Sunlight bathes the room, and dust particles in the sun’s rays are suspended like golden flakes in the air. Natalie pulls her blanket up to her chest, curls her legs beneath the sheets to preserve their warmth. There is a mug of sage tea on her bedside table, the aroma drifts through her body, washing her tension out of her.
She moans softly and allows herself to slip deeper under the covers, turning over to look at her partner, still asleep in the bed beside her.
The hard angles of Ayat’s face are softer when she is not of a conscious mind to put the barbed wire fence up, keeping everyone out. It’s easy to forget that she is only in her 30s; she acts far older—acts almost like Rebecca. It’s hard to know whether that’s intentional on her part or not. Either way, it’s not something Nat has ever thought appropriate to bring up.
Nat cannot help but to reach tentatively across the inches of bed between them with her hand. The distance feels greater—everything feels bigger, more intense, when the only thing that Nat’s mind can think of is closing this distance. Her fingers slip into Ayat’s soft black bangs, which have fallen into her eyes, and brushes them back over her head.
Ayat’s brow furrows in her sleep before her eyes reluctantly flutter open.
“Morning,” she breathes, her voice still trapped at the back of her throat. There is a smile at the corners of her eyes, lashes tickling her beauty mark as she blinks the sleep away.
Nat’s first instinct is to sink into the comfortable cushion of guilt. Her frown lasts but a moment before she eases a smile onto her face. She retracts her hand, resting it in the space between them.
“Hello, my darling,” she replies. Her voice feels foreign in her throat—too chipper for the early morning, too demanding of Ayat’s energy, too artificial, too forced, too much.
Ayat’s hand reaches for Nat’s fingers, enveloping them in her warmth.
“Why do you have that look on your face, like your thoughts are racing?” the human mumbles, squeezing Natalie’s hand. “Be here… with me.”
“I am here.” That’s a lie. She is miles away, safe in her garden, watching Ayat through a gap in the fence. There is nothing that could get her to the other side, not when it smells like roses and black tea inside—where the weather is bright as morning in spring.
But she is here—here in bed with Ayat, the other woman’s heart held safe in her cupped hands where nothing can hurt it. She feeds it with all the love she can muster, all that it deserves. She’s here in every way that matters—in every way she can be—here for her. Can’t that be enough?
Ayat frowns.
“Is something wrong?”
She seems lost in thought. Her nose wrinkles. “No, not really.” She turns around in bed to look at the ceiling, releasing Nat’s hand as she does. She lets out a sigh, her body sinking into the mattress.
That’s a lie.
“Have I done something to upset you?” Nat’s lips move before she can stop them.
Ayat glances at her from the corner of her eye. “Not really. I just… wish I could see her—the Natalie Sewell that’s under all those layers of sugar and sweetness.”
Nat’s heart leaps into her throat. “O-Oh.” And the guilt comes back. She rolls over onto her back and pulls the blanket up to her chin.
Soft as a lover’s caress, Ayat’s voice follows her. “I’m not mad at you. And I’m not punishing you. Hell, I don’t even know if I deserve to know that Natalie. But I’d like to, if you let me.”
A flush of heat spreads across Natalie’s face, deep and uncomfortable, as a magnifying glass pressed up to her face. “I am who I am. I’m not hiding anything.” There is a sting to her voice that tastes of bitter hurt and shame.
The sheets shift with a rustle and Ayat speaks again. “I know,” she says in a hurry. “I know and I’m sorry. I don’t mean to imply that you’re hiding or lying about who you are. But there are parts of you—” The small parts, the wounds that haven’t healed, the scabs that Nat picks at when nobody is watching, the welts that she hides under the folds of her clothing. “Parts of you that you’re carrying all on your own.”
And Natalie is here, but she’s there. She’s sitting in the shade of a gazebo with a book and a cup of plum tea. Her senses are as the steam rising from the tea, its condensation gathering against the rim of the mug.
Ayat is across the way, behind the fence, wrapped in barbed wire and police tape. She’s got her fists closed tightly around the bars of her neat wrought iron fence. Natalie averts her gaze.
“You don’t have to show me now…” Ayat sighs. “Or ever. Or at all. But you have to tell someone.”
The book snaps shut.
She rises from her pillow and turns to look at her sage tea. She drops her legs over the side of the bed, her back to Ayat, and carefully holds the mug with both hands. “My tea’s gone cold. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
Perhaps it was too clipped, too impulsive, too carelessly tossed—the words are desperate, flung out of her mouth as though they were on fire. Her mind, a well-kept library of sweet thoughts and kind sentiments, is blank and empty. She slides into her slippers as she rises and makes a beeline for the door.
The last thing she hears as the door shuts is a heavy, broken sigh from Ayat. But at least that door is shut. And her tea is cold. She ought to go warm it up.