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Agatha had convinced herself, at least in theory, that she could handle one weekend away.
Just a normal girls’ trip.
Three lesbians, one car, a questionable plan.
Nothing dramatic.
Totally fine.
Probably.
But the moment she zipped up her overnight bag, Agatha felt something twist in her stomach, not dread, not panic, but a strange, quiet resistance she hadn’t expected.
She glanced toward the kitchen, where Rio stood barefoot in a soft blue sweater Agatha had bought her last winter. Rio was stirring sugar into her morning tea with the kind of gentle, automatic movements that only came from habit.
Their habit.
Their routine.
The small rituals of a shared life.
A wave of affection hit Agatha so abruptly she had to grip the counter.
Rio looked up at her then, eyes soft, head slightly tilted, like she was listening for something Agatha wasn’t saying.
“You don’t have to go,” Rio said quietly.
Agatha blinked. “I said I would.”
Rio set down the spoon with a soft clink and came closer, her steps slow and steady. She reached out, brushing a stray curl off Agatha’s forehead.
“You can cancel.”
Agatha let out a startled laugh. “I’ll never hear the end of it from Jen.”
Rio’s mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile, more like surrender.
“That is true,” Rio said.
A faint rumble of an engine came from outside, Alice’s car pulling up, probably with Jen hanging halfway out the window screaming about being late.
Agatha sighed, leaning her forehead against Rio’s for a brief moment.
“I’ll be back tomorrow night,” she murmured.
Rio nodded, fingers slipping to the back of Agatha’s neck, anchoring her gently.
“I know.”
But something in her eyes made Agatha lean in closer.
Rio’s voice softened.
“And you should go. You always look happier after spending time with them.”
Agatha snorted. “You mean I look exhausted.”
Rio’s gaze warmed. “But lighter.”
“Oh sweetheart, that’s just the alcohol—”
Rio kissed her before she could finish.
Soft.
Slow.
A warm press of lips that made Agatha’s stomach twist and flutter and melt all at once.
“Agatha!” Alice bellowed from outside. “You have ten seconds before we leave without you!”
Agatha pulled away with a groan.
“God, I hate them.”
Rio squeezed her hand. “No you don’t.”
“Fine. I love them. Whatever.”
Rio finally smiled, small and soft, her eyes flicking to Agatha’s lips as if committing them to memory.
“You’ll have fun,” Rio said.
Agatha raised an eyebrow. “Define fun.”
Rio gave her a flat look.
“Agatha.”
“Okay, okay,” she relented, laughing. “I’ll try.”
Rio lifted their joined hands and kissed Agatha’s knuckles once, a gentle, grounding thing that made Agatha feel like she’d walked into a tenderness she wasn’t entirely prepared for.
“Come home safe,” Rio whispered.
Agatha swallowed.
“You’ll be here?”
“Always.”
Agatha kissed her one more time, a quick, almost greedy press, then forced herself toward the door before she did something insane like cancel the entire trip and drag Rio back to bed.
The cold hallway air hit her as she stepped out.
Alice honked again.
Agatha rolled her eyes, heading toward the car.
The second she opened the door, Jen leaned out from the passenger seat and screamed:
“THERE SHE IS! THE MOST UNHINGED WOMAN I KNOW!”
Agatha blinked. “Good morning to you too, Jennifer.”
Alice cackled from the driver’s seat. “Get in, loser, we’re going to be emotionally irresponsible.”
Agatha groaned. “Fantastic.”
She shoved her bag into the backseat and climbed in.
Jen twisted around immediately, narrowing her eyes.
“You kissed her goodbye for a suspiciously long time.”
Agatha glared.
“Mind your business.”
Alice snorted. “You made out in the doorway like teenagers. I bet half the building saw.”
Jen gasped theatrically. “Was it a goodbye kiss or a ‘just in case I die in a freak highway crash’ kiss?”
Agatha snapped, “It was a normal kiss.”
Alice and Jen said simultaneously:
“There was nothing normal about that.”
Agatha slumped low in her seat.
“I hate you.”
“You love us,” Jen said sweetly.
“I love Rio.”
“Same thing,” Alice said.
Agatha groaned loudly, dramatically, to hide the warmth blooming in her chest.
As Alice started the car, Jen reached over and squeezed Agatha’s knee.
“You’ll survive one night away from your girlfriend.”
“Two,” Agatha corrected.
“Oh god,” Alice muttered. “She’s counting the hours already.”
Agatha opened her mouth to deny it,
then closed it again, because… yeah.
She absolutely was.
They pulled out of the parking lot, and Agatha looked back one last time.
Rio was still in the doorway.
Holding her mug.
Watching the car go.
Expression soft.
So soft it made Agatha’s throat tighten.
Jen followed her gaze, then sighed dramatically.
“Y’all are disgusting. I hope you know that.”
Alice nodded. “Truly vile.”
Agatha flipped them both off, eyes still on Rio.
“We’re adorable,” she said.
Jen smirked. “Sure. Let’s call it that.”
As the building finally disappeared behind them, Agatha felt something small and aching settle under her ribs.
She crossed her arms, staring out the window.
Two nights.
She could handle two nights.
…Right?
Jen nudged her with her elbow.
“You okay?”
Agatha exhaled slowly.
“Yeah,” she lied.
And the car rolled onto the highway, leaving the apartment, the city, and Rio behind.
For now.
The hotel conference center was too loud.
Even with the noise-canceling headphones slotted firmly over her ears, Rio could feel the sound pressing in, not as sound but as sensation. A pressure. A shimmer. A faint electric buzz behind her eyes.
Normal tournament nights didn’t bother her.
Tonight did.
Rio sat at her station, fingers resting lightly on the controller, waiting for her next match to begin. She tried to focus on the grid in front of her, the clean math of it, the familiar rhythm, the predictable comfort of falling shapes.
Normally, Tetris cleared her mind.
Normally, it made the world settle.
But today, the world was a tilted table, and everything on it, her thoughts, her emotions, her concentration, slid toward the same point:
Agatha is away.
She clenched her jaw and tried to pull her thoughts back into line.
She’d had this weekend marked on her calendar for months.
She’d prepared.
She’d told herself she could handle being alone for a night or two.
Except her body hadn’t gotten the memo.
She placed the opening pieces automatically, perfect rotation, perfect placement, but her mind wasn’t in it. It drifted back to that moment in the doorway hours earlier:
Agatha leaning forward in the morning light, curls falling around her face, kissing her slow and soft. Rio had felt that kiss in her chest for hours afterward. Still felt it now.
She cleared another line.
Her fingers moved with mechanical precision.
Her heart did not.
Every block triggered a thought:
She’ll be back tomorrow night.
She said she would.
She said she’d try to have fun.
Rio wanted her to have fun.
She genuinely did.
She just… didn’t like the ache that came with the absence.
She shook her head, annoyed at herself.
She was an adult.
She had traveled alone dozens of times.
Tournaments used to be her sanctuary, quiet chaos she could navigate, a world that made sense.
But ever since moving in with Agatha, “alone” had started to feel different.
It wasn’t peaceful.
It was empty.
She cleared a T-spin and felt no satisfaction.
A spectator on her left hissed at something on someone else’s screen; the vibration of the noise hit Rio like a shove. She flinched. Her knee bounced. Her breathing hitched, just a little.
She set the controller down during the match break and tried to breathe slowly through her nose.
In for four. Hold. Out for six.
It didn’t help enough.
She checked her phone.
Nothing from Agatha.
Which wasn’t surprising, Agatha with Jen and Alice was like trying to catch a falling knife: dangerous, fast, chaotic, distracting.
Rio knew that.
Still.
A tiny frown pulled at her mouth.
She typed a message, thumb hovering:
Doing okay?
She didn’t send it.
Deleted.
Typed again:
Hope you’re having fun.
Deleted.
Her chest felt tight.
Another message she didn’t send:
I miss you already.
Delete.
Delete.
Delete.
She placed her phone face down on the table and forced her brain back to the tournament.
When her next match began, she went into autopilot, fast, efficient, controlled, but something was off. Her stack wobbled. She over-rotated a piece. Mis-timed a drop.
She swore under her breath.
The guy across from her noticed; she saw him raise an eyebrow in surprise.
Rio never misplayed.
Except today.
Except tonight.
Except when Agatha wasn’t here.
She cleared the misbuild, recovered the board, finished the match with a win she barely felt.
Another break.
She checked her phone again.
Nothing.
Rio pressed her lips together.
Her fingers tapped the table.
She stared at the dark screen.
Her chest hurt in a small, stupid, quiet way that she didn’t know how to articulate even to herself.
She missed the weight of Agatha’s hand in hers.
She missed the warmth of her in the bed.
She missed her hair.
She missed her voice.
She missed her presence.
She missed her.
Another match. Another distracted win.
By the time the last game ended and the room started clearing out, Rio felt something dull and shaky humming through her nerves, exhaustion, low-level sensory overload, and that same quiet ache of absence.
She walked back to her hotel room, the hallway too bright, the carpet pattern too busy.
Inside the room, she shut the door and exhaled.
Silence.
Cold sheets.
Sterile air.
Nothing familiar.
Her chest tightened again.
She showered quickly, the hot water grounding her for a moment, but the quiet afterward was too big, too cold. She towel-dried her hair mechanically, climbed into the stiff hotel bed, and curled up small.
She opened her phone.
Still no messages.
It wasn’t Agatha’s fault, she knew that.
Jen and Alice were distractions with legs.
Agatha probably fell asleep surrounded by snacks and terrible movie choices.
But Rio’s stomach dropped anyway.
She typed slowly:
I don’t like this.
Deleted.
I miss you.
Deleted.
She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
Her brain whispered unhelpfully:
She didn’t text because she didn’t think of it.
She’s having fun without you.
You’re being ridiculous.
You’re being clingy.
You’re being unfair.
Rio shut her eyes hard.
She wasn’t upset with Agatha.
She was upset with the emptiness.
It was 3:03am when she finally opened their chat again.
Her throat felt tight.
Her chest felt too full.
Her fingers trembled slightly from emotional overload and lack of sleep.
The words slipped out before she could stop them:
Rio: I don’t like it when you’re not here.
She stared at it for a long moment.
She hovered.
Prepared to delete.
Prepared to unsend.
Prepared to panic.
But something inside her, something small, stubborn, honest, whispered:
Send it.
So she did.
3:04am.
Message delivered.
Rio sucked in a shaky breath and dropped the phone beside her pillow.
She curled her body tighter, blanket up to her chin, face buried in her arm.
And whispered into the dark:
“Oh no.”
Because she already knew —
She would not sleep again until Agatha was home.
Agatha woke to the uncomfortable realization that her spine was not meant to be folded into the shape required by Alice’s couch. A thin, scratchy blanket had twisted around her legs.
The apartment was quiet in the soft, grey morning light. Jen was still asleep on a yoga mat, why she had migrated there was a mystery and Alice was somewhere in the kitchen, the faint clink of a mug reaching Agatha’s ears.
It should’ve felt peaceful.
Instead, Agatha felt… off.
She reached for her phone, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
One notification.
One message.
From Rio.
Sent at 3:04 a.m.
A pulse of unease moved through her.
She opened it.
Rio: I don’t like it when you’re not here.
Agatha inhaled sharply.
The world around her went quiet, not literally, but in that emotional way, where everything inside you narrows to a single point. Her fingers tightened around the phone. She reread it, slowly, as if the meaning might change.
I don’t like it when you’re not here.
That wasn’t something Rio said lightly.
Not at all.
It wasn’t romantic fluff; it wasn’t casual affection.
It was a confession.
A raw one.
Agatha’s chest tightened in a deep, instinctive, protective ache she couldn’t swallow down.
From the floor, Jen stirred.
“Agatha?” she croaked, “You look like you just read bad news.”
Agatha didn’t speak.
She simply handed her the phone.
Jen’s eyes moved across the screen, slowly, then all at once, widening with understanding.
“Oh,” she breathed.
Then again, softer: “Oh, sweetheart.”
Alice appeared in the doorway with a mug of coffee. “What’s going—”
Jen handed her the phone.
Alice read the text. Her expression didn’t twist with humor or surprise. It softened. Deeply.
“…that’s not nothing,” she murmured. “Not from Rio.”
Agatha swallowed hard, pressing her hand to her chest.
“No. It isn’t.”
Jen sat up cross-legged, rubbing her eyes. “Was she okay yesterday? Did anything happen?”
“No,” Agatha whispered. “She seemed fine when I left. She told me to have fun. But she—” her voice caught, “she doesn’t say things like this unless something feels wrong.”
Alice sat beside her on the couch.
“Does it feel like she’s upset?”
“It feels like she’s alone,” Agatha said softly. “And she didn’t want to be.”
A heavy silence settled for a moment, not uncomfortable, just full.
Then Agatha stood abruptly.
“I need to go home.”
Jen and Alice didn’t argue.
They didn’t blink.
They simply nodded.
But as Agatha reached for her backpack and began shoving her charger inside, something twisted in her stomach.
Guilt.
Real, unpleasant guilt.
She wasn’t supposed to leave.
This weekend had been planned for months, Jen had arranged time off, Alice had bought snacks, they’d picked movies and wine and tried to make space for something fun, something easy.
And here she was.
Packing to leave before breakfast.
Agatha froze, hand halfway through zipping her bag.
Jen noticed immediately.
“Ags?”
“I’m sorry,” Agatha whispered. “I know this was supposed to be a fun weekend.” Her throat tightened. “I feel like I’m ruining it.”
Alice stepped closer, leaning her shoulder against the couch arm.
“You’re not ruining anything.”
“But you two planned all this.” Agatha rubbed her forehead, trying to slow the frantic swirl of emotion. “And I was excited. I really was. But she’s alone, and she doesn’t send messages like that unless she’s… really not okay.”
Jen’s expression softened even further, warm, understanding.
“Agatha, we don’t want you to stay here worrying about her the whole time.”
Alice nodded.
“And we definitely don’t want you feeling guilty for wanting to go home. If she needs you, she needs you.”
Agatha winced, guilt spiking.
“God, I hate feeling like I’m choosing between you and her.”
Jen reached out, resting a grounding hand on Agatha’s shoulder.
“You’re not choosing between us,” she said gently. “You’re choosing what someone you love needs right now.”
“We’re adults,” Alice added, pragmatic as ever. “We can entertain ourselves for a day. We’ve done it before. Usually poorly, but we’ve done it.”
Agatha let out a shaky laugh despite the tightness in her throat.
“But I said I’d spend the weekend with you,” she murmured.
“And you spent half of it,” Jen said, shrugging lightly. “That counts.”
Alice smirked. “We love you. But we’re not going to guilt you into staying when your girlfriend sends something that vulnerable at three in the morning.”
Her voice dipped, softened.
“That’s someone reaching out.”
Agatha’s breath shook.
“I didn’t expect her to need me like that.”
Jen tilted her head.
“Doesn’t it feel like… she trusted you with something she couldn’t hold alone?”
Agatha inhaled sharply.
She nodded.
“And that,” Jen said quietly, “is a reason to go home. Not a reason to feel bad.”
Silence settled again, warm, supportive, grounding.
Agatha’s breath hitched.
“But— my car—”
Jen shook her head. “Alice drove us here, remember?”
Right.
Of course.
Agatha hadn’t driven.
She didn’t have her car at Alice’s place.
She couldn’t just get in and leave.
Jen continued, “If you want to get home, you’ll have to take the train.”
Alice checked her watch. “Next one is in fourteen minutes. You can make it if you leave now.”
Agatha nodded once, decisive and terrified all at once.
Then Alice nudged Agatha’s half-zipped backpack toward her.
“Go,” she said. “You’ll miss the train if you don’t.”
Jen smiled softly.
“And text us later so we know you made it.”
Agatha exhaled, not quite steady, but steadier than before and finally zipped her bag.
The guilt didn’t disappear.
But it softened, reshaped by the quiet strength of her friends’ understanding.
No pressure.
No resentment.
Just love.
Real, healthy love.
She pulled them both into a tight hug, burying her face in Alice’s shoulder.
“I do love you guys,” she whispered.
“We know,” Alice muttered, squeezing her back.
Jen hugged her next, pressing their foreheads together for a brief second.
“Go get her.”
Agatha slipped into her coat and headed toward the door.
Alice opened it for her, stepping aside.
“Text us when you get back,” she repeated. “So we know you’re safe.”
Agatha nodded, then paused when Alice spoke again, voice steady in a way that made something inside Agatha loosen.
“And Agatha?”
She looked back.
“She’s lucky you’re hers.”
The words landed with quiet weight.
Agatha swallowed.
“She’s my home,” she whispered.
Jen, leaning against the doorframe, added softly:
“And you’re hers.”
The breath that left Agatha felt warm and full and aching.
She stepped out into the cool morning air, her heart pounding fast, her backpack bouncing against her spine. The city felt different somehow, sharper, quicker, pulled tight with urgency.
The walk to the station stretched endlessly.
Every intersection felt too slow.
Every minute too long.
She reached the entrance, chest tight, and opened Rio’s message again.
I don’t like it when you’re not here.
Agatha’s breath stuttered.
She whispered toward the words glowing softly on the screen:
“I’m coming, baby. Just hold on.”
And then she ran to catch the train.
Rio woke to the thin, grey light of early morning slipping between the hotel curtains. The room was too cold, the sheets stiff, and the air tasted metallic, like recycled ventilation.
Her body was sore but it wasn’t what woke her.
What woke her was the sense that something was wrong.
Not loud wrong.
Not sharp wrong.
But a low, steady ache beneath her sternum.
She reached for her phone on the nightstand.
The lock screen filled with light.
And one new message.
From Agatha.
Rio’s pulse stuttered.
She opened it.
Agatha: On my way home.
Rio blinked at the screen, the words not matching the morning fog in her brain.
On her way home?
She sat up too fast, hair falling over her eyes, heart thudding in confusion.
Another message appeared:
Agatha: Be there in three hours. Don’t panic.
Rio panicked instantly.
Her hands trembled as she typed.
Rio: Why?
Agatha replied immediately, like she’d been waiting, running on adrenaline.
Agatha: Because you miss me.
Rio froze.
Her throat tightened.
Her heartbeat fluttered, sharp and fast and unsteady.
Agatha sent another:
Agatha: And I miss you. And I want to be with you.
Rio pressed the edge of the phone to her lips, eyes burning.
She typed back with hands that didn’t feel fully connected to her:
Rio: Okay.
A beat.
Her chest ached.
Rio stared at the screen until the letters blurred.
Something punched through her, relief so intense it almost hurt, tangled in confusion, tangled in anxiety.
Agatha was coming home early.
Because of one message.
One message Rio never intended to send.
A tremor ran through her hands.
She set the phone in her lap, inhaled shakily, and pressed her palms together.
This wasn’t what she wanted.
Not like this.
Not from neediness.
Not from weakness.
Not from lack of control.
She squeezed her eyes shut, jaw tightening, breath unsteady.
She hadn’t meant to make Agatha worry.
She hadn’t meant to pull her away from her friends.
She hadn’t meant to sound—
Clingy.
Dramatic.
Like someone who couldn’t handle a single weekend alone.
Her stomach twisted.
Rio pressed her knuckles to her lips, trying to steady herself.
She shouldn’t have sent that message.
She should have waited.
Should have slept on it.
Should have kept it to herself until morning, when it would’ve sounded less like a cry for help and more like something normal couples say.
But at 3:04 a.m., nothing felt normal.
The silence had been too loud.
The bed too cold.
Her thoughts too unkind.
And now—
Agatha was on a train.
Coming home.
Because Rio had failed to hold herself together.
A familiar, unwelcome heat burned behind her eyes.
She pushed the heel of her hand against her brow.
You always do this, her mind hissed.
You make things harder than they need to be.
You ruin things. You pull too hard. You need too much.
She exhaled shakily.
Tried to breathe through it.
Tried to remind herself that Agatha had chosen to come home.
But the doubt lingered.
A quiet, poisonous whisper:
What if she’s disappointed when she gets here? What if she realizes you’re not as strong as she thought?
Rio curled forward, elbows on her knees, breathing slow and uneven.
She didn’t want to be someone Agatha had to rush home to fix.
She wanted to be steady.
Dependable.
Safe.
She wanted to be easy to love.
She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, frustrated at the sting, frustrated at the heaviness pressing down on her ribs.
The hotel room felt even smaller now, air stale, walls too close.
She stood abruptly.
Paced.
Back and forth, back and forth across the cheap carpet.
She checked the time.
If she left now, she’d get home roughly half an hour before Agatha.
Part of her wanted to stay.
Another part, deeper, louder, needed to be home first.
Needed to be the one waiting.
Needed to make the space feel safe, warm, familiar again.
She grabbed her backpack.
Zipped it with too much force.
She paused at the door, phone in hand.
Thought about texting Agatha:
You don’t have to come.
Deleted it.
Thought about:
I’m sorry.
Deleted that too.
None of it felt right.
None of it felt real.
None of it felt like something that wouldn’t make this worse.
So she said nothing.
She checked out of the hotel with quiet efficiency, barely looking the receptionist in the eye, and stepped into the cold morning air. A rideshare car pulled up as she approached, and she climbed in without saying much more than her address.
On the ride home, she rested her head against the window and watched the city pass in blurs of grey and pale sunlight.
Her reflection stared back at her in the glass, tired, anxious, eyes shadowed.
She whispered, barely audible:
“I didn’t want her to worry.”
The car kept moving.
The city blurred past.
Rio’s hands stayed clasped in her lap the whole ride, knuckles white, fingers cold.
Because now she wasn’t worried about being alone.
She was worried about facing Agatha.
And the possibility that she had made everything too heavy, too fast, too much.
When the car reached their street, Rio hesitated before getting out, breath catching, stomach twisting, but she forced her feet onto the pavement.
Home.
Empty for now.
Quiet.
Still.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The apartment felt wrong without Agatha.
Too quiet.
Too clean.
Too empty of warmth.
Rio set her backpack down but didn’t unpack.
Instead, she moved through the space slowly, her fingertips grazing familiar surfaces, the back of the couch, the kitchen counter, the edge of the dining table, as if grounding herself in the life they had built together.
Her throat ached.
She checked the clock.
Twenty-two minutes until Agatha arrived.
Rio sank onto the couch.
Pulled her knees up.
Pressed her forehead to them.
And breathed.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Trying to steady the shaking inside her.
Trying to silence the fear that she had broken something delicate.
Trying to believe that Agatha coming home wasn’t proof she’d failed, but proof she was loved.
But for now, all Rio could think was:
I didn’t mean to make her come back.
And the fear of that lingered like a shadow at her side.
The train rocked steadily beneath her, but Agatha couldn’t calm the restless hum in her bones.
The countryside blurred past, fields washed in pale morning light, patches of frost still clinging to shaded corners. She clutched her phone in both hands, turning it over and over.
Rio hadn’t said anything else.
Not another text.
Not even a reassurance.
Just that last word:
Okay.
Short.
Minimal.
But the edges of it were frayed, Agatha had read enough of Rio’s messages over the past year to hear the strain in the silence between them.
Something inside her chest tightened with every passing minute.
By the time the train pulled into the final station, Agatha was practically vibrating. The walk to the tram felt too slow; the tram itself felt like it was crawling. Every stop felt like a personal insult from public transportation.
When she finally turned onto their street, her feet nearly broke into a run.
The apartment building rose ahead of her, familiar, grounding, home.
She climbed the stairs two at a time, heart in her throat.
Her key jammed once before sliding into the lock.
Her breath shook.
She pushed the door open.
And everything went still.
Rio was there, not pacing, not moving, not pretending to be busy.
Just sitting on the couch, knees pulled up to her chest, hair slightly messy, sweater sleeves pushed over her hands like she’d been wringing them.
Her head snapped up the moment the door opened.
Her eyes, dark, glossy, wide with something between fear and relief found Agatha instantly.
Agatha barely remembered dropping her bag to the floor.
She crossed the room in three strides.
Rio stood at the same moment, as if pulled upward by a string between them.
They stopped in front of each other, breathing the same air, staring, trembling in small, barely perceptible ways.
Then Agatha reached out.
Her hands framed Rio’s face, thumbs brushing the soft curve beneath her eyes.
Rio exhaled sharply, a breath that shook all the way through her body, like something inside her giving way.
“I’m here,” Agatha whispered. “I’m here, sweetheart.”
Rio’s hands rose slowly, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to touch her. Her fingertips hovered near Agatha’s waist before settling there lightly, as if afraid of overstepping.
“You came back,” she murmured, voice cracking.
“Of course I did,” Agatha said.
Rio blinked hard.
Her jaw tightened.
Something deep and fragile flickered across her face.
Agatha smoothed her thumbs along her cheekbones, grounding both of them.
“You texted me,” Agatha said softly. “I heard you.”
Rio swallowed. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” Agatha interrupted gently. “Don’t do that. Don’t apologize for being honest.”
Rio’s breath caught.
“I didn’t mean to pull you away from your friends,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to make you come home. I just— I just couldn’t sleep, and the room was too quiet, and I felt… wrong. And I… I didn’t think.”
Agatha moved a hand to the back of Rio’s neck, warm and steady.
“I’m glad you texted me,” she said. “I’m glad you told me. I wanted to come home the second I saw it.”
Rio’s eyes fluttered closed, her shoulders dropping in a slow, uneven release of tension.
Agatha leaned forward until their foreheads touched.
“Sweetheart,” she whispered, “you didn’t ruin anything.”
Rio inhaled sharply, a small, wounded sound that broke Agatha’s heart wide open.
She wrapped her arms fully around Rio then, pulling her close.
Rio melted into her instantly, burying her face in Agatha’s shoulder, fingers curling tight into the fabric of her coat.
Agatha held her.
Held all of her.
Held the tremble, the softness, the vulnerability, the fear.
“I missed you,” Rio whispered, voice almost inaudible.
“I missed you too.”
They stayed like that for a long moment, wrapped around each other, breathing each other in, letting the adrenaline and fear drain out.
When Rio finally pulled back, her face was warm and flushed, lashes damp but steady now.
She brushed a thumb along Agatha’s jaw.
“I thought you’d be upset,” she admitted quietly. “That I… needed you too much.”
Agatha’s expression softened into something tender and fierce.
“There is no ‘too much,’” she said. “Not from you.”
Rio’s breath shuddered.
Agatha stepped closer, her lips just a breath away from Rio’s.
“You’re allowed to want me here,” she said softly. “You’re allowed to need me. That’s what this is, sweetheart. That’s what being together means.”
Rio’s eyes flicked to her mouth, filled with a relief so palpable it nearly unsteadied Agatha.
Then Rio leaned in.
The kiss wasn’t desperate.
It wasn’t hurried.
It was slow, steady, and aching, a quiet release of everything Rio didn’t know how to say.
Agatha cupped the back of her head, drawing her closer.
Rio’s hands tightened at her waist, grounding herself there.
When they parted, foreheads touching again, both breathing softly, Agatha whispered:
“Let’s go lie down.”
Rio nodded once, small, vulnerable, grateful.
Agatha led her to the bedroom, fingers entwined.
Rio sat first, then lay back slowly, like her body was finally giving in to exhaustion. Agatha climbed in beside her, curling around her, one hand slipping beneath Rio’s sweater to rest over her ribcage, a grounding touch, warm and real.
Rio exhaled shakily and buried her face against the crook of Agatha’s neck.
“You came home,” she whispered again, quieter now, more like a confession breathed into skin.
“I’ll always come home to you,” Agatha murmured, brushing her thumb up and down Rio’s side. “Every time you want me.”
Rio’s fingers tightened around the fabric of Agatha’s shirt, her breathing evening out, the tension melting slowly from her frame.
Within minutes, the vibrations running through her body softened.
Her shoulders loosened.
Her legs stopped shaking.
Agatha pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“Sleep,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.”
Rio’s voice was barely audible:
“Don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
And with Agatha’s arms wrapped around her, warm, steady, home, Rio finally closed her eyes.
The apartment settled around them.
Quiet.
Soft.
Full.
For the first time in hours, Rio slept without an ache in her chest.
And Agatha held her the whole time.