Catherine shook her head slowly. “I don’t know if I can.”
Sloane stepped closer. Just close enough to feel the heat of her without touching. “That’s not good enough anymore.”
She didn’t say it cruelly. It wasn’t a threat. But it was final.
“You want me? Then show me. Not tomorrow. Not someday when it’s easier. Now. Or let me go.”
Catherine swallowed hard, eyes flickering between Sloane’s and the floor like she wanted to look away but couldn’t. Her breathing was shallow, her control fraying at the edges again.
“I—” she started, then stopped.
“Say it,” Sloane said. “Say anything real. For once.”
Catherine’s jaw clenched, and she turned her back to Sloane, her palm still braced on the wall. Her shoulders rose and fell with a shaky breath. Then, so quietly Sloane almost missed it, she said,
“I don’t know who I am without the distance.”
Sloane’s heart squeezed. Because finally, finally, Catherine was telling the truth.
She stepped closer, slowly, and touched a hand to the back of Catherine’s arm. Just a touch. Nothing more.
“Then let me meet the woman behind the walls,” she whispered. “Even if she’s messy. Even if she’s scared.”
Catherine didn’t move. But she didn’t pull away either.
A long silence fell. The kind that said more than words ever could.
Then, Catherine turned back to face her. And in her blue eyes, was everything Sloane had been waiting for.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Catherine whispered.
Sloane’s lips parted, her breath catching. “Then don’t.”
Catherine nodded once. Almost imperceptibly. Her walls hadn’t shattered. But they were lowering, brick by trembling brick.
“One chance,” Sloane said softly. “That’s all I’m asking.”
Catherine looked at her, and for the first time, she didn’t retreat.
“I’ll try,” she said.
It wasn’t a declaration. It wasn’t perfect. But it was real.
Sloane smiled, soft and exhausted. “Then that’s enough.”
They didn’t hug or touch again. But when Catherine walked away, she looked back once over her shoulder.
And Sloane knew: the ice was thawing.
The sky had darkened by the time Sloane pushed open the door to her studio.
The hinges creaked, the same familiar sound they always made, but tonight it felt louder. The entire space felt louder somehow, too full and too empty all at once.
She let the door swing shut behind her, the click echoing in the stillness. Her boots tracked faint footprints across the paint-streaked floor as she moved deeper into the room.
Sloane didn’t bother turning on the overheads. She walked in dim light, golden from the amber glass sconces along the back wall, and collapsed onto the couch in the center of the chaos. The worn cushions gave easily under her weight, as if they, too, were too tired to hold her.
She stared at the ceiling: paint-splattered, just like everything else. Familiar and messy and hers.
