Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Nini’s room had always been too big for the life that happened inside it. The walls were a tired off-white, a colour that once might have aspired to cleanliness but had long since surrendered. In several places the paint bore scars, pale rectangular ghosts where posters had once been taped up with adolescent conviction and later torn down without ceremony. Behind the door hung a calendar from three years ago, still obediently displaying the month of March, its dates crossed out in a hurried, hopeful hand that now seemed almost embarrassing in its urgency. Her desk sat under the window, buried beneath notebooks. The first pages were always careful, even neat; the handwriting slowly deteriorated into scratches, then stopped altogether. Beside them sat a chipped mug crusted with the remains of tea she had forgotten to drink, the surface filmed with a faint, sour smell. A small pile of seashells occupied one corner, arranged not deliberately but through years of absent-minded habit. She had collected them as a child, each one once imbued with importance, each one once believed to be unique. Now they were chalky and dull, their colours leeched away by time and sunlight, their significance eroded into nothing. She had never thrown them out, not because she valued them, but because doing so would require a decision.

From her bed, she could see the sea, though only just. It appeared as a narrow horizontal incision between rooftops and power lines, a thin, restrained strip of grey pressed flat beneath the sky. On overcast days, and there were many of those, the horizon dissolved entirely, leaving water and air indistinguishable, a single continuous line. When she was younger, she used to sit upright and press her forehead to the cold glass, breath fogging the window as she watched with a devotion bordering on desperation. She had been certain that if she waited long enough, something would rise from the water, something that would justify the waiting itself. Now she barely registered it at all. The sea had become background noise, like the hum of the fridge or the ticking clock in the hallway, constant and unremarkable, impossible to escape. There was something almost offensive about that indifference, though she could not have said why.

The house was quiet in the particular way houses become quiet when everyone inside them has learned how to coexist without touching. It was not the silence of absence, but of careful avoidance. Her mother was at work. Her father lay asleep on the couch downstairs, the television murmuring softly to itself, its blue light flickering against the walls. Occasionally, a laugh track rose and fell, disconnected from any actual amusement. The sound did not disturb Nini. She lay on her bed fully dressed, jacket still on, shoes kicked off but not put away, staring at the ceiling. There was a thin crack running diagonally above her head, branching slightly near the corner like a fault line. She had followed it with her eyes so many times she could trace it from memory. 

She could start at the exact point where it thinned, then move upward, anticipating each subtle turn before it appeared. Sometimes she imagined the ceiling finally giving way, the plaster splitting open, the house cleaving neatly in two. She pictured the sky pouring in, cold and vast and impersonal, burying everything beneath it. The image never frightened her. On the contrary, the image comforted her with a clarity nothing else in her life possessed. There was something final about it, something almost kind. Destruction, at least, made no demands. It did not ask her to decide, or to choose, and it certainly never asked her to explain herself. It arrived, it occurred, and then, if you were so fortunate, it concluded. The thought lingered with a strange sweetness, and she felt an immediate, almost reflexive guilt for that sweetness, as though she had indulged in a forbidden pleasure.

She lay there a while longer, measuring her breathing, aware of the weight of her body pressed into the mattress. The jacket constricted her shoulders slightly; she made no move to take it off. Removing it would have implied intention, and intention felt impossible. Winter break had begun only a few days earlier, yet already the hours had begun to ebb and flow, and she was bound to their tide, unable to do much beyond floating within their waves. During the school term, at least, her days arrived pre-shaped. There were bells to obey, corridors to move through, expectations waiting patiently for her to fulfill them. Now, stripped of those minor obligations, she felt vaguely unmoored, as though someone had removed a structure she claimed not to need and revealed, too late, that it had been holding her upright all along. At school, Nini was what people called successful.

She was a cheerleader, not the head cheerleader but one that blended seamlessly into the background. On game nights, under the harsh certainty of floodlights, she smiled until her cheeks ached, her body moving in precise patterns learned through repetition. There was satisfaction in the physicality of it, in the certainty that if she placed her foot here, lifted her arm there, the rest would follow. The crowd blurred into a single, indistinct presence, roaring approval or disappointment with equal fervour. She had learned early that it did not matter which, so long as they were watching. People said she made it look effortless. She wondered, sometimes, whether that was a compliment. She led the robotics team to victory in countless meets, but let someone else accept the trophy and make the speech. She liked robotics more than cheerleading, though they were more similar than she would have liked. Instead of connecting metal she connected people, instead of linking arms she linked wires and screws. 

Her grades were good. Not brilliant, though if she put in any amount of effort she could easily top the class, but solidly good. Teachers described her as “capable,” “steady,” “reliable.” Words that sounded benign, almost flattering, yet carried a faint suggestion of limitation. Capable of what? Reliable for whom? She completed assignments on time, rarely challenged anything, accepted praise with an automatic smile that rose to her face before she consciously willed it there. She knew how to appear attentive, how to nod at the right moments. It had occurred to her, more than once, that if she vanished entirely, it would take some time before anyone noticed anything missing beyond the disruption of routine.

And then there was the matter of her talent. She had once been, by all reasonable accounts, gifted. Teachers had lingered over her work. Friends had asked her to draw things for them, posters, covers, little caricatures passed around and admired. Her parents had spoken of art classes, engineering portfolios, robotics competitions. She herself had believed, for a time, that this was the thing that would carry her out of the town, that would justify the waiting. She could not remember exactly when the belief had failed.

There had been no singular disappointment, no dramatic rejection. Instead, there had been a gradual accumulation of dissatisfaction, a sense that what she produced never quite matched what she imagined. Drawing became laborious, then humiliating. Eventually, she found reasons not to do it at all. Robotics became repetitive and understimulating. Homework took precedence. Practice ran late. She was tired. Now the sketchbooks remained beneath her bed and the boxes of parts and mechanisms sat abandoned, collecting dust upon the shelf. Lying there, staring at the ceiling, she felt the familiar, grinding question begin to circle again; What, exactly, is wrong with you? 

It was not a dramatic question. There was no anguish in it, only fatigue. When she catalogued her life, there was seemingly no reason for her apathy. She was liked. She was competent. She was healthy. Nothing had happened to her that justified this persistent sense of hollowness. The conclusion was inescapable and therefore unbearable; the fault must be an internal, mechanical one. This recognition did not inspire her to change. It only deepened her exhaustion. 

Her phone buzzed against the mattress. She did not look at it. She knew who it would be before the second buzz came. She always did. Darlene. The name surfaced with a complicated mixture of affection and resentment. Darlene had known her since childhood, had seen her through every iteration of herself. There was comfort in that familiarity, but also danger. Darlene knew how to read her silences, how to push just enough to provoke a response. Nini both relied on and resisted that intimacy.

Darlene was the kind of person whose presence announced itself long before she entered a room, not through volume exactly, but through a particular density of attention. When she walked beside Nini at school, people noticed, not because Darlene was especially beautiful or loud, but because she seemed oddly out of step with the world around her. She dressed, even now, in a manner that struck most people as faintly ridiculous: small denim shorts, and even smaller checked plaid shirts. It was not ironic, or at least not the self-protective kind. Darlene did not dress like a trashy sort of farmer to be clever; she dressed that way because it pleased her, because it felt correct. Nini had always suspected this was what unsettled people most about her, that she did not seem embarrassed by herself.

Her hair, a mass of unruly ginger curls, resisted all attempts at discipline. Darlene sometimes pulled it back with a clip that never quite held, curls escaping around her temples and the nape of her neck. At school, Darlene was unmistakably a theatre kid, though Nini privately, and with some guilt, considered her less insufferable than most. Darlene loved rehearsal rooms with their scuffed floors and faint smell of dust and sweat, loved scripts heavy with pencil marks, loved the strange intensity that bloomed among people who were all pretending, together, to be someone else. She spoke of plays and characters with an earnestness that made Nini uneasy, as though Darlene believed art might still accomplish something vital, something beyond distraction. Nini listened, nodded, occasionally teased her, but rarely argued. It seemed cruel to puncture such faith.

Their friendship had been forged early, before the careful divisions of adolescence had fully settled. They had been children together, had scraped knees, shared secrets of questionable importance, spent afternoons wandering the beach while Darlene pointed out shells and bits of sea glass. Nini had followed, bored but loyal, already aware of a dull restlessness she could not name. Darlene, even then, had been attentive in a way Nini was not. 

As they grew older, the differences between them became more pronounced. Nini slipped, almost effortlessly, into popularity. Her smile was easy, her face symmetrical enough to be admired without scrutiny. She learned, quickly, how to perform enthusiasm, how to laugh at the right moment, how to soften her edges. Cheerleading came naturally to her body, if not her spirit. Robotics too came naturally, with an easiness that impressed even the toughest of judges. Teachers liked her. Other students wanted her approval. She achieved good grades without seeming to care much about them, which only increased their value. Darlene, by contrast, did not soften. She did not learn how to make herself smaller. She remained earnest, intense, occasionally awkward. People tolerated her, sometimes liked her, often dismissed her. Nini was aware of this disparity in treatment, aware too of the strange guilt it produced in her. She never defended Darlene publicly. She never mocked her either. She existed in a careful neutrality that felt, increasingly, like a betrayal.

And yet, Darlene stayed. She texted, she called, she appeared at Nini’s side with an insistence that bordered on devotion. During lunch, during rehearsals, after school. Nini sometimes imagined Darlene as a fixed point, something she orbited without ever quite touching. The thought comforted and unsettled her in equal measure. Now, lying on her bed with her phone vibrating against the mattress, Nini felt the familiar tightening in her chest. She let it buzz again. And again. Finally, it stopped. A moment later, a message appeared on the lock screen, though Nini did not pick up the phone to read it properly.

darlene🌽
heyyyyyyyy
girllll
niniiiiii
u good????

The words struck her as faintly absurd. Good. As though the state were self-evident, as though it could be confirmed with a simple reply. She felt, suddenly, very tired. Not the physical exhaustion that came from exertion, but a deeper fatigue, a weariness of self. She thought of Darlene sitting somewhere, probably cross-legged on her bed, surrounded by books and half-finished sketches, wearing one of those sweaters that smelled faintly of detergent and something familial. She imagined Darlene’s room as she had seen it countless times; crowded, cluttered, alive. Posters overlapping, shelves bending beneath the weight of objects imbued with meaning. Darlene’s life pressed outward, filling space. Nini’s seemed to retreat, to fold inward on itself.

There was, Nini knew, a kind of moral accusation in Darlene’s existence. Not an intentional one, Darlene rarely judged, but a quiet, persistent reminder that it was possible to care deeply, to commit oneself to interests and beliefs without irony. Nini resented that reminder. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that Darlene might know her better than anyone else alive. And that knowledge, instead of comforting her, filled her with dread. To be known was to be fixed. Defined. Nini was not ready for that. She did not know what shape she wished to take. Somewhere out there, she knew, Darlene was likely watching the water even now, scanning the horizon with a patience Nini did not possess, believing that something, if not good then at least meaningful, might emerge. She rolled over and unlocked her phone.

Nini
yea ofc lol

She sent it before she could interrogate the honesty of the statement. She tossed the phone aside and sat up slowly, joints stiff from immobility. She stood after a pause, pulling herself upright with an effort that felt faintly humiliating, and tugged the sleeves of her jacket down over her hands. The gesture was habitual, almost unconscious, yet it carried with it a childish desire to hide. Outside, the afternoon was already thinning, light drained of warmth and colour. The sea lay flat and grey, offering nothing. She pressed her palm briefly to the glass, feeling its cold through her skin. The sensation grounded her in a way nothing else quite managed.

Downstairs, the television laughed again. She descended the steps quietly, pausing at the doorway to the living room. She paused at the doorway to the living room. Her father lay slumped on the couch, one arm hanging loosely at his side, fingers slack and slightly curled. His mouth was open just enough to suggest vulnerability, the unguarded exposure of sleep. The blue light from the television flickered across his face, exaggerating the lines around his eyes, casting shadows that made him appear older and smaller at once. There was something unsettling about seeing him like this, stripped of the authority that came with wakefulness. As a child, she had believed her parents were immutable, fixed points around which her life revolved. Now she saw, with an almost clinical clarity, how provisional they were. How tired. A wave of something like tenderness passed through her, unbidden and unwelcome in its intensity. It was followed immediately by guilt, sharp and corrosive. She turned away before the feeling could deepen. 

In the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of water and drank it standing up. The sink held a single fork, crusted with something she did not care to identify. She stared at it longer than necessary, as though it might explain something if she waited. This is what it looks like, she thought, though she couldn’t quite place what it was. A slow accumulation of unfinished things. She grabbed her keys, shoving them unceremoniously into her pocket, and stepped outside.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 

The door closed behind her with a muted click, sealing the house away. The air hit her immediately, colder than she had anticipated, sharp enough to catch in her lungs. She stood there for a moment, just beyond the threshold, neither fully inside nor properly gone, her body adjusting to the sudden change. The light was dimmer here, the world already slipping toward evening. The street lay quiet, the houses lined up in resigned familiarity, each one bearing its own private weight of silence. 

She remained on the small concrete step for a time, keys heavy in her pocket, jacket pulled tight around her, breath visible for a moment before it disappeared. The cold seeped in gradually, methodically, as though determined to make itself known in every part of her. She welcomed that too. It gave her something definite to respond to. She thought, fleetingly, of Darlene receiving her message. She imagined the pause that might follow, the way Darlene would read it more carefully than it deserved, searching for tone, for meaning. The thought stirred a faint discomfort in her, a sense of having exposed something she did not yet understand herself. She pushed it aside. There would be time for that later, or perhaps there would not. It scarcely mattered to her either way.

When she finally moved, it was not with any sense of decision, but rather with the resignation of someone who knows that standing still forever is impossible, however tempting it may feel. The soles of her shoes met the pavement with a dull, unceremonious sound. The town stretched out before her, laid bare for observation. Its streets were narrow, their lines softened by age and weather rather than by design, and they wound toward the sea with a kind of unconscious fidelity, as though everything here were ultimately drawn by the same gravitational pull. Houses sat close together, shoulders nearly touching, built in different decades by different hands. Weatherboard walls bore the grain of years spent facing salt wind and rain. Paint peeled in places not from neglect exactly, but from inevitability. No one repainted unless they had to.

Winter had a particular way of revealing the town’s bones. In summer, tourists softened it, filled the streets with voices and colour and the temporary illusion of importance. In winter, all of that fell away. What remained was something truer and harder to bear. The air smelled faintly of damp wood and the sea, that ever-present breath the town inhaled whether it wished to or not. Somewhere, a gull cried, its voice sharp and lonely, cutting through the quiet. Nini walked slowly, hands tucked into her sleeves, shoulders hunched against the cold. The pavement was uneven beneath her feet, cracked in places where tree roots had asserted themselves. She knew these cracks well. She had memorised them without intending to, had stepped over them so many times that her body anticipated their placement before her eyes did. There was something unsettling in that familiarity, in the way the town had inscribed itself into her without asking.

Further down the street, a lamppost flickered to life, its light weak and yellow, barely pushing back the gathering dusk. The glow pooled on the wet pavement, creating a small, fragile island of visibility in the encroaching dark. Nini paused beneath it, tilting her head back slightly to watch the moths gather almost immediately, drawn to the light with a devotion that bordered on self-destruction. She wondered, briefly, whether the moths understood what they were doing, or whether understanding was irrelevant to them. As she walked, her thoughts circled in on themselves, as they so often did. There was a peculiar exhaustion in the act of being known everywhere she went. 

Each street corner carried a memory, each building a version of herself she had once been. There was the corner where she had first kissed someone whose name she now struggled to recall. The bus stop where she had cried quietly one evening, careful not to draw attention. The fence she had leaned against after cheer practice, laughing too loudly at something that hadn’t been funny. She had once believed that leaving this place would be a simple matter of distance, that if she moved far enough away, the town would loosen its grip on her. Now she was less certain. It seemed to her that the town did not merely exist around her, but within her. The road dipped gently as it approached the sea, the incline so gradual it was barely perceptible. The sound of the water reached her before the sight of it, a low, constant murmur that had once thrilled her and now merely accompanied her. The smell grew stronger here, briny and sharp, carried on the wind. She breathed it in despite herself.

The shoreline emerged slowly, revealed between buildings as though the town were reluctant to surrender it all at once. There was the old jetty, its wooden planks darkened by moisture and age, its railings warped and splintered. Children used to jump from it in summer, daring each other with shrieks of laughter. Now it stood empty, a narrow finger pointing toward the water, its purpose unclear. Beyond it, the sea stretched outward, vast and impersonal, its surface a shifting expanse of grey that reflected the sky without enthusiasm. Clouds hung low, heavy with the promise of rain. The horizon was blurred, the boundary between water and sky softened into ambiguity. It was impossible to say where one ended and the other began. The effect was strangely comforting. Clear distinctions had always troubled her. Nini stopped at the edge of the shore, boots sinking slightly into damp sand. The beach was littered with debris, kelp dragged up by the tide, bits of driftwood worn smooth by years of surrender, fragments of shells crushed into chalky remnants. Nothing here retained its original shape for long. The sea took everything eventually and returned it altered.

She stood there, looking out over the water, and felt again that familiar, dull ache behind her ribs. It was not longing exactly, nor sadness in any recognisable form. It was a sense of incompletion, of something perpetually deferred. The sea offered no answers. It did not even pretend to listen. And yet, she could not bring herself to turn away from it. There was a time, she remembered it dimly, as one remembers a story told often in childhood, when she had believed the sea was capable of revelation. That it might, at any moment, produce something extraordinary: a breach of dark flesh, a fin cutting through the surface, proof that wonder still existed within reach. Others in the town still believed this. They scanned the water with binoculars, spoke of sightings with reverence. Darlene, she knew, was one of them.

Nini felt a brief, sharp pang at the thought. It irritated her that others could still look at this vast, indifferent expanse and feel anticipation rather than fatigue. What was it they saw that she could not? Or was it simply that they chose to see, while she had grown accustomed to not choosing at all? The wind picked up slightly, tugging at her hair, slipping through the gaps in her jacket. She shivered, but did not retreat. There was something bracing about the discomfort, about standing exposed before something so much larger than herself. It reduced her, stripped her of the illusions she carried so carefully elsewhere. Here, she was merely a figure on the shore, temporary and insignificant.

She turned slightly, taking in the curve of the bay, the way the land embraced the water with reluctant familiarity. Low hills rose in the distance, their outlines softened by mist, crowned with scrub and sparse trees bent by years of wind. Nini exhaled slowly, her breath fogging the air before disappearing. The cold pressed closer now, no longer content to remain at the edges of her awareness. It seeped inward with quiet persistence, settling into her bones, making itself at home. A narrow path ran alongside the beach, half-erased by sand and tide. She followed it without thinking, boots crunching softly over gravel and shell fragments. The sound was modest, easily swallowed by the wind. The path curved gently, mirroring the shape of the shoreline, leading past weather-beaten benches and a sign whose paint had faded to near illegibility. Once, it had warned swimmers of strong currents. Now it warned no one of anything. 

As she walked, she became aware of the hills more distinctly. They rose beyond the town, their slopes uneven and patched with low scrub that clung stubbornly to the soil. In the half-light, they took on a softened grandeur, their outlines blurred just enough to suggest something older and more enduring than the houses crouched below them. Nini had never climbed those hills. She had always meant to, had spoken of it once or twice with the vague conviction reserved for intentions that require no immediate effort. Now they seemed to watch her with a mild, ancient indifference, unconcerned with her hesitation. The sea murmured steadily at her side, its voice neither soothing nor threatening. It spoke in a language that did not change, no matter how often it was heard. Nini thought of all the people who had stood on this same stretch of sand before her, listening to the same sound, each convinced in their own way that it meant something particular to them. The idea both comforted and unsettled her.

She stopped again, drawn by nothing more than a subtle shift in the wind. For a moment, the clouds thinned, allowing a paler light to seep through. The water responded faintly, catching the brightness and holding it briefly before letting it dissolve. It occurred to her then that perhaps she had misunderstood the nature of waiting. As a child, she had believed waiting was an active thing, an effort of attention rewarded by revelation. Now she suspected it was something else entirely, a state of suspension, neither hope nor despair, in which one learned to endure the absence of answers. The town seemed to exist permanently in that state, balanced between what it had been and what it would never become. A memory surfaced, uninvited. She was younger, standing near this very spot with Darlene, their shoes abandoned in the sand despite the cold. Darlene had been talking about something or other. Nini had half-listened, distracted by the wind tangling her hair, by the feeling of damp sand clinging to her feet. Darlene’s voice had carried a reverence that Nini had not shared, but she remembered thinking, even then, that there was something enviable in it. The memory faded as gently as it had arrived, leaving behind a faint residue of unease. She did not like how easily Darlene’s presence imposed itself on her thoughts. It suggested a dependence she was reluctant to accept. 

She resumed walking, rounding a slight bend where the path narrowed. Here, the town fell away more completely, the houses retreating behind a rise in the land. The sound of the sea grew louder, less filtered by distance. The beach widened here, the sand darker and more compacted. Old logs lay scattered near the high-tide mark, their surfaces smoothed and bleached by years of exposure. She ran her fingers along one before lowering herself carefully onto the log. From here, the bay unfolded fully, its curve more pronounced, its scale more apparent. The town lights seemed distant now. Her thoughts, freed from the immediate demands of motion, turned inward again. She examined herself with the same detached scrutiny she often applied to the world around her. What had she become, exactly? A collection of roles performed competently enough to avoid suspicion. A good student. A friendly face. A reliable presence. None of it felt false, yet none of it felt essential. She suspected that if she were stripped of these markers, something important would be revealed, or perhaps nothing at all. The idea frightened her more than she cared to admit.

The wind shifted again, carrying with it the scent of kelp and distant rain. She closed her eyes briefly, allowing the sound and smell to envelop her. There was a strange peace in surrendering to sensation, in allowing the body to exist without commentary. For a few seconds, the constant hum of self-examination quieted. When she opened her eyes, the light had dimmed further. The clouds thickened overhead, their undersides darkening into a low, continuous ceiling. She rose from the log and turned back toward the town, though not yet retracing her steps. She lingered, facing the lights, the hills, the layered silhouettes of a place she knew too well to romanticise and too intimately to dismiss. It struck her then that nostalgia did not require distance. One could mourn something even while standing in its midst. Perhaps especially then. The thought lingered with her as she finally turned away from the water and began to walk inland, leaving the open margin of sea and sky behind. The path curved gently upward, away from the shore, its surface uneven where grass had begun to reclaim it. With each step, the sound of the waves softened, not disappearing entirely but retreating into a muted accompaniment, as though the sea were allowing her this small act of distance without protest. She felt its absence keenly nonetheless, the sudden quiet after a familiar voice stopped speaking.

The town gathered itself again around her as she moved. Houses emerged one by one from behind low rises and hedges, their forms dark and solid against the deepening dusk. Some bore small front gardens bordered by sagging fences, others pressed directly against the footpath, their proximity almost confrontational. Curtains were drawn in many windows now, sealing away the private rituals of evening. Where curtains remained open, she caught fleeting glimpses of domestic interiors; lamps casting warm pools of light, a hand moving across a table, the outline of a person passing briefly through a room. Each scene appeared and vanished before it could be properly understood, fragments of lives intersecting momentarily with her own. Darlene’s house lay on the far side of town, not far from the old primary school and the small synagogue that stood slightly apart from its surroundings, modest and unassuming. She remembered, as a child, asking Darlene why it looked so plain. Darlene had shrugged and said something about not needing grandeur to mean something. Nini had not understood then. She was not sure she understood now. 

Nini had walked this route countless times before, often without thinking, often in conversation. Now, alone, she became aware of every detail with an intensity that bordered on discomfort. The cracked footpaths. The faint smell of woodsmoke drifting from a chimney somewhere. She wondered, briefly, whether Darlene had expected her to come. The message she had sent contained no promise, no clear intention. It could be read as dismissal or invitation with equal plausibility. Nini felt a flicker of irritation at the thought of Darlene analysing it, weighing its phrasing, searching for meaning beneath the surface. It was, Nini suspected, both her greatest virtue and her most exhausting trait.

The road narrowed as she approached the older part of town, where the houses were set back slightly from the street and the trees grew taller, their bare branches interlacing overhead like skeletal fingers. The air here felt heavier, more enclosed. Leaves crunched beneath her feet, damp and half-decayed, releasing a faint, earthy scent. She slowed unconsciously, as though the environment demanded a more deliberate pace. This was where Darlene had grown up. Nini remembered arriving here for the first time as a child, struck by how different it felt from her own street. There had been books everywhere inside, stacks of them leaning precariously against walls and furniture, the air thick with the smell of paper and something sweet baking in the kitchen. There had been voices overlapping, interrupting, filling the space with sound. It had felt overwhelming and oddly magnetic.

Now, as Nini drew closer, she felt that old sensation stirring again. A tightening in her chest, not unpleasant but demanding acknowledgment. She passed the primary school grounds, the playground empty and still, swings hanging motionless in the cold air. The metal slide reflected the streetlight dully, its surface slick with moisture. She remembered standing there once after hours with Darlene, pushing the swings absently while Darlene rehearsed lines from a play, her voice echoing faintly across the empty space. Nini had laughed at her then, not unkindly, but with a certain superiority she now found difficult to justify. The memory arrived fully formed, vivid enough to momentarily displace the present. Nini shook it off, though she did not know why. Darlene’s street was quieter than most, a short cul-de-sac that seemed content to exist unnoticed. The houses here were smaller, older, their gardens more carefully tended despite the season. Low hedges bordered the footpaths, rusted gates nestled between their leaves.

Darlene’s front garden came into view at last, small but meticulously kept even in winter. Stones lined the narrow path leading to the door, their surfaces slick with rain and polished by years of footsteps. A few potted plants clustered near the porch, their leaves dark and resilient. A wind chime hung near the eaves, its pieces clinking softly as the breeze moved through them. The porch light flickered on automatically as she stepped forward, bathing her in a sudden wash of yellow. She winced slightly at the exposure, then steadied herself. The door was close enough now that she could see the familiar scuffs near the handle, the small sticker crookedly affixed to the frame, remnants of years layered quietly upon one another. She lifted her hand. For a moment, it hovered there, inches from the door. Her heart beat faster than the situation seemed to warrant. She felt absurdly young. Then, before she could think better of it, she knocked.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝

The knock sounded a little louder than Nini had intended it to, the hollow thud of knuckles against old wood echoing briefly across the quiet porch and out into the neighbourhood. For a moment there was nothing. Then, from within, came the faint shuffle of movement.The door opened partway, spilling warm yellow light into the cold dusk. Darlene stood there barefoot despite the season, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other clutching the edge of the door. She wore flared pants patterned with faded sunbursts and a loose sweater that looked hand-me-down old rather than intentionally so, its sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her hair fell in uneven waves around her face, dark and unruly.

“Nini,” Darlene said, her voice lifting at the end of the name, not quite a question, not quite surprise. “You’re out late.”

“You didn’t say not to come,” she replied, aware of how defensive it sounded and unable to stop herself.

Darlene stepped back immediately, pulling the door open wider. “I never do,” she said, simply, as though this were an established law rather than a habit. “Come in before you freeze.” 

The warmth of the house wrapped around Nini as she crossed the threshold, thick with familiar scents: woodsmoke, damp wool, something sweet and yeasty rising from the kitchen. The door closed behind her with a soft click, sealing out the cold and the town alike. Inside, the house felt smaller than it had when she was younger, though no less full. Every surface bore evidence of use. Mud-caked boots lined the wall by the door, a half-empty crate of apples sat beneath the coat rack, and the table just beyond the entryway was crowded with tools, scraps of wire, seed catalogues, and a half-assembled radio that looked older than both of them combined.

Darlene followed Nini’s gaze and laughed softly. “I was fixing it,” she said. Nini shrugged out of her jacket, hanging it on a hook that had once been straight and now leaned permanently to one side. “Not having much luck though.”

Nini swallowed, not yet knowing where to position herself. It struck her then how rarely she felt unsure of herself elsewhere. At school, she moved through hallways with practiced ease, her reputation doing much of the work for her. Even in the robotics lab, surrounded by wires and code, she knew how to perform competence. Here, that confidence thinned. Darlene had known her too long, had seen too many unfinished versions of her to be impressed by polish.

“So,” Darlene said at last, pushing off the doorframe and padding toward the kitchen. “What were you doing?”

Nini hesitated, then followed, her footsteps echoing softly on the worn floorboards. “Walking,” she said. It felt insufficient, but she let it stand.

Darlene snorted. “You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

“Yeah, but usually there’s more to it.” Darlene filled the kettle at the sink, her movements economical and unhurried. “Where’d you walk from?”

Nini leaned against the counter, watching steam begin to rise as the kettle was set on the stove. “By the ocean,” she said. “I took the long way.”

Darlene paused, turning to look at her fully now. Her eyes lit up with sudden intensity, the practical calm giving way to something brighter, more childlike. “Did you see an orca?”

Nini blinked. The question landed with a strange, almost absurd weight. “No,” she said, a little too quickly. “There aren’t any.”

Darlene grinned, undeterred. “That’s what you always say.”

“Because it’s true,” Nini replied. “People don’t just… see orcas here.”

Darlene leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms. “I did.”

Nini sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. “You thought you did. Years ago. You were, what, twelve? Thirteen?”

“I was fourteen,” Darlene said firmly. “And I know what I saw.”

“You saw something,” Nini corrected. “Probably seals. Or driftwood. Or your imagination.”

Darlene’s smile faltered only slightly, though something more guarded flickered beneath it. “It was a pod,” she said. “Three of them. Black backs, white patches clear as day.”

Nini met her gaze, unmoved. “You didn’t even have binoculars.”

“I didn’t need them.”

“That’s convenient.”

Darlene laughed then, a low, easy sound. “You never believed me.”

Nini shrugged. “I still don’t.”

There it was, the old argument, worn smooth by repetition. It had never been a fight, exactly, just a well-worn conversation they circled whenever the subject arose. Nini remembered the first time Darlene had told her the story, breathless with excitement, hands sketching shapes in the air as though trying to trace the memory into permanence. Nini had listened patiently, then dismantled it piece by piece, offering alternative explanations, probabilities, the comfort of rational order. Even then, she had preferred explanations that could be tested, proven, replicated. The world made more sense that way.

The kettle began to whistle, sharp and insistent. Darlene turned back to it, pouring water into mismatched mugs. “You always need everything to make sense,” she said lightly. “Like it’s a machine that’ll fall apart if one piece doesn’t fit.”

Nini accepted the mug when it was handed to her, the heat seeping into her palms. “Things are machines,” she said. “Or systems, at least. If you understand them well enough.”

Darlene raised an eyebrow. “And people?”

Nini hesitated. “People too,” she said finally, though it felt somehow less true. They carried their mugs into the living room, settling into opposite ends of the couch that had long since lost any claim to symmetry. The room glowed softly, lit by a single lamp and the low fire crackling in the hearth. Shadows gathered in the corners. They sat in silence for a while, the kind that did not demand filling. It was one of the few silences Nini trusted. She felt the familiar melancholy settle around her, heavy but not suffocating, like a well-worn coat. Outside, somewhere beyond the hills and the houses and the dark stretch of water, the world continued on, vast and indifferent.

Darlene shifted on the couch, tucking one leg beneath her, the fabric of her flared pants bunching awkwardly at the knee. The movement seemed to draw her out of her reverie and back into the room, into the small domestic present she inhabited so comfortably. She stared into the fire for a moment longer, then spoke as if continuing a thought she had been having silently for some time.

“There’s a new family moving in,” she said.

The statement landed without emphasis, offered as a fact rather than an invitation to reaction. Nini did not respond immediately. She watched the fire consume another fragment of wood, its edges glowing briefly before collapsing inward.

“Where?” she asked at last.

“Down near the bluff,” Darlene replied. “The old Morrison place. The one everyone said was going to cave in eventually.”

Nini frowned slightly. She knew the house. Everyone did. It had stood empty for years, its windows boarded, its garden surrendered to weeds and salt wind. It had seemed less like a home than a placeholder, a reminder that things could simply stop without explanation. “I thought no one wanted it.”

“They didn’t,” Darlene said. “Until they did.”

Nini absorbed this in silence. A new family implied children, routines not yet worn smooth by repetition, unfamiliar cars parked along familiar streets. It implied disruption, though she could not decide whether that prospect unsettled or intrigued her. The town was not accustomed to change. When it occurred, it tended to be absorbed slowly, reluctantly, until it no longer registered as foreign.

“When did you see them?” she asked.

“Yesterday,” Darlene said. “Or maybe the day before. I was out by the paddock and saw a truck pulled up. They were unloading boxes. Looked like they didn’t know where to stand or what to do.”

“Did they look… like they were staying?”

Darlene laughed softly. “They were carrying furniture, Nini. I don’t think it was a sightseeing trip.”

Nini nodded, though something in her chest tightened. She took a sip of her tea, now lukewarm, barely registering the taste. Outside, the wind rattled the windows again, persistent but not threatening. She thought of the new family unloading boxes, of unfamiliar footsteps learning the rhythm of the town’s streets. She felt, unexpectedly, a faint stirring of curiosity, not about them, exactly, but about what their arrival represented. Change, however small, was proof that the town was not as static as it appeared.

“Did they have kids?” she asked.

Darlene smiled slightly. “One girl, I think. About our age.”

Nini nodded, her expression unreadable. She did not know why this detail mattered, only that it did. Somewhere beneath her fatigue, beneath the carefully assembled structures of her life, something shifted, almost imperceptibly. She did not yet recognise it as anticipation. For now, it registered only as a subtle disturbance, like a ripple on otherwise still water.

Darlene rose first, as though the thought had lifted her before it had fully taken shape. She moved with an easy decisiveness that always struck Nini as faintly miraculous, not because it was loud or forceful, but because it did not appear to require justification. Darlene did not argue herself into motion. She simply acted, trusting that the act itself would explain its necessity later.

“We should go see them,” she said.

Nini looked up from the fire, startled more by the casual certainty of the suggestion than by the suggestion itself. “Now?”

“Why not now?” Darlene replied. She crossed the room, pulling on a jacket from the back of a chair, one that smelled faintly of hay and smoke. “They’re new,” she said, like it not only explained everything, but justified it too.

Nini hesitated. A familiar tension gathered in her chest, the sensation of being nudged toward something unscripted. “We don’t know them.”

“That’s usually how knowing people starts,” Darlene said, grinning. “Come on. You said you were walking anyway.”

Nini opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. She searched herself for a reason solid enough to refuse and found nothing. “What would we even say?”

Darlene shrugged. “Hello. Welcome to town maybe.”

There it was again, that infuriating simplicity. Nini stood, slipping her jacket back on, feeling its familiar weight settle across her shoulders, allowing her to pretend this was merely a continuation of what she had already been doing. They stepped back out into the cold together. The night had deepened while they sat inside, the sky now a dense, unbroken grey-black, low enough to feel oppressive. The streetlamps cast long, distorted shadows that stretched across the road and dissolved at the edges. Darlene locked the door behind them, though there was no need.

Their footsteps fell into an uneven rhythm, Darlene’s longer stride pulling ahead, Nini’s adjusting without conscious thought. The air smelled faintly of damp soil and woodsmoke. Somewhere, a dog barked. The road sloped gently upward as they moved toward the bluff, the incline subtle but persistent. Houses grew more spaced out here, their lights fewer, their silhouettes darker against the sky. Fences lined the road in uneven stretches, some sagging, some newly repaired, each marking a boundary that felt more symbolic than real. Nini felt her breathing deepen, her body adjusting to the steady exertion. There was relief in that, in the simple fact of movement.

Darlene hummed softly as she walked, some tune Nini didn’t recognise, its rhythm loose and wandering. They reached the edge of the bluff, where the land dropped away sharply toward the sea. The path narrowed here, bordered by scrub and low grass that rustled softly in the wind. The sound of the water rose up to meet them, deeper and more insistent than it had been earlier, as though the ocean were speaking more loudly now that darkness had settled. Nini slowed instinctively, peering out into the void beyond the path. She followed Darlene onward, the path widening again as they approached the Morrison place. The house loomed ahead, larger up close than it ever had from a distance. Its silhouette was irregular, rooflines intersecting at odd angles, windows catching and reflecting the streetlight in brief flashes. Some lights were on inside now, warm and tentative, illuminating rooms that had been dark for years.

“There,” Darlene said softly. “See? Alive.”

Nini felt a strange tightening in her throat. The house did look alive, uncertainly so perhaps, but undeniably occupied. Boxes were stacked near the front porch, their edges darkened by moisture. A car she didn’t recognise was parked crookedly in the driveway, its presence slightly intrusive, like a new word in a familiar sentence.They stopped at the gate. Nini hesitated, her earlier anxiety returning with renewed force. “Maybe we shouldn’t,” she said. “They might not want…”

Darlene reached out and squeezed her hand, brief and unceremonious. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “And if it’s not, we leave.”

The simplicity of that logic startled Nini. She nodded, letting Darlene lead the way up the path. Each step felt momentous, though she knew intellectually that it was not. Darlene knocked. The sound echoed hollowly against the house, deeper than it had at her own door earlier. They waited. Nini felt time stretch, her thoughts racing ahead, constructing possible outcomes with relentless efficiency. What if they were unwelcome? What if they said the wrong thing?

The door opened. Light spilled out, warmer and brighter than she had expected, illuminating the porch, the two figures standing there, and the girl who had opened the door. She had a round face that caught the light gently, softening her features, and dark hair pulled back into a practical ponytail, a fringe escaping to fall unevenly across her forehead. Her eyes were alert, quick to assess, already alive with a curiosity that did not bother to disguise itself.

“Hi,” the girl said, before either Nini or Darlene could speak. Her voice carried an ease that felt imported, shaped elsewhere. “You must be the locals.”

Darlene grinned. “Guilty.”

“I’m Myki,” the girl said, extending a hand toward Darlene first, then Nini. “We just got here.”

Darlene shook her hand enthusiastically. “I’m Darlene. This is Nini.”

“Nini,” Myki repeated, testing the name lightly, as if gauging how it fit in her mouth. Her grip was firm, her palm warm. “That’s a good one.”

Nini felt a familiar flicker of self-consciousness, quickly followed by a reprimand she delivered to herself with practiced efficiency. It’s just a name. “Nice to meet you,” she said, hoping the words sounded natural.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries, how long they’d lived there, where Myki’s family had come from (the city, she said, waving a hand vaguely, as though the distinction required no elaboration), how quiet the town was compared to what she was used to. Nini listened, nodding when appropriate, the rhythm of conversation pulling her along even as part of her remained at a cautious distance.

“We were just going for a walk,” Darlene said suddenly, glancing between Nini and Myki. “You want to come?”

Nini’s breath caught, just slightly. The invitation hung there, casual and unexamined, offered with the same ease Darlene applied to most things. She watched Myki’s expression shift, surprise flickering briefly before settling into something like amusement.

“Right now?” Myki asked.

“Why not?” Darlene replied. “It’s cold, but you get used to it.”

There was a brief exchange with Myki’s mother, permission granted easily, with the faint relief of someone glad to see her daughter occupied. Myki slipped on a jacket, tugging it tight as she stepped out onto the porch. The door closed behind them, sealing the warm light away, and the three of them stood for a moment beneath the night sky, the house glowing faintly at their backs. They set off together, the path narrowing beneath their feet. Nini found herself walking slightly behind the other two, observing them as much as the road ahead. Darlene moved with her usual relaxed confidence, hands shoved into her pockets, shoulders loose. Myki, by contrast, walked with a kind of contained energy, her steps light, as though she were perpetually ready to pivot, to turn a thought into motion.

“So,” Myki said, breaking the silence easily, “what do people do here?”

Darlene shrugged. “Depends who you ask.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“We walk,” Darlene said. “We look at the ocean. Some people wait for orcas.”

Myki glanced toward the dark expanse beyond the bluff. “Orcas?”

Nini stiffened almost imperceptibly. “That’s… a thing here.”

“A mythical thing,” Darlene added cheerfully.

“I don’t think they exist,” Nini said, a little more firmly than she intended.

Myki laughed. “You don’t believe in orcas?”

“I believe in orcas,” Nini said. “Just not here.”

Darlene shot her a sideways glance, amused. “You hear that? She says it like it’s a moral position.”

Myki smiled, her eyes bright. “I like that. Strong convictions.”

Nini felt heat rise to her face and was annoyed to find that it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. She focused on the road, on the crunch of gravel beneath her boots, on the steady rhythm of their breathing. The presence of someone new introduced an unfamiliar variable into her carefully managed internal environment. She did not yet know how to account for it. They reached the edge of the bluff again, the sea stretching out before them, vast and unreadable. The wind picked up, tugging at their jackets, threading cold fingers through their hair. Myki stopped, peering out into the darkness with evident interest.

“It’s… big,” she said. “Bigger than I expected.”

“It’s the ocean. Not exactly known for being small,” Darlene replied. 

Myki leaned forward slightly, as though the ocean might lean back. “I’m going to be an actress,” she said suddenly, as if continuing a completely different conversation. 

Darlene nodded, accepting it without question. “Cool.”

Nini glanced at Myki, surprised by the bluntness of the declaration. “Like, professionally?”

Myki grinned. “Ideally.”

There was no irony in her tone, no defensive humour. She said it the way one might say I’m hungry or I like the cold. As a fact. As a direction.

“That’s… ambitious,” Nini said carefully.

Myki shrugged. “Someone has to be.”

Darlene laughed. “I like her.” There was no invitation for agreement, no glance toward Nini to see if the sentiment was shared. Darlene said it the way she said most things she believed; plainly and without the reflexive self-doubt that occupied Nini’s thoughts. She stood with her hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold, her breath rising in small, steady clouds. The ocean stretched out before them, dark and patient, its surface broken only by the slow, methodical movement of waves folding in on themselves. Nini did not respond immediately. She stood a half-step behind Darlene, her boots planted firmly in the gravel.

Myki lingered a few paces ahead, closer to the edge of the bluff, her posture loose, unguarded. She leaned forward slightly, peering into the darkness with an intensity that suggested she expected the night to answer her curiosity in kind. Nini watched her, the way she often watched people when she was uncertain how to place herself among them. There was something rounded about Myki’s presence, not merely in the softness of her face but in the way her movements resisted sharpness. Even standing still, she seemed to occupy space comfortably, without apology. Her ponytail swayed faintly in the wind, strands of hair escaping to brush against her cheek. She did not attempt to tame them. The cold did not appear to trouble her as much as it should have. She looked, Nini thought, as though she had arrived already halfway acclimatised to this place.

It unsettled her. She had expected, perhaps hoped, that Myki would feel like an intrusion, an obvious disruption to the careful equilibrium she had built around herself and Darlene. Instead, Myki’s presence felt oddly congruent, as though she had stepped into a space that had been left vacant without anyone consciously noticing. Nini did not like how easily that thought came to her. It suggested a looseness in her attachments that she preferred not to examine too closely. Darlene shifted her weight beside her, boots crunching softly. She followed Nini’s gaze and smiled faintly. Nini had known Darlene long enough to recognise the quiet satisfaction settling over her, the contentment she found in simple expansions of her world. Darlene liked additions. New animals on the farm. New routes through familiar land. New people who did not immediately demand explanation or defence.

The ocean surged below them, its sound deepening momentarily as a larger wave broke against the rocks. The noise reverberated through the air, through the ground beneath their feet. It reminded Nini of something vast and impersonal, something that existed entirely outside the scope of human concern. The sea did not care who they were or what they became. It would continue its endless motion regardless.

She found that thought oddly comforting. Darlene shifted again, nudging Nini lightly with her elbow. “You okay?” she asked, her voice low, casual.

Nini nodded, the motion small. “Yeah.” It was not a lie, exactly. It was simply an incomplete statement.

Myki shifted her stance, rocking back on her heels, then forward again, testing the ground. She glanced down into the darkness once more, then laughed softly to herself, a brief sound carried away almost immediately by the wind.

“Still think there might be orcas?” she asked, not turning around.

Darlene grinned. “Always.”

Nini exhaled through her nose. “There aren’t,” she said, though without conviction.

Myki turned then, her face catching what little light the sky offered. “You’ve never seen one,” she said, lightly. It was not an argument so much as an observation.

“No,” Nini admitted.

Myki shrugged. “Doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

The simplicity of the statement irritated her more than it should have. Nini opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. She had no counterargument that did not sound pedantic, and pedantry felt particularly hollow in the presence of the sea.

Darlene laughed, the sound warm and unrestrained. “See? That’s what I keep telling her.”

Nini felt something loosen at the edges of her irritation. There was a familiar pattern here, one she recognised from years of exchanges with Darlene, who had always been comfortable with the idea that not knowing was not a failure. Nini had always experienced it as one. She watched Myki again, trying to understand what it was about her that unsettled her so persistently. It was not jealousy, exactly, nor attraction in any straightforward sense. It was closer to a sense of displacement, as though Myki represented a version of possibility Nini had quietly abandoned without ever fully acknowledging the loss.

Actress, Myki had said. The word lingered, heavy with implication. It suggested visibility, vulnerability, a willingness to be seen failing as often as succeeding. It suggested a life shaped less by certainty than by desire. Nini felt a familiar tightening at the thought. Desire had always seemed like an unreliable guide, too prone to fluctuation. She had learned to value aptitude instead. You did what you were good at. You built a future from the materials at hand. You did not chase impulses whose outcomes could not be quantified. And yet.

She glanced at Darlene again, noting the way she watched Myki with open curiosity, her expression unguarded. Darlene did not weigh people against internal metrics. She encountered them directly, responding to what was present rather than what might be lost. It occurred to Nini, with a faint shock, that Darlene might like Myki for reasons that had nothing to do with how Myki fit into her life. She might like her simply because she existed, because she brought with her a new experience. The thought was unsettling because it felt true.

The wind picked up, tugging more insistently at their clothes. Nini pulled her jacket tighter around herself, the motion automatic. She felt suddenly aware of the cold, of the way it crept in through her sleeves and collar, settling against her skin. She wondered what Myki saw when she looked at her. Probably nothing remarkable, she thought. Another local girl. Another fixed point in an unfamiliar landscape. The idea should have been comforting. Instead, it left her faintly hollow. She had spent so much time cultivating unremarkability, believing it would protect her from scrutiny, that she had not considered what it might cost her. Standing there now, she felt the absence of something she could not quite name. A sense of being actively chosen, perhaps, rather than passively accepted.

The thought lingered longer than she would have liked. It pressed against her with the same quiet persistence as the wind, not sharp enough to demand immediate action, but steady enough to be impossible to ignore. She shifted her weight, boots grinding softly against the gravel, and glanced again toward the water. The sea remained unchanged, its surface a dark, restless expanse, offering no acknowledgment of her private unease. It occurred to her, with a faint and surprising clarity, that she envied its indifference.

Darlene was the first to move. She stretched her arms above her head with an easy, unselfconscious motion, joints popping faintly, then let them fall back to her sides. “Cold’s getting mean,” she said, cheerful as ever. “We should head back.”

Myki nodded, tucking her hands into the pockets of her coat. “Yeah.”

Darlene turned and started down the path without ceremony, trusting, as she always did, that the others would follow. Nini fell into step beside her, Myki just ahead, their silhouettes overlapping and separating as the path narrowed and widened again. They walked in a loose formation, no one in any particular hurry. The bluff receded behind them, the sound of the ocean softening as the land rose and intervened. Grass gave way to packed earth, then to cracked pavement. The town reasserted itself gradually, its familiar geometry enclosing them once more. Streetlamps flickered overhead, their light pooling unevenly on the road. The houses they passed seemed half-asleep, their windows dim or dark, their presence muted but watchful. Nini felt the steady rhythm of walking settle into her body. There was comfort in it, in the predictability of one foot placed before the other. Her thoughts, which had been spiralling restlessly, began to organise themselves.

She was aware of the way Myki’s presence altered the dynamic between her and Darlene, not disrupting it so much as revealing aspects of it that had previously gone unexamined. With Myki there, Nini could see more clearly how much she relied on Darlene’s steadiness, how easily she allowed herself to be guided by it. She wondered if Darlene noticed that imbalance, or if she simply accepted it as another natural arrangement. They reached the edge of the older part of town, where the road narrowed and the houses pressed closer together. The air smelled faintly of damp wood and soil. A porch light snapped on somewhere ahead, its sudden brightness briefly startling. Nini flinched, then felt foolish for it. She had always been prone to these small, involuntary reactions, her body responding before her mind could intervene.

She remembered, suddenly, standing alone in her room earlier that evening, staring at the ceiling and imagining it splitting open, the sky pouring in. The image returned with its familiar, illicit sweetness. There was something appealing in the idea of an ending imposed from outside, something that relieved her of the responsibility to decide. Walking now between Darlene and Myki, she felt the echo of that desire and recoiled from it simultaneously. It seemed almost obscene to entertain such thoughts while surrounded by such uncomplicated vitality. They slowed as they approached a junction where their paths would diverge. Myki stopped first, turning to face them. Up close, her face was open and animated, her expression shifting easily from one emotion to another without lingering. 

“This is me,” she said, gesturing vaguely down the side street.

Darlene smiled at her. “You’ll get used to it,” she said, as though that were both reassurance and promise.

Myki regarded her for a moment, then nodded. “Good,” she said simply. “I’d hate to do all that moving for nothing.” They stood there briefly, the night pressing in around them. Then Myki stepped back, lifting a hand in a casual wave. “See you around,” she said, and turned down the street without looking back.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝

Nini did not like that she woke up thinking of Myki. She did not like the way her smile wormed its way into her psyche, uninvited and unapologetic, as though it had always belonged there. The smile was not especially remarkable when examined directly, slightly crooked, and a little too eager, but it lingered in the mind with an unreasonable persistence. It suggested mischief, perhaps, and certainly curiosity, a readiness to be delighted by things that had long since dulled for Nini. The thought carried with it a faint, almost embarrassing warmth. She pushed it away. The sky outside her window was a washed-out grey, neither fully night nor convincingly day. She lay still for a time, listening to the house creak softly as it adjusted to the temperature shift. Somewhere, a pipe rattled. A car passed on the distant road.

She rose eventually, moving through her routine with mechanical precision. Shower. Clothes. Breakfast was eaten standing at the counter, toast cooling in her hand. She didn’t want to dirty a plate because the act of washing it seemed pointless and unpleasant. She took a few distracted bites, more out of obligation than appetite, and then left the rest. She did not check her phone. She told herself it was because there would be nothing there. This was, statistically speaking, almost certainly true. The thought brought little comfort. 

The morning walk was not planned so much as inevitable. There was a restlessness that had settled into her limbs, and it refused to be ignored. She pulled on her jacket again and stepped outside, the cold greeting her like an old acquaintance. She breathed deeply, letting the air sting her lungs just enough to feel awake. The town looked different in daylight. Its edges were softened, its neglect rendered almost charming by the thin wash of sun breaking through the clouds. In the early hours, before most people emerged, it possessed a kind of vulnerability.

She walked without destination, following the roads she knew by heart. The shopfronts were shuttered, their painted signs faded but earnest. Windows reflected her faintly distorted image as she passed, a version of herself stretched and compressed by old glass. She did not linger on her reflection; she never did. She walked past the school grounds, empty now, the field damp with dew that caught the light in scattered points. The sight filled her with a familiar mixture of relief and melancholy. When she was not learning, she was not being measured, not being nudged toward futures she felt increasingly unprepared to inhabit. But without that structure, she was answerable only to her own thoughts. 

Her feet carried her, without conscious decision, toward the coastline. The path there was narrow, flanked by scrub and low trees bent permanently by the wind. She had walked it countless times, sometimes to think, but more often to avoid thinking. The sea, at least, did not ask questions. It existed in a state of perpetual motion that made her own stillness feel less shameful. Today, she was not sure which impulse guided her. She kept her head down, watching her boots navigate the uneven ground, until a flicker of movement ahead caught her attention. She nearly turned back when she saw someone ahead. Just her luck.

Myki sat on a flat rock near the edge, legs tucked beneath her, sketchbook balanced on her knees. She was hunched forward, absorbed, pencil moving steadily across the page. Her hair was pulled back loosely, strands already escaping, catching the light. She looked entirely at ease, as though she belonged to the landscape in a way Nini had never quite managed. This was, as Nini had lived here all her life and Myki had only jut moved, infuriating in an entirely unjustifiable way. For a moment, she considered retreating. She could turn around now. Myki would never know.

Then Myki looked up. Her face broke into a smile so immediate and unguarded that Nini felt it like a physical blow, a sudden pressure behind the ribs. It was the sort of smile that arrived before self-consciousness had a chance to intervene, bright and slightly awkward.

“Oh! Hi,” Myki said, already closing the sketchbook slightly, as though to greet her properly.

“Hi,” Nini replied, far more anxiously than she would have liked. Her voice came out thinner than usual, pitched just a fraction too high. She hated that her body betrayed her so easily.

“I didn’t know if anyone came out here this early,” Myki said. “I hope I’m not… encroaching.” She gestured vaguely toward the rocks, the sea, the horizon, as though the concept of space itself might be offended by her presence. It was almost endearing.

“No,” Nini said quickly. “It’s… public.” The word landed awkwardly between them, stiff and bureaucratic. What a stupid thing to say. Heat crept up her neck. Myki laughed softly, not unkindly, and the sound loosened something in Nini’s chest. She smiled too, reflexively, though she was not entirely sure why. The laughter seemed to imply that whatever misstep had occurred was minor, forgivable, perhaps even expected.

Nini stepped closer, hands hidden deep into her sleeves, shoulders drawn in slightly as though bracing against an invisible draft. “What are you drawing?” she asked, defaulting to the safest question she knew.

Myki hesitated, then angled the sketchbook toward her without ceremony. The page held a loose but confident rendering of the coastline, the rocks exaggerated slightly, the sea rendered in quick, expressive lines. Nini did not trust herself to speak just then.

Nini swallowed. “That’s… really good.”

“It’s not done,” Myki said quickly, defensive out of habit rather than pride. Nini nodded, unsure of what exactly to say in response.

They stood together in companionable quiet, the wind tugging at their clothes, the sea continuing its endless conversation with the shore below. Gulls wheeled overhead, their cries sharp against the steady roar of the waves. Nini became acutely aware of how close she was standing to Myki, close enough to sense her warmth despite the cold. Her heart skipped a beat or two. Odd.

“So,” Myki said after a moment, glancing sideways at her, “are you always this serious in the mornings, or am I catching you at a particularly philosophical hour?”

Nini huffed out a small laugh before she could stop herself. “I think that’s just… my face.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Myki said solemnly. “You’ll scare off the wildlife.”

“I fear there's not much wildlife here. Besides the gulls, but I think it’d take a lot to scare them.” Myki smiled at that and Nini couldn’t place why that mattered so much. But it did.

“So,” Myki said, after a stretch of silence that felt companionable rather than awkward, “what do you do? Besides walking.”

Nini hesitated, the familiar catalogue of labels lining up in her mind, each one insufficient on its own. Cheerleader. Robotics. Good student. Reliable. She weighed them quickly, aware of how she sounded when she recited them, like she was reading from a list she hadn’t written herself.

“A bit of everything,” she said finally. “Nothing very exciting.”

Myki glanced at her, sceptical. “That’s never true.”

“It is,” Nini insisted, though her tone lacked conviction. “I just… keep busy.”

“With what?”

Nini exhaled through her nose, a quiet, amused sigh. “School things. Clubs. Stuff my parents think will look good later.”

“That sounds exhausting,” Myki said, without judgement.

“It is,” Nini replied, then winced slightly, as though she had revealed more than intended. She hurried to soften it. “But it’s fine. I’m good at it.”

“I believe that,” Myki said easily. “You have a very competent vibe.”

Nini laughed, startled. “That’s the worst compliment I’ve ever received.”

Myki grinned. “I meant it kindly.”

“I know,” Nini said. And she did. There was no sharpness in Myki’s curiosity, no sense of evaluation. She asked questions because she wanted to know the answers, not because she was building a picture to measure against something else. That, more than anything, put Nini at ease. She did not feel the need to perform excellence. She could simply be adequate, even uncertain, and still be interesting enough to warrant attention. The notion of that refused to settle in her stomach and she felt the familiar urge to retreat. This time she didn’t fight it.

“I should probably head back,” Nini said reluctantly. “I have… things.” 

“Very official things im sure,” Myki said.

“I’m very serious.”

“I can tell.”

Nini hesitated, then added, “This was nice.”

“It was,” Myki said. “We should do it again.”

Nini nodded, heart misbehaving. “Yeah. We should.”

She walked away before she could overthink it, though she knew she would anyway. Nini walked home with her hands buried deep in her pockets. She told herself, sternly, that nothing had happened. People spoke to each other all the time. And yet there it was again, that warmth, hovering just behind her ribs like a small, illicit fire. She tried to tamp it down with logic, with lists and plans and sensible projections of the future. It did not go out.

Her house appeared at the end of the street, squat and familiar, its paint slightly chipped, its garden forever caught between tended and abandoned. She went in quietly, kicking off her shoes and hanging her jacket. Her bedroom was exactly as she had left it, neat to the point of austerity, everything arranged just so. Bed made. Desk cleared. Sketchbooks stacked carefully, robotics manuals aligned like obedient soldiers. The walls were sparsely decorated, a few posters tacked up with the apologetic air of temporary residence. She sat on the edge of the bed and let herself breathe. Only then did she realize she was smiling.

The smile startled her, like catching sight of oneself in a mirror one had forgotten was there. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, as though it were something that could be physically removed. The effort failed. It crept back, smaller but persistent.

“Idiot,” she murmured to the empty room, not without affection. Her mind, traitorous thing that it was, replayed the morning, and Nini groaned softly and rolled onto her side, burying her face in the pillow. For a long while she stayed like that, face pressed into the pillow, breathing in the faint detergent smell. Her body was still, but her mind ran quick, darting and circling like a small animal that had discovered an open door and did not yet know whether to flee through it or retreat to safety. She rolled onto her back and stared at the posters on her wall again. She had chosen them carefully once, convinced each would say something essential about her. Now they said very little at all. She sat up with a groan and swung her legs off the bed.

“All right,” she told herself, aloud. “Enough.You’re fine. You’re literally fine.”

Downstairs, the house had settled into its late-morning quiet. Her parents were out, the kitchen empty except for a half-read newspaper and a mug ring staining the counter like a fossilized thought. Sunlight slanted through the window, illuminating crumbs she had missed earlier. She considered cleaning them up, then deliberately did not. The crumbs could wait. The world would not end.

She made tea and took it outside, wrapping her hands around the mug as she stepped into the backyard. The air was cold but bright, the kind of cold that felt clean. She sat on the back step and sipped her tea, watching a bird hop along the fence line with exaggerated seriousness. It pecked once, twice, then flew off, apparently satisfied with whatever conclusion it had reached. Her thoughts drifted, as they had been doing all day, back to the coast. To the sound of waves, the gulls’ cries, the way Myki had laughed. There was something deeply unfair about that ease. Nini had worked so hard to become acceptable and here was someone who seemed to have skipped that entire anxious apprenticeship and arrived directly at being.

She frowned slightly, troubled by the edge of envy she felt. It was not an unkind envy, but it pricked all the same.

“Well,” she said to the garden, to the fence, to the absent bird. “Good for her.” The words did not carry the bitterness she had expected. If anything, they felt fond. The fondness unsettled her more than bitterness would have. Bitterness, at least, could be justified, dissected, traced back to its source and filed away as a reasonable response to circumstance. Fondness was slippery. 

Nini sat there for a while longer, tea cooling in her hands. She finished her tea and set the mug carefully on the step beside her, then leaned back on her hands and tilted her face toward the sun. It was weak sunlight, filtered through thin clouds, but it warmed her skin just enough to register. She closed her eyes. For a moment, she imagined what it might be like to stay exactly here, in this suspended state, neither moving forward nor backward, simply existing. The thought had a sweetness to it, but it was fleeting. Time, she knew, was not interested in her preferences.

Eventually, she stood and went back inside. She sat at her desk and opened one of the robotics manuals, flipping through pages dense with diagrams and equations. Normally, the clarity of it would have appealed to her, the way problems presented themselves cleanly, awaiting solutions. Today, her eyes skimmed the text without absorbing it.

She closed the book with a soft thud. Her gaze drifted instead to the sketchbooks stacked neatly to one side. She hesitated, then pulled one free and opened it again, as she had earlier. The drawing of the backyard stared back at her, unassuming and quietly sincere. She traced the lines with her eyes, noticing where her hand had faltered, where it had grown bold. She thought of Myki’s sketchbook, the ease with which she had angled it forward, offering it without ceremony or apology. There had been no preamble, no anxious disclaimer beyond a habitual “It’s not done.” The drawing had not been presented as evidence of worth, merely as something that existed and could be shared.

The thought stirred something restless in her chest. She flipped to a new page.

At first, it was nothing more than a line, then another, tentative and unsure. She drew water, because water was familiar. She knew she could draw water and be happy with the outcome. Her phone buzzed against the wood of her desk, and the sudden vibration startled her, so much so that she nearly dropped the pencil. A wave was suddenly blending with the shore, the line messy and out of place. She crumpled the piece of paper up, throwing it into her wastebasket. She frowned at herself for that, as jumpiness was unbecoming, and reached for the phone.

                            CHEER SQUAD - JUNIORS

her royal highness 🦉
remember practice today ladies!!

briar 😈
girl its literally winter break
fuck are we practicing for
also ill be late lol

 Nini stared at the screen for a long moment, thumb hovering uselessly above the glass. She scrolled up without meaning to, then forced herself to stop. That way lay distraction, and distraction led inevitably to spiraling. She locked the phone and set it face down. Cheer practice. Of course there was practice. There was always practice. Time, it seemed, did not stop simply because one felt emotionally overfull. The world went on with its schedules and expectations, impervious to her internal winter and simply continuing with its physical one.

She leaned back in her chair and let it rock slightly. The wastebasket sat by her desk, the crumpled paper glaring up at her. She nudged it once with her toe, then bent down and retrieved the paper, smoothing it out carefully. The water was ruined, yes, but perhaps not irreparably. She studied it, head tilted, considering whether the messiness might be turned into a storm, or maybe erosion. She set it aside. Not now.

She stood slowly, as though her body might object, and crossed the room to her wardrobe. The door creaked softly when she opened it. Inside, her clothes hung in neat, sensible rows, sorted by use more than affection. Cheer uniform. School clothes. Comfortable clothes she rarely allowed herself to wear outside the house. She reached for the uniform without ceremony and laid it out on the bed. The mirror caught her eye as she turned. She regarded herself with the detached scrutiny of someone assessing an acquaintance. She looked as she usually did, an earnestness to her posture that she had never managed to shed, no matter how many years she spent trying to cultivate ease. She touched her face, briefly.

Changing took longer than it needed to. She folded each item she removed with care, aligning edges, and smoothing the creases. When she pulled the uniform on, the familiar compression settled around her. There was comfort in it. She tied her hair back once, retied it once, then once more for good measure. Downstairs, the house was empty. A note sat on the counter, half obscured by a grocery list. She did not read it. She poured herself a glass of water and drank it standing up, staring out the kitchen window at the yard. The bird from earlier had returned, hopping along the fence with the same exaggerated seriousness. It paused, cocked its head, then flew off again, apparently unimpressed by her.

She gathered her things and left the house, locking the door behind her. The cold air bit at her cheeks immediately, bracing and unwelcome. She shoved her hands into her pockets and set off toward the gym, boots crunching softly against the gravel of the path. Her mind, freed from the immediate demands of stillness, began its quiet circling. Practice meant being seen and measured against the other girls. If she stood out too much she would be reprimanded, but if she couldn’t keep up either she would face more scrutiny. 

She thought, unwillingly, of Myki. Nini felt again that peculiar mixture of admiration and something sharper, something that pricked at the edges of her thoughts. Why hadn’t she said more? Had she seemed dull? Overwrought? Had Myki noticed the way she’d held herself. She sighed, staring determinedly at the pavement. This was pointless. There was nothing to be gained from retrospective analysis. Whatever impression she had made was already made. It existed now beyond her control, an object set loose in the world. That thought, unsettling as it was, carried with it a strange sense of relief.

The gym loomed ahead, its doors reflecting a washed-out version of the sky. The building itself had always struck Nini as slightly too large for its purpose, a hulking thing of concrete and glass that swallowed sound and gave it back in echoes. Inside, voices overlapped, laughter echoing against high ceilings. She paused just long enough to school her expression into something neutral before pushing the door open. Athena was already there, of course, standing with arms crossed, posture impeccable. There was something architectural about Athena, something solid and intentional, as though she had been designed rather than grown. Nini felt, as she always did at the sight of her, a flicker of both respect and resentment. Athena did not ask for authority; she assumed it, and the world, more often than not, complied. When she spoke, people listened, not because they feared her exactly, but because she radiated an unspoken certainty that she deserved to be heard. 

Athena’s gaze flicked toward Nini as she entered, sharp and assessing, the way it always was. For a split second Nini had the irrational urge to straighten herself, as though being seen by Athena required a subtle recalibration of posture and intenJuicy was already stretching near the wall, limbs folding and unfolding with an almost obscene ease. One leg arced gracefully behind her head as though it belonged there, as though her body operated by a set of rules entirely its own. She smiled at everyone, unguarded and sweet, her grin wide and genuine, the sort of smile that seemed to invite the room to relax with her. If Athena commanded the space, Juicy charmed it. She had a softness about her that did not undermine her strength, a generosity of expression that made space for others rather than crowding them out. Nini felt herself relax at the sight of her, as she always did. Juicy was safe. Juicy was kind. Juicy, for reasons Nini had never fully articulated, made practice easier.

“Hey, Nini!” Juicy called, waving with alarming enthusiasm despite the fact that her other leg was currently stretched straight up beside her ear.

“Hey,” Nini replied, lifting a hand in a small, awkward wave of her own. She crossed the mat, bag slung over her shoulder, acutely aware of the way her movements compared to Juicy’s fluidity. She set her things down carefully, aligning her shoes neatly beside the wall.

Mia hovered near Athena, tablet in hand, already scrolling through choreography notes. There was an intensity to Mia’s focus that bordered on predatory; she noticed everything. Her eyes flicked constantly between the tablet, the team, the speakers, catching missteps and moments alike. She pretended not to notice the interpersonal dynamics unfolding around her, but Nini knew better. Mia catalogued everything. Briar leaned against the wall nearby, arms folded, weight shifted lazily onto one hip. Her expression was bored in a very deliberate way. She was probably annoyed that Athena wasn’t responding to her presence with the irritation Briar so clearly wanted. Briar’s gaze flicked toward Athena, then toward Nini, then back again.

Nini waved again as she joined the loose cluster of bodies, earning a quick smile from Juicy and another nod from Athena.

“Stretching starts now,” Athena said, clapping once, sharp and decisive. “Not when you feel like it. Now.”

Briar rolled her eyes. “Love the motivational tone. Very camp.” Athena did not dignify that with a response.

They moved through warm-ups with practiced efficiency. Nini’s body knew this language intimately. Stretch, balance, engage. Count to eight. Again. Her muscles warmed, the familiar burn blooming and then settling into something manageable. As her body took over, her thoughts quieted, the restless buzz in her chest smoothing into a low, steady hum. This, at least, she could do without overthinking. She trusted her body more than her mind. Her body did what it was told. 

As they worked, conversation flowed in fragmented bursts, the way it always did. Complaints about school. Gossip about people Nini barely knew. Speculation about upcoming competitions. She contributed where she could, smiling, nodding, offering the occasional dry remark that landed better than she expected.

They paused to grab water, and as Nini bent to unscrew her bottle, Juicy leaned closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Hey,” she said. “Random question.”

Nini tensed instinctively, spine going just a bit too straight. “Okay.”

“Do you know Myki?”

Nini’s mouth went dry.  For a heartbeat, she considered pretending she hadn’t heard it properly. “Why?”

“I did an acting course with her over the summer,” Juicy said, stretching her arms overhead. “She was hilarious. Really talented. Everyone loved her.”

The words settled into Nini with an unexpected weight. Everyone loved her. She smiled, automatically, because that was what she did when presented with information she did not know how to process.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s… cool.”

Juicy nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! I didn’t even realize it was the same Myki until she said her last name. Small world, right?”

“Very,” Nini agreed, though the word tasted strange.

She told herself, immediately and firmly, that the sensation curling in her chest was nothing. It was not jealousy. That would be absurd. She had known Myki for, what, two conversations? There was no claim to stake, no loss to mourn. And yet there it was, a faint tightening, a sense of displacement she could not quite justify.

Athena interrupted them with a sharp whistle. “Flyers, front and center. Let’s run the lift.”

Juicy bounded forward without hesitation, energy renewed, her earlier stretch already forgotten. Nini followed more slowly, shaking off the lingering unease. This was not the place for that. She needed to be present. They took their positions. Bases set. Hands locked. Nini inhaled deeply, feeling the familiar press of fingers at her ankles, calves, thighs. And then she was airborne, the world shifting beneath her, perspective tilting in that peculiar way that always felt both exhilarating and terrifying. For a moment, suspended above the mat, she felt light, almost free. Her body aligned perfectly, muscle and intention in harmony. Juicy grinned up at her from her own lift, eyes bright.

They landed cleanly.

“Again,” Athena said.

They repeated the motion, over and over, refining, adjusting. Nini focused on the mechanics, on the sensation of being caught, of trusting others to hold her weight. It was easier than trusting her thoughts. Easier than interrogating why the idea of Juicy knowing Myki made her feel the way she did. Even then, despite her best efforts, Nini’s thoughts kept straying. She imagined Myki in an acting class, expressive, unselfconscious. She imagined Juicy there too, flexible and radiant, effortlessly likable. She imagined herself in that space and felt, keenly, how out of place she would have been. The realization stung, though it did not surprise her.

When practice finally wound down, her muscles trembling pleasantly with fatigue, Nini gathered her things in silence. The gym buzzed with post-practice chatter, laughter bouncing off the walls once more. Athena conferred with Mia in low tones. Briar loudly announced she was starving. Juicy stretched again, humming to herself.

As Nini slung her bag over her shoulder, Juicy caught her eye. “Hey,” she said gently. “You okay?”

Nini blinked, startled. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Juicy studied her for a moment, then smiled. “You were great today.”

“Thanks,” she said softly. They spilled out of the gym in loose clusters, laughter and voices trailing behind them. The doors swung shut with a dull thud, muting the noise inside, and the evening air rushed in to fill the sudden quiet. It had grown colder while they were inside, the kind of cold that slipped easily beneath fabric and made itself known along the bones. The sky had dimmed into a soft gradient of bruised blue and grey, the last light lingering stubbornly near the horizon.

Nini adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and started down the path that led away from the school grounds. She had gone perhaps ten steps when she heard her name.

“Hey, Nini, wait up. Fuck, why do you walk so fast.”

She turned. Briar jogged a few paces to catch up, her movements careless, almost defiant in their lack of coordination compared to the precise discipline they’d just been subjected to. Her jacket was unzipped despite the cold, sleeves pushed halfway up her forearms.

“Oh,” Nini said. “Hey.”

“You walking home?” Briar asked, though the question felt rhetorical. They both knew the answer. There were only so many ways out of this part of town.

“Yeah,” Nini said. “You?”

“Unfortunately,” Briar replied. “My car’s still at my dad’s, and I am not dealing with that man tonight.”

Nini smiled faintly, unsure whether this was a joke. With Briar, it was often difficult to tell. They fell into step together, their footsteps syncing naturally after a moment. For a while, they walked in silence. The road curved gently away from the school, lined with bare-limbed trees whose branches clawed at the sky. A streetlight flickered on with a faint electrical hum. Nini found herself listening closely to the sound of Briar’s breathing, to the scuff of her shoes against the pavement, hyper-aware in the way she always was when alone with someone she did not fully understand. Briar broke the silence first, as she usually did.

“God,” she said, with a short laugh. “Did you see Ciara’s post earlier?”

Nini’s stomach tightened almost imperceptibly. “No,” she said carefully. “What post?”

Briar snorted. “Exactly. Because she blocked half the school after someone commented something mildly critical. It was one of those ‘good vibes only’ manifesting things. Mandy was in the comments like, ‘Yes queen, protect your peace.’ I nearly gagged.”

Nini hummed noncommittally. She knew Ciara and Mandy well enough, not intimately, but well enough to recognize the caricature Briar was sketching. They were Darlene’s friends. That knowledge alone made Nini cautious.

“They’re just…” Briar searched for the word, then waved a hand dismissively. “So fake. All that performative positivity. Like if you’re miserable, just say that.”

Nini felt a familiar, uncomfortable heat bloom behind her eyes. She kept her gaze fixed ahead, watching the road narrow as it sloped gently downward. “They’re not that bad,” she said, quietly.

Briar glanced sideways at her, eyebrow raised. “You’re defending them?”

“I’m just saying,” Nini replied, choosing her words with care, “people cope how they cope.”

Briar laughed, sharp and bright. “Spoken like someone who’s never had to listen to Mandy talk about whatever it is she’s into for forty-five uninterrupted minutes.”

Despite herself, Nini smiled. “I have, actually.”

“Oh.” Briar looked momentarily thrown, then recovered. “Well. Still.” Briar kicked a pebble ahead of her, watching it skitter across the pavement. “Honestly,” she continued, “I don’t know how Darlene puts up with them.”

Nini’s chest tightened.

“She’s… loyal,” Nini said.

“Yeah,” Briar said. “That’s one word for it.”

There it was. The slight curl of disdain, casual and unexamined. She imagined, unbidden, what this conversation would sound like if she were not here, if her name, or Darlene’s could be brought up freely. She knew, with a clarity that surprised her, exactly how it would go. They would talk about Darlene’s clothes, her accent, the way she laughed too loudly or cared too much. They would frame it as concern, or humor, or honesty. They would say she was sweet but exhausting, well-meaning but embarrassing. They would not think of it as cruelty. They rarely ever did.

She knew, and this was the part that hurt most, that they likely spoke of her this way too. Not with malice, perhaps, but with the same casual sharpness. Nini, who tried too hard. Nini, who smiled too much. Nini, who was good at everything but never quite impressive enough to be threatening. Nini, who was safe to talk about because she would never find out, and even if she did, she would forgive them. The thought sat heavy in her chest, but alongside it came something else; a dull, weary acceptance. This was how the world worked, she told herself. People bonded through exclusion as often as inclusion. To be present was to be at risk of absence.

“You know,” Briar said suddenly, “I think Athena secretly hates them too.”

Nini blinked. “Who?”

“Ciara and Mandy,” Briar said. “She just won’t say it. Captain’s prerogative, gotta be likeable or some bullshit. Not that she needs those kinda people to like her, but she’s got such a massive stick up her ass I bet she gets wet when people look up to her.” 

Nini doubted that, but she did not say so. Athena, for all her faults, struck her as someone who did not waste energy on unnecessary dislike. Still, Briar’s confidence was infectious in its way.  Nini pulled her coat tighter around herself, though she was not sure whether it was the temperature or the conversation that made her want to shrink inward. She should have said something then. A mild protest, perhaps, or a deflection. But the words stayed lodged somewhere between her throat and her chest, unmoving. Silence, she had learned, was often taken as agreement, and Briar, sensing no resistance, continued on with renewed momentum.

“I mean, Mandy’s whole thing,” Briar went on, voice animated now, “it’s like she’s playing at being positive. Insta posts, affirmations plastered all over her walls like they’re going to hold the house up. And Ciara, don’t even get me started. Talk about woke. Just say you’re annoying and go.”

Nini let out a small breath that might, under kinder circumstances, have been a laugh. It surprised her when it happened, a short sound, almost involuntary, but once released it could not be taken back. Briar noticed immediately.

“Right?” she said, encouraged. “You get it.”

Nini wondered whether she did. The question echoed softly, without urgency, like a footstep in a long hallway. She told herself that she was allowed this small indulgence. Everyone complained. Everyone sharpened their observations into something crueler than they meant. It was harmless, she reasoned, a way of letting off steam. And besides, Ciara and Mandy were not here. They would never know. That was the unspoken rule, was it not? That words spoken into the cold night dissolved before morning.

“They do lay it on pretty thick,” Nini heard herself say. Her voice sounded distant to her own ears, as though someone else were speaking through her mouth.

Briar barked a laugh. “Exactly. Thank you.”

The approval in Briar’s tone warmed her in an unexpected way. It was not admiration, precisely, but more so a sense of being aligned. 

“And Darlene,” Briar continued, more casually now, as if mentioning the weather. “I mean, she’s sweet and all, but you have to admit she could do better.”

Nini’s steps faltered, just slightly. Briar did not notice.

“Better friends, I mean,” Briar clarified. “Not, like, her. Just the people she hangs around with. They drag her down.”

“Well fuck me then, I guess.”

Briar rolled her eyes, selecting another rock to kick down the street. “Obviously not you. You’re not a weird theatre kid.”

Nini, despite herself, nodded. She told herself, again, that this was not the same. Darlene was different. She was not Ciara, nor was she Mandy. The criticism did not land on her in quite the same way. Why that distinction felt so natural, she could not have explained if pressed. It was simply there, an intuitive sorting, like knowing which side of a river was safe to cross. She was not being cruel; she was being observant. There was a difference. She had always believed that. And besides, she told herself, this was not who she really was. This sharpness was a costume she put on for moments like this, a necessary adaptation. Performance implied intent, and intent implied control.

“I swear,” she said, “if I have to hear Mandy talk about ‘holding space’ one more time, I’m going to lose it. Like what fucking space? The space where you post vague Instagram captions and wait for people to ask if you’re okay?”

Nini laughed again, more fully this time. The sound startled her with its sincerity. She felt lighter in that moment, buoyed by the shared mockery, and she hated herself a little for it.

“I think they’re just… earnest,” she said, though her tone undermined the defense. “Which can be exhausting.”

Briar grinned. “Earnest is fucking lame and you know it. Just be miserable like the rest of us and move the fuck on.” 

Nini imagined Darlene’s face, open and earnest in a way that made Nini ache. Darlene did not perform belonging; she believed in it. She offered herself fully. Earnestly. It was different when Darlene was earnest. The thought arrived fully formed, without preamble, and settled into Nini with the quiet certainty of something she had always known but never named. She did not say it aloud. She doubted she could have, even if she wanted to. There were thoughts that resisted language, not because they were too complex, but because to give them shape would be to admit their existence, and with that admission came the responsibility for thinking them.

“You’re quiet,” Briar said, glancing over. “Did I finally offend you?”

Nini startled, the reverie breaking apart like thin ice. “No,” she said quickly. “Just tired.”

Briar snorted. “Yeah, well. Same.”

They walked on. The conversation drifted to safer ground, complaints about school schedules, the absurdity of practice during break, a passing comment about Athena’s obsession with control. Nini responded where expected, nodded at the right moments, laughed when Briar did. She was good at this. She had always been good at this.

But beneath the practiced ease, her mind continued its slow, relentless turning. If she was not like Darlene, if she did not share her openness, her unguarded loyalty, her willingness to attach, then what did it mean that she was friends with her at all? The question unsettled her. Friendship, she had always believed, implied likeness, or at least recognition. You gravitated toward people who reflected you back to yourself in some way, did you not?

And yet when Nini looked at Darlene, what she saw was not a mirror but a contrast. Where Darlene trusted, Nini assessed. Where Darlene forgave, Nini remembered. Where Darlene belonged loudly and unapologetically, Nini hovered at the edges, present but never fully committed. She loved Darlene. Or at least, she was fond of her in a way that felt adjacent to love. She enjoyed her company, sought it out even. But beneath that affection lay an unspoken hierarchy, one Nini had never consciously constructed and yet inhabited all the same. Darlene, with her earnest heart and questionable friends, occupied a lower rung. Nini stood just above, close enough to reach down, far enough away to avoid falling.

She hated herself for seeing it so clearly. They reached the corner where Briar would eventually turn off toward her place, though not yet. A car passed them slowly, tires hissing over damp asphalt, headlights briefly illuminating Briar’s face. There was something sharp and restless there, a hunger Nini recognized without fully understanding. Briar did not want to belong; she wanted to burn.

“I don’t get why you even hang out with her sometimes,” Briar said, apropos of nothing. “Darlene, I mean.”

The bluntness of it landed like a slap. 

Nini’s first instinct was to bristle, to defend. “Because I like her,” she said, a little too quickly. They walked on, the silence between them thicker now, edged with something like discomfort. Nini was relieved when they finally reached the point where Briar peeled off, offering a lazy salute and a muttered, “Later.”

“Later,” Nini echoed.

By the time she reached her street, the houses were darkening one by one, lights clicking on behind curtains like watchful eyes. She slowed, then stopped altogether, standing beneath a streetlamp that cast her shadow long and distorted across the pavement. She studied it absently, the way it stretched and thinned, unrecognizable. She thought again of Myki, unbidden. Myki was not like Darlene. Myki was not like Ciara and Mandy either.

She resumed walking, unlocking the gate to her house with numb fingers. Inside, the familiar quiet enveloped her, the air still and cool. She shrugged off her coat, kicked off her shoes, and stood for a moment in the hallway, uncertain what to do with herself now that there was no audience, no performance to maintain. In her room, she sat on the edge of her bed, elbows on her knees, staring at the floor. She pressed her palms together, as if in prayer, though she did not know what she was asking for. She knew, deep down, that her fondness for Darlene existed alongside this judgment, not in spite of it.

She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, tracing the faint cracks in the plaster. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked steadily, indifferent to her unrest. Tomorrow, she knew, she would see Darlene again. She would smile, listen, offer comfort if needed. She would be kind. She was always kind. But kindness, she was beginning to understand, was not the same as equality.