distracting and disarming and… wholly devastating.
“I can’t do this,” Tobin said at last, her voice low. “You—you’re… so full of love. You love so wholly. I can’t take that from you…” Her head bowed. “The world needs your love, Grier.”
Grier blinked.
She was afraid to take her love?
As if there wouldn’t be enough? As if loving her meant Grier couldn’t love anything—or anyone—else?
No. That wasn’t how love worked.
Grier stood up.
She took two tentative steps towards Tobin, lifted a hand, and—after only the briefest hesitation—placed it tenderly on Tobin’s shoulder. She pulled, spinning Tobin to face her.
Tobin’s mouth was pulled into a tight grimace, her eyes clenched shut. She refused to make eye contact.
Grier was not having it.
“Tobin,” she started, the surety of her voice surprising her, “open your eyes and look at me.”
Tobin shook her head, resisting the vulnerability of the moment.
“You do not get to break up with me with your eyes closed.” Her voice sharpened with conviction. “Open them. Look me in the eyes,
Tobin. Tell me you don’t love me.”
It was a bluff. The last residue of her depleted hope giving her the strength for this confrontation. She wore her heart on her sleeve. But it was the only hand she could play.
Tobin opened her eyes.
Grier didn’t need her to speak—her eyes answered for both of them.
All it took was a look. All it lasted was a single, perfect heartbeat.
All they had was each other. And that was all they needed.
Now it was Grier’s turn to hold Tobin.
She didn’t give her the chance to resist. She closed the distance between their bodies and pulled Tobin down and into her arms.
“Scratch that,” she murmured. “You don’t get to break up with me. Full stop.”