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Eventually, Jamie cries herself to sleep, and Dani settles down beside her. As the clock on the nightstand ticks on in brilliant, blue light, ushering midnight into her bones, she realizes Jamie is still wearing her trainers.
And Dani is here. She is, she is. Even if moving hurts. Even though, when she does it, Jamie stirs with sudden restlessness. But this small kindness—taking her shoes off for her—seems so important for some reason. She rests them on the floor beside the bed.
It is cold and the blankets are always too thin. The A/C unit in the window is on despite how late in the year it’s getting. Dani longs to take the comforter from the other bed, but she is frightened of Jamie waking without her, of her not knowing where she’s gone. She settles for turning Jamie’s way and draping an arm around her waist. Can’t keep her warm, but she can try.
The darkness is blinding. Everything hurts, fingers numb, icy shards of pain slicing through her veins. But she is here because Jamie is here and Jamie has been her keeper all these years; now Dani will be hers. When you make a promise, you keep it. So she is here.
At 3:00, the air changes and Jamie stirs. Doesn’t open her eyes. Dani almost weeps in relief at existing to more than just herself again. Wants to burn the sight of Jamie into her mind so she’ll never forget: the line of her brow, her nose, her chin, the flutter of her eyelashes, those messy brown curls. Her hand rests on the mattress between them. Dani touches her knuckles, then her ring.
“I hoped it was a dream,” Jamie whispers.
“Me too,” Dani says.
“How long until—”
“I don’t know,” she says, because she knows the question already.
Dani listens to Jamie’s breathing and remembers. Little things, big things. How Jamie squeezes toothpaste from the bottle’s middle instead of its end; leaves half-full water glasses in the sink; plays the radio too loud, sings when she doesn’t know the words; says let me know if you need me before she falls asleep, means it, always springs into action when Dani was sick or scared in the middle of the night.
Kisses after sleeping in. Laughing so hard her stomach hurt. Trips to places where they could be alone, where they had nothing better to do than be in love.
“I love you,” Jamie whispers.
“I love you, too.”
Sorrow, shared and sharp, twists in the air around them like a wild beast: growling, waiting to lunge. But it already has, hasn’t it? Already taken its pound of flesh, only its final victim lingers because no one can ever truly leave behind the person they love the most.
In the shadows, the Lady of the Lake waits.
Cold fingers slide across her hip, the dip of her back. “What was your favorite part?” Jamie asks.
Hard question. Can’t remember. Like her life has turned to sand. It’s slipping right through her fingers.
Still: “You were, Jamie.”
Jamie’s jaw clenches, the only sign of her distress. Eyes shut because if she opens them, this will turn out to be a dream. Dani can taste her anguish, sour and rotting, like meat.
“Dani—”
“Giving you that ring,” Dani says, pinching grains between her fingers and remembering hurts now. “Our anniversary dinner last year. Watching White Christmas. That keychain you bought with my name on it in New York. The greenhouse, the moonflowers.”
Jamie’s face is pained. New wrinkles, barely noticeable, around her mouth, a few gray hairs here and there. Dani’s been teasing her lately, but she is still so young—only a girl; Dani is, too.
That’s why she could drown, why she could die.
For a moment, she can smell flowers and fire smoke: it is 1987 and she is sitting in a greenhouse and kissing Jamie for the very first time, except—
She isn’t. She’s in a hotel room outside of Bly, except—
She isn’t. She’s in a morgue, in a fridge, waiting for Jamie to make the arrangements.
Hand to her cheek; the touch goes right through her. How she wishes it didn’t, that her heart would flutter as it always did when Jamie held her like this. Ten years later, she’s learning that love trudges on.
It lingers as ghosts do. Dani will love Jamie as long as any piece of her remains. Even though she owns nothing, not even herself, anymore.
Dani loved in life; she will love in death.
Something yanks. Tugging, tugging. Siren song, calling.
“I have to go,” she says, helpless, useless.
“Wait,” Jamie whispers, pulling at her. “Just wait, wait—”
“Jamie—”
“Wait.” The word a sob, hard to understand; a woman choking, pulling at Dani hard and furious. “Take me with you. Please—”
But: no, not you, never you, never—
The words never actually leave Dani’s mouth; she remembers the lake now and that same desperate plea, muted in the murky deep, but somehow thundering.
Jamie knew the answer then, too.
“You can’t just— be gone! What am I supposed to— Dani, how do I-I—”
Leaving, leaving, drifting away. Jamie can’t hold on forever. Not like this.
“Not gone,” she says, can’t cry, wishes she could so she could leave a sign for Jamie to find, a sign that she was really here. “Never gone.”
Jamie reaches and reaches, hands grasping nothing but air. “I love you,” she says. “I love you, I—”
“I’m here,” Dani says, drifting away. “I’m always—”
Jamie opens her eyes to an empty bed. Somehow, the sun still rose. The morning of the first day without.
There’s a dip on the other side of the mattress and, after ten years, Jamie knows its shape. Touches it with her fingertips, imagining that it’s still warm. It isn’t.
She gets out of bed on Dani’s side and nearly trips over her shoes, lined up carefully on the floor, when she goes to stand.
