"I know. So have I."
"But I want to try." Isla took her hand. "I want to learn how to be in a real relationship. How to compromise and communicate and all the things I've never been good at. I want to do the work, even when it's hard."
"Even when we fight?"
"Especially when we fight." Isla kissed her knuckles. "Because I'd rather struggle with you than be comfortable with anyone else."
Marianne felt tears sliding down her temples. Happy tears. The kind that came from being seen and chosen and loved.
"I want that too." Her voice was rough with emotion. "I want to build a life with you. A real life. Not just surviving, but actually living."
"What does that look like? For you?"
Marianne considered the question. "It looks like waking up next to you every morning. Supporting each other's careers. Having dinner together when we can and understanding when we can't. Being honest about the hard things instead of hiding behind professional distance."
"And moving in together?"
A pause. They had been splitting time between apartments, neither fully committing to a shared space. It had been practical, a way of taking things slowly while they rebuilt trust.
But practical wasn't what they needed anymore.
"Yes." Marianne's voice was steady. "Moving in together. Making it official. Building a home instead of just visiting each other's apartments."
"Your place or mine?"
"Neither. Somewhere new." Marianne propped herself up on one elbow. "Somewhere that belongs to both of us. That we choose together."
Isla's smile was bright enough to light the room. "I'd like that."
"Then that's what we'll do."
They sealed the decision with a kiss that felt like a promise. A commitment to the future they were building, one choice at a time.
Later, they got up and had the dinner Marianne had prepared, the aroma of roasted garlic and fresh herbs filling the apartment. They ate in comfortable silence broken by easy conversation. The wine was rich and earthy on Marianne's tongue, the food simple but satisfying, and the company was everything Marianne had ever wanted.
"Tell me something I don't know about you," Isla said, swirling the wine in her glass. "Something from before. Before Riverside, before the career, before you became the person you are now."
Marianne considered the question. There was so much she had never shared, so many pieces of her history she had kept locked away. But this was what building a life together meant. Opening up. Letting someone in.
"When I was sixteen, I wanted to be an artist." She smiled at the memory. "I spent an entire summer painting portraits. Terrible ones. But I thought I was going to move to Paris and become the next great expressionist."
"What happened?"
"Reality. My parents made it very clear that art wasn't a career. That I needed to find something practical, something that would give me security." Marianne shrugged. "So I did. I found the most practical career I could think of and I threw myself into it."
"And you never painted again?"
"Not in years. Though lately I've been thinking about picking it up again. Maybe now that my life isn't entirely consumed by professional survival."
Isla reached across the table and took her hand. "I'd love to see you paint. I'd love to see you do anything that makes you happy."
"You make me happy."
"Besides me." Isla's smile was gentle. "I want you to have things that are just yours. Hobbies, passions, parts of yourself that don't have anything to do with me or our relationship."
"You're a surgeon. You understand dedication to a single purpose."
"I do. And I also understand how empty life becomes when that single purpose is all you have." Isla's voice was quiet. "Before you, I didn't have anything besides my work. No friends outside the hospital. No hobbies. No life. Just surgery and more surgery and the occasional attempt to remember what it felt like to be a whole person."
