Line of Sight, Part 2

By the time the sun finished its climb and boiled off the last of the morning mist, the Dance Hall had clearly become a kind of war zone: blue painter’s tape on every surface, stacks of folding chairs barricading the east wall, and a spread of tangled extension cords that looked like the aftermath of a particularly vicious spaghetti tornado. Emi’s origami animals dangled from twine in various states of completion, and a playlist of mismatched genres echoed from Norah’s earphones, commandeered by Marissa while Norah distracted Andy.

Myra sat on the edge of the big catering island in the attached kitchen, back straight, hands folded, tail wound around the leg of her stool as though anchoring herself in place. She faced the room squarely, ears perked up and swiveling towards each new sound, though her eyes—empty and glossy—offered no hint that she could understand the scale of the chaos. She wore a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt, her feet encased in the same white canvas shoes she had worn during her first day with Andy.

She’d lost track of the time, measuring the morning instead by the parade of smells and the burble of voices—first Sam and Liesa moving heavy tables, then the shrill of a hot glue gun, then Emi calling again for more glitter (Myra’s mind conjured the image of a room covered in glitter, and she almost felt glad she couldn’t see it), then Marissa’s near-whisper from the far side of the room. Whenever a strong emotion passed by—a spike of delight from Emi, the slow swirl of anxiety from Claire—it cut through the static and settled in her bones. She didn’t mind it; at least it was something real, something she could track, something that meant she was not alone.

The tap of heels on tile announced the next arrival. She recognized Chloe’s soft step instantly, even before the scent of lemon hand soap and talcum. But there was someone else with her, someone with a much bouncier gait, a constant foot-to-floor percussion that made Myra think of the Energizer bunny if it wore ballet flats. It must be Dawn.

They approached in tandem, and Chloe spoke first, voice breathy but clear. “Hey, Myra? Do you like to bake?”

Myra blinked, startled. “Uh, not really? I mean, I don’t not like it, but I’ve never—” She paused, unsure how to frame the truth: she’d never baked a thing in her life.

Chloe gave a gentle, nervous laugh. “Good! I was afraid you’d be an expert, and then you’d judge our disaster.”

Dawn hopped up to sit next to Myra on the island, careful not to crowd her. “We want to make something for the harem. To keep everybody’s blood sugar up. And we want you to help, to say ‘hey, you’re one of us now.’”

There was no sarcasm in it. If anything, the bluntness made Myra’s throat ache. “I can’t really see the point,” she tried. “Literally.”

Chloe laughed—just enough to let Myra know it wasn’t an insult. “I’ll be your eyes if you’ll be my hands,” she said, lying through her teeth. “I mean, I can knead dough, but I cannot, for the life of me, crack an egg without shell-shrapnel everywhere.”

Myra considered. “What about Dawn? She seems competent.”

Dawn snorted, also lying. “My last attempt at cookies ended in a small, localized oven fire. Please say yes.”

Myra almost refused. She could feel the prickling edge of anxiety behind her ribcage—the old fear of making a fool of herself, of being a burden, of taking up space where she didn’t belong. But something about the way they both spoke, about the way they clearly were going out of their way to do something with her—made it impossible to say no.

“What are we making?” she asked, trying to sound game.

Dawn brightened. “Macadamia cookies, and maybe a lemon sheet cake if we have time.”

“Two recipes?” Myra asked.

“We multitask,” Dawn replied, all business. “That’s how legends are made.”

Chloe and Dawn shepherded her into the kitchen proper, guiding her to the work triangle: fridge, island, oven. Everything had been rearranged for accessibility, counters cleared except for a scattering of bowls and a couple of shopping bags. Chloe announced every item as it came out: “Butter, check. Sugar, two kinds. Macadamias. Chocolate chips. We’re making it up as we go, but we have a recipe somewhere.”

Myra listened, hands on the countertop, letting the motion of their voices orient her. Chloe placed a cold stick of butter in front of her, then patted the counter just by her left hand. “Here’s a bowl,” she said. “We need to cream the butter and sugar. I’ll pour; you mash?”

“Deal,” Myra said, then fumbled for the bowl, fingers searching the air until she heard the faint scrape of glass under her palm.

Dawn measured the sugar, counting the scoops aloud. Myra felt for the butter, gripped it, then pressed it against the side of the bowl with the back of a wooden spoon. It was hard as a rock, and she struggled to keep it from shooting across the counter.

Chloe saw the problem and giggled. “Let me soften that a bit. Dawn, microwave?”

There was a quick shuffle, a ding, and then Chloe replaced the butter. “Try now.”

This time, the spoon moved through the butter with satisfying resistance, and Myra worked it with slow, deliberate strokes. Sugar was added in intervals, the sound of crystals on glass sharp and familiar.

Chloe hovered, hands on the rim of the bowl, her energy vibrating through the space. “You’re really strong,” she commented, almost as an afterthought.

Myra blushed. “All I do lately is squeeze stress balls and try not to punch the wall.”

Dawn said, “That’s probably why the whisk broke on you.”

Myra paused. “It broke?”

Chloe nodded. “Snapped right in half. I meant to throw it out but it’s kind of a memento now.”

They moved on to eggs, which turned into a comedy of errors: Dawn cracked two with precision, then apparently fumbled the third, dropping both shell and yolk into the bowl. Myra reached in to fish out the fragments, but her fingers found only goop and resistance.

Chloe covered her hand with a paper towel, guiding her gently. “It’s at six o’clock, right on the bottom. Just push through the egg white. There you go.”

Myra plucked the shell free, wiped her fingers, and listened to the chorus of small, delighted sounds Chloe made every time something went right.

Flour was next, and Myra was trusted to scoop it, level it, and dump it in. She felt the fine powder coat her hands, and when she tried to mix it, she overshot the bowl and sent a cloud of white over the counter.

“Sorry,” she said, but Chloe’s hand was already on her shoulder.

“No, you’re doing great,” Chloe said. “I make a bigger mess every single time. Besides, it’s more fun when you can write your name in it.”

Dawn drew a quick smiley in the flour spill, then wiped it clean with a flourish.

They worked through the recipe, Chloe calling out each step and correcting only when necessary. If Myra’s hands wandered, Chloe would gently guide them: “The chocolate chips are just in front of you; a little to the left.” If Myra got stuck on a step, Dawn would jump in with a joke about her own kitchen disasters. It became less about making perfect cookies and more about finding a rhythm, letting mistakes pile up and then sweeping them away.

When the dough was ready, Chloe rolled balls between her palms and lined them up on parchment, but she gave Myra a few to shape as well. Myra’s came out lumpy and oversized, but no one commented except to say, “Bigger is better, anyway.”

They loaded the tray into the oven and started on the lemon cake, which was mostly more of the same—mixing, spilling, hands bumping into each other as they hunted for the same tool. Myra lost track of her self-consciousness; she just let herself follow the flow, trusting that if she needed help, someone would reach out to catch her.

While the cake baked, Chloe made tea and Dawn cleaned up, humming under her breath. Myra sat, elbows on the island, listening to the oven tick and the hiss of water on the stove.

Chloe perched next to her, knees together, cardigan sleeves tugged over her hands. “Thanks for helping,” she said, voice barely more than a whisper. “I know it’s weird, being the new one. Or the different one.”

Myra shrugged, uncertain. “I’m not good at this.”

“You don’t have to be,” Chloe said. “Nobody here is. That’s why we’re… us.” She smiled, but the sadness in it was real. “I just want you to know, if you ever want to talk about… anything, or if you need someone to help, I’m here.”

Myra hesitated, then nodded, and for once, the motion didn’t feel like a defeat.

The cookies were done first, and Dawn announced it with a shout. “Perfect!” she said, waving the tray in a figure eight as the scent filled the room.

Chloe sampled one, then handed one to Myra, pressing it into her palm. “Still warm,” she said, and Myra bit in, surprised at how good it tasted.

They finished the cake, let it cool, and dusted it with powdered sugar. When Marissa wandered over, drawn by the smell, Dawn sliced a wedge and handed it to her.

Marissa took a bite, closed her eyes, and let out a sound halfway between a moan and a purr. “Best thing I’ve had in weeks,” she said.

Chloe blushed and shot Myra a look. “It was a team effort.”

Marissa nodded, savoring another forkful, then reached out and squeezed Myra’s hand. “Glad you joined the team,” she said.

For the first time since she’d arrived, Myra believed it.

They sat around the kitchen island, eating cookies and cake and drinking tea. The mess on the counters—flour, eggshells, a few melted chips—felt like evidence of something good. Myra wiped her hands on a dish towel and smiled, the feeling strange and tentative in her chest.

“Next time,” she said, “can we do cinnamon rolls?”

Dawn raised her mug in salute. “Challenge accepted.”

Chloe nodded, her eyes shining, and for a moment the three of them existed in a world where nothing mattered but the warm, sugar-bright air and the feeling of being exactly where you were meant to be.

The rest of the Dance Hall faded to a comfortable blur. For Myra, it was the first morning that felt like it belonged to her, too.

On Sam’s request, Claire had commandeered the conference alcove off the Dance Hall, converting it into a staging zone for what she called, in her notebook, “the Memory Wall.” She’d stacked foam-core boards along the length of two folding tables, and was already two hours deep into a kind of tactile fugue: left hand sorting pushpins by color, right hand sketching spatial mockups in sharp pencil, tail curled around her calf as if to ground her body to the room.

Erin was her assistant, and Claire couldn’t have picked better. The plant-girl prowled the workspace with athletic, naked confidence, fetching tools or photos as requested and not once blushing or apologizing. Occasionally, Claire caught herself glancing at Erin’s chest (purely for anatomical interest; Claire had never seen breasts that big, let alone on a human-plant hybrid; Chloe’s were bigger now, but she was still only human), and then she’d get irritated with herself and refocus on the task.

They worked in concert: Claire planning, arranging, re-arranging, testing storylines in spatial clusters; Erin standing at her shoulder, offering grunts or one-word judgements, occasionally suggesting an alternate angle when Claire’s composition got too fussy. Erin had a gift for interpreting Claire’s gestures, and Claire had long since learned to communicate intent with a flick of the ear or a tug at her own shirt cuff.

The Memory Wall was, at its heart, a biography of Andy, but Claire refused to make it merely a celebration. She wanted the wall to tell the whole arc: the uncertainty of the early weeks, the tentativeness of Andy’s leadership, the weird solidarity that had formed as the show’s rounds escalated. Mildred had delivered a large box of photos, and Claire had wisely ignored the obvious question of who had snapped them, and how. The harem’s group shots—their first awkward dinner, the Cabana challenge, even the blurry phone photo of everyone crammed around the beach bonfire—anchored the narrative in time and color. Solo shots of Andy, candid and often ungainly, filled the negative space. At the top left, she’d pinned a snapshot of Andy from the first breakfast, hunched over coffee and wearing a face like someone who’d spent the night negotiating with ghosts. Next to that, a photo of Sam with her arm around Andy’s neck, mock-throttling him, both of them grinning in spite of themselves.

Claire took a step back, tilted her head. I need more of him laughing, she wrote in the margin of her notebook, then underlined it twice. She tore out the note and handed it to Erin, who scanned the page and nodded.

“I’ll ask around,” Erin said.

Claire nodded and returned to the composition, pinning up a sequence of polaroids from the morning’s decoration efforts: Emi with paper cranes streaming from every hand; Chloe giggling as she held a mess of confetti; Marissa, caught off-guard mid-laugh by the camera. Each face added context, a counterpoint to Andy’s sometimes-doomed, sometimes-glowing expressions.

Claire reached for a strip of masking tape and tore off a piece with her teeth. She stuck a hand-lettered card—Story, Not Propaganda—to the top center of the wall, then jotted a quick explanatory blurb beneath it. She hesitated before writing the next bit, then decided: Request: Candid shots. Anything with Andy. Even if embarrassing. Better if embarrassing.

Erin snorted. “He’ll hate it,” she said, but she was smiling. “Which means it’s good.”

They worked in silence for another stretch, until the sun reached its angle and streamed through the Hall’s high windows, limning everything in gold. Claire stood, shook out her right hand, and surveyed the mess. She was about to call a break when Erin spoke up.

“Hey,” Erin said. “You ever wonder if you’re going to forget this place?”

Claire furrowed her brow and scrawled, I don’t want to forget it, on a sticky note, but then added, I don’t think we can.

Erin read the words, then gave a little one-shouldered shrug. “I hope you’re right.” She picked up a handful of photos, started sorting them into piles: the “keep” pile, the “maybe” pile, the “burn it with fire” pile. Claire snorted at the last, then pointed to a particularly hideous group selfie, all red-eye and grimace, and moved it into “keep.”

As if summoned by the thought, Emily arrived, the waterfall of hair barely covering her new G-cup breasts. She was wearing her sneakers and nothing else, her face open and entirely unembarrassed. She peeked over Erin’s shoulder, then said, “Oh, this is so cool!” and immediately reached for the photos, flipping through them with fast, gentle fingers.

Claire glanced at Erin, then at Emily, then at the combination of the two, and for the first time noticed that the two of them were now nearly matched in chest size. She wondered what that said about the world, or about Andy, or about fate, and then decided it was probably just statistics.

Emily caught her gaze and grinned. “Yeah, I know. It’s wild, right?” she said, cupping her new assets in both hands and giving a little bounce. “I’m still getting used to them. But Andy seems to like it, so…”

She trailed off, then caught the look on Claire’s face and backtracked. “Sorry, was that weird to say? I mean, I asked him to do it. With the code. I just… wanted to see what it would be like, you know?”

Claire shook her head—no, it wasn’t weird.

Erin folded her arms, which did exactly nothing to hide her own breasts. “How do you keep them from getting in the way?” she asked. “Every time I bend over, it’s like a pendulum.”

Emily considered. “I think you just… go with it? I mean, they’re heavy, but not in a bad way. More like… you’re always hugging a warm pillow.” She shrugged, making them jiggle. “Plus, hair helps. It kind of keeps them contained.”

Claire watched the interaction with quiet fascination. She was keenly aware of her own modest chest—her first transformation had been her inability to speak, nothing visible, while the ears and tail had simply added to her, not changed her—and she wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to have a transformation that changed her physicality, her sense of space. She reached for her notebook, hesitated, then wrote, Maybe I should try it too. Just to understand.

Emily and Erin both stared at the note, then at Claire, then at each other. Erin was the first to break: “You’d tip over. Your spine isn’t ready.”

Emily nodded, earnest. “It’s actually a lot of work. I keep getting cramps in places I didn’t know had muscles.” She adjusted her hair for a better view, swinging the pink-gold curtains over one shoulder so her new G-cup breasts were displayed in full profile. She regarded them with frank delight, cupping them theatrically as she turned left and right.

"They're mesmerizing," she said, mostly to herself, and Claire caught the pulse of genuine pride beneath the humor. "Seriously, I keep running into things with them. Like, I knocked over two soda cans at breakfast and almost took out Marissa’s latte." She bounced them once more for emphasis, then glanced at Erin, who watched with arms crossed and the faint, wry smile of someone who's been there before.

Claire cocked her head, curious. Did Andy like them?

Emily snorted. “Andy can barely keep his eyes on my face. It's kind of amazing.”

Erin, leaning in, scanned the exchange. "He's always had a type," she said, voice even. "First thing he did after my second transformation was stare for a full minute, like he’d never seen a pair before." She shrugged, which, given her size, was a small earthquake. "He always seemed like the type who'd stay obsessed, no matter how big they got."

Emily glanced at Claire, then back at Erin. "What about you? Do you like them?"

Erin seemed to think it over, then nodded. "They're part of me now. I guess I can't imagine myself without them anymore." She looked at Emily. "You seem happy, though."

Emily beamed, hugging herself, breasts mashing into a single, glorious pillow. "I am. It’s weird, but I feel more… like myself? Like I finally match my insides." She paused, then added, “It’s also pretty hot. I won’t lie.” Emily considered, then offered to Claire, "You could try it, just for a few days. The code he used with me lasts until the end of the round. I bet he'd say yes if you asked."

Claire thought about it, weighing the concept. She didn’t know if she actually wanted it, but she was curious about the experience. She wrote, Maybe after the party, and drew a little smiley beside it.

Emily finished her circuit of the Memory Wall, then stopped at the bottom row, where Claire was working to anchor a series of Polaroids. “Hey, do you need more photos? Because I’m sure we can get some from Arabella.”

Claire brightened, scribbling: Yes, please. Can you get them?

Emily saluted, scooped her hair forward, letting it fall to cover most of her, and headed off at a trot.

Claire and Erin watched her go, then turned back to the Memory Wall. They worked quietly for a time, Claire pointing at spaces she wanted to fill, Erin rummaging through the boxes of photos and tape. Occasionally Erin would suggest swapping two images, or rearranging a whole section, and Claire always considered her input with the seriousness of a chess master.

Erin paused in the middle of mounting a shot of Andy on the beach. She held it up, squinting. "You think he’ll like this?"

Claire studied the image—Andy, hair wet, shirt half-off, caught mid-laugh. She nodded, then wrote: It's the best one. He looks happy.

Erin smiled, a real one, and taped it in place. "He was happy," she said, softly. "I think that was the last time he forgot everything for a minute." She stepped back, arms crossed, surveying the growing wall.

A few minutes later, Emily reappeared, arms loaded with envelopes and a battered folder marked SEASON MATERIAL - PRIVATE. She dropped the haul onto the work table, scattering loose prints everywhere.

"There’s a million in here," Emily said, fanning herself with one hand. "Arabella’s really got an eye for drama. There’s like a hundred of Andy just looking sad at the ocean." She flipped through a few. "And a bunch of the rest of us at weird moments—oh God, here’s one of me asleep at the pool with my mouth open, thanks, Arabella."

Claire and Erin sifted through the new photos. There were some true gems. both from the season and from moments before: Andy with Sam, both collapsed in laughter after a failed kayak race; Andy with Dawn, the two of them leaning over a cake as if it were a bomb about to go off; a few group shots with everyone together, caught in candid expressions of joy or mock outrage.

They worked as a team, Claire picking the best, Erin judging the emotional truth of each image, and Emily offering color commentary from the sidelines.

After a few hours, the wall was nearly full, the story of their months at the Hotel rendered in still life and sticky notes. Claire stepped back, scanned the entirety, and then wrote in her notebook: It's perfect.

Emily peered at the result, then let out a slow, impressed whistle. "This is so much better than I imagined," she said. "You made it look like a real timeline. Like we were part of something important."

Erin nodded, silent for a moment, then said, "He’ll see it. Even if he tries not to."

They stood together, all three, admiring the Wall, each finding her own story in the collage.

Emily was the first to break the silence. "We should show this to Arabella. Or—" She hesitated. "Is it supposed to be a surprise?"

Claire shook her head, wrote: She already knows. She always knows.

Emily snickered, then picked up the battered folder and set off in search of a Mildred.

Claire and Erin lingered, adjusting minor imperfections, making sure each pin was secure, every caption placed just so.

Erin, watching Claire smooth a photo, said, "You know, I was always kind of scared of you."

Claire paused, surprised.

Erin continued, "Not like, scared scared. But you were always so… sure of yourself. Even when you couldn’t talk." She shrugged, mint skin glowing in the late afternoon light. "You made me want to be better. Not a lot of people do that."

Claire smiled, warm and a little shy, and wrote: You make me better too. I couldn't do this without you.

Erin’s cheeks went a shade greener, if that was possible. She grinned, then reached up and tapped the top photo—the one of Andy, laughing. "He deserves to see himself like this," she said, almost to herself.

Claire nodded. She looked at the wall, at their collective story, and thought that maybe, just maybe, this was the kind of legacy worth leaving behind.

The two of them stood there until the sunlight faded and the wall was bathed in the soft glow of the overhead lights, a memory frozen in time, waiting for Andy to see it for the first time.

Any time Sam had to leave to run an errand, Riley ruled the Dance Hall with the energy of a forewoman on her last nerve. She prowled the floor in a black tank and the tightest jeans this side of a punk show, her boots hammering the stone like a challenge. Nobody missed the way she watched the setup—never quite glaring, but always two seconds from barking at anyone who moved too slow, like Sam’s self-appointed second-in-command. If she had any intention of speaking to Myra, she buried it beneath a hundred urgent errands: cables to untangle, paper lanterns to hang, folding chairs to unstick. Even the way she checked her clipboard was aggressive.

Chloe saw all of this, but didn't flinch. She had her own marching orders—inventory the crates of glassware and candles, then haul out the centerpiece fixtures and polish them to a mirror shine. Which, as it turned out, required working in the same tiny supply closet as Riley, for the better part of an hour.

The air between them had all the chemistry of a bucket of bleach and ammonia. Riley attacked the stacking with silent ****, slamming each case into place and double-checking every label with a furious sharpie. Chloe kept her back straight, her voice gentle but never soft, calling out the count on votives and trays and refusing to let any sneer or sigh go unchallenged.

After the fourth box, Riley broke the silence. “Careful with those. Unless you want Andy to get glass in his cake.”

Chloe didn’t miss a beat. “He doesn’t eat cake, anyway. He’ll be too busy defusing everyone else’s drama.”

Riley’s mouth went hard. “Maybe if some of us weren’t so eager to play Mother Teresa, he’d get a break for once.”

Chloe lifted a votive, checked it for cracks, and set it down with calm precision. “Someone has to.”

Riley didn’t answer. She just gripped the next box so tightly the cardboard creaked. The silence came back, sharper now, every motion a challenge. Chloe worked methodically, stacking and checking, never looking away even when Riley's gaze pinned her like a thumbtack.

Eventually, Chloe said, “You can hate her. I don’t blame you. But that’s your choice.”

Riley slammed a box into place, sending a tremor through the shelving. “Myra doesn’t need more friends,” she said. “She needs to live with what she did.”

Chloe lined up the votives in a perfect row. “She already is. Every minute of every day.”

Riley spun, face set. “Not the same. Not even close.” Her hair, nearly floor-length now, fanned out behind her as if to punctuate the point. “You think a little kitchen party and some cookies can fix what she did to Laura?”

Chloe’s voice stayed steady, but her hands moved faster. “No. But you don’t have to keep reliving it for her. Or for Andy. Or for yourself.”

Riley shot her a look so cold it could have flash-frozen the tea in Chloe’s veins. “Maybe I do.”

They faced each other for a heartbeat, neither moving, the only sound the shiver of glass in Chloe’s hand and the far-off thump of a bass test in the next room.

Chloe broke first, setting her candle down with deliberate care. “You know, Andy’s not the only one who gets to decide when someone’s paid enough. You could let go. If you wanted.”

Riley barked a laugh. “Let go? The fuck would I be without it?” She looked down at the box she’d crushed. “Some people don’t get to start over, Chloe. You of all people should know that.”

Chloe smiled, small and tired. “I do know.” She looked at the row of candles, then up at Riley. “It’s why I won’t stop trying.”

The tension held a second longer, then snapped—not in some neat, sitcom way, but with a mutual, exhausted sigh. Riley turned away, grabbing the next box off the cart, and Chloe finished her row of votives.

They worked like that for another half hour, neither speaking, neither relenting, but both refusing to leave the job unfinished. When they were done, the closet was pristine: shelves aligned, glassware immaculate, every case in its place.

Riley wiped her hands on her jeans, then looked at Chloe, a grudging respect in her eyes. “You always were stubborn.”

Chloe met her gaze, not backing down. “So are you.”

Riley rolled her eyes, but a smile threatened at the corners of her mouth. She started to say something, then thought better of it. She headed for the exit, hair trailing behind like a cape.

Chloe watched her go, then reached for the next task on her list. There was still a whole bar setup to polish, and she suspected Riley would be back to check it, whether she admitted it or not.

Outside, the sounds of the Dance Hall drifted in—a test of the stereo, a burst of laughter from Emi and Liesa, the soft purr of Marissa’s voice floating above it all. Chloe let the noise settle around her, then got back to work.

The Dance Hall never really calmed, not even in the late afternoon when the rest of the world was supposed to slow for tea and cookies. If anything, the place only grew more frantic as the deadline for tomorrow’s party loomed. Voices overlapped. Vacuum cords tangled. Liesa’s curse words in four languages echoed from the balcony. Norah’s playlist, which Dawn was checking on her behalf while Norah distracted Andy, was now on maximum BPM. The only saving grace was that the Dance Hall was out of the way, so the likelihood of Andy hearing the noise was near zero.

Through it all, Marissa moved with a stillness that was almost supernatural. She was Myra’s shadow, navigator, buffer—always just a hand’s breadth away, but never coddling, never crowding. Myra’s Kitsune Step transformation helped her in moving around without needing too much support, but if she drifted too close to a ladder or lost her bearings in the whiplash swirl of emotion, Marissa would quietly, expertly, redirect her. Once, when Myra’s tail nearly caught on a crate, Marissa caught it gently, smoothing the fur as she let it go.

After working in the kitchen with Chloe and Dawn, Myra was wrung out, every nerve raw. She’d made it through the baking without dropping an egg (okay, maybe one), and she’d even survived Chloe’s hesitant overtures. But by three o’clock, she was vibrating with the effort of holding herself together. Her hands shook; she kept losing her words.

“Let’s get some air,” Marissa said, low-voiced and soft, and led her out onto the east terrace.

The terrace was deserted, except for a Mildred in the far corner dusting outdoor sconces with an expression of polite boredom. Marissa guided Myra to a bench, then sat beside her, close enough that their knees touched.

For a while, they just breathed. The wind was strong, salted, carrying the memory of storms over the reef. Myra let it wash over her. She flexed her hands, flicked her ears, then her tail, feeling the tiny charge of comfort in the way Marissa’s presence steadied her.

When Marissa finally spoke, it was in a voice that seemed to settle directly into Myra’s chest, bypassing the part of her brain that always screamed for defense. “You did really well today,” she said. “Especially in the kitchen.”

Myra huffed. “I broke a whisk. Chloe caught me with my elbow in the batter, twice. I think I nearly burned the cake.”

Marissa smiled, but didn’t let her off the hook. “You made Chloe laugh. And you didn’t hide in the pantry. That’s a win in my book.”

Myra traced the hem of her t-shirt, nails worrying the fabric. “Why do I care so much?” she said, voice small. “About any of them. About whether they like me. It’s not like I’m ever going back to my old life.”

“For that exact reason, Myra. Because you want to belong,” Marissa said, simple and true.

Myra shook her head. “That’s not it. Or—it is, but it shouldn’t be. I used to be fine alone. Now I…” She trailed off, unsure how to finish.

Marissa watched her, eyes clear and unblinking. “You’re not the same as you were,” she said. “You’ve changed. You want people to see it.”

Myra’s tail coiled tighter. “What if they never do?”

Marissa shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “Then you make a new place for yourself. People catch up, or they don’t.” She leaned in, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. “Riley’s not going to hate you forever. She needs time. And so do you.”

Myra almost laughed, but it came out as a shaky exhale. “You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not,” Marissa said. “But you’re not the only one who’s had to do it.” She reached out, brushing Myra’s knuckles with the tips of her fingers. “You know, when I first started at the hospital, there was a group of residents who thought I only got the job because of how I looked. They tried to freeze me out. Ignored me at meetings. Assigned me shit rotations. I could have left. Sometimes I wanted to. But I stayed. And eventually, they realized I wasn’t going anywhere. That I was just as good as they were, maybe better.”

Myra tilted her face up, blind eyes searching. “Did it stop hurting?”

Marissa’s smile was half-grim, half-tender. “No. But I learned to ignore it. And I learned to find my people, even if it took a while.”

They sat together, silence stretching. The air was thick with unspoken things.

Finally, Myra said, “I think I’d be okay if I knew someone, anyone, actually believed I could be different.” She flexed her hands again. “Even if it was just for a day.”

Marissa’s voice was velvet, but the steel was still there. “You have to believe it first, Myra. Nobody can do that work for you.” She paused, then added, “Andy came to see you last night. I don’t think he would have, if he didn’t already forgive you a little.”

Myra shook her head, fierce. “He just… I don’t know. Maybe he pitied me.”

“Not pity,” Marissa corrected. “Empathy. There’s a difference.”

The words hovered in the air. Myra sat with them, turning them over like stones in her palm.

“Do you think I’m ever going to get out of this?” she said, so softly Marissa almost missed it.

Marissa considered. “The Hotel? Or the hurt?”

Myra hesitated. “Both.”

Marissa’s answer was gentle, but not untrue. “Maybe. Maybe not. But you can build a life with what you have.” She squeezed Myra’s hand, then released it. “And it can be a good one. If you let it.”

For the first time, Myra didn’t want to shrink away from the contact. She leaned into it, letting Marissa’s steadiness seep into her.

After a while, Myra cleared her throat, awkward. “What’s he like now? Andy. You’ve known him longer than I have.” She tried to sound casual, but the words were weighted, fragile.

Marissa smiled, this time for real. “He’s braver than he thinks, and **** than he pretends. Still doesn’t trust himself to lead, but he does it anyway. He’s loyal. He’ll stand by you even when it costs him.”

Myra snorted. “That sounds like something out of a brochure.”

Marissa laughed. “It’s true. I’ve seen it.” She leaned in again, conspiratorial. “He’s also deeply awkward, and sometimes the only way you can get him to say what he means is to back him into a corner.” Her eyes sparkled. “But he always means it.”

Myra found herself smiling, a little. “I wish I could see his face. Just once. So I’d know when he’s telling the truth.”

Marissa’s touch, when it came, was feather-light on the back of Myra’s hand. “You will,” she said. “In your own way.”

They sat like that for a long time, sharing the hush. Myra let herself relax, not all the way, but enough to feel the ache begin to fade.

“Thanks,” she said, finally.

Marissa just squeezed her hand again. “Anytime.”

By sunset, the Suite was empty of all but Andy and the hush of gathering dusk. The day’s heat clung to the glass in pale streaks; the lamps were off, and for once, the place felt like a real home, not a gilded fishbowl. Andy kicked off his shoes, landed on the bed with a grunt, and let his head fall back. He had a little time while Norah showered and prepared herself for their date night.

Katherine’s painting glowed in the dimness. The gold meadow behind her was a touch more orange in the evening, and her own skin caught the low light in a way that made her seem, for an instant, almost alive. She watched him the way she always did: directly, but with a patience he found more comforting than any voice. She smiled and waved at him happily.

He stared at her a long time, the tension bleeding from his body. Then, quietly, he started to talk. He told her about the Pixel Arcade, about the way Norah played pinball one-handed, how she insisted on best-of-three in every game, and how she grinned at him—really grinned—when he finally beat her at air hockey. He recounted the claw machine debacle, the silly pink bear, and the moment Norah hugged him like it cost nothing.

He didn’t have to explain why it mattered. Katherine understood. She always had.

He paused, then told her about the part that stuck with him: how, after the arcade, Norah walked out with the bear, and for the first time, Andy saw her as she was on the inside—soft, flawed, trying so hard to belong that it nearly broke his heart. He said this last part with a laugh, but Katherine’s painted face softened, eyes gleaming with a hint of shared ache.

Andy watched her for any sign of judgment, but got only calm acceptance in return.

He sat there a while, letting the quiet fill him up. Katherine shifted in her painted world. She pressed a hand to her chest, as if holding a treasure, then extended the other hand in a gentle, forward gesture. It was not quite a wave—more the motion of someone offering a pebble to a friend.

Andy smiled, small and real. “You approve, huh?”

Katherine’s eyes crinkled; she lifted her chin, an expression he’d long ago learned to read as pride.

Andy stayed sprawled on the bed, watching the light turn from gold to bruised blue behind the windows, talking to Katherine as if she were listening from the other side of a two-way mirror. She never interrupted, which helped. He could say anything he wanted—every failed joke, every private humiliation—and she would only ever meet him with that patient, unblinking look, chin propped in one hand, breasts on perfect display in a way that somehow felt both accidental and deliberate.

“I think Norah was happier today than she’s been since college,” Andy said. Katherine smirked, subtle as a rumor. She raised her right hand to her painted chest, fingers splayed, then tilted her head and mimed a slow, exaggerated toss—as if lobbing a pebble across a pond. It was her old gesture for “well done.” Andy grinned.

“I know, I know, it’s not exactly the Nobel Prize,” he said, “but she’s not easy to impress.”

He watched her for a moment, the way the sunset rimmed her hair in copper. “You’d have liked today,” he said. “The place was chaos, like those old ‘90s arcades.”

Katherine flexed her painted fingers, then placed them on the glass at the edge of the frame—her way of saying, “I’m here, keep going.” She rested her chin in her palm, the picture of bored elegance, but the smile in her eyes said otherwise.

Andy fell silent, picking at a loose thread on the pillow. When he finally spoke, his voice was so soft he almost surprised himself. “Do you ever want to go back?” he asked. “To the observatory deck?”

Katherine considered, then shook her head. She pointed at the bedroom, then pointed back at herself, then placed her hand to her heart and, with her other hand, drew a circle in the air. It took him a second, but he got it: “This is where I belong now.”

He nodded. “Okay. Just making sure.”

She mimed a deep breath, then pressed both hands flat to her chest. Her shoulders rose and fell with the gesture, a universal sign for “relief.”

Andy watched her for a long moment. Even here, in her frozen world, she moved like a leader. The ache in his chest sharpened.

“I wish I could fix it,” he said, voice rough. “Wish I could bring you back.”

Katherine shook her head, slow and deliberate. She pressed her hand to the barrier between them—always just a little too thin to be glass, always just a little too thick to be air—and waited.

Andy stood, crossing the room until he was eye-to-eye with her. He pressed his palm to the painting, matching hers, feeling nothing but the chill of the lacquer. For a second, he let himself imagine she was real, that she could step down from the frame and wrap her arms around him, hair falling in a black waterfall over his shoulder, eyes mischievous and impossibly alive.

She tilted her head, then nodded as if to say, “It’s okay.” With one finger, she traced a small, invisible spiral on the glass, then pointed back at him, then at the spiral again. He laughed, even though it stung.

“You’re saying I talk in circles?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

Katherine’s lips quirked. She let the silence hang, then brought both hands up, palms open, and gestured outward—like tossing a handful of seeds into the air. The meaning was obvious: “Let it go. Live.”

Andy leaned against the sideboard, arms folded. “Do you ever get tired of being the voice of reason?”

She grinned, slow and sly, then mimed zipping her lips and tossing away the key.

They stood like that for a while, just watching each other. Andy tried to imagine what she saw from inside the frame—if her world had a sound, a smell, if the painted grass behind her ever felt real beneath her bare feet. He wondered if she could feel the breeze from the ceiling fan, or if the shifting colors of the sky ever registered as more than a change in pigment.

He swallowed. “You know,” he said, “I’m scared sometimes. Not of being here, exactly. But of getting used to it. Of building a life with all this, and then losing it again.”

Katherine listened, patient as always. When he finished, she mimed a little shrug, then pointed at him, then herself, then drew a tight loop around her wrist, like binding them together. “You’re stuck with me,” he translated.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice thick. “Guess I am.”

She let her hands drop to her sides, then looked away—not in dismissal, but in invitation. She wanted him to move on, to see what else the night had to offer. Andy smiled, a little sad, a little grateful.

Before he could say anything else, Katherine brightened, lips parting in a small, toothy smile. She placed one hand over her heart again, then reached up and pinched an imaginary thread in the air, tugging it gently, as if drawing him along. “Go,” she was saying. “Don’t linger.”

He laughed, really laughed this time. “I can’t believe you’re setting me up for dates, even from a painting.”

She rolled her eyes, then made an obscene gesture with her pinky and thumb. Andy shook his head, but the warmth in his chest was real.

He took one last look at her, soaking in the details: the curve of her arms, the tilt of her head, the way her eyes never let him look away for long. “I love you,” he said, barely a whisper.

She heard it. He knew she did. She touched the invisible barrier between them, and for a moment, her whole body seemed to radiate light.

The elevator dinged in the hall, breaking the spell. Katherine winked, then flapped her hand in an unmistakable “shoo!” motion.

Andy laughed again, then turned, heading for the door as the last of the daylight caught the frame and turned her hair to gold.

He knew she’d be waiting when he got back. She always was.