This is dangerous. She's dangerous. Not because of anything she's done, but because of what she makes me feel.
I ease out of bed carefully, not wanting to wake her, and pull on a pair of sweats. The house is quiet. Early enough that the neighborhood is still sleeping, just the occasional bird outside and the distant sound of waves against the shore. I pad intothe kitchen and start coffee on autopilot, my mind stuck on the woman in my bed and everything she represents.
Sarah's face surfaces without warning. Not a memory, exactly. More like a presence. The weight of our years together, six of them watching her fade, and five more learning how to exist in the space she left behind.
I loved her. I loved her completely, the way you love someone who becomes part of your own architecture. When she died, I thought that part of me died too. The part capable of feeling this way about another person. I made my peace with it. Built a life around the absence. Told myself that what I had with her was once-in-a-lifetime, and I should be grateful I got it at all.
Then Gemma walked through the door, and everything I thought I knew about myself unraveled.
The guilt hits like a punch to the sternum. Not guilt about last night. Last night was right in a way I can't explain and won't apologize for. The guilt is older than that. Deeper. The sense that by feeling this way about Gemma, I'm somehow betraying what I had with Sarah. That by wanting a future, I'm diminishing my past.
I know it's irrational. Sarah would never have wanted me to spend the rest of my life alone. She told me as much, near the end, when she was too tired to pretend and too honest to lie."Find someone,"she said."Don't let me be the last person who loves you."
The coffee maker beeps. I pour two cups and stand at the counter, staring out the window at the gray morning sky. My reflection stares back, older than I remember, lines around my eyes that weren't there five years ago. I wonder what Sarah would think of the man I've become. I wonder if she'd recognize him.
"You're thinking too loud."
I turn to find Gemma standing in the doorway, wearing my t-shirt and nothing else, her hair a mess and her eyes still hazy with sleep. She looks rumpled and perfect and so goddamn beautiful it hurts to breathe.
"Didn't mean to wake you," I say.
"You didn't." She crosses to me, takes the second cup of coffee from my hands, and wraps her fingers around it like she's cold. "I woke up and you were gone. Took me a second to remember where I was."
There's something in her voice. A vulnerability she's trying to hide. I recognize it because I've been hiding it myself for years.
"I'm here," I say. Stupid. Obvious. But it's what comes out.
Her mouth curves. "I noticed." She takes a sip of coffee, watching me over the rim. "You want to tell me what's going on in that head of yours, or do I have to guess?"
I should lie. Tell her it's nothing, that I'm fine, that I was just thinking about the day ahead. But I've spent too many years not talking about the things that matter, and I'm tired of it. Gemma deserves better than half-truths and deflection.
"I was thinking about Sarah."
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look hurt or jealous or any of the things I might have expected. She just nods, slow and serious, like she understands exactly what that means.
"Tell me something about her I wouldn't know."
So I do. Standing in my kitchen in the early morning light, I tell her things I haven't told anyone. How Sarah used to hum off-key when she cooked. How she refused to let me see her cry toward the end, even when the pain was unbearable. How she made me promise to scatter her ashes off the jetty at sunrise because she said that's when the light was best. How her last words weren't"I love you"but"Stop hovering and go get yourself a beer."
Gemma laughs at that, soft and surprised, and it loosens something in my chest. When I finally run out of words, she sets down her coffee and takes my hands in hers.
Gemma is quiet for a moment. "You know what I envied most about her? She could disagree with you. Argue with you. Tell you when you were being an idiot." A small smile. "And you'd listen. You'd actually hear her."
Her thumb traces circles on my palm. "I wanted that. I thought submission meant giving up your voice. She proved me wrong."
She meets my eyes. "I'm not afraid of her memory, Will. I'm grateful for it. She showed me what this is supposed to look like."
Something in me loosens, but the weight doesn't lift entirely.
"I can't fail you the way I failed her." The words come out rougher than I intend. "I wasn't present enough with Sarah. Too focused on building the Brotherhood, on being strong for everyone else. By the time I realized how much time we'd lost, there wasn't any time left."
The guilt I've carried for five years spills out. The nights I came home late. The conversations we didn't have. The way I thought being strong meant never showing weakness.
Gemma's brow furrows. "How did you fail her?"
"I wasn't present enough. I was so focused on the Brotherhood, on building something, on being strong for everyone else that I didn't always see what was right in front of me. By the time I realized how much time we'd lost, there wasn't any time left."
The guilt I've carried for five years spills out. The nights I came home late. The conversations we didn't have. The way I thought being strong meant never showing weakness.
