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If you asked Yasmin Khan where she truly wanted to be tonight, she wouldn't have answered Lord Ellerby's masquerade ball. She might, in fact, have answered as far from that as possible.
And yet here she is, because a young unmarried woman lucky enough to catch the attention of a patron like Lady Patterson could never refuse. Because times are hard, and Yaz carries her family on her back, and the best she can do for them is make a match that elevates their standing.
And because when you are a little odd, as people say she is, a masquerade is a better chance than most. The mask hides her face, hides the fear that must linger at the corners. Makes up in part, Lady Patterson says, for the ways in which tutoring hasn't erased her social deficiencies.
So here she is, at her patron's elbow, feigning interest in the pleasantries of the men who approach, swallowing down the ache that rises, the little sickness in her throat that screams, I don't want this, I don't want a husband. I want to see the stars.
It's not that none of the men are tolerable company, not that she can't bear it. She's an expert, by now, at enduring. The mask feels almost unnecessary; these days, her face is a mask all on its own.
She can endure, it's just that she wishes she was doing something more than enduring. That she could laugh in a way that's real, enjoy the spectacle of it all, enjoy the dancing and the game of guessing at who might be behind the masks.
Lord Harkness makes it engaging, almost. Invites her to dance with comically exaggerated flattery, tells her the gossip of the ton as he leads her across the floor. Yaz can't scrounge interest in most of their affairs, but his need for flattery amuses her, and he seems to take it as a game when she's a little cutting in response, withholding praise.
It's very nearly diverting, almost stops the whole thing grating at her, until he catches sight of someone else through the crowd. He pauses, sweeps off his mask just long enough to wink and kiss her gloved hand, then strides away.
Yaz is left standing there, buffeted by the couples still in the rhythm of the dance, scanning the room with her eyes. Searching for Lady Patterson, if she's dutiful; searching for an exit, if she's not, and she's not yet decided on which when somebody says, “Careful!” and pulls her off to one side, to the edge of the dance floor.
Yaz blinks at the giggling, tipsy couple who stumble across the space she'd been standing, then turns to her rescuer.
In that first glance, there's something about him she can't pin down, something unusual. Maybe it's just that he's slight, barely taller than she is. Maybe it's that his coat and waistcoat are both so dazzlingly, absolutely blue. Maybe it's the tousle of blonde hair, more rough-cut than any gentleman's she's yet seen. Maybe it's his eyes, shining mischief through the shadows of his full face mask.
Whatever it is, there's something there that catches her attention, pins it in place like a taxidermy butterfly.
Yaz ducks her head. “Thank you. Sir. Lord... Er. Sorry. I don't know your name.”
He laughs. Something so light in the voice, and she wonders if it's youth that explains his slightness, that difference. “Isn't that the point? Or did I miss the point again? Always doing that, I am.”
“The point,” Yaz echoes, faltering. The way he speaks is so familiar, so absolutely devoid of the expected distance, that it knocks her right off balance. Lady Patterson would never approve. The thought makes her lips quirk unexpectedly at the corners.
“Of the masks?” He gestures towards his own face.
Yaz laughs too, then. “I suppose.” And, bolder than she should be, bolder than custom and etiquette and careful moulding– “So I don't get a name, then?”
He hesitates. “A name for a name?”
Yaz inclines her head. “Miss Khan. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Her rescuer sighs. “So formal. Isn't it boring?” And then, not giving her time to do more than blink at the slight– “You can call me Kit.”
Yaz frowns. Her mouth tremors treacherously smile-wards again, and she's glad for the mask. “That's not a title.”
Airily, “Good thing we agreed to swap names and not titles, then! Wouldn't want to make a mess of the bargain. Speaking of which, can I have yours?”
“I told you.”
Another sigh, blue-clad shoulders heaving. And then a little catch in his breath, a pressing of fingers to ribs, before he blusters on. “Your first name's miss?”
Yaz is torn between amusement and the urge to punch him. Wonders if this is a test, some contrived idea of her patron's to see how her etiquette lessons hold up under pressure. “My first name's none of your business.”
He bows. “Nice to meet you, None Of Your Business. Can I just say, your parents had some strange ideas about naming children.”
Yaz fights the urge to scream, or laugh out loud, or maybe plant her hands in his shoulders and just shove. As it is– “Hardly worse than Kit.”
She doesn't mean to say it, tenses as it leaves her lips, half-expects Lady Patterson to materialise behind her shoulders, take her back to Park Hill and drop her as an unsalvageable failure of a project. Here's a gentleman, showing some kind of interest, and here Yaz is, insulting him.
Instead, the stranger – Kit, and the familiarity doesn't itch the way it should – merely scoffs. “Excuse you, Miss Khan. I'm very fond of it. That is to say, I'm very fond of Kit.” And she can just tell, from the eyes and the voice, how wide and smug he must be grinning. “Poetry under pressure.”
“No respectable person would call that poetry.”
“Never claimed to be respectable,” Kit says brightly, and pulls an oversized watch out of his pocket, peers at its face.
“Somewhere to be?” Yaz asks.
Kit shakes his head. “It's not a watch, it's– Well. Can you keep a secret?”
Yaz nods, intrigued despite herself.
Kit's eyes sparkle. “It's a thermometer.”
Yaz blinks. “What?”
“A thermometer!” Kit gestures, almost sends the thing flying at the back of a lady's head. “Only it has a face like a watch, see. Easier to carry around and read. If I put on an attachment I can get it to do medical readings, too. At least, well, that's the eventual objective. Right now it sort of just... spins.”
He holds it up. Yaz peers at the dial. The hands are indeed spinning in lazy, aimless circles.
“Why're you carrying it around if it doesn't even work?”
“Field testing!” Kit proclaims. “Also, keep it on me so nobody nicks it.”
Yaz realises she's still smiling. Not the practised society smile, but something real. A grin, so unused these days that she feels her cheeks ache. “Why would they nick a thermometer that doesn't even work?”
“For the idea, obviously! D'you know how many people've tried to nick my inventions? The answer's– well, it's higher than zero. Prob'ly go up in future.”
“Your inventions,” Yaz repeats. Because oh, she's missed something here, and she's smiling, and why is it that this stranger makes her feel warm inside, why is it that she's interested, feels fiercely curious, when none of the men at any of the balls and parties and interminable dinners have ever managed to make her feel that before–
Kit nods. “Did I not mention that?” His voice is proud, but– well. There's something almost innocent in it, something too childishly gleeful to call arrogance. “Sorry, let me start again. Good evening, I'm Kit, and I'm really clever.”
“And very modest,” Yaz murmurs.
“Thank you!” Kit pauses mid-gesture with the thermometer-watch. “Wait. Was that sarcasm?”
Yaz laughs. “Did it sound like a logical following statement?”
“Oi,” Kit says, mild. (Yaz wonders if he missed every single lesson she ever got in etiquette, everything that sanded down her dialect and diction in public. Wonders if young gentlemen can avoid those if they so choose.) “I'm very modest, me.”
“'I'm Kit and I'm really clever',” Yaz echoes back.
Kit splutters. “Nothing immodest about honesty! Am I supposed to lie?”
“Usually.” Yaz swallows something that feels sharp. “That's the first rule of society, isn't it?”
“Well.” Kit looks down at the thermometer-watch, thumb tracing over the face. “Never was the best at society.”
There's something in him Yaz recognises, some kind of quiet grief. And an ache rises in her, unexpected, to ease it, smoothe it away.
And then he's all confidence again, straightening up, tucking the device back into his pocket, extending a hand. “Care to dance, Miss Khan?”
“Yaz,” Yaz blurts. “I mean. My name's Yasmin.”
Kit tilts his head. “Yasmin, or Yaz?”
“Yaz is just for short,” Yaz mumbles, abruptly embarrassed. Her name wasn't supposed to spill out like that, in this rush, this sudden urge for intimacy– “For family, friends, you know.”
Kit wiggles his fingers, still outstretched in invitation. “Yaz, then.”
Yaz swallows. She should mind it, the impertinence. (Doesn't, doesn't. Why doesn't she mind–) “I did say family and friends. Then again, I suppose if I'm Yasmin, you should be Christopher.”
“Christopher?” There's confusion in his voice, just for a moment. “Oh. Yes. Kit. Short for Christopher. That's me.”
Yaz raises her eyebrows, then remembers the mask that still covers her. “Did you forget your own name?”
A shrug, a head shake, another wiggle of the fingers. “You never did answer my question, Yaz. Want to dance?”
Yaz winces. “I don't think I'm any good.”
“Me neither!” Kit says cheerfully. “Well, I can be proper agile but also been accused of two left feet, it's a bit of a lottery. I'd like to try, though. With you.”
And Yaz– Yaz can dance, although she feels stiff and awkward half the time. She's been taught, at least enough to pass as proficient. But she never wants to. Has never felt this with any society gentleman, the urge to take his hand, that spark of curiosity– what would dancing be like, with you?
She opens her mouth to say I shouldn't, I can't. “Then lead the way,” her mouth spills instead, without her mind's consent. “Sir... Kit.”
And Kit tugs her to the dance floor with a laugh in his voice. “I would be a very good knight.”
The dancing's still a little awkward.
Kit seems confident but a little clumsy, hesitant with his hands. When their circuit of the floor leads them near to the musicians his fingers twitch in hers, clench harder; he stays tensed till they're further from the noise again.
And Yaz, Yaz feels at sea in the press of people, yes, but mainly it's– mainly she isn't sure what to do with the way she can feel her heartbeat in her chest and throat and stomach, the way some part of her aches to cast her gloves aside and feel the skin of Kit's palm against hers.
So it's a little awkward, but she likes it, she finds. Likes the closeness when it's Kit that's close to her, likes moving to the rhythm as one.
Likes it, too, when there's a dance that's faster and freer, and Kit spins her round and she loses her balance, just a little; staggers into him and he nearly trips over his own feet catching her and then they're both laughing, just laughing in the middle of it all, and Yaz thinks, absurd, I mightn't mind making a match, if it could be with someone like you.
She's still laughing when Kit freezes in place, gone still and cold as stone. His hands drop from her skin and fall to his side like dead things, then ball into fists, curled so tight his knuckles stand out whitely.
And then Kit turns and flees, almost runs off the dance floor, shoving through the people and out of a door at the side of the room.
Yaz doesn't think, doesn't wait. There was something in that freeze, in those tightly-curled fists, that screamed wrong, wrong, wrong, and Yaz, well– always such a do-gooder, Sonya teases in her head.
Maybe it's that; maybe it's just Kit, so bright and laughing and then suddenly gone.
Whatever it is, she's following before her mind can catch up to her limbs, crossing the room and ducking through the side door he left through. Peers into the rooms that lead off the hall until she finds a door that's shut up tight, opens it to a sitting room that's small and almost empty.
Almost empty, but for Kit, who's pacing back and forth, shaking his hands out like they're full of insects, chest heaving with breaths. He balls a fist, slams it into his thigh, makes a sound that's almost a sob, then fumbles behind his head with panicked fingers, fumbles and curses and finally gets the ribbons of his mask undone, casts it to the ground.
Stands with shoulders heaving, his back still to Yaz.
The door slips from Yaz's grasp, slams heavy behind her and Kit jumps, curls his hands over his head like protection, turns in a panicked rush to face her.
He freezes; Yaz freezes in concert.
It's the first time she's seen Kit's face, and it's– through the dizziness, the daze that rises in her, strange and unfamiliar, memorising green-gold eyes, the echoes of laughter etched at the corners, the tears that well in them now, the flush blooming high along pale cheekbones–
Through that, Yaz adds pieces to pieces, and understands, at last, why Kit seemed so different. Wonders at how all it took was the trappings, the clothes and the societal conventions, to make it so she didn't look deeper. To make it so she didn't understand.
And she wants to say something comforting, something soft, anything but what spills, but Kit's reached deep in her tonight, somehow, dragged out all her honesty, scraped away the polish of propriety.
She wants – would want, if she weren't reeling – to address it delicately, on slant. But it tumbles out instead, blunt as rough stones.
“You're a woman?”
All Kit can think, as she stands there and shakes, is that it wasn't meant to be like this.
She came here tonight to have fun, for once. To feel just a little bit free. Came here because behind the mask, she could be something different. Somebody who could dress like she wanted, move like she wanted. A stranger, an enigma, anything but what they'd all think she was if they saw her face.
Anything but Lady Tenison's wayward daughter, forced into dresses and ribbons and stillness till she snapped, over and over, and then was called a problem, a nuisance, something to be hidden, something shameful–
In her head, her mother's glare. No matter how hard I try, there's always been something broken in you.
In her head, her mother's hands, grabbing her by the neck, tossing her like a rag doll across the chair. Do you know what happens to little girls who can't behave–
In her head, her mother's smile, glinting cold. I made you.
Her mother, her mother, smiling at her across the room, when Kit had thought she was far enough away, had thought she was safe, just for this one night, just for this one breath.
Just one, she'd pleaded, bargained. Let me breathe for a single night, and I'll suffocate for the rest of them, I promise. Let me breathe free this one time, and maybe that'll be enough.
(Deep down, low in her chest: it won't be enough. It never is. These things in her – her strangeness, her inventions, her restless hands, Kit trapped in Katherine's skin, in Katherine's house, in Katherine's clothes – these things won't ever go away.
She sometimes wishes she could hate them. Maybe that would make it easier to bury them deep. But it's– she hates herself, but some part of her, bright-defiant, loves this. The breaths of freedom in between the suffering. The idea of who Kit could be.)
She'd shown restraint, though. Asked for just one, on her knees with her fingers locked tight together, begging to a God she's found no reason to believe in.
Perhaps that same God saw her doubt and spat on her, put Lady Tenison here, across the room, for Kit's eyes to catch right as she was laughing, right as she found someone who made her feel understood.
Put that fear back in Kit's chest, that panic and clawing, made the mask unbearable against the heat of her face, its itch and cling and ribbons snagging at her hair, made the music stab her ears and that little beast behind her ribs start kicking and kicking and kicking till her hands had to move, till tears rose to the surface, till she was here–
And then, to top it all, brought Yaz to the door. Brought Yaz to follow, Yaz who'd listened to her talk about her inventions, Yaz who'd laughed as they danced, Yaz to see all this.
Yaz, standing and staring with what must be horror.
Yaz, looking at her face and seeing woman, like none of the rest of it matters, the clothes the hair the ache where she bound her chest up tight– Like all she'll ever be is the same thing they see in her.
You're a woman?
If she was panicking less, Kit might be strong enough to bluff. To cast the truth of herself aside, wear a chameleon's skin. Laugh it off, say the clothes were a joke, the whole thing a joke, what a good prank, what a jest, I had you proper fooled–
But it's that same instinct, that clawing biting trapped little fox-thing that sits in her chest, the thing that made her tear off the mask, that sent her running from the room, that set her hands flapping, and–
“No.” It's small and torn and desperately vehement, and then it's all she can say, for a moment. “No. No, not really. No.”
“What do you mean?”
And Kit tenses all over, balls her fists up tight again. “None of your business, just get out, why won't you just get out–”
Yaz lifts her hands, and Kit flinches viscerally, flinches down to her marrow, because all she can see in that moment is the strike that always comes, the hands that reach and grasp and hurt–
Yaz unties the ribbons of her mask. Lets it dangle at her side.
The breath catches in Kit's chest. Catches in a way that's different from the panic.
Yaz is beautiful.
Not that she hadn't thought it already, thought it at the curls escaping from her bun, at the warmth of her brown skin, the turn of her wrist, the column of her throat, the dip between her collarbones, the way her voice sounded caught in laughter–
Not that she hadn't thought it already, but seeing her face makes the air still, makes Kit's heart thump dull and uneven, knocking on her ribs like it's nudging her, look at her, look at her, look.
And Kit looks, at the warm brown of eyes unshaded by the mask, at the dark arch of Yaz's brows and the planes of her cheekbones and the soft lines of parted lips, at the little scar that dents her forehead.
Looks and almost forgets, for a heartbeat, what it is she's just said. What is it that Yaz has seen.
“I'm sorry,” Yaz says, so gentle. “I didn't mean it how you think. I just– I want to understand. I'd like to understand.”
And Kit should snap, should shove her away, should say you can't, no one can, no one ever will–
But she's so tired. She's so tired of being alone, and Yaz– Yaz listened to her show off her invention. Yaz followed when she ran and didn't call anyone else to stare at the spectacle. Yaz stood here, and saw the truth of her, and bared her own face, her own truth, in response.
And so Kit sags, backs up against the wall and slides down till she's sitting on the floor, legs sprawled. And Yaz, even in her pastel-shaded gown and delicate skirts, doesn't hesitate for a second before crossing over and sliding down beside her.
Kit stares at her hands. Fumbles for the words. She's never been good at words when it comes to talking about things that really matter, things she feels, things that hurt.
And this– she's never tried to explain this to anyone, not really. River knew scraps of it, during their dalliance, before she'd left a red-lipstick kiss on Kit's cheek and boarded a ship across the ocean. Bill knows a little more, but that's always been a sort of silent recognition, both of them sneaking out to kiss women, both of them at odds with the names and words and expectations society placed on them. And Rose– well. Rose helped her cut her hair for the first time, years back, before there was a man with a grin and a ring, an option that was easier.
So there are a handful of people who have pieces of her truth, but it's still vanishingly rare, the voicing of it.
She twists her fingers together. Picks at the hem of her coat.
“I'm not a woman.” It's blunt, rough-edged. She lets it sit there for a moment and finds, even through the panic and the constriction round her ribs, that she can breathe. “At least, not really. Not the way other people are.”
She peeks sideways. Yaz just nods.
“It's like–” Kit swallows. “It's like if other people – people who are women – they're born with, I dunno. A whole book in them. And when people call them women, they don't even need to look in the book to know that's right. They just know that book, all off by heart. That they're a woman, and what that means, and how to be one. And then me.” She twists her fingers harder. “I don't know that book, Yaz. I keep trying to read it but it doesn't translate. And other people translate for me, sometimes, but it never sinks in. I just have to keep looking back at words I don't understand, hoping they'll rearrange into something that makes sense.
“And maybe–” She swallows. “Maybe there are a few pages I do know. Like– there's a bit in me that's a woman, sometimes, but not the type of one society wants. So she doesn't even know how to be, because when she reads those pages everyone else tells her she's reading them wrong. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?”
Yaz is silent, for a moment, and Kit folds in on herself, feels tiny and lost and absurd.
And then– “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I don't feel the same, but... that idea like there's a book, a manual everybody else has that you never got to read... I know that feeling. Reckon I feel like that with people. When everyone else just finds it easy to get out of bed, easy to make friends, easy to know how to be. When I'm meant to be happy to find a husband, and I'm just–” Yaz cuts off. Curls her fists into the fabric of her skirt. “Sorry. Not sure what I'm saying.”
Something in Kit's heart sparks. Yaz understands, some of it, somehow, she understands, she understands. “Don't be sorry. I'm missing that too.” She tries for a grin. “The social guidebook, I mean. My library's all cleared out.” She pauses. “The one inside me. Metaphorically. My real library's quite large.”
Yaz laughs, then: “Can I ask?” So soft. “Why did you come to this, today? If it's– well. Isn't it dangerous?”
Kit looks down at herself. Her mask discarded on the floor. “I wanted to breathe,” she says, too honest. “I hate everything about these society things normally, I do, but I wanted to just... dress the way that felt right in public, for once. I thought the masks would make it safe. Anonymous enough, you know? Nobody's looking for me in some masked bloke.”
“If the mask made it safe,” Yaz starts, tentative, “then why'd you run?”
Kit huffs a laugh, humourless. “Turns out I'm never safe. Not really.”
“What d'you mean?”
Her hands, her glare, her cold smile, do you know what happens to little girls who can't behave– oh, Katherine, look at yourself, it wouldn't be hard to have you put away–
Yaz, this stranger, understanding but a stranger, and it chokes in Kit's throat. She can't, she can't–
“Nothing,” she says, flat. “I don't wanna talk about that.”
Silence, for a moment. Kit wonders if that's the final straw, if here's where Yaz runs. She should run, really. It'd turn out better in the end.
Instead, Yaz looks at her. “Why'd you talk to me? Today? Why dance with me, if you hate these things? If people are hard for you, too?”
“You were...” Kit looks back at her. Feels a smile stretch, soft. “You were just... different. When we talked, it was like... It felt as if you weren't judging me. Like maybe you didn't belong here, either. And I asked you to dance because– I dunno. I just wanted to. I never really want to. But I did, with you.” And then, stretching her grin wider, plastering the vulnerability over with bravado– “What about you? Why'd you dance with me?”
“I wanted to,” Yaz says, and it comes out like a breath. “I did, too. I never– well. I'm s'posed to be finding a husband, you know. Making a match. But I never want to dance with them. The men. Never, till you. And you're not– well–”
“A man,” Kit provides. “No. Not really. I'm a– a neither. With a little bit of both.”
“An untranslatable book.”
Kit laughs. “Right. I'd make a dashing husband, though.”
Yaz sighs through her smile, shakes her head. “Be serious.”
And something aches in Kit, for a moment. Something shaped like wishing. Because maybe she'd want to be fixed, like that, if it could be to someone like Yaz. If she could pose as a man and get away with it, and get away, and be something like free. If, somehow, the two of them could free each other.
She grins instead, covers up the wishing. “Oh, I'm never serious if I can avoid it. Where's the fun in that?”
“Will you get married?”
Kit almost jumps. Wonders for a moment if Yaz could somehow hear the shape of her thoughts.
“Me? Nah.” She shudders. “I couldn't bear to be a wife.”
Yaz fidgets with her gloves, tugging at the fingers. “What about love, though?”
It's small, almost whispered. In that moment, for the first time, Yaz looks so young. They must be less than a decade apart in age, probably closer to half, but Kit feels suddenly ancient next to her, something cynical and long-broken.
She scoffs, like it doesn't hurt. Like she's not seeing River in her head, boarding a ship, waving goodbye. Rose, her regretful smile, the ring shining on her finger, John asked and I said yes– “Love? Never been a fan. But if you're talking about intimacy...” She smirks, then, makes it devilish. She knows how to play the outrage, the scandal, the one who says the thing you shouldn't say. “Well. Don't need marriage for that one.”
Yaz looks at her. There's a challenge in her eyes. “What do you mean?”
Kit reaches out. Lifts Yaz's gloved hand in hers, traces a line below the knuckle on her fourth finger. “Don't need a ring here to kiss somebody.”
And Yaz looks, still, something so bold, even as she's trembling. “I've never wanted to kiss a man.”
Kit should drop her hand, now. Should say, hard luck, hope you do one day and turn her back, and walk out the door.
Instead, she stays where she is. Instead, she meets Yaz's gaze. “Wouldn't have to be a man.”
She can hear Yaz's breathing. She can feel her pulse beat in her wrist, through the glove's thin fabric.
“Have you ever wanted to?” (And it falls out in a rough whisper, unbidden–) “With someone who wasn't a man?”
Yaz's teeth dig into her lip. Something sparks in her eyes, fear maybe, and Kit wonders if she's gone too far, if Yaz will stand and run and tell someone– there's something wrong with you, you're sick– wouldn't be hard to have you put away–
“I might.”
And before Kit can even process it, Yaz is leaning, tentative, and when Kit leans too she turns almost bold. Slides a hand into Kit's hair and grips, and she's not practised but there's something urgent, when she presses their lips together. Something wanting, something certain and it blooms low in Kit's stomach, heat spreading and coiling till she gasps a little, tugs Yaz in closer, curls a hand round the back of her neck.
And Yaz is fumbling with her hands behind Kit's head, as Kit parts Yaz's lips with hers, licks into her mouth and swallows the sound she makes and thinks– oh, I want this, oh– Fumbling till her gloves drop to the floor and Kit feels Yaz's bare hands touch her skin, curled round the back of her neck, thumb stroking where her pulse beats, the pads of her fingers, the warmth of her, and it's– It's just hands, really, a simple touch, but there's something unbearably intimate in it, Yaz shedding the gloves like she wanted to feel it, to feel her–
And oh. Kit meant this to be fun. Meant this to be a simple thing, just showing Yaz there were other possibilities out there, some vague idea of expanding her horizons and then running off into the night, but she wants this. She wants more, feels her map of how the night should go slipping away into Yaz and Yaz and Yaz.
Finds herself pressing in closer, gripping at Yaz's waist, swiping a tongue along her bottom lip and Yaz kisses her with teeth, just a little, something hungry and Kit makes a sound she shouldn't make, didn't plan to make, it's all sliding away into heat, she squeezes her thighs together against the ache and then–
Footsteps in the hall.
Footsteps, and Yaz wrenches back, looks at Kit half-terrified, and Kit thinks she must be staring back the same. Swallows down the want, fumbles for their masks on the floor and holds Yaz's out to her.
Yaz takes it, fingers shaking. Climbs to her feet, drawing her gloves back over her hands. “Are you coming back to the party?”
It's an admirable stab at level speech. Her voice still cracks.
Kit swallows. The regret that rises stings more than it should. “I can't. I have to go.”
Yaz nods. Something stoic, something brave. “I hope I'll see you again.”
Me too, something screams, tucked at the back of Kit's heart. Again, again, always–
She smiles instead, sad. “You probably won't.”
“Well.” Yaz squares her shoulders. Crosses to a side table and takes up a sheet of letter paper, tears off a corner. Dips pen in ink and writes something, careful, concentrated. “If you ever want to, this is where you can find me.” She holds the paper out between her fingers.
Kit takes it.
Hesitates a moment, then lifts a hand in a wave. “Well. Goodbye, Yasmin.”
Yaz returns the wave. “Bye, Christopher.”
Kit furrows her brow. “You know my name's not actually–”
Yaz grins, wide. Lifts a finger to her lips. “Your secret's safe with me.” And then, softer, “Goodbye, Kit.”
Impulsively, Kit reaches down. Brings Yaz's gloved hand to her mouth; kisses her knuckles, brief and glancing and half-clumsy. She turns, then, fumbling her mask back over her face. Mumbles another hasty goodbye and hurries out of the door.
Outside the building, she stares down at the scrap of letter paper in her hand. Traces the lines of the address Yaz wrote.
She should throw it away. She should never see her again, this person she showed too much. This person who made her feel.
Her brain screams out a warning. Remember River. Remember Rose. Remember you're not free.
But then, but then– Remember Yaz's smile?
Kit tucks the letter into her breast pocket. Leaves it there, pressed against her chest; a second little heart.