Chapter Text
Nini found it hard to sleep that night. This was not, in itself, unusual. But this time was different. This was not the familiar restlessness of an overfull mind. She lay on her back at first, hands folded neatly over her stomach, staring up at the faintly lighter square of ceiling above her bed. She turned onto her side, pulling the blanket closer around her shoulders. She tried to think of nothing. This, she knew from experience, was a mistake. Nothing left room for everything.
Myki’s face appeared in her mind without invitation. Nini frowned and firmly told herself that it was natural to think about people one had met. Especially people who were new. Novelty lingered. The mind worried at it the way the tongue worried at a sore tooth. It did not mean anything, and it did not have to. She rolled onto her other side, tucking her knees up slightly. The motion displaced the air beneath the covers, cool against her skin. She closed her eyes. It did not help.
She shifted again, restless. The image of Myki in the bookstore returned, unbidden. The way she’d stood between the shelves as though she belonged there already. The way she’d smiled at Nini, not the broad, performative smile she offered others, but something smaller, more direct. As if it had been meant specifically for her. Nini’s stomach gave a small, traitorous lurch. She sat up abruptly, heart beating faster than the movement warranted. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and rested her elbows on her knees, breathing carefully. In. Out. She was being ridiculous. She was overtired. She had swum in winter. Her body was still misfiring, still misinterpreting all of the sensations.
She stood and crossed the room quietly, feet finding the familiar creaks in the floorboards by instinct. At the window, she parted the curtain just enough to look out. The street lay empty, washed in pale orange light. Everything was exactly where it should be. The world, at least, was behaving. She leaned her forehead briefly against the cool glass.
Nini returned to bed, curling onto her side again, facing the wall. She pulled the blanket up to her chin like a child might, though she would have bristled at the comparison. Her thoughts, however, refused to be managed. She remembered the way her hand had lingered in Myki’s for a fraction longer than necessary when they stood up from the rock by the sea. The softness of Myki’s hand, and the way it seemed to fit perfectly within her own.
Best friends, she thought suddenly, grasping at the idea with surprising urgency. That was it. That was the shape this longing took. She wanted Myki to like her. To choose her. She wanted to be important to her in the way friends were important; intimately, intensely, and without complication.
There was nothing frightening about that. She exhaled slowly, as though releasing something she had been holding. Yes. That was all. Friendship could be fierce. Friendship could be consuming. Everyone knew that. She closed her eyes again, willing her mind to accept this explanation. For a few moments, it seemed to work. The images softened, lost their edge. Then, unhelpfully, her mind offered her the memory of Myki at the water’s edge, hair darkened by the sea, shoulders bare to the wind. The way Nini had looked without meaning to. The way she had looked again. Her breath caught.
She did not let herself finish the thought that hovered at the edge of her awareness. She pushed it away with practiced efficiency, the same way she pushed away other things that threatened to destabilize her. She focused instead on practicalities. On tomorrow. On work. On the fact that Myki might come back to the bookstore again. The idea sent a quick, traitorous thrill through her. She squeezed her eyes shut, frustrated. This was getting out of hand. She needed to be careful. She had always been careful. Carefulness was, in many ways, her defining trait.
It was sometime after that, she could not have said when, exactly, that her mind drifted, almost against her will, toward the word she was desperately trying not to think about. She knew gay people. This was one of the quiet certainties of her life, a fact she could recite without effort. She thought of Ciara, first, as she often did when her thoughts edged toward discomfort. Ciara with her bright laugh and her chipped nail polish and her easy willingness to say exactly what she meant. Nini liked Ciara very much. She always had.
And yet…
She shifted slightly under the covers, frowning. Ciara occupied a particular place in the invisible architecture of the town, and it was not a place Nini had ever questioned. It was simply… lower. Not in any way that could be spoken aloud without sounding cruel. Lower in the way things just were innately sometimes. In the way certain people were granted a little less leeway, a little more scrutiny. Ciara wasn’t afraid of who she was. The cost, Nini suspected, had been paid long ago.
Nini lay very still, staring into the dark. She was not like them, she told herself. Not in any meaningful way. She did not feel like them. She had never felt like them. Whatever that meant. She had never wanted to change her name, her clothes, her place. She liked things as they were. She liked fitting. She knew, intellectually, what it meant to be… different. The town was not unkind, exactly, but it was observant, and it remembered. A person could live for years inside a version of themselves that had been decided in a moment. Nini had worked too hard to become who she was to risk that.
She rolled onto her back again, hands folding together over her stomach as they had before. The position felt defensive now. She thought, with an odd sense of irritation, that if she were anything at all, she would have known by now. People knew these things, didn’t they? There was a certainty to it. A clarity. She had seen it in others, and it stood to reason the same, if it were true, would’ve happened to her.
She pushed herself up onto her elbow, then thought better of it and lay back down. Her mind was moving too quickly now, skittering from thought to thought without settling. Anxiety crept in around the edges, quiet but persistent. She imagined seeing Myki again. The way her chest lifted at the idea startled her. She imagined Myki coming back to the bookstore, standing at the counter, smiling that particular smile. The idea filled her with a strange, almost painful warmth. She told herself she was lonely. That was an explanation she could live with. Loneliness could make a person latch onto the wrong thing. Loneliness could distort perception.
She was very good at explanations. They lined up obediently when she summoned them, each one a careful brick laid between herself and the thing she wanted to avoid dealing with. What she wasn’t prepared for were the small, intrusive details that kept peeking through this wall no matter how firmly she pressed them down.
She found herself thinking about Myki’s mouth. Not in any way she could articulate, and certainly not in images she would allow to fully form. Nini frowned into the darkness, annoyed at herself. This was not how she thought about people. She shifted again, tangling her legs briefly in the sheets before kicking them free. She told herself, again, that friendly admiration could look like this. That she had always been susceptible to certain kinds of beauty. That noticing was not the same as wanting. Wanting was active. Wanting involved intention. She had no intention. None at all.
Her mind, traitorous, offered her the memory of Myki’s shoulder again. The line of it, clean and unguarded. The way the cold had raised goosebumps there, delicate and temporary. Nini had looked, then looked away, then looked again, telling herself each time that she was only observing the way one observed a landscape or a painting. Her breath had gone shallow then. She remembered that now, with a flicker of embarrassment that no one but herself would ever witness. She turned onto her side once more, curling slightly inward, knees drawn up.
She squeezed her eyes shut, jaw tightening, and thought once more of the town. She was not brave like Ciara. She swallowed, throat tight. She rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling once more. The faint square of lighter darkness was gone now; the room was uniformly dim. Time had passed without her noticing. She wondered, briefly, what Myki was doing. The thought felt intimate in a way she did not like. She pushed it away, then found it returning, stubborn as a tide.
Perhaps Myki was sleeping easily, untroubled by the questions that gnawed at Nini. The image of her at rest, unguarded, unselfconscious, made something in Nini’s chest ache. She told herself the ache was envy. That made sense. Envy was manageable. She shifted again, frustration building. Her sheets were twisted now, tangled from her movements. She smoothed them with quick, irritated strokes, as though restoring order to the fabric might restore it to her thoughts as well.
She thought, with a sudden, surprising clarity, that she wanted to be near Myki again. Not just to see her, but to exist alongside her. To share space. To feel that strange, electric awareness hum between them. The thought startled her. Wanting proximity felt perilously close to wanting something else. She amended it quickly. She wanted familiarity. She wanted to understand Myki, to place her, to make her less of an unknown quantity. That was all. Uncertainty was unsettling. Of course she wanted to resolve it. She nodded to herself in the dark, as though agreeing with a reasonable argument.
Falling asleep felt like a small mercy to Nini’s racing mind, and she woke in stages, drifting up through layers of half-dream until she became aware of the weight of her own body again, the dull ache behind her eyes, the quiet insistence of thought waiting just beneath the surface. For a few merciful seconds, she did not remember why she felt like this. Then she did.
She lay still, staring at the ceiling, listening to the faint sounds of the house settling around her. A pipe clicked somewhere in the walls. A car passed in the distance, its tires hissing softly over damp asphalt. There was nowhere she needed to be, and there were no plans made for the day. She rolled onto her side and drew the blanket up again, though the room was not especially cold.
She sat up eventually, more out of restlessness than any actual desire to get up. Her hair fell into her face, unbrushed, and she pushed it back with the heel of her hand and stood, feet cold against the floor. In the bathroom, the mirror showed her a version of herself she regrettably recognised. She looked like herself. That was reassuring, in a way. Puffy-eyed. Pale. entirely ordinary. She studied her reflection with mild detachment, noting the way her shoulders sloped forward slightly, the habitual tension she carried even at rest.
She brushed her teeth slowly, mint flooding her mouth, sharp and clean. Downstairs, the kitchen was quiet. Someone, her mother, most likely, had already been through, leaving behind the faint scent of coffee. Nini poured herself a glass of water and drank it standing at the counter, staring out the window at the back garden. The grass was dull and flattened by cold. There was not much else to see.
She made toast and forgot about it, only remembering when the smell of burning reached her. She scraped the blackened surface off with unnecessary aggression, ate it anyway. She sat at the table and scrolled through her phone at last, thumb moving automatically. Nothing from Myki. The disappointment arrived quickly, a sharp little sting she immediately tried to suppress. It was unreasonable to expect anything. They had known each other for barely any time at all. She had no claim, no right. She told herself this firmly, as though issuing a reprimand.
She set the phone down and folded her hands in her lap, as if that might prevent her from picking it up again. Her mind wandered, as it had been doing relentlessly since waking. She thought about the day ahead. She might go into town later. Or not. The idea of the bookstore crossed her mind, then faded. She would be there tomorrow anyway, so there was no need to go today.
She busied herself with clearing the table, washing her plate, wiping down the counter with careful, deliberate motions. The physicality helped, a little. Gave her hands something to do. Still, her thoughts kept circling back, persistent as the tide. She wondered what Myki was doing that morning. The question arose before she could stop it. She frowned, annoyed with herself. It was none of her business. People had lives. People existed independently of her curiosity. And yet, the image formed anyway: Myki in some unfamiliar kitchen, hair tousled from sleep.
The idea carried with it a warmth that startled Nini with its intensity. This was ridiculous, she thought. She was romanticising a near-stranger. She had done this before, in smaller ways, with less consequence. She had always been susceptible to imagination. That was all this was. She wiped her hands on a towel and wandered into the living room. The television sat dark and silent. She did not turn it on. Noise felt intrusive. She curled up on the couch instead, tucking her feet beneath her, pulling a throw blanket over her lap. The fabric was soft, worn thin in places. She traced one of the frayed edges absently with her thumb.
She dozed briefly, waking with a start, disoriented. The dream she had been having slipped away immediately, leaving behind only a vague sense of loss. She sat up, rubbing her face, and checked the time. Still morning.
She briefly considered wandering down to the general store at the heart of the town, but decided against it. It was too much effort and she didn’t want anything badly enough to justify it to herself. She thought of walking the coast once more, and perhaps Myki would be there, but she couldn’t stomach the idea of interacting with the dark-haired girl. It made her stomach flip and twist and flail in ways she, quite frankly, did not enjoy in the slightest.
She told herself that she simply could not stomach it. Which was not, strictly speaking, true. Nini was no stranger to stomach churning anxiety. What she could not stomach was the possibility of seeing Myki and feeling that sudden, destabilising joy that the girl imbued her with. That was what she could not stomach. And so, as she did whenever she felt any emotion a little too much, she put on her shoes.
The air outside met her with a clean, salt-bitten cold that sliced gently into her lungs. The sky was a pale, exhausted grey, a vast sheet drawn tight over the world and the sun existed only as a bright smear behind it. She walked without hurry at first, hands deep in her pockets, shoulders slightly hunched against the wind. The streets were sparsely populated.
She did not take the main path down to the beach. Instead, she turned toward the dunes at the far edge of town, where the land rose in pale, wind-carved humps before giving way to sea. The sand there was coarser, threaded with dry grass and stubborn shrubs that clung low to the earth. Few people came this way in winter. It felt, in some small and indefinable way, safer. The path narrowed as she approached, and the sand shifted under her shoes, sliding slightly with each step. At the crest of the first dune she paused, breath visible in hazy bursts before her face.
The ocean spread out beyond her. It was not blue, and the uninspired truth was that in winter it rarely was. It lay heavy and slate-coloured, its surface textured by small, disciplined waves that broke in even succession along the shore. The horizon was a thin, trembling line, barely distinguishable from the sky.
She moved farther up, until she stood at the highest point of the dunes, where the wind struck more cleanly. It tugged at her hair, slipped icy fingers down the collar of her coat. She did not retreat. Darlene, when they were in their younger, more romantic years, had liked this spot. The thought came quietly, and with it a small, familiar ache. Darlene, who had once stood exactly where Nini now stood, squinting into the distance with theatrical intensity.
“Orcas,” Darlene would say, shading her eyes dramatically. “You have to look for the dorsal fins.”
Nini had always humoured her. There had never been any orcas. Not here. Not in these shallow, unremarkable waters. But Darlene would scan the horizon with unwavering conviction. Nini tried, now, to do the same. She narrowed her eyes against the glare and searched the surface for disruption. A darker line. A break in pattern. Something that might rise, sudden and sleek, from the depths.
There was nothing. Only the steady repetition of waves, their white crests dissolving into foam as they reached the shore. She exhaled slowly. She did not believe there were orcas in these waters. She did not believe in sudden, magnificent intrusions into an otherwise ordinary landscape. Things did not simply appear because one wished them into being. And yet her gaze lingered on the horizon longer than necessary.
She imagined, against her better judgment, what it would be like if Myki were standing beside her now. Not speaking, necessarily. Just there. Shoulder almost brushing shoulder. Myki, hands in her pockets, squinting at the water. The imagined laugh echoed with such clarity in her mind that she felt her throat tighten. She told herself she missed company. That was all.
But the unarticulated truth was that it was not just company she wanted; it was her company.
She shifted her weight, the sand giving slightly beneath her boots. Her cheeks burned with the cold. She imagined, briefly, reaching out, her hand brushing Myki’s sleeve in some casual, accidental way. The warmth of her beneath layers of fabric. Her breath faltered. She closed her eyes against the image.
She quickly opened her eyes again, forcing herself to look outward rather than inward. The tide had begun its slow retreat, leaving behind darkened streaks in the sand. Small pools formed in shallow depressions, reflecting the pale sky like broken mirrors. The world here felt stripped down to its essential elements; just water, wind, and earth. There was a clarity in that, almost brutal. She wondered, not for the first time, what it would cost to follow this feeling wherever it led. She knew, though, that whatever the price was, it was far too high to risk.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝
MYKI
got a job at that cafe
they got back to me quicker
so no bookstore sozzz :(
NINI
lol
thats fine
is it fun so far?
MYKI
id say so
im just like
serving
well
im always serving
“We’d probably be able to leave early if you got off your phone.” Nini flushed with embarrassment as she shoved her phone back into her pocket, Discord smirking at her from behind the till.
“I was just…” Nini said quickly, waving her hands around abstractly like it would explain it all to Discord, though she had not been accused of anything specific. The defensiveness came of its own accord. “It’s winter break. It’s dead.”
Discord tilted their head, considering her with exaggerated solemnity. “Right. Any particular reason you were smiling at your phone?”
“I was not smiling.”
“You were.”
Nini moved briskly past them before the conversation could calcify further, collecting a stack of returns from the counter. Discord followed her at a measured distance, hands clasped loosely behind their back.
“So,” she said, in a tone of exaggerated neutrality. “The cafe.”
Nini’s shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly.
“What about it?”
“They got back to her quicker,” Discord said mildly. “Efficient. Capitalism in action.”
Nini crouched to slide a paperback into place on the lowest shelf, taking slightly longer than necessary to align its spine with its neighbours. She could feel Discord’s gaze on her, steady and assessing.
“It’s good,” she said. “She wanted something fast.”
“You’re disappointed.”
It was not phrased as a question. Nini stood abruptly, bumping her head lightly against the edge of the shelf above. The dull thud seemed absurdly loud in the quiet store.
“I am not.”
Discord blinked, unperturbed.
“You are,” they repeated, as if clarifying a misprint. “You typed ‘lol’ and then stared at the screen for twelve seconds before replying again. That’s disappointment.”
Nini felt heat rise to her cheeks. “I was just thinking about what to say.”
“You always know what to say.”
“Why are you reading my texts over my shoulder anyway? Ever heard of privacy?” Nini turned away under the pretence of rearranging a display near the window. Outside, a thin drizzle had begun, streaking faint lines down the glass. The world beyond looked blurred, indistinct, as though viewed through a thick haze. Discord came to stand beside her, not too close, not too far. They both looked out at the street as if there were something of immense importance unfolding there.
“I don’t care,” Nini said finally, quieter now. “About the cafe thing.”
Discord nodded once.
“Okay.”
“You don’t believe me,” Nini pressed.
Discord glanced at her. Her expression was thoughtful rather than teasing now, eyes slightly narrowed.
“I believe that you don’t want to care,” she said.
They stood in silence for a moment, the rain filling the gaps between words.
A car drove past slowly, tires hissing through shallow puddles. Somewhere deeper in the store, a shelf creaked faintly as the wood adjusted to the damp. Discord turned away first, moving toward the back table where a small pile of new arrivals waited to be stamped. She picked up the rubber stamp and pressed it carefully onto the inside cover of the top book.
“Do you want to help me to log these?” she asked, as if they had not just been dissecting Nini’s emotional state.
“Yeah,” Nini said automatically, grateful for the shift in conversation.
She followed Discord to the table, picking up a pen to log inventory. Discord pulled a milk crate of unsorted paperbacks from beneath the counter and set it between them.
“Okay,” she said. “We have to count everything in this box and make sure it matches the system. If it doesn’t, we have to find out why. If we can’t find out why, we have to pretend we did.”
Nini crouched, the cold of the floor seeping faintly through her tights, and began reading off the spines. The books were worn, some with cracked corners, others pristine in a way that felt uninviting.
“Three copies of that fantasy one with the unnecessarily shiny sword,” she said.
Discord typed, their fingers moving in short, decisive bursts. “We have four in the system.”
Nini frowned, counting again, as if an extra copy might materialize under scrutiny. “No, it’s three.”
Discord leaned down beside her, shoulder brushing briefly against Nini’s sleeve. “It’s three,” Discord agreed. “So either someone stole a fantasy novel, which is tragic but predictable, or it’s mis-shelved.”
Nini found herself cataloguing not just the books but the minute particulars of Discord’s presence; the way they pushed their hair back absentmindedly with the side of their wrist, leaving a faint smudge of graphite on their temple; the way they leaned closer to the screen when concentrating, as if proximity could coerce clarity. She recognized the pattern, for it was her own.
“You ever think,” Discord said suddenly, not looking up, “that inventory is just proof that nothing really disappears? It’s either accounted for or it’s a problem.”
“That’s… bleak,” Nini said.
“It’s comforting,” Discord corrected. “If it’s missing, you can look for it. There’s a process.”
Nini considered this. “Not everything has a process.”
Discord paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard. “Everything should.”
A small crease had formed between their brows. Nini felt an almost painful tenderness at the sight of the shared instinct to systematize what was unmanageable. She wanted to say that some things you just feel, and there isn’t a column for it. Instead, she reached into the crate and pulled out a thin volume of poetry.
“Two copies,” she said.
The heater clicked off. The quiet thickened. Her phone vibrated again. Discord did not comment. She typed, then closed the inventory window with a decisive tap. “We’re almost done with this box.”
“Good.”
“You can check your phone after,” Discord added, in a tone that was neither teasing nor stern but simply factual.
Nini stood, stretching her legs, and moved toward the back shelves where mis-shelved books often hid. The air there was cooler, tinged faintly with dust and the sweet, papery scent of aging pages. A narrow window high on the wall admitted a sliver of light, enough to illuminate drifting motes that turned lazily in the air.
She ran her fingers along the spines, scanning. The world contracted to titles, authors, the quiet geometry of order. Her thoughts did not. Myki would be at the cafe now. Or maybe on break. Maybe leaning against the counter, hair falling into her eyes, laughing at something someone said. It irritated her, how vividly she could conjure the image.
“She’s probably busy,” Nini murmured, too softly for it to be meant for anyone.
Discord appeared at the end of the aisle, carrying the empty crate. “Who?”
“No one.”
Discord tilted her head. “You said ‘she.’”
Nini felt heat climb her neck. “I was talking about… the fantasy novel. The one we lost.”
“The fantasy novel is a ‘she’?”
“It’s…” Nini faltered. “It’s fine. Forget it.”
Discord did not press. She set the crate down and began scanning the shelves with the same focused intensity Nini had displayed moments earlier. When she was done, she leaned back against the counter, folding her arms. “So.”
“So,” Nini echoed warily.
“You’re not disappointed about the cafe.”
Nini busied herself stacking the now-logged books into a neat pile. “It’s fine. A job’s a job.”
“Yeah.”
“And the cafe is… good. For her. Probably.”
“Yeah.”
Discord looked down at their hands. “I applied to the pool once.”
“You hate the pool.”
“I know.” A faint, self-aware smile crossed Discords face. “I thought maybe if I worked there, I’d like it more. Like exposure therapy.”
“Did they call you back?”
“No.”
“Are you disappointed?”
Discord considered. “No. Relieved. But also…” They paused, searching for the precise word. “Offended.”
Nini laughed softly. “That’s very you.”
“Yeah.”
A customer entered then, the bell above the door jangling with brittle cheer. An older man in a heavy coat, smelling faintly of cold air and tobacco. They straightened instinctively, slipping into the practiced choreography of service.
“Afternoon,” Discord said, voice flattening into politeness.
“Hi,” Nini echoed.
The man wandered the aisles with deliberate slowness. Nini returned to the register. When the man finally approached the counter with a single paperback, Discord scanned it and announced the total. Nini watched the way their fingers brushed the edge of the book as they handed it back, careful not to touch the customer’s skin. After he left, the bell jangling once more, the store fell into its habitual hush.
“You’re going to check your phone now,” Discord said.
It was not a question. Nini hesitated only a second before retrieving it.
MYKI
sorry i just got slammed
young people and their oat milk smh
also lowk i burned myself
its fine tho
Nini’s stomach tightened in a way she refused to name
NINI
u good??
The three dots appeared almost immediately.
MYKI
yeah lol
its barely a burn
u working?
Nini glanced up. Discord was watching her, not with scrutiny but with something like patient interest.
“Is she okay?” She asked.
“She’s fine,” Nini said quickly. “It’s nothing.”
Discord nodded.
NINI
yeah inventory
very thrilling
try not to die
She hit send before she could reconsider the flippancy.
“‘Try not to die,’” Discord read over her shoulder, unabashed. “Inspiring.”
“Shut up.”
“You care.”
“It’s basic human concern.”
“Mm.” Discord returned to the computer, but their expression had softened. Nini slipped her phone back into her pocket, heart still beating a little too fast. Outside, the drizzle had thickened into steady rain. It streaked the window in silver lines, distorting the streetlamp’s glow into a trembling halo. They began logging the next box. They worked for several minutes without speaking.
“You know,” Discord said after a moment, “when I started liking girls, I did this exact thing.”
Nini’s hand froze on the edge of the box.
“What thing?” she asked, keeping her voice carefully neutral.
“This,” Discord gestured vaguely in her direction. “The hyper-analysis.”
Nini let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You’re projecting.”
“I am,” Discord agreed easily. “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“That’s great,” Nini said, with a little more bitterness than she’d intended. “For you.”
“It is,” Discord replied. “Mostly.”
Nini bent back over the box. “Three copies,” she said tightly. “Of the blue one.”
Discord did not type.
“Nini.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to do the thing where you pretend I didn’t say anything.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“You are.”
“I just don’t see how that’s relevant.”
Discord exhaled through her nose. “Okay.”
Nini felt heat crawl up her neck, over her ears. She hated the involuntary betrayals of the body.
“I’m not gay,” she said. The words emerged quickly, almost reflexively. Discord did not flinch.
“I didn’t say you were,” she repeated.
“But you implied it.”
“I said when I started liking girls, I did this.”
“That doesn’t mean I am.”
“No.”
Nini swallowed. “I’m not.”
Discord tilted her head slightly. “Okay.”
“I just,” she pressed on, defensive and desperate. “I just think it’s weird that everyone jumps to that. Like you can’t just…” She gestured vaguely, hands slicing air. “Care about someone. Without it being…”
“Gay?” Discord supplied. The word seemed to echo, though the store was small.
Nini’s chest tightened. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I just think it’s reductive,” Nini said, her voice gathering speed. “Like, maybe I just… value her. As a person. That’s allowed.”
“Of course it is.”
“And it doesn’t have to be this big… identity thing.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Good.”
“But you don’t care about any of us that way. That’s what made me say that is all.”
For a moment, Nini could hear only the thin, persistent rain against the windows and the faint electrical hum of the computer screen. The world had narrowed to the small circumference of the counter, the box between them, Discord’s face across it.
“What way?” Nini asked, though she knew.
Discord shifted her weight slightly, heel scuffing against the floor. “That way.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Nini’s pulse had begun to beat in her throat again, a dull thud that made her words feel heavier than they should have been. “You’re being vague on purpose.”
“I’m not.” Discord’s fingers tapped once against the counter, a small staccato rhythm. “You don’t get this caught up about texting me. Or Darlene. Or anyone, really.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
Nini looked down at the box of books. The cardboard edge had frayed, threads of paper lifting like tiny, desperate flags. She traced one with her thumb, pressing it flat again.
“You don’t know that,” she said quietly.
Discord let out a small breath through her nose. “I do.”
The rain thickened, then softened, then thickened again, as if even the weather could not commit. Nini felt suddenly exposed, some private mechanism inside her dismantled and laid out on the counter between them, all its cogs and springs visible in the fluorescent light.
“That’s not fair,” she said. “You don’t get to…”
“I’m not judging you,” Discord interrupted, quickly now, almost flustered. “I’m not saying you are anything. I’m just saying it’s different. The way you…” She faltered, searching. “Orbit.”
“Orbit?” Nini repeated, incredulous.
“Yes.” Discord nodded, more firmly now. “You orbit her. You don’t orbit anyone else.”
The word lodged somewhere deep inside of her. Orbit. As if she were a satellite. As if Myki were something gravitational. She had lost all control and all she could do was revolve around some girl she didn’t know.
“That’s dramatic,” Nini said, but her voice lacked conviction.
“Probably,” Discord conceded. “But you do.”
Nini felt the need to move. To do something with her hands, her body. She lifted a book from the box and set it down again without reading the spine. Lifted another. Set it down.
“You’re making it weird,” she said.
“It already is weird.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is.” The argument felt brittle and stupid, even to her own ears. Nini swallowed. “Maybe I just… like talking to her.”
“That’s allowed.”
“And maybe I just… think she’s interesting.”
“Also allowed.”
“And maybe I just think she's… ” She stopped. The word pretty hovered, unspoken.
Discord watched her with that same steady gaze. “You don’t have to convince me,” She said softly. “I’m not the one you’re trying to convince.”
Nini felt something inside her lurch. “I’m not trying to convince anyone,” she said, though it sounded untrue.
“Do you want to know what I really think?” Discord asked, after a moment.
“Absolutely not."
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝
MYKI
ok random question
Nini paused outside the bolted door of the bookshop. Discord's figure was already disappearing into the dark, and she imagined Myki wherever she was, in her bedroom perhaps, hair damp from a shower, or still in the café uniform from that morning. She imagined her frowning at her screen, considering the phrasing of whatever was coming next. The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
MYKI
r u doing anything rnnnn
Nini felt as though the ground beneath her had altered its incline. She glanced up instinctively, as if to confirm that the street, the houses, the faint hum of distant traffic were all still in place. They were. The world remained structurally sound.
NINI
abt to walk home
why?
MYKI
beach?
NINI
sure
She imagined the shoreline, the way the sea withdrew at low tide, revealing dark, gleaming stretches of sand veined with shallow pools. The wind moving in long, steady breaths. The horizon blurred into the sky. She imagined standing there beside Myki, both of them small against the open dark. For a moment she stood unmoving, phone still warm in her hand. The night seemed sharper now, edges more defined. The lamplight cast her shadow long and slender across the pavement, and she watched it sway slightly as she shifted her weight.
It is only the beach, she told herself. It is only air and water and sand. She turned away from home. The route to the cliffside curved through quieter streets, past houses with curtained windows and gardens damp from earlier rain. The scent of salt grew faintly stronger as she walked. The air changed to be cooler, more salty, and perhaps fresher than the air of town, though the thought seemed absurd.
The path narrowed as it approached the cliff. Low shrubs bordered the walkway, their leaves dark and slick. The wooden stairs came into view, descending in a pale zigzag toward the unseen shore. And there, at the top landing, stood Myki. Even from a distance Nini recognised the silhouette, recognised the slight lean against the railing, one foot hooked loosely over the other. A hood was pulled up over her head, framing her face in shadow.
They stood facing each other for a moment that felt longer than it was. The wind moved between them, tugging lightly at loose strands of hair.
“Ready?” Myki asked.
Nini nodded. They began to descend. The stairs creaked beneath their combined weight. The wood was cool under Nini’s palm as she steadied herself on the railing. The sea’s sound grew louder with each step, a low, continuous murmur. At the bottom of the stairs the sand opened before them, vast, dark, faintly luminous under the obscured moon. Low tide had drawn the water far back, leaving wide flats that reflected the sky in broken, silvered patches. Shallow pools dotted the expanse, catching fragments of light like scattered mirrors. Nini stood with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her jumper, aware in a small, unreasonable way that the moment contained a kind of fragile equilibrium. If she spoke too loudly, or laughed too suddenly, it might fracture.
Myki stepped first, boots pressing shallow impressions into the wet sand. The sound they made was soft, a faint suction as each foot lifted again. Nini followed. The ground here was firm, smoothed by the retreat of the sea into something nearly reflective. Their figures stretched beside them in warped, shadowed doubles, the sky caught beneath their feet as if they were walking across some broken mirror of the night.
Nini let her gaze travel outward. The water lay far off, a darker band within the dark, its edge moving with patient, minimal gestures. Occasionally a thin wave would fold forward and dissolve with a sound so gentle it barely registered as sound at all. Between them and the sea lay the enormous exposed stretch of low tide, rippled faintly like the skin of some resting animal. In places the sand had collected water into small basins where the moon’s faint light gathered in trembling silver.
“It’s strange,” Nini said after a moment.
“Strange good or strange bad?”
“Good,” she said. “Just… strange.”
Myki nodded as though this required no elaboration. She moved toward one of the pools, crouching slightly to peer into it. The water was perfectly still until her shadow crossed it; then it seemed to shiver, as though disturbed by the presence of something living. Tiny shells and fragments of seaweed lay scattered along its rim.
“Look,” Myki said, pointing.
Nini leaned closer. A small crab, hardly larger than a coin, sat half-buried in the sand beneath the water, its legs tucked carefully beneath it. For a moment it did not move. Then, with surprising speed, it darted sideways and vanished beneath a fold of darker sand.
“Gone,” Myki said, amused. Nini smiled faintly.
They continued walking. The silence between them was not uncomfortable, but it was alert, aware of itself. Nini could feel her thoughts moving restlessly beneath the surface of her composure, like fish beneath clear water. The earlier conversation with Discord lingered somewhere in the back of her mind, not pressing but present, a quiet suggestion she had not yet decided whether to accept or ignore. It was likely she would ruminate for longer than necessary then ignore it, as she did with most things that troubled her.
She glanced at Myki walking beside her. The hood had slipped slightly back from her head, and the wind kept lifting small strands of her hair across her forehead. Her hands were shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket.
“Thanks for coming,” Myki said suddenly.
Nini blinked.
“You invited me.”
“Yeah, but you still came.”
Nini shrugged, though she felt a quiet warmth at the acknowledgement.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” she said.
“That’s not the same thing.”
Nini glanced at her again, curious, but Myki had already turned her attention back to the beach. They walked for a long while like that, weaving between the shallow pools. Occasionally Myki would nudge a shell with her shoe or crouch to inspect something half-buried in the sand. Once she picked up a piece of driftwood shaped like a crooked branch and brandished it briefly like a sword before tossing it aside with a quiet laugh.
The wind strengthened slightly as they moved closer to the waterline. It came off the sea in long, steady breaths, carrying with it the scent of kelp and something mineral that clung faintly to the back of the throat. Nini felt the cold of it through her clothes, though it was not unpleasant. It sharpened the senses, made the world feel newly precise. The horizon had dissolved entirely now. Sea and sky blended into one another so seamlessly that it was impossible to determine where one ended and the other began. The effect was disorienting in a subtle way, as though they were walking at the edge of something infinite.
“Do you ever think,” Myki said, “that the ocean must remember things?”
Nini considered this.
“Like what?”
“Everything,” Myki said with a shrug. “Ships. Storms. People falling in. All of it.”
“The ocean doesn’t have memory.”
“Maybe not like we do.” Myki bent to skim her fingers across the surface of a small tide pool. The water rippled outward in concentric circles. “But it keeps things. For a while at least.”
Nini watched the rings spread and fade. They reached the waterline. The sea here moved with slow, patient rhythm, sliding up the sand and withdrawing again. The edge of each wave glowed faintly before dissolving into darkness. Myki stepped forward until the water lapped briefly over the toes of her boots.
“Cold?” Nini asked out of habit.
“Probably,” Myki said, though she made no move to retreat.
Nini stood beside her, watching the long expanse of dark water. Something in the openness of it made her chest feel strangely light, as though the boundaries of her thoughts had expanded with the horizon. For a while neither of them spoke. Nini became aware of the quiet closeness between them. Not touching, not deliberate, but undeniably present. The space felt charged with a kind of fragile expectancy, as though something might happen if either of them shifted even slightly. She wondered if Myki felt it too.
“You’re quiet,” Myki said again.
“So are you.”
“That’s because I’m looking at the ocean.”
“You can do both.”
Myki laughed softly.
“Fair point.”
She turned slightly, studying Nini in the dim light. Her expression was difficult to read, and Nini decided it might be that she was curious, perhaps, or thoughtful.
“It’s weird out here,” she said softly. “Everything feels… bigger.”
Nini followed her gaze. The sea lay before them like an enormous sheet of breathing darkness, its surface barely distinguishable from the sky above it. Occasionally a pale fragment of moonlight slid between the clouds and caught briefly on the crest of a wave before vanishing again.
“Bigger how?” Nini asked.
“I don’t know,” Myki said, shrugging one shoulder. “Like whatever you’re worried about normally doesn’t matter as much.”
Nini considered this.
She had always been suspicious of the idea that perspective alone could diminish the weight of things that troubled you. Problems did not disappear simply because the sky was large. And yet, standing here now with the wind pressing lightly against her back and the sea stretching away into the indistinct horizon, she could almost understand what Myki meant. The world had expanded, and in doing so had made space for thoughts that did not feel quite so suffocating.
“I think that’s why people like the ocean,” Myki continued. “It makes you feel smaller in a good way.”
Nini glanced sideways at her.
“Smaller in a good way?”
“Yeah.” Myki nudged the edge of a wave with the toe of her boot, watching the water curl briefly around the leather before sliding away again. “Like you don’t have to carry everything yourself.”
The thought struck somewhere deep in her chest, stirring a faint, uneasy recognition. She had never considered herself particularly burdened by the act of thinking, if anything, she prided herself on the ability. Yet there were moments, increasingly frequent, when the constant turning over of ideas in her mind began to feel less like clarity and more like something sinister, and bad for her.
She looked again at the water.
“Maybe,” she said quietly.
They stood like that for a long time, watching the tide creep forward in slow, patient increments. Each wave advanced slightly farther than the last, the edge of the sea reclaiming the dark sand with quiet persistence. Eventually the water reached the faint line of their footprints and began to erase them.
One by one, the steps she had taken to get to the position she now occupied were erased by this new intrusion. She didn’t want to think about what else that might mean.