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Despite how long it had been since I’d been there, the beach I had previously spent so much of my life at looked untouched, like every hill of sand and bubble of seafoam had been frozen in place all this time, just for me. I knew the likely explanation was simply that it’d been so long that my memory of the beach had grown foggy, slowly slipping from my mind along with any notion of my past life. Several of the other survivors had a theory that such a phenomena was one of the effects of the Mist, taking everything we loved and missed and sweeping it away so that we would no longer know anything outside of the twisted game.
But sitting back here on the sand, watching the waves, so much of that memory started to fill back in easily; watching the gulls circle overhead, the tickle of the wind blowing my hair into my nose playfully, the feeling of her hand in mine as we watched the sun dip into the ocean. It was an impossible thought now, the idea that I could ever forget something like this.
“So, this is where you sneaked off to when the Mist spit us out?”
The sudden soft-snark behind me made me jump and I turned to see a familiar shape approaching from the treeline, accented as always by her black beret. My tension melted as Sanjanna lowered herself onto the sand to sit beside me, looking out over the water as I had. I hadn’t known her long – or perhaps I had. Time was tricky in the Mist – but our bond was an interesting one.
My natural affinity for healing painted a target on my back, one that Sanjana took quite personally with time. Any time we found ourselves in the same fight for survival, she made sure I was close by, giving me the proper distraction needed to run at the first sign of trouble and picking me up quickly if anything should happen. I thought it was odd, considering how detached she seemed to everyone else. Even Kelvin didn’t seem to get the same treatment I did, and he was her partner in crime.
I glanced over to the well-built woman at my side. She was usually so tense, alert and ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. It was soothing seeing her relaxed for once.
“It’s calming,” I said quietly, “A nice change from all of the … stress and fear.”
She nodded silently beside me. “What is this place?”
I couldn’t stop a laugh breaking from my lips. “It’s called a beach,” I teased. “Have you never seen one?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Well yes, I know that, but what is it really? You look at the water like it's an old friend; this is more than just a beach.”
Ah yes, leave it to Sanjana to pick up on something small like that; I wasn’t the least bit surprised. My humor dried up quickly, and my lips tightened as I lowered my gaze to the sand. “I used to come here all of the time before, with …” I trailed off, unable to form the words ‘my wife’ before they lodged in my throat and choked me into silence.
“With?”
I looked up, meeting Sanjana’s eye with slight shock. Typically when people brought up any mention of Caitlyn and I froze like this, they moved on, not wanting to tear at my wounds. But not Sanjana, of course not. Sanajana was an interrogator. When she twisted an arm enough for people to get uncomfortable, that’s when she twisted it even further; it was more than a job, it was a skill embedded in her being and I doubted she could simply turn it off. Her raw honey eyes burrowed into my soul, waiting patiently but mercilessly for me to answer. I turned my gaze back to the waves in the distance.
“I was married.”
“Yes I know.”
I whipped my head towards her. She clearly caught the alarm on my face and pointed to my hand. “You’re still wearing your wedding ring.”
“Oh … right,” I murmured, glancing at the pristine band on my finger. “Well, this was her favorite place. We would come here once or twice every week, just to watch the sunset. After she died, it sort of became my comfort-place. I come here when I need peace or a change or when I want a memory. Being in the Mist so long … I honestly started to forget …”
Again, Sanjana nodded. “And the dress?”
I looked down at the layered cream ruffles that spilled over my legs and dragged in the sand everytime I moved. “I wanted to wear something that wasn’t one of the same few outfits I had there. This was one of my favorites.”
“Makes sense. It looks good on you.”
I looked over to Sanjana with a smile and I caught just the slightest blush on her face before she turned it away under the guise of looking at something in the distance. I watched the wind play with the strands of hair not tied into the braid under her beret for a moment before letting my smile slowly drift away.
“This thing … whatever this is between us – it can’t go any further.”
Sanjana turned back to me. “What do you mean?” For the first time the impenetrable mask she wore was askew and I could see sad confusion lining her face. It didn’t suit her usual confident demeanor. I averted my gaze again, shifting the ring on my finger a bit. “I … when I lost Caitlyn, my world broke … I broke. The Iris you know now isn’t who I was then. This is just the leftover rubble that I managed to salvage from the trainwreck things became. It’s a miracle I kept going afterwards, but if it ever happened again …” Sanjana shifted beside me, but I refused to look up for fear I would see her face and burst into tears. I simply took a deep breath and continued.
“Your line of work is risky Sanjana. You’re accepting the very real possibility that you won’t be going home every day, and maybe you can live with that possibility but I can’t.”
“Iris,” Sanjana started quietly, but I shook my head and looked back up at her.
“Please,” I interrupted, “let me finish. I thought I was content and that I could go on with my life. I thought I’d had my chance at love and that was it, but then …” I looked back down at the sand. “Well, clearly I was wrong. There is a real chance, of course there is, and that’s what I’m afraid of. I can’t survive another trainwreck, Sanjana, I just can’t, and–”
“Iris,” Sanjana spoke again, placing a hand on mine. I let her interrupt time, looking up and forcing myself to meet her gaze again. The soft humor she had displayed before was gone, replaced with a serious but gentle look. “I’m not going back.”
I blinked, letting my brain process her words. “What?”
She sighed and turned her head back towards the setting sun in the distance, traveling across the sky and teasing the lapping waves. “It wasn’t much of a choice in the first place, if we’re being honest. It was either join the agency or go to prison, and at the time I enjoyed freedom, so I chose the former. But now …” she shrugged, gesturing to seemingly nothing around her. “The Mist took me and Kelvin. As far as the agency knows, we’re dead. I’m free.”
I raised my head slightly, opening my mouth to speak before I saw something was clearly still on Sanjana’s mind. I shut my jaw again swiftly, waiting as she took her time gathering her thoughts. “I had hoped,” she said after what seemed to be an eternity of silence, “that perhaps I could find a new place and purpose … somewhere with you – if you’d have me, of course.”
“Of course,” I responded quickly, nearly biting my tongue with the speed I jumped at the reply. The clouded look on Sanjana’s face passed and she let out a light chuckle, staring at me with a calm smile. The growing hues of orange and purple reflected in her eyes, twinkling at me. “You mean that? All of it?” I asked quietly at last.
Sanjana nodded. “Every word.”
A wide smile broke across my face and then froze again as I looked back down at our intertwined fingers, staring at the white gold ring on my finger with a throbbing heart. “You’re giving up your career, your security … what will you do?”
Sanjana shrugged. “I’ll figure something out.” I remained silent, unable to break my gaze away from the ring and the fear that came with it. “Iris?” Sanjana spoke softly after a moment, “What’s wrong?”
“You’re giving up your world to be with me … surely I give something in return …”
She caught the look on my face and followed my gaze down to the ring, her eyes widening in an instant. “Iris, no, of course not!”
I looked back up at her, blinking at her blankly. “But-”
“I wouldn’t dare ask you to give up Caitlyn. It’s clear she's a part of you. Without her, you wouldn’t be who you are.”
I shook my head. “I can’t ask this big a change of you without changing for you as well, it's just not fair-”
Sanjana raised a finger to my lips and shushed me with the shake of her head. “I don't want to change Iris Daley. Iris Daley is exactly who I love.”
My argument fell silent immediately with those words, and I silently moved forward, inching my face closer to Sanjana’s tentatively. She accepted my cautious approach with a less patient one of her own as she placed her hands on my shoulders to pull us closer together so she could press her lips to mine.
In that moment I made my decision: I would not change Iris Daley; she would always remain who she was, who Caitlyn had helped make her into. But I wouldn’t stay stuck in one place either. I would move on, the way I knew Caitlyn would have wanted but I had been too afraid to try before.
Perhaps I wouldn’t need this lonesome sandbar for comfort any longer. Perhaps I could find a new place for comfort, right alongside Sanjana. No, it wouldn’t be like the first time; how could it possibly be like the first time?
But then, who said it had to be?