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“C’mon, Z,” Sol murmurs.
The phone screen is hot against her cheek. It’s the fourth unanswered call. Straight to voicemail.
“You’ve reached Zaria. You know what to do—”
Sol shuts her eyes, sighing through her nose. She drops her head back against the wall. When she inhales, deep and slow, she’s assaulted by the scent of stale hotel carpet. Thousands of feet and the futile shampoo that’s tried to do away with the evidence.
She hates it.
Across from her, Zaria’s door remains closed. Resolute. All knocks and words through the wood as futile as the shampoo and the phone calls. All going unanswered.
She had thought Zaria might stick around, had even hoped they might leave together. Sol was needed for some meetings, stupid champ things that Zaria wasn’t invited to, that Zaria would hate anyway, but Shayna’s words still hung heavy between them.
Just fix it, and you’ll get everything you want.
So simple. Sol wants to scoff. To laugh. Her skin itches. Her eyes burn with a far more uncomfortable urge. Pathetic, keening, kicked and wounded as she’s been made.
So simple. Yeah, right. How simple—the one you love, spearing you, spearing you, holding you close, like they couldn’t bear to let you go, and then, as soon as you slip up, as soon as you make the same mistake, they take the knife you refused and twist it. They take the knife and cut ties.
It wasn’t until that moment, where she couldn’t stop, could feel the air shift but couldn’t know, how could she know, as she went to finish Tatum off but somehow, some way, got Zaria instead. Came up and saw Zaria laid out on the mat, lost to the world, and felt as if she’d just shattered everything she ever held dear.
It wasn’t until that moment that she truly understood horror. It wasn’t until that moment that she truly understood Zaria and the past times she’d accidentally hurt Sol in matches.
Because she couldn’t focus, couldn’t regroup, it was as if everything warped and went gray. She thought she touched Zaria, but she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t know if she was moving or sitting still. Time might have passed, because the next thing she knew, she was on the outside of the ring. They were out of the match. They’d lost.
It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered but Zaria. Getting to Zaria. Making sure she was okay.
She crawled on all fours and found her lying, dazed, on her back.
“Z,” she said, grabbing for her hand. “Oh, god. Z, fuck, I’m so sorry. Hey, can you hear me?” She reached for Zaria’s head, cradled it upside down in her lap. “You with me, baby?”
Zaria’s gaze was far-off and unfocused. She was barely conscious. Sol’s heart wasn’t beating right, seized by a savage guilt, squeezed too tight.
She didn’t know how Zaria had survived those times, seeing Sol wincing, hurt by her hands. Sol felt like she was going to crumple under the weight of her shame. It didn’t matter that it was an accident. It didn’t matter that it was outside forces, shoving Zaria into her path, it was all her fault. How could she not have stopped herself? How could she not have known?
All she wanted to do was take it back. Take Zaria’s pain and press it into herself as her own. Spill sorries until she knew no other words.
She suddenly didn’t think anything she’d ever done in the aftermath of Zaria’s spears was enough. Had she been understanding enough? Kind enough? Gentle enough?
If this is what it felt like, hitting your partner with something so brutal as your finishing move, surely she hadn’t. Nothing anyone could say could make her feel better.
Worse, Zaria didn’t even try. Once backstage, conscious, under the attention of the physician, she sat sullen and silent, arms crossed. She didn’t wince or whine, didn’t do anything to indicate the level of pain she was in, but it was clear, anyway, she wasn’t feeling right.
Sol was trying her best to hold it together. She wasn’t Zaria. She didn’t know how Zaria had managed to keep herself from falling to pieces, before. It was all Sol wanted to do. Her eyes burned perpetually, each blink a fight against tears. But she didn’t want to make it about her.
So, she bit down on her bottom lip, tasted blood. Zaria, a mean, terrible bruise forming on her forehead, was put on concussion protocol. Sol wondered how long one could walk on their knees before they bled. Before they were forgiven. She had half the mind to find out.
It was a miserable trek back to the locker room. Sol felt every step. Her aches and pains were nothing. It was all nothing. The only thing that mattered at all was Zaria, strong and sturdy beside her, no longer swaying on her feet, but shuffling, slower than she should be. And silent, still. So silent it was setting Sol’s nerves on edge. Hurting at the core.
They got their things together quietly. Without fanfare. Sol too scared to break anything else, Zaria stuck in her head. Or, perhaps, refusing to leave it. One and the same. It was only once everything was packed up, and Sol was shifting her weight between her feet, resisting every urge she had to reach out and help Zaria carefully shrug her hoodie on, that Zaria finally spoke.
“I’m gonna stay at my own place tonight.”
“What?” Sol breathed, felt as if she’d just been speared all over again. Her hand dropped to her stomach of its own accord, just to check. “I—alone?”
Zaria nodded. She didn’t expand. Didn’t explain. Sol’s throat bobbed; she was still fighting guilt thick as molasses, and, suddenly, devastation even worse. She couldn’t get it down. Couldn’t breathe around it. She was so blindsided she was seeing stars. Like a kick to the temple when you thought your opponent was down and out.
She blinked, and the only thing that came out of her mouth was, “You’re on concussion protocol.”
Stupid, stupid. She never was good when it counted. Not with words.
Zaria shrugged like it didn’t matter. Like she was ever casual about these things. She wasn’t. Not when it came to injury. Not when it came to her job. But, now, here she was being negligent, refusing an observer. Just to get away from Sol.
“I’ll be fine.”
No. No. This couldn’t be right. Sol was suddenly back in the hotel room, those days ago, and she’d said the wrong thing, and Zaria was slipping through her fingers. Worse, this time. Because she’d hurt Zaria. She had, but it was an accident. It was really, truly an accident, and there had to be something lost in translation.
Zaria’s posture was so tense, the slopes and lines of her shoulders tight and high, and she was only ever that way when she was on guard. Since when was she on guard with Sol?
“Zaria,” Sol said, voice ragged. “Okay, wait, please. Wait.” She curled a tentative hand around Zaria’s wrist, and it was the first touch since the immediacy of the ring. She hated being so unsure. “Honey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She ducked her head, bent at the knees, trying to catch Zaria’s gaze, which was low, too low, refusing to meet hers. “Please. You know it was an accident, right?”
Zaria didn’t answer, her lips pressed together, her jaw tight. Sol’s stomach seized, and she wished she had been speared, just for the excuse. She swallowed.
“Zaria, c’mon,” she said, pled. “Baby, look at me. Please.”
“S’fine, Sol,” Zaria said. “I get it. Fair is fair. We’re almost even. I just wanna go to bed. I’ll set my alarms.”
Sol’s legs weren’t sturdy beneath her. She didn’t think her ears were working right. Or her brain. Or, perhaps, she had been thrust into some other world, some alternate dimension, where the dynamics had gotten all warped and bent. Where Zaria thought she was vengeful and spiteful and bloodthirsty in all the wrong ways.
“What—Zaria, no,” she said, and she let go of Zaria’s wrist to take Zaria's face in her hands. “No, we’re not—even?” The word was poison on her tongue, bitter, bitter. “Zaria, I would never try to get even. It—It was an accident. You have to know that.”
“Do I?” Zaria asked, and, here, finally, her eyes arrived. They were bright blue and steely. Sol wasn’t ready for them, for the hard edge of them against the soft underbelly she was offering.
“Zaria,” Sol said. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I respect you biding your time, taking your shot. Really. But I don’t wanna get into it all right now, alright?” Zaria shook herself out of Sol’s grasp, turned quick and jerky to grab her bag and phone from the bench behind her. “We’ll talk later.”
“Wh—Zaria.”
But Zaria never was one to be stopped when she was on a mission, or a warpath, and she didn’t pause, didn’t soften. So, Sol was left standing there with all her confusion and all her shame, suddenly thrust into a reality where she might have just lost Zaria for good.
It sent her reeling, unsure how to walk, how to move. She lost track of time and space. Slogging through one second and blinking into another hour the next. Her phone stayed in immediate proximity. She could not say the same for her dignity. She was so confused, so guilty, and all her texts went unanswered. She couldn’t even think about leaving it alone.
Me [11:34 PM]: Zaria please I don’t understand
Me [11:45 PM]: Z i’m sorry please just talk to me it was an accident i swear
Me [12:27 AM]: at least let me know you’re ok
It was another thirty minutes before she received a like to the last message, letting her know that Zaria was at least alive and following concussion protocol, though she really should have had someone there to watch over her. It didn’t lessen the knot in Sol’s stomach. Not really.
She couldn’t sleep. Felt the cold absence of Zaria’s warmth and weight beside her, behind her, around her, and at some point, in the dark, devastating quiet of her room, it finally hit her.
Zaria blamed her. She blamed her for the mistake. Blamed her so much that she’d left her alone. Blamed her, thought so little of her that she assumed Sol was getting back at her, getting even, for the times before, when Zaria slipped up in the ring and speared her by accident. As if either of them can help it, can slow momentum and fight the laws of physics.
How could Zaria possibly think that Sol would ever hurt her on purpose, would ever stoop so low? Would ever do anything but take and take and take whatever Zaria gave—spears, F5s, elbows, if that was what she so wished—merely because it was from Zaria. It was Zaria. Did Zaria not know how far gone Sol was?
Were all the times Sol forgave her not proof of that? Did all the times Sol had taken her face in her hands and kissed her and murmured that she understood, she didn’t blame her, she knew it wasn’t on purpose slide off of Zaria’s back and to the floor? That last time, when she had slipped, when she had been frustrated, but not by Zaria herself, just by circumstance, just by the pain and the exhaustion—it’s all she can think about.
Zaria, eyes so soft, so scared, so apologetic. So hurt, when Sol didn’t answer quickly enough, couldn’t push it past her lips, that she trusts her, she trusts her, she does. With her life, her limbs, her heart.
I love you, Sol had said, and she’d meant it.
I love you, she says, every time she massages the tension out of Zaria’s shoulders before a match, after a match, in the locker room, at gas stations filling up the car, letting Zaria rest her head on her shoulder.
I love you, every time she reaches across the ring and seeks Zaria’s hand, for an assist, for assurance, as a reminder, I’m here, you’re here, we’re here.
I love you, every time she blocks a blow meant for Zaria, pushes her out of the way, takes it to the chin, the stomach, hits the ground, and finds it all worth it when Zaria’s hands cradle her close, check her over.
I love you, every time she rolls over in the morning and curls and arm around Zaria’s waist, nudges her jaw with her nose; every time she nudges their shoulders together at a table to eat, sitting too close for convenience, but Zaria doesn’t complain, never has; every time she makes matching shirts, suggests gear themes and colors, and plants a kiss on Zaria’s cheek because she agrees.
I love you, Sol had said, always says. She would never hurt Zaria on purpose. Would never try to get revenge even if she had been keeping score. That’s not what love is. That’s not what love does.
It guts her deep to think Zaria expects it of her. Guts her deep to think Zaria expects it of love.
In the dark, devastating quiet of her room, she finally broke down, sobbed into her pillows. When she’d exhausted herself, sleep remained stalwart. Dug in its heels and refused to find her. She stared, unseeing, at the slants of light coming in through her window from the streetlamp outside. Time warped and shifted around her. Eventually, the sun rose.
Not until she heard the chime of her phone was she drawn from her stupor. Because it was Zaria’s chime. And because she was Zaria’s girl—wasn’t she, still; wasn’t she, always—she stirred. Hope, eternal, stubborn hope, stirred too. But when she got her hands on the device, blinking blearily through stinging eyes at the brightness of the screen, she wished she’d stayed curled on her side, lost to the world.
It was only one text and a picture at that. A picture she and Zaria had taken together, before the events had unfolded in the match the previous night. Like they often did, playing photographer and muse, switching fluidly between roles for one another, and having fun with the media department’s professional proofs.
This was one of the professional proofs, but she was edited out. Erased. Only Zaria stood, eyes shaded, staring down the lens of the camera. A clear message to all of Sol’s pleas. It was, at once, so surprising and so cruel, so unlike Zaria, unlike Zaria with her, that all the numbness that had settled in Sol evaporated. Pain cropped up through her nerve endings to bleed at the seams. She worried, momentarily, she was going to spit it up, red at the lips.
Her stomach clenched. She ached, sharp and acute, right beneath the sternum. Her breath caught. Tears welled and fell hot and relentless down her cheeks.
Her phone fell out of her grip, and it was just as well. She didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t anything to say. Nothing coherent or logical or moving enough to get through to someone who was so suddenly and irrevocably done with her the way Zaria seemed to be.
And Sol, she just didn’t get it. How you can claim to love someone one moment and leave them the next. Unless—
Unless Zaria hadn’t ever actually loved her. Not really. Had only ever told Sol what she thought she wanted to hear, as she so often seemed to. Placating, complacent, keeping Sol happy, because Zaria was usually so nice, so understanding.
Except now she was finally fed up, finally done, because Sol was greedy. With Zaria’s time, Zaria’s attention, Zaria’s protection and her warmth and her touch. Sol, who was greedy with titles and matches and the spotlight.
The realization settled across Sol’s skin like a winter morning chill. She shivered so violently it ricocheted through her chest as a hiccup.
It was the only thing she could think, to make sense of such an abrupt shift. Such senseless cruelty after so much care and so much devotion.
It was the only thing in her head as the days went on, as she puppeted herself through the appropriate motions—training, meetings, training, meetings, eating, sleeping, training, meetings, training, sleeping, training.
By the time the next show came around, she was in such a fog, so tangled in her head and the heartstrings, she couldn’t remember what it was like outside of it. She had the feeling Zaria had been making herself scarce, if only because she had been trying to do the same, avoiding the usual routines and schedules so that their paths wouldn’t cross.
She hadn’t been talking to any of the usual girls, had only been talking to the officials she had appointments with, the trainers who were checking in with her. She avoided eye contact all the while. She avoided mirrors, too. The last time she caught a glimpse of one, her sleeplessness was screaming back at her.
She felt like she’d been hollowed out and stuffed with ice. Constantly shivering, aching from the cold, frigid from the disillusionment. Warmed by nothing.
It was unsurprising that management would want her and Zaria together on television, especially after the fiasco of the previous week. Of course they would. It made for good tv. Still, it was like swallowing a rock to make her way to the room to watch the tag match.
Zaria was already there, and she didn’t look at her. It hurt more than it should.
Her perfume was always the same, amber and vanilla, and Sol had begun to associate it with home. With crawling into bed and laying her head on Zaria’s chest, and knowing that she was safe. With crawling across a ring and knowing she was safe. With turning around in a crowd full of people and, upon catching its scent, knowing, at last, she was not alone.
Having Zaria stand so close, being unable to touch her, press her nose to her pulse point, her hair, breathe her in, twisted the knife. Brought a slew of emotion that pierced the fog Sol had been living in.
She was alarmed, as the match went on, that the prominent one, stewing beneath the surface, was anger. When Zaria snapped at her as the match ended, some smart remark about how it could’ve been them, holding their hands up in victory, working well together, if Sol had only not hit her with her finisher, Sol was alight with it.
Because, okay, Sol was greedy. Okay, Sol was selfish. Okay, Sol was too much, and she asked for too much, and Zaria was done with it all. But Zaria needed to own up to that. She needed to admit the real reason she was doing all this. She needed to rip off the bandaid, break the bone clean so Sol could reset it. Because Sol would never, ever hurt Zaria on purpose in the ring, and especially not the way Zaria was hurting Sol outside the ring, and Sol was not about to take the accusations anymore. Not now that she’d had her epiphany.
She was about to say that, about to lay it all out, cameras be damned, but then Shayna was there, saying things Sol wanted to hear, needed to hear, agreed with wholeheartedly.
But it’s not me, Sol wanted to scream.
She wanted to turn to Zaria and press as close as physics would allow. She wanted to hold her face and say, I’d lay it all down, leave it all, don’t you understand?
She didn’t think Zaria did. She was fighting tremors about it, but, still, with Shayna there, Zaria softened. She seemed amenable, at least. Open to talking. Sol had to consciously think about breathing to keep her hope at bay.
But then, of course, as always, everything got in the way. The duties, the schedule, the space. Zaria was gone by the time Sol was done. Whatever tentative hope Sol had held onto by the thinnest of threads as she made her way into the hotel was squashed as her phone calls went straight to voicemail.
It’s shriveled and listless, now, having gone ignored at Zaria’s door for the better part of an hour. Going back to her room feels like defeat, but she supposes it’s inevitable. Supposes it has been since Zaria’s face met her shoulder in the ring and found harm rather than safe haven.
She’s so sick of fighting back tears. So sick of fighting. It’s all she does. Fight in the ring, fight outside the ring, backstage. Looking over her shoulder, trying not to flinch. With Zaria, it was never supposed to be like this.
She sniffs, slumping against the elevator wall, letting her eyes slide shut, if only briefly. The ride will be too short, she knows. Her room will be too quiet. Her bed too empty, too cold. All of it just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Her, too; wrongfooted, as she steps out of the elevator. She makes the wrong turn on her floor, has to backtrack when she’s already halfway down the hall. She sways too close to one side and nearly shoulders someone’s door as she passes. Nearly bumps a cleaning cart. But she doesn’t care, doesn’t care.
How is she supposed to care about anything anymore, when her heart has been ripped from her chest and left bleeding in Zaria’s palm?
That anger that had sprouted so fierce and sudden in the face of Zaria’s earlier contempt has fled, and she is, once again, pathetic, bereft. She is, simply, heartbroken.
She is frozen, blinking through surprise, five feet from her door. She is lucky she glanced up in time. She’s unsure she isn’t seeing what she wants.
The ache in her chest says otherwise. The pounding of her heart feels real. It has to be real.
Zaria, sat outside her hotel room, across from her door, legs pulled up to her chest, cheek pressed to her arms, nodding off. Sol’s heart squeezes.
“Hey,” comes out a strangled whisper, but Zaria’s head snaps up, eyes blink-blink-blinking back to alertness.
It takes them a second to clear, to focus in, but when they do, they find Sol easy as ever, and without any of the chill, without any of the edge that Sol has found herself having to brace for the past week. She swallows, her throat thick.
“Hey,” Zaria says, voice hoarse. “Was gonna call, but my phone died. Figured I’d wait you out.”
Something in Sol’s chest settles. Fresh, jagged hurt soothes, just a little, knowing Zaria has been here all along, not ignoring her, not denying her or shutting her out behind the hotel door as she pleaded to be let in.
It’s such a relief, it spills from her immediately. The sob breaks past her lips and takes her strength with it. She curls in on herself and hardly keeps from crumpling to her knees right next to Zaria on the horrible hotel carpet. It’s lucky that Zaria, alert, alarmed, surges upward as soon as she started to breathe different.
“Hey,” she says again, softer now, just like Sol knows her to be, nothing like the vengeful, spiteful person she’s met. “Hey. Shh.”
She stops inches, centimeters away from wrapping around Sol like she usually does, and Sol hates it, hates that there’s something serrated and warped about them that she still can’t trace the origins of. Her next sob heaves out of her with jarring force, and she closes that space, heedless of the boundary, mindless of the wound. She doesn’t care if she twists whatever’s serrated further and further in, so long as she can press closer.
“I was at your room,” she says into Zaria’s neck, wetting her hoodie. “You didn’t answer, and I thought—I thought—but you were—”
Zaria makes a noise in the back of her throat, something colored with understanding but bruised all over. Like the information hurt going down. Her hand comes to rest on the back of Sol’s neck, tangled in her hair. She slips the other under Sol’s sweatshirt, her shirt, her fingers a shock of sensation on Sol’s skin. She trails a solid, sure touch up and down Sol’s spine.
“Shh,” she says again into Sol’s hair. “Shh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.”
Sol shudders against her, shivers, and Zaria presses a kiss to her temple. Then another. Sol is so overwhelmed, so relieved, so unsure if it’ll last or be yanked from her grasp, she grips Zaria’s hoodie tight enough to tear.
Zaria moves, and fear grips Sol by the throat. She lets out a strangled sort of noise, and it’s sad, really. She should be furious, again. She should, but she isn’t. Not right now, when she’s so tired, and Zaria is so soft, so reassuring.
“I’m just opening the door,” Zaria says. “You have the key?”
Sol nods and passes it over, and Zaria somehow manages to get the both of them inside with their stuff without truly detangling from Sol. It’s just a lot of shuffling and Sol refusing to really withdraw from her neck. The door shuts with a soft click behind them. The hum of the air conditioner brings Sol back to the last time she’d tried to hold Zaria in her hands in a hotel room and almost failed.
Or, perhaps, she had failed. Perhaps, Zaria had just let her believe she’d succeeded. She’d told Sol she loved her too, but it was placating, always placating. Because Sol is too much, and it’s easier to let her hear what she wants, to ease her energy, her greed. She won’t ask for it all if you give her a little.
Sol sucks in a breath and pulls back, blinking up at the ceiling, tears hot on her cheeks. Zaria’s hand grips her hip, just as searing.
“Sunny,” she says, and she’s gentle, so gentle, but Sol can’t believe in it now, not when she’s seen how harsh Zaria can be. Not when she knows how Zaria really feels.
She shakes her head, presses the heels of her palms into her eyes. She turns away.
“You know it was an accident, Zaria,” she says, voice tremulous, wavering, but sure, surer than anything. “You know that I couldn’t stop myself in the middle of a flip. And that I’d never hurt you on purpose. So, can we just—can we please just say what this is really about?”
She turns back just in time to see Zaria’s pain, a fierce twist that disappears as quickly as it arrived.
“Zaria,” she says, driven a step forward just by the sight of it. “I’m—please.” Her voice breaks. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I should’ve realized sooner, earlier, that it’s—that I'm—”
Her words catch, and she’s forced to swallow.
“What?” Zaria breathes, eyes a little wide. “That you’re what, Sol?”
Sol laughs, but it’s verging on hysterical. She gestures vaguely.
“Too much,” she says. “I’m too much. And I ask for too much. From you. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Z. Really. But it’s not—it’s not fair, what you’ve done this week. You should’ve ended it straight up.” Her throat squeezes, resisting. Her heart does the same, protesting. Zaria is blurry around the edges, but Sol could recognize her anywhere, in any light, by shape alone. “And if you never meant it, you should have never said you loved me too.”
Zaria looks a little like she’s been kicked in the stomach, or punched in the chest. Gutted. Winded. Wounded.
She says, “Sol,” but doesn’t seem to know where to go from there.
Her eyebrows are creased deep down the middle, furrowed heavy over her gaze in that way they get when she’s truly, terribly upset. Sol doesn’t reach out like she usually would. Her fingers twitch, though.
“Sol, I—” Zaria’s face buckles, pain bleeding at the seams. “I never—I didn’t mean for it to go this way. I mean, I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“What did you think was going to happen?” Sol asks, sharper than she intends. “Ignoring me? Blaming me? Sending that photo?”
Zaria winces, each question worse than a physical blow. She swallows and nods, like she expects it, accepts it.
“No, I know,” she says. “I know, and you’re right. I meant that—well, I don’t know what I meant. Because I knew it would hurt you. I—It’s just that I thought, well, I thought it’d be worth it. In the end.”
Nausea tingles at the backs of Sol’s jaw. She shakes her head, uncomprehending. Unseeing, unrecognizing. Zaria, before her, unfamiliar.
“Worth it to hurt me?” she asks.
Zaria’s chin wavers, and she squeezes her eyes shut. She turns partially away, putting her in profile. Sol almost misses the tear that falls down her cheek because of it. It nearly startles Sol out of her emotion.
Because in all the time they’ve been together, partnering, she hasn’t once seen Zaria cry. She hasn’t once seen Zaria break. Not even when she was guilt-ridden and blue in the eyes did she shed the tears brimming on her lashes.
“No,” Zaria whispers; Sol has to strain to hear her. “No, never. Never to hurt you, Sunny.”
“Then, what?” Sol asks. “What could possibly be worth this past week? You treating me like you have?”
It takes a while for Zaria to answer. Long enough for Sol to become aware of her heartbeat in the silence.
“I thought you’d hate me,” Zaria says, finally, weakly, and Sol freezes.
Her body washes with goosebumps.
“What?” she breathes.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Zaria says. “You never did. I deserved it. Your finisher. I deserved more. Worse.” Zaria’s throat bobs. “I’m—I’m not built for good things, Sol. I just end up ruining them in the end, and I don’t want—I can’t let that happen to you. It keeps—It keeps happening to you, and if I can’t protect you from me then—”
A sob sledgehammers its way past Zaria’s defenses, wracking her body and rounding her shoulders inward.
Sharp, searing devastation knifes its way through the thick slab of ice that had taken residence within Sol over the past week. Her hands shake at her sides. The realization of what Zaria is saying nearly doubles her over, nearly sends her staggering for stability.
That it wasn’t Zaria saying, I never loved you, I don’t need you, you’re too much for me. But, instead, it was Zaria turning the blade inward, on herself. Zaria, hoping if she just lashed out, if she just ruined it all quick enough, ripped off the bandaid, Sol would hate her, would give up, would leave her in the dust. Would give her what she thinks she deserves.
That Zaria thinks she deserves hatred. Pain.
It makes Sol feel ill.
“I’m sorry,” Zaria says. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. It was never your fault, and I never—I don’t want you to feel as if I—“ Zaria’s breath catches. She looks up, and holds Sol’s gaze. “Please. If you hear one thing, just let it be that I never lied, when I said how I felt. When you told me you loved me, I meant it when I said it back. I’ve meant it every time since.” Another tear down her cheek; she doesn’t swipe it away. She lets Sol see. “You’re not too much, Sol. I’m—I’ll never forgive myself for making you think that."
She takes a step forward, and, now, the distance between them is minuscule. She raises her hand but doesn’t touch. Ghosts a hand near Sol’s forehead, her hairline.
“Shayna put things into perspective,” she says. “But I realized it was too late. I know it’s too late, and you deserve better, but you deserved to know what it’s all been about. That it’s not you. It was never you.” She drops her hand, steps back. “I’m going to meet with Ava tomorrow, but it’ll be at your pace. You can announce the split however you want. Champ’s discretion.”
She offers a weak smile, but it anvils Sol’s chest. She makes as if to take a step back, but Sol grabs her wrist and grabs it tight.
“No,” Sol says, and it’s firm. “No."
She tugs Zaria back to her, until they’re centimeters apart, until she can feel the hitch of Zaria’s chest, until she can frame Zaria’s jaw with her fingers and inch them toward her hair.
“What do you—”
Sol kisses Zaria with all the conviction and all of the love, all of the heartache and all of the longing, she’s built up over the past week. All of the feeling she’s come to associate with Zaria since she’s known her. She presses their bodies together and little by little, bit by bit, she thaws.
Zaria’s arm wraps around her waist like it was made for just that. Strong and secure. Her other hand comes up to cradle Sol’s face, and it’s terribly tender. Reverent, as always.
Sol doesn’t know how she can’t see it. The love she moves with. Like she was made for it.
When they pull back, they don’t go far. Just enough to rest their foreheads together. Sol strokes her thumbs down Zaria’s cheeks. Zaria’s hand stays, warm and steady, on Sol’s.
“You’re built for good things, Zaria,” Sol says. “You are a good thing.”
Zaria blinks quickly, and Sol retreats just enough to be able to look at her properly. To see the tears in her eyes.
“Sol,” Zaria says, hoarse.
“You just have to trust it, baby,” Sol says. “Trust me.”
Zaria swallows, closes her eyes, and Sol reaches up and runs her thumb over the crease between her eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” Zaria says.
Sol nods.
“I know,” Sol says. “It’s okay. We’ll talk about it.”
“No,” Zaria says, and she reopens her eyes. She’s serious again. She raises her other hand and holds Sol’s face, now. “Look at me.”
Sol does, because what else can she do. Zaria’s eyes are so blue, always. It’s so hard to focus this close to them.
“I should never have sent the edited photo,” Zaria says. Sol’s stomach churns. “I’m sorry, Sol. I’m sorry. I want you in all my photos, all my videos, in every story I tell. You’re not too much. Never. Not for anyone, but especially me. Please don’t ever talk about yourself like that again.”
It’s Sol’s turn to cry. To have her tears wiped away. Zaria does so with painstaking gentleness.
“You hear me?” Zaria says.
Sol nods, her throat tight. Zaria nods too, the same way. Then, she leans forward and kisses Sol’s cheekbone, the bridge of her nose, between her eyes, her forehead, the corner of her lips. Sol lets out the faintest huffs, and Zaria smiles into her skin.
Finally, she guides Sol’s mouth to hers, kisses her slowly.
“I love you,” she says into Sol’s lips.
Sol steps impossibly closer.
“I love you,” she says back. “I love you.”
Zaria smiles again, and Sol can’t help but join her this time.
“Can I stay?” Zaria asks.
Contentment settles in Sol like a sigh. Because though they still have a lot to talk about, and things to work through, for now, they’re where they need to be.
“Always,” she says.