Page 109 of Windlass

“I spent a few months at an in-patient facility getting better. When I met Morgan, I was grieving my father, but I no longer had suicidal ideation. My situation is different from yours, and I’m not trying to minimize or compare, but that feeling, thathole, I get. I remember it. It’s still one of the things that scares me most. And Ange . . . It isn’t something that someone else issupposedto fill. It’s depression, or trauma.”

“Tough talk from Russo,” Stormy said, but her tone was gentle. “She’s not wrong.”

“Have you considered that therapy might help you sort through some of this so that you can see what’s real and what your mind is telling you is real because, as Stormy put it, the selfish actions of your family left serious psychological damage?” asked Emilia.

Angie couldn’t hear this. Bile burned in the back of her throat. Slowly, like sliding off a tight boot, she left her body behind and floated somewhere else. “Going away” she called it in her mind. It was quiet there. Not peaceful exactly, but quiet. She didn’t need to think. She just needed a moment to breathe or to not breathe, seeking peace at the bottom of her breath. Three figures sat on a picnic blanket beneath her as she floated up, their concerns no longer hers.

“And that,” Emilia said, forcing Angie back into her body with a light hand on her shoulder, “is called dissociation. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to push you that far.”

“It’s okay,” Angie managed. Her skin itched as it adjusted to her presence. Some of the quiet she’d sought remained, though. Emilia’s direct, blunt assessment had lanced a pocket of something rancid she hadn’t realized was lodged beneath her breastbone. Suddenly she felt like she could breathe, her lungs unfettered. There had been a truth in Emilia’s words her body recognized. Her mind protested for nothing was that simple, but the weight of that truth muffled the chorus of dissenters.

It isn’t something that someone else is supposed to fill.

What would fill it if not the bodies of those whose paths had aligned with hers? What else could she shovel in to feed the engine? Surely not something as banal as self-love.

If so, she was screwed.

The three of them sat in silence, listening to the birds and the sounds of Morgan and Stevie bickering good-naturedly. Angie was startled to find that it was okay now. She was still in one piece, sitting with her friends on a warm summer day by the ocean.

“What do I do?” Angie asked. “About Stevie.”

“Up to you,” said Stormy, “but I think you should try.”

Try. As if it were that simple. As if she had control of her emotions, as if—

As if Emilia was right and she needed therapy. Fuck her sideways and upside down; she couldn’t afford therapy.

A problem for later. She needed to pull herself together before Stevie came over and realized she was upset.

“It’s not that easy for me,” she admitted.

“If only you were in love with someone patient and kind,” said Stormy. “Oh, wait.”

In love.

Because she was—of course she was. She’d known that for ages. She just hadn’t had someone else say it to her so unavoidably, so, so . . .

Fuck. Yes, she was in love with Stevie Ward. Yes, she wanted to be with her.

Her eyes slid away from Stormy’s face to where Morgan had Stevie in a friendly headlock, Stevie flailing and laughing too hard to fight back in earnest. She was in love with that absolutely ridiculous, shockingly sexy, patient, kind, nerdy, perfect woman.

“How long have you known what was going on?” she asked her friends.

Stormy and Emilia looked at each other, then predictably and only mildly humiliatingly, burst into laughter loud enough to catch the attention of the others. Angie hid her face in her hands to conceal her blush.

They’d known all along.

They’d known, and they hadn’t reacted as she’d feared, with judgment and unrealistic expectations.

They’d reacted with love.

Croquet, it turned out, was bloodthirsty. Stevie leaned on her mallet and wiped sweat from her forehead, not from physical exertion, but from the psychological pressure of trying to outthink the former friends who had now consolidated themselves into two categories: karaoke sadists, aka the enemy, and Morgan. The muscles in Morgan’s jaw twitched in solidarity. Stormy—a thousand curses on her and her progeny—did not help by supplying them with refreshing spritzers, which Stevie was pretty sure were unevenly mixed to favor the competition. She’d turned down the last two and Stormy had smiled nefariously, which was obviously evidence.

“You’re up.” Lilian caught Stevie’s eye.

She considered her position. Lilian had explained the rules using too many words. What Stevie knew was that she needed to get her ball—the green and yellow one—through the hoops and in order and in the right direction, and could also delightfully knock other people’s balls out of the way. Like pool, but with more standing around, and lumps on the green. So many lumps. She would personally have a word with the resident vole population.

Most of their balls lay in a pack. Stormy was ahead, Stevie behind, and Morgan, her last hope, not far behind Stormy. Stevie cared more at this point about enabling Morgan’s win than any real hope of her own victory.

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