"And when she died, part of what I carried, alongside the grief, alongside everything you're supposed to feel when you lose your sister..." She stopped. Started again. "Part of what I felt was relief."
The word dropped into the room and sat there.
"Not that she was dead. And not even that you wouldn’t be dating her anymore. I was relieved I didn't have to watch my parents light up when she walked in the room anymore. Didn't have to hear how brave she was, how brilliant, how extraordinary, and know that nobody had ever once used those words about me."
She turned back and looked up at me. Her face was open in a way I'd never seen from her. No composure. No steadiness. No wall.
"I loved my sister, and I resented her. I grieved her, and I was relieved. I wanted you, and I hated myself for wanting you. And when she died, the guilt of all three of those things folded together into something I couldn't separate. So, who’s really the bitch?”
I stood in the kitchen and looked at her, and the ground beneath me shifted. Not the sick, lurching shift of guilt. Something that felt like the floor leveling after years of standing on a slope.
Her guilt and mine. The same weight carried from opposite sides. She'd spent the time since Naomi's death believing she was a terrible person for wanting me and for not mourning purely enough, and I'd spent the same time believing I deserved exile for wanting her and for contributing to Naomi's death.
We'd been carrying the same thing. Punishing ourselves for the same thing. And neither of us was the worse person because we were both exactly as wrecked and exactly as human.
We moved at the same time. I don't know who took the first step, and it didn't matter because the distance collapsed from both directions, and when my mouth found hers the taste was coffee and tears and something that had been locked up for years finally letting go.
I kissed her and she kissed me back, and it was nothing like the first time, nothing like the desperation in the control room or the raw hunger of the shower. This was slower. Her hands came up to my face and held me there, her palms against my jaw, and I felt her fingers tremble against my skin.
I pulled back enough to see her. Her eyes were open. Mine were open. Everything exposed, and she was still here. Still choosing this.
“I want you,” I whispered the words against her lips. “No guilt this time. No secrets. Just you and me and no more ghosts.”
“Yes.”
“And for the record, you’re definitely not a bitch.”
She laughed and it might have been the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. “Bedroom.”
We didn't make it there cleanly. I kissed her again in the hallway, and she pulled my shirt over my head, and her hands found my chest, and I felt her fingers trace the edge of the bandage along my ribs without pressing, gentle, as was in her very nature. I got her shirt and bra off, groaning at the contact of her skin against mine. Both of our pants soon followed suit.
We made it to the bedroom, and we fell into the bed together, a tangle of skin and hands and mouths that sorted itself out without choreography.
The wound caught me when I tried to brace over her. A sharp pull along my ribs that locked my breath and sent a white flash behind my eyes. I'd been ignoring it, and my body had finally decided to file a formal complaint.
Sera saw it. She put her hand flat on my chest and pushed gently, and I rolled onto my right side and she followed, turning to face me. Side by side. Her body against mine, close enough that I could feel her breathing.
This was better. Face to face, eye to eye. Neither above the other. Her leg settled against my hip, moving her closer, and she made a sound against my mouth that went straight through me.
My hand found her pussy, thumb circling her clit. Thrust one, two fingers inside, making sure she was ready. I lifted her leg higher and slid into her in one slow motion and we both went still.
She held my gaze. I could see every fleck of color in her eyes, every tiny shift in her expression as her body adjusted to me. Her lips parted and her breath came out uneven and her hand found the back of my neck and held.
I briefly closed my eyes at the feel of my cock sheathed in her wet heat. I never thought I’d have this. “Fuck, you feel incredible.”
I pulled back, started to press forward again and froze.
“Sera. Condom.”
“It’s okay. I’m on the pill.” Her hand smoothed along my jaw. “I trust you, Travis.”
I shifted back, read the truth in her eyes. What neither of us were ready to share.
I moved slowly. Slower than anything I'd ever done.
Her fingers curled against my skin. Her hips matched my rhythm, slow, deliberate, a conversation between two bodies that didn't need speed or force. Every movement was a sentence. Every breath was an answer.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said. Quiet. Against my mouth. "You hear me? I'm not going anywhere."
