Inner Wasteland

The winter air seeped in through the weatherstripping, but it was no match for the warmth of the Coopers’ front hallway, where Andy’s mom had Erin’s hand locked between both of hers, refusing to let go even as she talked. It was late, the good kind, when the clocks in suburban kitchens blinked 10:00 and it still felt like the middle of evening, and the house held the last, sleepy heat of a long dinner and longer conversation.

“You’re really not going to stay for another coffee?” Andy's dad asked, looking mostly at Erin and only a little at his son. “Your mom made a whole pot for the road. It’s the fancy one.”

“We should get moving,” Andy said, feeling his mother’s grip tighten on Erin’s hand. “It’s a long drive back. Besides, Dad, you've seen me three times in two days, and we'll see each other again at the wedding.”

“We’re not tired,” Erin said, quickly, then gave a sideways look at Andy’s mom, as if for permission to be part of the family’s argument about what constitutes late. “But I can’t drink coffee right now, so if we don’t leave soon, I’ll just ask for the guest room, and I’m not sure I can promise to leave before breakfast.”

“You’d better not,” Andy’s mom said, a spark of challenge lighting her voice. “Because if you do, I’ll end up feeding you and neither of you will leave before Sunday.”

“Deal,” Erin said, deadpan. Her hand stayed where it was, knuckles paled by the grip. Her mouth flickered at the corners, trying and failing to suppress a smile. “You’re really coming to the wedding?”

Andy’s mom released one hand but kept the other firmly wrapped around Erin’s. “I’ve read the schedule several times, packed a bag, and baked cookies,” she said. “That’s more prep than I did for our own wedding, and that was one hundred people and a Jell-O mold in the shape of the Chicago skyline.” She said it as a fact, not a hope.

“That sounds like it belonged in a museum,” Erin replied, leaning on the banter to hold steady. “The Jell-O, I mean. I’m not sure anyone could top it.”

“It belonged in a crime scene,” Andy’s dad said. “But it made a great picture.”

Andy watched Erin’s face: she was running through emotions fast enough to be doing math in her head. “I’m glad you’re coming,” she said, quiet now. “I was worried—”

Andy’s mom cut her off with a squeeze. “Don’t be. We wouldn’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” Erin said. She pressed her lips together, and for a second Andy wondered if she might actually lose her cool, right here in the foyer of his childhood home.

Andy’s dad came over, reached for Andy’s hand and shook it, then pulled him into a quick, one-armed hug, awkward and efficient. “You take care of her,” he muttered, just loud enough for Erin to overhear.

Andy nodded, then held out a hand to Erin. “Ready?”

“In a second,” Erin said, turning back to Andy’s mom. “I just want to say—” she paused, mouth open, as if searching for something that had gotten lost in transit. “It was really good, seeing you again. I didn’t realize how much I missed this.”

The older woman’s face did a thing, a softening around the eyes that Andy remembered from scraped knees and flu seasons. “I missed you, too, sweetheart,” she said. “Andy’s both lucky and in a lot of trouble, with you and Laura and all those other girls pushing him around.”

Andy rolled his eyes. “Mom.”

She ignored him, her focus entirely on Erin. “You call me when you get home, you hear? Or text, or whatever. I don’t even know if that works where you’re going.”

Erin nodded. “Worst case scenario, we’ll see you in two days, our time.”

Andy’s mother smiled, then said, “One more thing.” She pulled a USB stick from her pocket and handed it to Erin. “It’s the spreadsheet. I updated it after dinner. There’s a new column for the babies. I thought you’d want to fill them out when the names are picked.”

Erin took the stick, and for the first time all night she looked like she might actually cry. “Thank you,” she said, again, voice even smaller.

Andy’s mom moved in for a proper hug this time, both arms, and held on longer than the first. Erin hugged back, hard, and neither of them let go first. Andy stood a little to the side, hands in his pockets, and let it happen, the kind of thing you don’t interrupt.

Andy’s dad cleared his throat, wiped at one eye, then said, “You’re always welcome here, Erin. Just so you know.”

Erin looked at him, and whatever she was going to say got lost in her throat. She just nodded.

Andy’s mom gave one more squeeze, then let go. “Go,” she said. “Or I’ll keep you here all night.”

Andy and Erin stepped out onto the porch, snow starting to fall again, but neither of them hurried. Andy’s mom and dad stood at the open door, not caring about the draft, and watched as Andy and Erin made their way down the drive.

Erin didn’t look back until she was at the car, and then she did, just for a second. Andy’s mom raised a hand in a slow, proud wave. Erin waved back, palm flat, once, and got in the car.

Andy slid into the passenger side, shut the door, and watched as the porch light flicked on and stayed on, a tiny, ordinary beacon in the dark. He glanced over at Erin, whose hands were on the wheel but whose eyes had not left the front door.

When she finally put the car in reverse, it was with a little tremor in her chin, but her voice, when it came, was steady. “I think I could have stayed there forever,” she said. “I never realized how much I needed it.”

Andy didn’t answer, not right away. He just reached over and set his hand on top of hers, let the silence fill up with everything that had just happened.

She squeezed his fingers, once, then turned the car onto the street and drove away from the house.

---

Erin took the highway east slower than she had the other way, the convertible’s heater blasting, the city lights a pale gauze in the windshield. Neither of them said much for the first stretch—just the wheel in her hands, the clean, high note of winter night above the low drone of the engine. The top was up against the snow, and the cabin filled with the sound of the tire hum on empty interstate.

After a few miles, Erin was the one who broke the silence. She kept her eyes on the road, voice almost neutral. “I braced for the whole thing tonight,” she said. “I ran through every possible version of it—your mom’s face doing polite, your dad not looking. Even had a speech ready, if it came to it.”

Andy looked over, but she was watching the white lines flick past. “I know,” he said.

“I figured you did.” She flexed her fingers on the wheel, the mint-green skin stark against the leather. “I had a plan. A little emotional spreadsheet. And then none of it happened.” She blinked, as if clearing something from her eyes. “Not even a moment. Just—acceptance, start to finish.”

Andy nodded. “They love you. Always did.”

Erin smiled, but the edge of it was different. “That’s the part that’s screwing with me.” She let her shoulders lift, then fall. “I thought I could survive being the freak at the table. I’d decided that if I had to be, I could survive it. But the thing I didn’t expect was not being the freak at all.” She looked at him, quick. “It wasn’t just the Reality Adjustment, either. It was your mom. She just—she never hesitated.”

Andy let her talk it through. He understood this was how she handled things: walk through the data set, look for the outlier, try to fix the anomaly.

She went on: “It’s like I’m two people. There’s the me I remember—the one who used to sneak sugar into her tea and sit at that kitchen table and think she was just passing through, not actually part of it. And then there’s me now, who looks like…” She gestured at herself, the whole length of her, the bared skin and massive curve of her chest, the color. “Like this. And your mom hugged both of them.”

Andy said, “She hugged you.”

“Yeah,” Erin said. She didn’t let it go. “But the part she hugged was the old one. It’s like everything that happened in the last six years—and everything the show did to me—it just bounced right off. They saw a green naked woman with a chest like this, sitting at their island, and it didn’t even register.”

Andy shook his head. “It registered. She just decided you were family.”

Erin smiled, then let it slip away. “You don’t think that’s weird?”

Andy said, “I think it’s perfect.”

Erin looked out at the highway, the city crawling toward them from the horizon. “I’ve spent the whole drive trying to decide if it’s a mercy or a loss. Like, I wanted to be seen. I thought I could take it, even if it was awful. And then I didn’t get seen at all. I just got… accepted.”

Andy set his hand palm up on the console between them. “You got welcomed. As you are.”

Erin glanced at his hand, then back to the road. She was quiet a minute. “It’s not a complaint,” she said. “I’m just—” She shook her head, smile sharp at the edge. “I think I’d rather they’d seen me. All of it. And then decided to stay anyway.” She paused, then added, “That’s not a normal thing to want.”

Andy’s voice was soft. “It is, though.”

She looked at him, finally, and her face softened. “You always see me,” she said.

Andy smiled. “I always do.”

She didn’t answer that. Instead, after a few seconds, she said, “What did your dad want, in the hallway?”

Andy considered not telling her. Then decided it wasn’t his to keep. “He asked if it would be weird to walk Laura down the aisle. Because she has nobody.”

Erin blinked. She had not been expecting that. “What did you say?”

“I said I’d ask her tonight.”

Erin nodded, her hands back to ten and two on the wheel. They drove in silence for a few more miles, the city lights edging closer, the engine’s hum rising as she pushed a little faster through the open road.

Then she said, “I’ve been watching you all night.”

Andy said, “Yeah?”

“You’re carrying something,” she said. “I asked in the kitchen and you said you were fine. I’m asking now, and I expect you to say you’re fine again. But you’re not.”

Andy shrugged, not denying it.

Erin let a mile pass before she spoke. “I’m not worried it’s about me—I let that go somewhere between the pie and your mom’s second cup of tea. But I’m not going to sit here and make you hold something by yourself just because you’re afraid of what it’ll cost me to hear it. That’s not what we do.”

Andy nodded, the relief a physical thing in his shoulders.

She went on: “I’ll ask again later tonight. But if you can’t hand it over, you don’t have to.” She turned off the highway, the city rising up in glass and streetlights. “I just want you to know it’s okay. You can bring it to me whenever, including never.”

Andy said, “Thank you.”

She took the exit, the car settling into city speed, the heater still working overtime to keep up. “My place is coming up,” she said. “You’ve never actually been inside it.”

Andy shook his head.

“You’re about to see the last six years of my life,” Erin said. “I’m warning you now, it’s going to say a lot of things I’ve never gotten around to saying out loud.”

“I’m ready,” Andy said, and meant it.

She turned down the ramp into the garage under her building, parked in her spot, and killed the engine. Neither of them got out right away.

They just sat, the heater fan slowing, the city’s afterglow filling up the windshield. Erin put her head back against the seat, closed her eyes, and let out a long, slow breath.

Andy waited, until she reached for his hand and squeezed.

---

Erin’s building was glass and steel, low to the ground, a newer kind of old Chicago—upstairs hallways with motion lights, wide windows onto the street, heat set to a steady seventy-four. Andy followed her to the door, and when they got inside, she flipped the light switch and let the place reveal itself in one unbroken sweep.

It was cleaner than Andy expected. A neat line of hiking boots by the entry, a string of hooks with coats and mesh grocery bags, a living room split by a long gray sectional and a small table with a chessboard frozen mid-game. Every available flat surface had a potted plant—succulents, ferns, some rubbery-leafed thing that looked illegal. Against the back wall, a standing desk with two monitors, both off, but a legal pad and pen resting next to a stack of books with dog-eared pages.

A squeal of indignant feline cut the silence. A small, aggressively round calico came out of the bedroom already vocalizing, loud and unbroken, before she’d even crossed half the room. Her one good eye locked on Erin, and she made a noise like a car engine being revved by a toddler.

“Fluffernutter,” Erin said, crouching at the edge of the carpet and putting out her hand.

The cat’s complaint stopped mid-phrase, about a foot short of her fingers. Fluffernutter dropped her belly to the floor, nose working hard, and did not close the distance.

“What’s wrong with her?” Andy asked.

“I have no idea,” Erin said, her hand still out, palm up. “Usually she’s already up my leg by now.”

The cat started a slow, circling campaign, orbiting Erin without ever coming closer. She kept the same radius, nose high, one-eyed stare tracking Erin as if she were an interloper.

For a long minute, Fluffernutter just stared, her nose visibly twitching, paws splayed as if she were considering a leap but not for the reasons that would normally drive a housecat to action. The cat’s tail was motionless, low, a line of suspicion Andy had never seen on any animal not prepping to be the subject of a viral video titled “Meet the Intruder.”

Andy watched the standoff, the mutual appraisal between mint-green woman and her one-eyed cat, and said, “Is she always like this?”

“Never,” Erin answered, not moving. “She usually either likes you or she doesn’t, and if she doesn’t, she’ll swat your ankle to make it clear.” Her voice was steady but pitched for the animal’s ears, as if she’d learned long ago that everything you said to a cat was overheard by all the ghosts in the room.

“She’s holding pattern,” Andy said, after another round of slow-motion circling.

“She’s studying the situation,” Erin replied, pivoting on her feet to keep the same front to Fluffernutter, but otherwise holding still. “If she doesn’t figure it out soon, she’ll start calling for backup. Meaning she’ll start howling, and if that doesn’t work, she’ll probably go for my shoes.”

Andy glanced at the couch, then back at the cat. “Should I try to intervene?”

Erin shook her head, sharp. “She’s not reading you as a problem. I’m still the variable.”

The cat completed a full revolution, then sat, exactly one tail-length away from Erin’s toes, and stared up at her with a look that was not curiosity and not challenge, but something more like a low-level dare. The silence was dense and weirdly formal, like the moment after a doctor asks if you understand what’s about to happen.

Erin shook her head. “I’ve never seen her act like this.” She kept her eyes on the cat, voice soft and steady. “It’s me,” she said, not the voice people used for pets, but the one you’d use for another human being. “I know I’m different somehow. You can take as much time as you need.”

The cat blinked, suspicious. Then she stood, stretched, and began another slow, precise circle, keeping that one tail-length gap but never breaking eye contact. Andy watched the dance and said, “What does she think you are?”

Erin said nothing for a second. She put her fingertips flat to the ground, palm up, and waited. “She thinks I’m wearing my own face,” she said, as if reading it off a display. “But it doesn’t fit. She knows I’m supposed to be someone else. I can feel her wanting to close the gap, but she’s scared that if she does, I’ll disappear.”

Andy blinked, looking from the cat to the woman. “How do you know that?”

“I just do.” Erin stayed in the crouch, eyes steady, not challenging. “It’s not a guess. She’s… saying it. I don’t have a word for it.”

The cat made another revolution, then did something unexpected: she crouched, front paws forward, and stretched her chin almost to the floor, never letting Erin out of the narrow window of her good eye. Then she sat, again, still outside paw’s reach, and yawned, slow and enormous.

Erin said, “She’s waiting for me to make the next move.”

Andy asked, “Do you want to?”

“No.” Erin’s eyes did not move from the cat. “I want her to. She’ll do it when she’s ready.” She exhaled, soft. “She’s testing how real I am.”

Andy tried to process that, and failed. “Do you want me to leave you two alone?”

Erin made a small, sharp sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not the experiment here.” She smiled, almost genuinely, but the smile was gone in a second.

Another ten seconds, and the cat inched forward, sniffed at the gap, then pulled back. The next time, she got close enough to touch Erin’s hand, then immediately jerked back, the way a cat sometimes will when it’s more scared of wanting something than not getting it. A low growl started in the cat’s chest, rolled up her throat, and stopped.

“She’s mad at herself for being scared,” Erin said. “But she’s still scared.”

Andy watched. “Are you sure you’re not reading into this?”

Erin didn’t blink. “I don’t have to read. I just know.”

Fluffernutter finally edged close enough to touch her nose to Erin’s palm. She held it there, not moving, for three full breaths. Then, as if the decision was made, she licked the edge of Erin’s wrist, once, and turned away, back to the other side of the living room, where she sat facing the wall and ignored both humans completely.

Andy let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “That was—kind of intense, for a cat.”

Erin said nothing. She stood up, slow, and flexed her hands as if the air had left a residue. She looked at Andy, then at the cat, and said, “I think it’s the same as before, with your parents. She doesn’t see anything odd about how I look, or the fact that I’m not wearing clothes.” She paused, considering the cat’s back. “She just knows I don’t smell right.”

Andy nodded, remembering his own father in the kitchen, how he’d barely registered the changes. “It’s the Reality Adjustment. For animals, too.”

“Probably,” Erin said. She stared at the cat’s good ear, the way it twitched every time she shifted her weight. “But animals are built to notice everything you can’t see or hear.” She looked down at her own hands, then turned her wrists over, as if searching for something in the color. “I haven’t needed to eat since Green Thumb. I never once thought about what that might have done to how I smell.”

Andy considered this, and tried to imagine what it would be like to look like yourself but be something entirely new underneath. He found he couldn’t.

Erin said, “It’s the scent. Not the color, not the skin. I smell like a greenhouse and nothing like myself, and she knows that from a hundred feet away.” She let her eyes go unfocused for a second. “It’s worse for her than anyone. With one eye, she was always going to trust her nose. And now her person comes back and it’s not her person anymore.”

Andy thought for a second. “What happens now?”

“I wait,” Erin said. “She’ll figure it out, or she won’t.” Her voice was low, less matter-of-fact than it had been in the kitchen hours earlier.

They stood there a while, neither one wanting to be the first to break the silence. Fluffernutter eventually stalked back into the room, made another revolution around the furniture, then hopped up onto the windowsill and parked herself there, tail hanging low, eyes fixed on the snow outside.

Erin watched the cat, but this time did not try to close the gap. “Whatever’s been decided, it isn’t recognition yet,” she said, almost to herself. “It’s closer to a decision that I’m not to be crossed.”

Andy asked, “Is that better or worse?”

Erin watched the cat for a long, quiet minute. “I’m not sure,” she said. “But I’ll take it over being invisible.”

Andy nodded, and for a minute, the only sound in the apartment was the hum of the heater and the small, persistent click of the cat’s claws as she cleaned her one good paw.

It changed in a second. One moment the cat was neutral, holding that studied distance; the next she shot forward, butted her forehead into Erin’s palm, hard, twice in quick succession, and made a sound that was not quite a meow and not quite a snarl, but somewhere in between. The complaint started up again, but it was no longer cautious—just insistent, the way an old cat can’t help herself when there’s something to be said.

Fluffernutter half-jumped, half-scrambled into Erin’s lap and made it perfectly clear she had no intention of ever leaving it. Erin made a sharp, unguarded sound—almost a laugh, almost a break—and folded both arms around the animal, her cheek against the fur, holding on for longer than Andy had ever seen her hold anything. It was a minute before she got her voice back.

“She’s here now,” Erin said, and the shake in her voice was nothing like the flat, in-control Erin that had walked through the door.

Andy sat on the edge of the couch, watched the entire ritual from three feet away, and tried not to say anything that would turn the moment into data. “How do you know she’s okay?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“The same way I knew she wasn’t,” Erin said, face still buried in the cat’s side. “She just said it.” She didn’t elaborate.

Andy watched, trying to find the seams of the transformation in action, and realized, not for the first time, that whatever was happening in Erin, it was nothing like anything he’d ever been shown in the catalogs or lists. He had been ready to see what the physical changes had made of her, but he’d not even considered there could be more. “Has anything like this happened on the island? WIth animals?” he asked, softly.

“Samson Drei, but not often,” Erin said, then paused, stroking Fluffernutter’s back in measured, even lines. “Maybe the Inner Gardens, but… with plants, it’s just response, not pushback. You never notice you’re talking to them unless they talk back.”

Andy considered this. “What does it feel like?”

Erin hesitated, then said, “Like when someone asks you a question and you know the answer, not because you remember it, but because the answer is already in your mouth.” She looked down at the cat. “She’s never going to forget this. But she’s not angry anymore. Just… determined not to miss anything.” The laugh that followed was wry, not entirely amused. “I’d really like to know when I signed up for this one. I don’t remember saying yes.”

Andy let that land, then shifted the subject. “Is she always this needy?”

Erin shrugged, the movement small so she didn’t disturb the cat. “She’s been a lap cat since day one. But she’s also fiercely territorial, and up until an hour ago, she ran checkpoint between the front door and the couch.”

Andy nodded, watching as the cat wriggled deeper into the curve of Erin’s hip and made a series of satisfied, wet noises. “She’s not letting go.”

“Neither am I,” Erin said, and the answer was so matter-of-fact Andy almost missed how hard it was for her to say it out loud.

After a while, Erin stood up, Fluffernutter still clinging to her like a stubborn child, and went to the entryway table, where a week’s worth of mail was fanned out. She rifled through it one-handed, opening none, then held up an envelope. “Jury duty,” she said, flashing it at Andy, then looking at the name and address a beat longer than the joke needed. “I keep thinking I should make a spreadsheet for real world obligations I’m never going to fulfill.”

“Are you keeping the apartment?” Andy asked, and watched her face for the answer.

Erin stroked the cat, eyes on the mail. “Lease has four months left. I could break it, but I haven’t decided. Today, this place is somewhere I’m visiting, not somewhere I live.” She set the envelope aside. “And before you say it, I did the math in the car. The wedding’s two days out on the island. Three if the aftermath runs long. Out here that’s an hour, maybe less.” She looked Andy straight in the eye. “The dispensers wouldn’t even notice. Neither would she. That’s not the point.”

“What is?” Andy asked.

Erin didn’t answer for a while, and the silence was as thick as anything they’d left behind in Warrenville. When she finally spoke, it was like she was narrating it as she realized it. “I walked in tonight already thinking of this place as a waypoint, not a home. And the second she came around the corner, I caught myself getting ready to say goodbye to her, out of habit. I’ve had this cat for six years. She was my first after—after you, really. I don’t want her to sit in a room I don’t live in anymore.”

Andy nodded, understanding that better than he wanted to admit. “So bring her.”

Erin looked at him, then at Fluffernutter, who was now splayed belly-up and purring like a machine. She said, “Yeah. I think I will,” and left the mail on the table. She crossed to the hall closet, still holding the cat, and started searching for the carrier.

Fluffernutter, perhaps realizing what was coming, began to object in a new register, but Erin ignored it, set the carrier on the table, and opened the door.

“We have to go back soon,” Erin said, and there was a catch in her voice, just for a second. “But this time, she’s coming with me.”

Andy stood behind her, watching the process, and for the first time in hours, she looked back at him with something clear in her face. “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked, sudden uncertainty in the question.

Andy shook his head. “I’d miss her too.”

Erin smiled, the real one, the one she’d had at the kitchen table all those years ago. “Good. Then help me pack.”

He did, while the cat tried and failed to convince either of them that she was above being transported. The two of them worked in parallel, and when everything was ready, Erin stood in the middle of the apartment, eyes sweeping it once, then again, as if she wanted to be sure it was all still there when she got back.

“You ready?” Andy asked.

Erin said, “Yeah,” but stayed another beat, and Andy could see her squaring herself to it, locking the memory in place.

---

The carrier was zipped and the cat had gone full resigned mode, flopped on her side inside the mesh and making exactly no effort to hide her irritation. The luggage—one battered duffel, two backpacks, and a tote bag full of mail—was stacked by the door, but neither Erin nor Andy made a move to summon the elevator. They just stood in the living room, the energy in the place not quite ready to admit they were leaving it behind.

Erin perched herself on the arm of the couch, set the carrier at her feet, and folded her hands in her lap. She looked up at Andy, and the look was so familiar—so much like the old Erin who had engineered every conversation to get him to say the thing he least wanted to say—that it almost made him smile. Almost.

“I’m not going to ask again,” she said, voice gentle but utterly final. “I’m just going to sit here until you tell me.”

Andy blinked. “I thought you said you'd let it lie.”

Erin shook her head. “I can't. Whatever it is, it's eating you inside, and I'm not letting you carry it alone.”

Andy didn’t answer right away. He stood in the middle of the room, turning the words over in his mouth to see which one would taste the least like failure. None did, but that didn’t mean he was getting out of it. So he told her.

He gave it in order, not softening the edges. “I was in my parents’ kitchen, right before dinner. Mom was at the freezer, and out of nowhere, it just—hit. From Laura, via the bond. First was shock, like cold water. No ramp-up, just there. Then horror, and it kept climbing, like whatever hit her was still arriving while she watched it. It got loud enough that I couldn’t hear anything else in the room. Then shame, so thick I had to grab the sink to stay upright. And finally, grief. That was the worst part.”

Erin watched him, face unreadable, hands folded and very still. “What do you mean, ‘worst part’?”

Andy looked at the window, then at her. “Grief comes last when you’ve already accepted whatever it is. You don’t feel that kind of thing unless you’ve finished understanding something.”

There was a silence, long enough for the hum of the fridge and the wheeze of the old radiator to crowd in. Fluffernutter, perhaps picking up the tension, had gone completely silent in her carrier.

“What are you saying?” Erin asked, still calm.

He forced himself to say it. “Something happened to her. Or she found out something. And she’s already accepted it, but she’s ashamed of it. Whatever it is, she thinks some part of it belongs to her, and she’s already on the far side of it.”

Erin looked at her hands, then back at Andy. “Is that normal? For you and Laura, I mean. I thought the bond was—”

“It was,” Andy said, cutting in. “When we were kids, it was just location and bad feelings. Then it got deeper. The last few days, it’s been everything—continuous, even when we weren’t together. Same as with Claire. But since the lunch, when the three of them gave me their answers about the Gate, it’s been thinning out.” He let the words hang. “I noticed right after, but I didn’t bring it up then. Couldn’t figure out how to ask if she was pulling away from me without making it sound like an accusation.”

Erin’s voice dropped even softer. “Do you think she is?”

Andy thought about it. “I think she’s doing what she always does—shouldering the whole thing herself so nobody else has to. That’s how she’s built.” He hesitated, then said, “If the bond was at full, I would know what happened to her tonight. I would have known it the same second she did.”

Erin nodded, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Why didn’t you leave?”

Andy answered without hesitation. “Sam would have caught it the same instant through Watchtower. She doesn’t need me to say anything—she’s already in the resort, and she’s got a keycard to the Suite. She can be up there long before I can cross a world from a bathroom in Warrenville. And Laura has never wanted me in the first hour. Not once.”

Erin looked at him, eyes sharp. “So you stayed for me.”

He didn’t answer, but the answer was obvious.

Erin’s voice went gentler, but not soft. “How long have you been holding your face together?”

He thought about it, and realized he didn’t know. “Since before dinner.”

She exhaled, long and slow. “You've been carrying that since before the chicken went in the oven.”

He nodded.

She got up, crossed the room, and put a hand on his chest, right over the place he’d been keeping it all night. “You don’t have to break for me,” she said. “I’m not fragile. And I’d rather have the truth.”

He nodded, unable to speak.

They stood there, the two of them, the cat quiet in the carrier and the bags by the door, the sense of everything in the world narrowing down to the patch of carpet between them. Erin was the first to move. She reached up, put her hand behind Andy’s neck, and pulled him in close, forehead to forehead.

“I’m with you,” she said, very quiet. “No matter what.”

He closed his eyes, let himself just stand there for a minute.

She let go, stepped back, and said, “You ready?”

He looked at her, at the cat, at the apartment he hadn’t known he would miss. “Yeah.”

She picked up the carrier, handed him the duffel, and together they walked to the door.

---

They stood in the hallway just before the elevator, the bags at their feet and the cat purring like a diesel engine inside her carrier. The air was warmer here, smelling of hallway cleaner and the sharp, dry aftertaste of the real world, and for a second Andy just stared at the number on Erin’s door as if it could tell him what came next.

Erin didn’t give him time to get lost in it.“There’s a second thing,” she said. “I’ve been sitting on it since yesterday, and I’m not carrying it back into that elevator.”

Andy waited.

“At lunch in the Banquet Hall, three women told you they weren’t crossing. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t try to talk any of them out of it.” She watched his face while she said it. “And now you’re standing in a hallway looking at a door like you’re the one being sent through it.”

Andy looked at her, and the urge to find a joke about it was so automatic he almost didn’t notice he was reaching for it. He let it go, stood there a second longer, then said: “It’s not three. It’s two now. None, potentially.”

Erin blinked. “Which one changed?”

He shook his head, sharp. “Not my place to say. It’s theirs to give. But it’s not Laura.”

She let it go. “You’re not going to try to fix it?”

Andy smiled, and it was a real smile, but a tired one. “Arabella said something to me on the beach this morning. She said sometimes you reach a point where you’ve done every part of a thing that’s yours to do. After that, you have to let go. If you keep reaching back in, you ruin it.”

Erin nodded. “Do you believe that?”

He thought about it, really thought, and said: “I do. And Laura and Myra told me that if I see a way forward, I should take it. So, perhaps she’s right. But it hasn’t made today any easier.”

She didn’t break eye contact. “Does it help to know that it’s true anyway?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s easier to know what’s right than to live inside it.”

She reached over, put her palm on his chest, flat and warm. “You ever think about how many times you’ve changed everything, just because you couldn’t stand not to?”

Andy looked down at the floor. “It’s not a plan. It just—happens.”

She pressed her hand in, just a little. “That’s my point.”

Andy let himself lean into the contact. “Last night, I watched Riley mourn her child and suddenly there was a baby by the gravestone. Not a dream, not a trick. JJ, alive, real, and Riley holding him like she’d never let go.” He didn’t oversell it. “I didn’t do that on purpose. I didn’t even know I could.”

Erin exhaled, slow and measured. “So it’s hope, then.”

Andy shook his head, frustrated. “That’s the problem with it as comfort. Something in me goes for the people I love without asking permission. I can’t aim it. I can’t promise anybody anything on the strength of an accident.”

Erin was quiet for a beat. “Do you want to be able to?”

Andy thought about it, tried to answer, and failed.

She moved her hand to the side of his face, made him look at her. “I’ve watched you get things wrong for as long as I’ve known you, and I expect you to get more things wrong. That’s not the part I care about. What I care about is that I have never seen you stop when someone you love is in trouble. And I don’t think you’re capable of it.”

Andy felt the weight of it, and for a second he thought he might break, right there in the hall with a cat carrier at his feet and a day’s worth of bad news clinging to his skin. He held onto her wrist, steady.

Erin said, “Whatever’s waiting upstairs, you’re going to find a way through to her. I’m not saying this to make you feel better. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them. “I hope you’re right.”

She smiled, and this time it was a real smile, nothing held back. “I’ve been certain for about a month,” she said. “But today was the first time I let myself feel the whole of it.”

He let go of her wrist, but only to pick up the duffel. She reached down, picked up the carrier, and said, “You know what happens now, right?”

He looked at her, and she had never looked more sure of anything. “You go to her first.”

He started to answer. She talked straight over him.

“Don’t. I’m not being noble and I’m not standing aside, so take that look off your face.” She shifted the carrier to her other hand. “I have had the best day of my life today. I am not fragile about how it ends. I’m not competing with a woman who’s upstairs in pieces, and I wouldn’t want a man who could be talked out of going to her.” Her chin came up. “If you tried to make me comfortable first, I’d think less of you. I mean that.”

Andy shut his mouth.

“I’ll wait for you in the bedroom, but you go to her first.” She reached past him and summoned the elevator herself. “I’m not worried about my place. Not tonight. Not anymore.”`

He said, “I love you.”

She grinned. “I know. I love you, too. Now move.”

The elevator doors opened. Erin put her hand between his shoulder blades, just for a second, then let him step through first.

Andy carried the duffel and the feeling that there was no ground left under him. Erin carried the cat. The doors closed on the two of them, and the real world went away.