Springwell Creeks #4
She glared into her empty kitchen. The words—Fuck you, Khachaturian—still vibrated in her chest. The anger didn’t help, not really. It never did. All it did was stir up ghosts.
She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to will the ache away. But it was stubborn as ever, winding around her ribs. It startled her, how quickly the memory came. How easily Nai’s ghost slipped into the space between heartbeats, uninvited and impossible to block out.
For one jagged second, she remembered the way Nai would murmur her name in the dark, the warm press of their bodies tangled under covers, the way Nai had said I love you with such softness and certainty. As if it were the simplest truth in the world.
I love you, Mimu.
She could almost feel Nai’s breath against her skin, the way her fingers traced idle shapes on her stomach in the quiet mornings.
230, 229, 228…
She gripped the counter harder, blinking back a sudden rush of heat behind her eyes.
227…my pretty Mimu dropped in from heaven.
She shook her head, focused on the hush of the apartment, the sound of her own breathing.
Still, Nai wouldn’t let her go. She tried to catalogue her night, list everything she had to do, run through anything but what her heart insisted on remembering: the weight of a different body, the way “I love you” had once felt inevitable and easy.
Not now. Not tonight. Not again, she thought. Because remembering Nai always ended with maps left unfinished, boxes half-packed, and her life reduced to what she could carry out the door.
But the memory was a tide, inevitable and unstoppable, and she was helpless to resist it.
Safi woke slowly, warmth pooling around her.
For a few hazy seconds, she thought she was still dreaming.
Then she became aware of the weight behind her, solid and breathing, an arm snug around her waist, a thigh tucked between hers.
Light spilled through the curtains, pale and wintry, catching on the clothes strewn across the floor.
Oh.
The memory of the night before set her heart racing. Nai dropping the condoms, Safi so nervous she could barely help Nai roll it on. It hadn’t lasted very long but Safi didn’t mind. It was Nai. Everything had been perfect. But…what if Nai didn’t think so?
Nai’s face was tucked against her back, breath warm against her skin. Safi stayed perfectly still, afraid that moving might break the spell.
Nai stirred with a muffled groan and then, as if she only just realized where she was, stiffened, her arms giving a small twitch. They lay silent for what felt like forever until Safi shifted. She could hear Nai lick her lips like she was preparing herself to speak.
“Hey,” Nai finally said, tentative, as if bracing herself.
Safi eased around in her arms, heart thudding with the fragile fear that maybe Nai regretted last night, and the bright thrill of loving her so much she could hardly stand it.
Please don’t regret me, her heart whispered. Her small smile felt like the bravest thing she’d ever done.
Nai’s relief bloomed instantly, unmistakable as she drew Safi closer, resting her forehead to Safi’s like she’d never wanted to be anywhere else. She searched Safi’s face for a long moment, her hand resting lightly at Safi’s waist.
“Are you okay?” Nai asked, her voice barely above a breath. “Was last night really what you wanted? I just—” she swallowed, as if to gather a little courage, “I want to be sure I was good to you. That you don’t regret anything.”
Safi didn’t answer at first. She reached up instead, cupping Nai’s cheek with both tenderness and certainty, guiding her into a slow, lingering kiss that said more than words could. “I could never regret you.”
They lay there for a moment, wrapped in quiet golden light.
Then Nai kissed her again as her hand drifted lower, fingertips drawing invisible shapes against Safi’s skin.
She lifted her chin, meeting Nai’s mouth, lips brushing feather-light at first, then slowly she let her lips part, coaxing Nai’s open until their tongues met.
Their bodies shifted together, sheets rustling as their hands found new places to rest, to linger, and explore.
Safi felt warmth gather inside her in slow, rising waves, the whole world narrowing to Nai’s mouth on hers.
To Nai’s lips kissing a slow path down her jaw, then down the slope of her throat, and lower still, slow and deliberate.
Safi shivered beneath her, her thighs softening open under the sheets.
Nai settled there, lifting the blanket just enough to slip beneath it.
Safi’s breath hitched, anticipation tightening through her like a sweet, delicate thrill.
Nai pressed one more tender kiss to the inside of her thigh—a soft good morning, a soft I love you—before lowering her mouth to Safi.
“Oh,” she breathed, startled by her own reaction.
The moment stretched, sweet and electric until Safi trembled beneath her with a shiver, her breath catching on a quiet, breaking gasp.
When the tremors faded and Safi sank into the mattress, boneless and glowing, Nai pressed one last affectionate kiss to her, then slowly emerged from beneath the blankets.
She crawled up Safi’s body with that same morning-slow tenderness, brushing her lips along her stomach, her ribs, her collarbone, as if gathering every aftershock along the way.
“Merry Christmas, Mimu.”
Safi laughed weakly, overwhelmed, and pressed her face into Nai’s shoulder, breathing her in, committing every sensation to memory.
In that quiet nest of breath and limbs, Safi believed this could be their future. That mornings like this would be waiting for them all their lives.
“So fucking stupid.” The memory still ached, its edges sharp beneath her skin.
Some dreams left bruises that never faded.
Safi wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
Angry at herself for remembering, for still bleeding over a wound so old.
Angry at Nai for giving her a future to want.
Something real, something she’d already begun to shape around both of them, only to vanish and leave her to dismantle it alone.
She still remembered Nai’s bus leaving Crickalade Bay, Nai staring out the window at Safi.
Like she meant nothing. Like they meant nothing.
“You just fucking left.”
The silence didn’t argue. It never did.
She closed her eyes, willing her heart to close on the memory, to smother it the way she’d learned to do with things she couldn’t survive feeling.
She refused to be dragged into that hollow place where the hurt lived.
But the ache rose anyway, and that old, familiar pressure that climbed up her throat.
She swallowed hard. Forced a breath. Tried to blink it away.
It didn’t work.
Her chest hitched once with a sharp, startled sound she couldn’t contain. Then another. A sob broke loose, small and helpless, followed by more she couldn’t swallow back. She braced both hands on the counter, shoulders shaking as the tears came faster, hot and humiliating.
The next sob barely had time to settle before a faint sound broke through.
Scratch.
She stiffened. Held her breath. Probably the wind. Or a branch? The sound came again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she sniffed, swiping angrily at her face. Ugly crying was embarrassing enough. She didn’t need to add ‘scared to death by branches’ to her list. And since she’d decided to cry, could the universe at least let her fucking finish?
She sniffed again and tried to ignore the sound.
But the scratching persisted, insistent, and rhythmic.
Safi scowled. It was coming from the door to her rooftop patio, sounding less and less like branches and more like something with claws.
It would be just her luck to get ambushed by a rabid raccoon. Or worse, a lynx.
Scratch. Scratch-scratch. Whatever it was had decided it would wait exactly zero seconds for her breakdown to finish.
“Are you kidding me right now?” Safi pushed herself off the counter and wiped her teary hands on her sweater. A succession of rapid scratches came next, not letting up for a second.
“Alright, alright!” she snapped, stomping toward the door. Those stubborn raccoons. “I get it, you’re very—” She yanked it open.
A cat blinked up at her. Medium-sized with long fluffy white fur. It stared like she was the inconvenience. Safi blinked back, still sniffling and her chest still aching.
The cat meowed loudly, then strutted forward and wound itself around her legs. Its thick fur left her jeans covered in white hairs.
“Oh my god.” Safi watched, hands hovering uselessly. “You…you can’t just—”
The cat slipped past her ankles and trotted into her kitchen as if they already had a mortgage together and it paid half the bills.
“Sure,” she muttered, shutting the door to the cold. “Make yourself at home. Why not? I definitely wasn’t busy falling apart.”
The cat sat primly in the center of the room and stared at her with blatant expectation, brown eyes unblinking.
“Oh no,” Safi said. “Absolutely not. I am not starting whatever this is.” She moved a finger between herself and the cat. The cat blinked. Then it meowed again. Louder.
“You’re hungry. Of course you’re hungry. Why wouldn’t you be?” She dug through her pantry until she found a can of tuna. Her emergency stash for nights when the world felt too heavy for anything else. She cracked it open, poured most of it into one of her rice bowls, and set it on the floor.
The cat dove in as if it were always fed at this time and in this place.
Not like it had just invaded a stranger’s home.
Safi straightened slowly, and rubbed her shaky hands down the sides of her thighs, still trying to pull herself together.
The kitchen felt different now. Heavy with the remnants of her breakdown, but lightened somehow by this unexpected feline presence.