Stability
Riley
The call came while Riley was halfway through a chapter she had already read twice.
The book rested open in her hands, more an anchor than a source of entertainment. She had been staring out the window for several minutes without turning a page, watching pedestrians move past in uneven clusters while the afternoon light stretched across the footpath outside.
Her phone vibrated against the table. Riley glanced at the screen.
Unknown number.
Ordinarily, she would have let it ring out and assessed whether a voicemail followed. Today, for reasons she couldn’t fully explain, she answered.
“Hello.”
“Riley? It’s Leanne.” Her attention sharpened.
The response surprised her less than it might have a fortnight ago.
There had been a period where anything connected to Declan had felt dangerous, as though proximity alone might unravel decisions she had worked very hard to maintain.
It didn’t feel as necessary as it did before.
“Hello, Leanne.”
“I hope it’s okay that I’m calling.”
“It is.”
Leanne was quiet for a moment, seemingly choosing her words with care. “I wasn’t entirely sure whether you’d want to hear from us.”
Riley looked down at the book resting in her lap. The statement should have been easy to answer, it wasn’t, because wanting had never really been the problem. Missing people and staying away from them had turned out to be entirely compatible states.
“I have thought about all of you frequently,” she said.
The honesty seemed to surprise them both. Leanne’s voice softened. “We’ve thought about you too, sweetheart.”
Something shifted quietly inside Riley’s chest. She had spent weeks convincing herself that distance was the responsible choice, that removing herself was an act of protection rather than avoidance.
The certainty of that conclusion had become increasingly difficult to maintain every time she found herself wondering how Ebony was doing, or whether Charlie had finally fixed the kitchen cupboard he kept complaining about, or whether Leanne was still sending Declan photographs of every dog she encountered.
She missed them. The simplicity of that felt almost embarrassing. “I actually called because of Ebony.”
Riley sat up slightly. “What about her?”
“She’s okay,” Leanne said quickly. “Nothing’s happened.”
Relief arrived first, concern followed. “Then why are you calling?”
Leanne exhaled softly. “Because I know her.” There was affection in the statement, familiarity, the kind that came from years of observation.
“She’s been struggling a bit recently. Most people probably wouldn’t notice it, but she’s quieter than usual.
She doesn’t really want to go anywhere, and every conversation seems to circle back to things she doesn’t quite know how to explain. ”
Riley lowered her gaze. That sounded familiar, painfully familiar.
“When I asked her what was wrong,” Leanne continued, “she said she couldn’t categorise it.”
A faint ache settled somewhere beneath Riley’s ribs. She could picture Ebony saying exactly that. More importantly, she could picture the effort it would have taken for her to admit it aloud.
“Would you consider coming to see her?”
Riley’s thoughts began arranging themselves around the request, assessing logistics before emotion could fully intervene.
Leanne seemed to recognise it. “It would be at my place,” she said gently. “Not Declan’s.”
Riley looked out the window. The answer should have required more analysis than it did. A few days ago she would have found reasons to decline, reasons that would have sounded logical.
Now, sitting here with a book she hadn’t read for twenty minutes and a growing awareness that isolation had solved remarkably little, the answer felt unexpectedly straightforward.
She cared about Ebony, Ebony was hurting, and Riley was allowed to show up for people who mattered to her.
The realisation arrived with a quiet certainty she hadn’t possessed a fortnight ago. “Of course,” she said.
The smile in Leanne’s voice was immediate. “I’ll send you the address.”
?
Riley knocked once and waited, her hands settling loosely in the pockets of her jacket as she listened to movement somewhere inside the house.
What surprised her most was how uncomplicated the feeling was. She missed Ebony.
Over the last two weeks, she found herself thinking about Ebony at unexpected moments: when she came across an article she would have shown her, when she saw a book she would have recommended, when something mildly ridiculous happened during the collection of the data and her first instinct was to write it down to tell Ebony later, before remembering she no longer saw her.
The absence had become increasingly difficult to ignore. When the door opened, Leanne smiled immediately.
“Hi, Riley.”
“Hello.” Something in Leanne’s expression softened further as she stepped aside, her relief visible enough that Riley recognised it without needing it explained.
“I’m really glad you’re here.”
The response came more easily than Riley expected. “I am, too.”
For a moment, Leanne simply looked at her, as though she understood the significance of the admission better than Riley did herself. Then she asked gently, “Can I give you a hug?”
Riley appreciated that she always cared enough to ask before she acted. “I’d like that.”
Leanne stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. The hug was warm and familiar, firm enough to feel grounding without becoming restrictive, and Riley found herself relaxing into it before she had consciously decided to.
“You’ve been missed,” Leanne said quietly.
The words settled somewhere beneath Riley’s ribs, carrying a weight that felt unexpectedly welcome.
She had spent so much of her life assuming that people accommodated her out of patience, obligation, or simple kindness that she was still learning how to process something else entirely: the possibility that people could miss her because they wanted her around.
When Leanne stepped back, her eyes were noticeably softer. “She’s in the living room.”
Riley nodded and followed the familiar sound of voices and movement deeper into the house. By the time she reached the doorway, she realised she was looking forward to this.
Ebony sat cross-legged on the floor with a book open in front of her, though her attention seemed to be fixed on the same page she had been staring at for some time.
The moment she looked up and saw Riley, everything about her expression changed. The distraction vanished, replaced so quickly by relief and excitement that neither emotion had time to disguise itself.
“Riley.”
“Hi, Ebony.”
Ebony stood immediately, her movements deliberate, closing the distance between them without pause. She stopped just within Riley’s space, not touching, but close enough that the proximity itself carried intention.
“You came back,” she said.
Riley considered that. Not the words themselves, but the meaning underneath them. “Yes,” she said, before adding more honestly, “It felt wrong not seeing you.”
Ebony nodded once, like that aligned cleanly within her understanding. Her gaze moved over Riley, assessing in a way that was observant. “You look the same,” she said. “But your baseline feels different.”
Riley blinked once, processing. “I think I need you to clarify, Ebony.”
“You are more… variable,” Ebony said, selecting the word carefully. “Before, your responses were more consistent.”
“I think I’ve been feeling things I usually avoid,” Riley admitted.
“That sounds unpleasant.”
A small laugh escaped her before she could stop it. “It has been.”
Ebony watched her for another second before speaking again. “I missed you.”
Riley felt the words immediately, sharp enough to ache. “I missed you too.”
Ebony stepped a fraction closer, her attention still fixed on Riley. “Why did you stop coming?”
Riley looked down briefly at her hands before answering. “I thought if I removed myself from everything, it would stop things from getting worse.” Her throat tightened slightly. “I thought I was fixing it.”
Ebony tilted her head slightly. “But you did not assess whether it would affect me, too.”
Riley stilled. That was true. It hadn’t been prioritised.
“In removing yourself to reduce change,” she continued, her tone even, factual. “You created a new variable.”
Riley’s chest tightened. “Yes,” she confirmed.
“I do not like that variable.”
The simplicity of it landed harder than anything more complex could have. Riley swallowed, the response she would usually construct not forming in the same way.
“I’m sorry,” she said instead, quieter than before. “Not just for leaving, for thinking that leaving was the correct solution.”
Ebony accepted that, giving a nod of her head as if that was an acceptable apology.
“I do not remember my mum,” Ebony said. The shift in topic wasn’t abrupt. Riley could follow the connection easily enough: absence, loss, the shape something leaves behind even when you cannot fully define it.
“I know she existed. I know she died. But I don’t actually remember her, so I don’t know what it feels like to lose her specifically.
” Ebony’s gaze stayed fixed somewhere ahead of them.
“I understand it intellectually. Just not personally,” she exhaled before continuing, “But I do know what it felt like when you left.”
Riley’s breath caught slightly. “And I hated it,” Ebony admitted. “Because I couldn’t understand why it hurt that much.”
Something tightened in Riley’s chest, deep enough that she couldn’t immediately sort through it. “I never intended to hurt you,” she said softly.
“I know,” Ebony replied immediately. “But you still did.”
Riley nodded once, slower this time. “Yeah. I understand that now.”
Ebony watched her for another moment before speaking again.
“Your experiment didn’t stop.”
Riley blinked. “What?”
“Uncle Declan kept doing it,” Ebony said simply. “He still sends the videos every weekend. I’ve been taking notes.”
For a second, Riley just stared at her. “He… continued it?”
Ebony nodded once.
“Why?” The question seemed to genuinely confuse her.
“Because it mattered to you.”
Riley’s chest tightened sharply.
“He changed how it worked after you left,” Ebony continued. “So, it could keep going without you there.” A pause. “He said stopping it would feel worse.”
Riley looked down briefly, her thoughts struggling to settle around that. “He never contacted me,” she said quietly.
“No,” Ebony replied. “He said you asked for space.”
The words landed heavily. Because he had respected the boundary she set, even while quietly carrying the thing she had abandoned because he knew it mattered to her. Even while missing her too. Even without knowing why she’d left.
“He still talks about you,” Ebony added, her tone unchanged. “Not all the time, but consistently enough that I know he’s thinking about you every day.”
Riley closed her eyes briefly, just long enough to steady the shift inside her. When she opened them again, the structure she had relied on didn’t feel as stable as it had before.
“I wasn’t fair to him,” she said quietly.
It wasn’t criticism, just truth. “I made a decision that affected both of us without letting him be part of it.” Her gaze lowered briefly before returning to Ebony’s.
“I thought I was protecting everyone, but really…” A slow breath left her.
“I was trying to control how much it could hurt.”
Ebony nodded once. “Yeah.”
Riley let out a small breath through her nose, something almost rueful. “That’s not exactly how relationships are supposed to work.”
“No,” Ebony agreed gently. The silence afterwards felt calmer somehow, like something had finally clicked into place. Riley sat with it for another second before speaking again.
“I think I need to talk to him.”
The words came easily this time, certain. Ebony nodded immediately, like there had never really been another outcome. “I think you do, too.”
For a moment neither of them moved, then Ebony stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her without adjustment. Riley stilled briefly at the contact, the warmth of it settling through her before she could think too hard about why it mattered.
Then she hugged her back. Her hand pressed firmly against Ebony’s back, steady and grounding, and Ebony held onto her just as tightly in return.
They stayed like that longer than Riley normally would have allowed, the hug slowly shifting from something she was aware of into something she simply existed inside.
Something easy. Something real.
“I do not like losing you,” Ebony said softly against her shoulder.
Riley’s grip tightened slightly in return, something shifting deep in her chest, steady instead of sharp. “You won’t.” This time the certainty came easily. No overthinking or analysing whether she was allowed to believe it first, she just did.
Ebony stayed close for another second before leaning back enough to look at her properly again, her hands still resting warm against Riley’s arms.
The space between them felt different now, resolved.
Riley let out a slow breath, feeling something inside her settle quietly into place. Not fully resolved or perfectly understood, and yet she no longer felt something she instinctively wanted to run from.
“I’m going to fix this,” she said quietly.
Ebony nodded, like she already believed that. “I know.”