Breaking Waves

Andy half expected to find Emily pacing, but she wasn’t—she’d staked out a patch of the main lobby’s marble floor directly in front of the commissary, as naked and uncamouflaged as the day she’d been remade. Her hair, blushing at the ends with pink, was a living drape, a moving river that covered just enough to pass for modesty, but not enough to hide the way her breasts had returned to their original size. She sat on a low ottoman, wearing only her battered pair of Converse, ankles crossed and knees pulled up to her chest. Her eyes darted between the corridors and doors along the lobby wall, never quite alighting on any one spot for long.

Andy stopped a few feet away and watched her for a moment. He waited, giving her time to notice him.

She did, eventually. Emily looked up, the blue of her eyes so pale it seemed backlit. “Hey,” she said, in that rising inflection that made every word a small gift. She uncrossed her legs and stood, her hair swinging in front like a shield. “How was your… uh.” She wiggled her fingers, as if unsure how to phrase it. “Your nap?”

Andy smiled. “Restorative. Kinda weird.”

Emily laughed—a real one, bright and sharp. “Weird is just the new normal, here.”

He let her have the joke. She stepped forward and, for a second, looked like she might hug him, but then stopped herself, fidgeting with a lock of her hair.

“You wanna sit?” he offered. He nodded to the corridor near the lobby, the one lined with sunlit glass and odd, mismatched plants in geometric planters.

Emily hesitated. “You’re not gonna, like, give me a pop quiz or something?”

He shook his head. “Just want to talk.”

“Okay,” she said, and followed.

They walked side by side. Emily’s steps were quick, light, almost birdlike. Andy noticed the way she kept glancing at him, then away, as if afraid of being caught looking too long. When they reached the corridor, she slowed, running a hand along the glass. “I don’t remember this being here,” she said, half to herself.

“It’s new, I think. Arabella mentioned that some of these spaces get left behind by former contestants. I figured maybe we could use it.”

The corridor led to a small sunroom, all glass walls and roof, overlooking a strip of garden that was half tropical and half midwestern wildflower patch. The light was warm and clean, not the oppressive glare of the open beach but the filtered gold of late spring. There were two chairs and a little table set for tea.

Emily perched on the edge of one chair, legs crossed again, arms folded tight under her breasts. She was still, in her way, trying to vanish. Andy sat across from her, waiting for her to talk.

“So,” she said, after a long silence, “is this, like, a check-in? Or an intervention?”

Andy shrugged. “I guess it’s both. If you want it to be.”

Emily chewed her lip. Her eyes flicked to the envelope, then back to Andy, then out to the garden. “I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say,” she admitted. “I mean, I know I asked for your help. I just…” She let the words trail off.

He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “It’s not about what you’re supposed to say. It’s what you want to say.”

Emily gave a faint, skeptical smile. “Okay. What I want to say is: I’m scared.”

He nodded, letting her fill the silence. “I keep thinking I did something wrong,” she went on. “Not just the veto. All of it. I feel like the more I try to steer away from the Free Use thing, the more the Audience is gonna punish me. Like, they want it—really want it. I can feel it.” She curled her toes under the chair. “I’m just afraid I’ll make it worse for everyone, or for you, if I push back.”

Andy watched her for a second. “Worse how?”

She swallowed. “Like maybe it’ll turn into something really ugly if I keep saying no. Or it’ll get **** on me anyway, but even more ****, just because I fought it.”

He didn’t interrupt.

Emily laughed softly, a little bitter. “It’s such a dumb thing to be afraid of. But it feels real. I can’t stop thinking, what if I’m hurting the harem by being selfish? Or what if, like, I’m supposed to take one for the team and just be the toy, and someone else will get stuck with it if I don’t?”

Andy tried to keep his face neutral, but his heart knotted up at the word “selfish.” Of all the people he knew, Emily was among the least.

He said, “Who told you that you have to take one for the team?”

She looked away. “No one. It’s just—when I was with Jake, and Hannah, and all those girls, it made sense, you know? Like, they had a dynamic, and I was… I had a place in it. But here it’s different. I don’t really belong with any of them, not really.” She glanced at him, eyes wide and soft. “Except you. You’re the only one I feel… anchored by. Is that weird?”

He shook his head. “It’s not weird at all.”

Emily seemed to fold into herself, hugging her knees closer. “I want to be good. I want to make you happy. But I also don’t want to lose who I am, and I don’t want to be the reason someone else gets hurt.” She let out a breath. “Is that possible? To do all this?”

Andy took his time, letting the question ferment. For once, he didn’t rush to fill the silence with a neat, digestible answer. He just watched Emily, the way her hair—nearly to her knees—rose and fell with her breath, the nervous tap of her foot, the way her fingers curled against her thigh like she was afraid she’d vanish if she didn’t keep herself anchored.

“It’s possible,” he said, finally, “but it’s not simple. You can make me happy, and you can be happy, but it’s going to mean not letting other people decide what’s right for you.” He held her gaze. “Including me.”

Emily blinked, not expecting that. “But isn’t that, like, the whole thing here?” she said. “Doing what the Audience wants? Or what you want?”

He shook his head. “The Audience, if we are lucky, thinks it knows what makes us happy. Sometimes it’s right. Sometimes it’s just... momentum.” He shrugged. “And as for me—I want you to be happy, too. I don’t want you to turn yourself inside out for a vote.”

Emily curled tighter in her chair, considering. “That’s what I like about you,” she said, voice small but sincere. “You keep acting like I have choices.”

“You do,” he said. “Even if the game is rigged.” He leaned back, letting the sunlight catch his face.

Emily laughed, soft but real. “You’re getting philosophical, Andy.”

He grinned. “I spent half my childhood arguing with Laura about the meaning of life. It’s what I do.” He let it hang there, inviting her to push back.

But she didn’t. She just stared at the garden, watching the way the sun caught on the glass and painted everything in shifting patterns.

After a long pause, she said, “I guess it’s not the transformations themselves that scare me. Not even the Free Use thing. It’s more like… I’m scared of becoming something I can’t take back. I keep thinking, what if I become a joke, or a prop, or worse, and by the time we go home, I can’t even be myself anymore?”

Andy nodded. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “If it ever got that bad, I’d step in. You know that, right?”

Emily looked up at him, startled. “Would you?”

He didn’t flinch. “Every time.”

She let out a breath she’d been holding. “Thank you,” she said. “But I don’t want you to have to rescue me.”

He smiled, a little sad. “Then we’ll keep it from getting that far.”

They let the hush breathe for a while, neither of them rushing to fill it with easy talk. The sunroom made it easy to pause: it was not like any waiting room Emily had ever known. The glass walls rendered privacy a fiction, but the world outside was indifferent to them—just birds and the faint murmur of the garden’s fountain. Inside, the hush was soft, almost sacred.

Emily slouched further, knees drawn up, and for the first time she didn't seem to notice that her hair had parted just enough to show her nipples, faintly pink against the shadowed triangle of her arms. Maybe she didn’t care, or maybe she was learning to, a little.

Andy broke the silence first, his voice unhurried: “You want to know what I think?”

Emily’s mouth twisted, as if bracing for a joke, but she only said, “Lay it on me.”

He thought for a second, then let it come out simple: “I think you’re not as confused as you think. You don’t have to be a toy for everyone, just because the Audience voted it in. And if you don’t want that, it doesn’t make you less valuable to me, or anyone here. And if you want to be a toy for me, well, your committed path takes care of that, doesn’t it?”

She made a tiny scoffing sound. “But what if the Audience is right? I mean—” She floundered, hands waving. “What if a harem really does need someone to be, I don’t know, the communal buffer zone for stress? Like, the safety valve?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What if it really is my job to take one for the team?”

Andy let the words settle. He could see that it wasn’t a joke, not to her.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Who decided it was your job?”

She blinked, caught off guard. “I mean, I did? Or, like, my body did. The whole Arrangement thing—my transformations, my everything. That’s what it means to be here, isn’t it? If I don’t, someone else gets it, and maybe they can’t handle it.”

“You sound like you’re worried about letting someone down.”

Emily said nothing, just twisted her hair around her finger, staring at the line where her big toe pressed the glass.

“You don’t have to save anyone,” Andy said, and he meant it. “Not even me.”

She flinched at that, just a little. “But you said you liked it. You said it was… you know, hot.” Her cheeks flushed, which made her even more luminous in the angled sunlight. “You like it when I give in. When I’m your toy. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

He considered. “I do like it. I like seeing you surrender to me, when you want to. But not if it means breaking yourself to fit a story you don’t believe in.” He let that hang. “Remember what we discussed, when you told me about the Arrangement? It only works if you want it, too.”

Emily stared at her lap, lips pressed tight.

“You want to tell me what you want?” he asked.

“I don’t know!” Her voice came out sharp, then she covered her mouth, embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said, softer. “I don’t know. I want to be good. I want to be… someone’s favorite thing. Yours, especially. But I don’t want to be disposable. Or, like, a set piece.” She hesitated, then: “I want to matter.”

Andy nodded. “You do.”

She shot him a look, as if checking for insincerity, but his face gave her nothing but warmth.

She let the air out of her lungs. “I used to be so sure. First season, when Jake was there, I knew my place. I liked being told what to do. I liked that someone needed me. But now it’s… different. There’s nobody here who needs a toy, except maybe you.” She paused. “And sometimes I want to be more than that. Sometimes I want to be your equal, even if I’m not. Is that—stupid?”

Andy shook his head. “Not at all. And you are, Emily. I don’t want you to think you aren’t.”

Emily chewed her thumb. “But if I keep vetoing Free Use transformations, or change my path, isn’t that just picking a fight with the people running this show? What happens if they get mad?”

He could see the fear in her face—not fear of punishment, but fear of being discarded, ignored, made irrelevant. He reached for her hand. She let him, their fingers lacing together, her palm warm and a little clammy. “You don’t owe them anything,” Andy said. “You only owe yourself.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re allowed to say no.”

Emily’s eyes glistened. For a moment, she looked much younger than her years. “Even if it makes them hate me?”

He smiled, small but real. “Even then.”

She let the words soak in, then, with a tremulous laugh: “You’re really bad at being a reality show protagonist, Andy.”

He grinned. “Maybe they’ll fire me after this season. I’ll have to get a job as a car salesman or something.”

She giggled, this time with genuine mirth, and wiped at the corner of her eye. “Thank you,” she said. She looked down, picking at her nails, then blurted: “What if I regret it, though? What if the new path is worse, or the old one was better than I thought?”

He shrugged. “Then you can change again. You’re not stuck. It’s your life.”

She looked up, skeptical. “You really think so?”

He nodded.

“Even if I just want to be yours, and nobody else’s?”

He smiled wider. “That would make me happy.”

Emily took a breath, the first real one since the conversation started. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go do it, before I change my mind.” She stood, legs wobbly, her hair swinging around her like a cape. “Will you—come with me?”

He rose and offered his arm. “Always.”

She took it, holding tight, and together they walked back into the corridor, toward the looming, oily glass of the Commissary.

At the threshold to the Main Lobby, Emily faltered. Andy waited, not pushing. She turned, her hair sliding off one shoulder, and faced him with an earnest, open face. “I’m still scared,” she whispered.

Andy touched her cheek, gently. “I know. But you’re not alone.”

She nodded, set her jaw, and stepped up to the screen. The blue light recognized her, flicking through the menus with a touch of her finger. Her hand hovered over the “swap path” option, trembling.

She glanced at Andy, who nodded, just once.

Emily pressed the button. A quiet click, a whirr, and the new path blinked into existence.

Emily: 8100 BP - 2500 BP = 5600 BP
Path changed! Free Use → Second Chances

She stared at it, blinking. “Second Chances?” she said, incredulous.

Andy peered over her shoulder. “What does it mean?”

She shook her head, baffled but intrigued. “I don’t know. It just says: ‘Second Chances.’ That’s it. No explanation.”

Andy laughed, unable to help himself. “Well,” he said, “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

Emily grinned, a flush rising in her cheeks. “I guess we will.”

She turned, and this time, she did hug him—full body, all-in, her hair spilling everywhere, her nakedness as unselfconscious as light itself. They lingered a while in the echo of the hug. Andy didn't rush to step away; Emily didn't either. When she finally peeled back, her eyes were wet again, but she looked more bemused than upset.

"Second Chances," she repeated, shaking her head. "It sounds... religious. Or culty. Or like I'm about to become a human sacrifice. Maybe they're just trolling me," she said. "Or you." She glanced at the Commissary screen, still glowing in the blue-white sunlight, as if it might wink and reveal a punchline.

Andy slid his arm around her waist—not as a claim, but as if to ground her in the present. "Want to walk?" he asked.

She nodded, and together they left the lobby, drifting along the edge of the garden path. The glass from the sunroom caught the light behind them, refracting a thousand slivers of color onto the flagstones. Emily squinted at it, then at the flowers beyond. She seemed lighter, her steps less birdlike, more deliberate.

They walked in silence at first, just a comfortable padding of feet on stone and the hum of insects in the air.

"Can I ask you something?" Emily finally said.

"Of course."

"Do you think I was wrong? About the harem needing a, you know, toy?"

Andy thought for a moment. "No," he said. "I think that's just what the Audience thinks a harem needs. And so the game keeps offering it, because it gets good ratings. But this isn't about what a theoretical harem needs—it's about what you need."

Emily looked at him, skeptical. "But what if I'm not special? What if I'm just, like, a support character for everyone else?"

He stopped walking, turned to face her. "You're not a prop, Em."

She blinked, her face slowly breaking into a smile, soft as cotton.

"You always say stuff like that," she said. "But what if it just makes things worse? What if I get voted out for not playing my part?"

He took her hands in his, thumbs tracing the backs of her fingers. "Then I'll break the rules," he said. "Or I'll talk to Arabella, or I'll do whatever it takes. I told you last time, Em. You don't owe your body to anyone, not even me."

Emily stared at their hands, then squeezed, hard. "I do owe you," she said. "I wouldn't be here without you. I had this whole fantasy that if I just waited it out, I'd get a happy ending. With someone who actually wanted me."

Andy smiled, just a little. "Sometimes fantasies come true. Or at least, parts of them."

She laughed, then, letting herself be heard. "You're so corny, Andy."

"I know," he said, deadpan. "It's part of my charm."

She squeezed his hands one more time, then let go, spinning away down the path. Her hair caught the wind, a veil of pink and gold that shimmered in the sunlight. Andy watched her for a moment, struck by how real she looked, how absolutely herself.

She skipped back to him, her mood brighter than he had seen it all week. "Thank you," she said, quieter now. "For everything."

He shook his head. "You're real, Em. And you get to decide what that means."

She leaned in, kissed him—soft and sure, her hair spilling everywhere and her arms around his neck.

When she broke away, she rested her forehead against his and whispered, "I choose you, too, you know."

He smiled, and for a moment, there was nothing else—no game, no Audience, no paths or votes. Just the warmth of her body, the sound of her breath, and the sense that, for once, she was exactly where she wanted to be.

Two hours later, Andy found himself at the center of a long table in the Banquet Hall, which for all its increasing old-world splendor—chandeliers, crystal, softest damask—couldn’t disguise the undertow of nervous energy that swept through the harem. He’d grown so used to the quiet of his own suite, to private meals and one-on-one debriefs, that this communal dinner felt like a return to a previous life—one where all the most important moments happened at tables.

He sat at the head, Laura’s two bodies to his left, Emily to his right. The seating was not by design but gravity: the rest of the women filled in according to their internal weather patterns and alliances, the end result being a kind of abstract painting of color, shape, and movement that never repeated itself twice.

Tonight, the air shimmered with awkwardness and restraint. Even the food—a garden of roasted vegetables, mountains of paella, slow-cured salmon and baskets of miniature rolls—felt like an afterthought. Most plates went untouched, save for those belonging to Dawn and Norah, who ate with a dedication that was almost comical in its intensity.

Laura was the centrifugal ****. She sat, or rather sat twice, in perfect mirror: upright, hands folded in her lap, still working through the shocks of the transformations. Every so often, she would speak in stereo, and the effect was uncanny, as if the universe had glitched and accidentally copy-pasted her next to herself. At first, the other women would glance up, startled; now, by the third time, only Erin flinched.

Andy watched both of Laura’s selves with an odd detachment, the way you might watch a pair of children who have just discovered how to harmonize. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been, in some deep and ineffable way, his responsibility.

He was aware of Emily at his right elbow, soft and silent, her hair an actual curtain now, fallen so perfectly it framed her shoulders and hid the peaks of her breasts. She seemed determined not to break the spell, sitting with her hands in her lap and her gaze flickering over the table like a searchlight. At first, Andy wondered if she was self-conscious about being naked at a formal meal, but then he realized: she was letting Laura have the attention, as if by shrinking herself she could give Laura more room to adjust. And she was still feeling unsure about the events from earlier, despite putting on a brave face. It took more than a conversation or two, to shake off two years of conditioning.

Conversation stuttered, then limped along. Dawn, always the host, tried to fill the silence with talk of weather (impeccable), upcoming challenges (uncertain), and the endless project of “making this place feel like home.” She offered to teach everyone how to bake empanadas next weekend. No one objected, but neither did anyone pick up the thread.

Instead, it was Emi who broke the tension, as only Emi could. She took a bite of salmon, dabbed her lips with a napkin, and looked at both Lauras. “So,” she said, “does this mean you have to double up on calories, or do you split them fifty-fifty?”

Both of Laura’s selves looked up, startled. Then, perfectly in sync, she shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said in stereo.

Emi grinned, her six arms fluttering for effect. “You know what this means, right? You can finally try every dessert and still say you only had one serving. That’s, like, a dream come true.”

A ripple of laughter went around the table, small but genuine. Even the more reserved girls, like Riley and Marissa, managed a smile. Andy saw the way the group relaxed a fraction, as if Emi had opened a window in a stuffy room.

Erin was the last to laugh at Emi’s joke, and when she did, it was with a faint tightness, the kind that left a line between her brows. She kept her eyes on her plate, but her hands—long, green-fingered, and a little shaky—betrayed her mood.

Andy wondered if the fragile balance Erin had seemed to build with Laura, had been shattered by Laura’s duplication.

He tried to lighten the mood, glancing at Claire near the foot of the table. “You look like you’re taking mental notes,” he said.

Claire, who had been scribbling in her notebook, glanced up, surprised. Her ears pricked up; her tail flicked over the back of her chair, nearly smacking Norah in the shoulder. She held up the notebook for all to see:

The social experiment is in progress. Variables not yet stabilized.

Liesa, who sat opposite Claire, giggled. “Are you testing us?”

Claire wrote: Not testing. Observing. The harem is a living organism. It adapts. Her pen hesitated before the final period, as if even that felt premature.

Emily added, a little too lightly, “So what happens if the organism splits in two?” She shot a look at Laura, then at Andy, then away.

Claire wrote, then paused, then added a line and pushed the notebook toward Andy, letting him read aloud: “‘If a single soul can inhabit two bodies, then it stands to reason that love, too, can be doubled without dividing.’” She added a little pawprint doodle at the end, as if to defuse the seriousness.

A few more people laughed, and Andy felt his own tension ease—not disappear, just loosen enough to breathe. He looked to Laura for a reaction; she was already smiling—both of her. “Does that mean I have to buy you two sets of birthday presents now?” he asked.

Laura—both of her—smiled. She looked at him first, both sets of blue eyes shining with an almost wicked glee. "Only if you want to," she replied, echoing in perfect stereo: "Or you could just get one and cut it in half?"

The table cracked up, even Chloe, whose laugh came out as a surprised, breathy snort that made her blush pink to her collarbones. “Careful, Andy,” Myra piped up, surprising everyone, “that’s a trap. The answer is yes, always two sets.” For a heartbeat, the tension in the room let up, replaced by something lighter, more familiar—almost like a regular family dinner, if your family was still pretending not to notice the cracks in the walls, and if your family contained at least five women with breasts with their own zip codes, and a pair of living science projects.

Erin, who’d kept mostly quiet through the meal, finally looked up from her plate. "Does it feel weird?" she asked, directing the question at Laura without meeting her eyes, but managing not to sound remotely accusatory.

Laura considered. "It’s hard to explain," she said, her two voices aligning so perfectly that Andy had to remind himself there was only one mind at the wheel. "It’s like… everything’s doubled, but not split. If you touch one of me, the other feels it. If I want to move only one of me, I have to think hard about it, or I’ll just do the same thing twice."

Erin nodded once, slowly, as if filing the answer away for later, and returned her attention to her plate.

Emily, who’d been quiet as a cat burglar, piped up: "So you’re like a quantum particle, but with boobs?" She grinned, then blinked, realizing she might have gone a little too far. She laughed anyway, a little too loud, like she was daring anyone to make it awkward, and the table caught her mood.

Emi chimed in, "Can you, like, be in two rooms at once? Or would you just get a headache?"

Laura shrugged, both shoulders at the same time. "I don’t know. I don’t think so. I can’t be more than a few feet away from myself."

Norah, who had been gnawing her way through a plate of steak, finally looked up. "Could you, like, prank someone by sneaking up behind them with one body while distracting them with the other?"

"Yes," Laura said. Then, after a thoughtful pause: "I mean, I’d probably get caught, but I’d definitely try."

Riley muttered, "Can you imagine the birthday parties?" Her eyes were red, but her voice was dry as salt. "First person in history who can steal their own slice of cake and eat it, too."

Chloe giggled—an actual giggle, not the brittle laugh she sometimes faked for politeness. She immediately blushed, hands fluttering toward her face before she remembered to keep them tucked under the table. It was a reflex Andy noticed a lot tonight: the way everyone seemed to remember and then forget and then remember again, that the world had changed while they weren't looking—and that none of them yet knew what the new rules were.

The food was excellent—Emi had elaborated a theory about the kitchen "leveling up" after each round, and it seemed more plausible with every course—but Andy hardly noticed what went into his mouth. He kept watching the women, cataloguing their tells: Claire's tail curling tighter every time Laura spoke in unison; Myra's fox ears flicking with every shift in conversation; Liesa's deliberate, almost theatrical elegance, as if she were consciously performing "sensual European" at all times, even while spearing a beet with a fork.

Dawn, sitting next to Myra, took a different tack. She kept up a gentle, unobtrusive monologue about hotel operations, classic cocktails, and local fauna ("Did you know the lizards here will eat cake if you leave it out?"), peppering the silences with invitations for everyone to join her in tomorrow’s yoga or a sunrise walk. She radiated hope that ordinary, repeated things would glue this group back together, and Andy loved her for it—even as he wondered how long hope alone could hold.

After the ice cream—passionfruit, with a little pool of chili oil—Dawn raised her glass of iced tea and said, "I know today was a lot. But I’m really glad we could all be together tonight." She glanced around the table, her bunny ears standing at parade rest. "It’s easy to think that the world changes and we can’t, but honestly, I think we’re doing pretty great."

There was a murmur of agreement, but also a quiet undertow: Andy could feel the questions burbling under the table, could see in the set of each woman’s jaw or the way they stirred their drinks, that a dozen topics waited to erupt.

Instead, Dawn pressed on. "Also, how about Arabella’s mini-challenge this round? I’ve called it Sanctuary Week. I think that sounds kind of fun."

This, at last, got the group talking.

Emily said, "Can I do, like, a pillow fort, or is that too basic?" She smiled, but her fingers worried the edge of her napkin, twisting it tighter with every word.

Liesa replied, "Pillow fort is classic. But if you want to win, you should add a chocolate fountain or something. Maybe some bondage gear?"

Emily’s mouth made a perfect O, and then she looked at Andy, cheeks flushed. "Do we have a budget? Because,” she added quickly, “I feel like I should ask before I… overcommit.”

Claire scribbled furiously in her notebook, then held it up: I propose a library annex with a hidden room for smooching.

Emi, not to be outdone, said, "I want to make an art studio where you can paint naked and nobody judges you." She looked at Andy, dead serious. "You have to model, though."

Andy put his hands up, surrendering. "If you build it, I’ll pose."

The women burst out laughing. Even Erin, who’d spent most of dinner picking at her food and brooding, snorted and then covered her mouth, as if embarrassed at her own mirth.

Norah said, "I’m making a rooftop spa. With a fire pit. No, two fire pits." She looked at Andy. "You’re not invited unless you bring whiskey and a steak."

Marissa, who’d been content to watch the chaos, now smiled. She looked at Andy, then at Laura, then back again, her expression thoughtful rather than amused, as if weighing whether she needed to comfort anyone at the table.

Andy saw the shift: for a moment, Marissa’s gaze softened, and he realized she was calibrating the entire room’s emotional pulse. He’d always admired that about her—the therapist’s knack for finding the low notes in any chord, and tuning the group to match. Tonight, she was clearly on the job.

He turned back to Laura, who was listening to the ideas with that old, hungry curiosity that he remembered from childhood. "Can I join someone else's?" she asked. "I’m not really sure what I’d build."

Emi said, "I’ll take you. We’ll do a double self-portrait." Then, after a second: "Or maybe a triple, if you want."

"Deal," Laura said. Then both bodies grinned at the same time, and Andy saw a flicker of hope pass through the whole table—quick and fragile, like a match struck in a drafty room.

Dawn clapped her hands, delighted. "It’s settled, then! Andy, you have to judge them. Objectively, of course."

He saluted. "I promise to be impartial."

Emily snorted. "You’re, like, the most partial person here. If you see a single bookshelf, you’ll lose your mind." Her tone was teasing, but she didn’t quite look at Claire when she said it.

He thought of Claire’s library, and smiled. "Maybe. But I’ll try to be fair."

Riley, who had spent most of the meal in her own orbit, now looked at Andy, voice low and steady. "Are you really okay with all this? The double Laura, the rest of it?"

He nodded. "It’s weird, but it’s ours. I wouldn’t change a thing."

She considered, then shrugged. "Guess that’s all any of us can ask for." She looked at Chloe, who had gone a little glassy-eyed. Riley squeezed her hand under the table, and the color returned to Chloe’s cheeks.

A soft, meandering conversation blossomed, drifting from the weirdest thing anyone had ever eaten (Erin: raw jellyfish, Liesa: horse meat, Myra: a bug accidentally) to favorite movies (Dawn: Roman Holiday, Emily: Labyrinth, Marissa: Notting Hill, and so on) and eventually to the mini-challenge again, with each woman trying to outdo the others with increasingly elaborate ideas for their sanctuaries.

Eventually, the meal wound down, with the group lingering over drinks and the promise of espresso. Andy noticed that Laura, who had started the meal rigid and haunted, now sat easier in both bodies. One self leaned into Emi’s side, the other cradled a mug of tea, and she seemed—if not calm—then at least less braced for impact.

Marissa leaned closer to her, murmuring something Andy couldn’t hear. Laura nodded, then glanced at Riley, who gave a small, crooked smile. Whatever decision Laura was making, she wasn’t making it alone.

He looked to his right and found Emily watching him. She didn’t say anything, just rested her chin on her hand and smiled, the edges of her hair brushing the tabletop. There was still fear in her eyes, but also something else now: a carefulness, as if she were afraid that wanting too much might summon consequences.

He smiled back. For a while, neither of them looked away.

When the time came to break, Andy stood and said, "Thanks, everyone, for tonight." It was awkward and a little formal, but the group didn’t seem to mind. One by one, they gathered up their things and peeled off toward the doors, some in pairs, some solo.

Laura rose with the others. One of her bodies slung an arm around Emi’s shoulders; the other did the same around Riley’s. She paused just long enough to catch Andy’s eye with both sets of hers. She smiled in stereo—tremulous, soft, real, a little tired—then turned and followed the group out, her footsteps echoing twice on the marble floor.

The room felt quieter after that. Not empty. Just… thinned.

Emily lingered.

She waited until the last of the others had gone, until the servants began to clear the table. Then she stood, and took a breath that hitched halfway through.

“Hey, Andy?” she said. Her voice was light, but it wobbled at the edges. “Can I—um. Could I maybe stay with you tonight? Just for a bit. I don’t… I don’t really want to be alone.”

She gave a small, self-deprecating shrug. “I know I said I wanted to try doing things differently. And I do. I just—” She stopped, searching for the words. “I think I need a safe place to land first.”

She looked up at him then, open and **** and trying very hard not to apologize for it.

Andy’s memory of the walk back to the Suite was vague, full of voices but none quite his own. He’d said goodnight to the women in the lobby and, as promised, guided Emily up the private elevator, trying to ignore the little flickers of attention their exit drew. The Master’s Suite was empty and softly lit, the air smelling faintly of jasmine and old paper.

He left the door open behind them and walked to the couch, hesitating at the threshold. The room felt different with someone else in it; the bed was bigger, the space more alive. He sat on the edge of the sectional, and Emily did the same, just far enough away that it might have looked accidental.

The silence between Andy and Emily had the feeling of a held breath: not tense, exactly, but waiting, as if one wrong word might scatter the moment like a flock of birds. For a while, neither of them spoke. Emily fiddled with her shoelaces, her knees drawn up and braced against the couch’s edge, the gold and blush waterfall of her hair obscuring her profile. She'd said she wanted a safe place to land, and now that she had it, she didn't seem to know what to do.

Andy let her have the quiet. He picked at a loose thread on the quilt, making no move to draw her out or **** the mood.

He noticed, absently, that she hadn’t asked him what he wanted. She also hadn’t asked him what she was supposed to be. That used to be the first thing she did, because it gave her somewhere safe to stand.

It was only after several minutes that Emily finally looked up, her gaze flickering over to him with a nervous, half-hopeful energy.

“I don’t want to make this weird,” she said, voice low. “I know it’s not, like, a date night or anything.” She caught her lip between her teeth. “Is it okay if we just…sit?”

He smiled, hoping to put her at ease. “Yeah. We can sit as long as you want.”

She nodded, fiddling with the tongue of her left shoe. “Good,” she said, softer. “I like it here. I like you.” She immediately cringed, like the words had slipped out by accident. “Sorry. That’s so corny.”

Andy didn’t correct her. He reached for her hand, careful and slow, and when she didn’t flinch away, he let their fingers intertwine. “I like you, too,” he said.

They sat that way for a long while, saying little. The room’s hush was interrupted only by the whisper of the ceiling fan and the faint, faraway sound of ocean wind. Emily’s hand in his was warm, and a little shaky. He squeezed, gentle but steady, anchoring her as best he could.

“Do you think the others hate me?” she asked finally, looking down at their joined hands.

“No,” Andy said. “I think you’re easy to like.”

She gave a small huff of laughter, but it didn’t quite land. “That’s kind of the problem,” she said. “People like the version of me that doesn’t… ask for much.”

Andy waited.

“I thought coming here, joining your season, would make things simpler,” she continued. “Like, okay, there are rules, there are paths, there are expectations. If I just pick one and lean into it, then I don’t have to keep second-guessing myself.”

Her fingers tightened briefly in his.

“But then last round happened. And then today. And suddenly it’s like—” she gestured vaguely with her free hand, “—every choice feels louder. Like it means something about who I really am, instead of just what I’m doing to survive.”

Andy nodded. “That can be scary.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Especially when you realize you don’t actually know the answer yet.” She swallowed. “Or worse—when you’re not sure you like the answer you used to give.” She was quiet for a beat, then added, almost reluctantly: “Being told what to do always feels like relief. Like I could just… turn my brain off, and everything else would follow. And now I don’t know if it’s because it’s right for me… or because it’s easier.”

She didn’t sound ashamed of that. Just afraid of choosing wrong.

Andy didn’t respond right away. He shifted slightly, giving her room without pulling away. “For what it’s worth,” he said eventually, “needing rest doesn’t mean you were wrong before. And wanting to choose for yourself now doesn’t mean you were weak then, or that wanting to surrender to someone you love—if boundaries are in place—is a bad thing.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder, tentative, like she was asking permission without words. When he didn’t move away, she settled there. “I keep thinking,” she said quietly, “that if I could just figure out who I want to be for sure, then everything else would click into place.” She laughed under her breath. “But the more I think about it, the less certain I feel.”

Andy brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. “You don’t have to solve yourself tonight.”

“I know,” she said. “I just—” She hesitated. “I didn’t want to be alone with it.”

He nodded. “You don’t have to be.”

They went quiet again, but this time it was companionable, not fraught. Emily’s posture slowly unwound. Her legs slid down from the sectional, and she shifted closer, her weight light but deliberate.

She didn’t ask him to lead. She didn’t ask him to decide. That absence sat between them, noticeable but unspoken. Andy knew her enough now to know it wasn’t because she didn’t want that version of herself. It was because tonight, she needed to know there was room for more than one. She had told him, in the previous round, that she wanted to be his toy, but also his girlfriend. He knew tonight, for the first time, she needed him to treat her like the latter.

“Do you want to stay the night?” Andy asked finally, careful to keep his voice neutral. “No expectations. We can just sleep.”

She pressed her face against his shoulder, breathing in. Then, softly: “Yeah. I think I’d like that.”

After a moment, she added, almost shyly, “Thank you… for not making this into something I had to earn.”

His arm tightened around her, just a fraction. “You don’t have to earn rest,” he said. They sat like that, Andy’s arm around her, her body light and warm against his side. He felt her relax in increments, as if she didn’t trust the safety of the moment but was willing to test it, a little at a time.

He wondered—briefly, quietly—whether how long had it been since she’d let herself be held without negotiating the terms or surrendering to the Arrangement. Not because she didn’t want the Arrangement, just because she wanted to be seen alongside it.

They might have stayed that way until dawn if not for the soft, unmistakable ding and hiss of the Suite’s elevator. Emily stiffened in his arms.

Andy felt it too—the interruption, the shift in the room’s gravity—before the sound fully registered. The moment fractured, unfinished.

There was a short pause, and then Laura entered the bedroom, moving with the hesitant steps of someone who no longer knocked because she’d been told she belonged, but didn’t yet believe it entirely. There were two of her now, of course, both dressed in the same pajama pants and threadbare hoodie. Her two selves moved in eerie sync, hair swinging together, both sets of blue eyes instantly clocking Andy and Emily on the couch.

Laura stopped short, both bodies freezing in the doorway, a double-take that was almost funny—if not for the ripple of mortification that passed through both faces.

“Oh my God,” said Laura, both voices perfectly aligned. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know—I just—”

She dropped her gaze, backing up a step, but the echo of her embarrassment hung in the air like a shout.

Emily, still pressed close to Andy, bolted upright. Her cheeks went crimson. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean— I should have—” She didn’t finish the sentence, just untangled from Andy and scrambled on her feet.

Andy reached for her, wanting to slow the unraveling, but she was out of reach. Her hair swung wildly forward in a curtain, hiding most of her face, but her eyes were bright with apology.

“I’ll just—” she started, gesturing to the door.

Laura, still in the entryway, shook both heads hard, as if to clear it. “No, it’s fine. I was just… I forgot there’d be anyone here. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

Andy tried to cut through the static. “You don’t have to go, Em. It’s your space, too.”

But Emily was already moving, skittish and tentative, hands clasped and clutched to her chest like armor. “It’s okay,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t want to mess up anyone’s plans.” Her eyes flicked to Laura again—quick, apologetic, already withdrawing.

She hesitated at the threshold, glancing up at Laura, then back at Andy. “Thank you,” she added, small but earnest. “For tonight.” Then, in a move so quick it was nearly invisible, she rushed forward, leaned in and kissed Andy’s cheek—a feather-light, almost apologetic gesture. She slipped out of the room, her hair and apology trailing behind.

For a moment, the room was hollow with the absence.

Andy looked up at Laura, who had stepped inside, the two bodies folding their arms in a mirror of defensive misery. “I’m sorry,” she said again. Andy didn’t answer right away. He watched the door Emily had gone through, as if gauging the weight of what had just shifted.

Then he patted the couch beside him. “Come here?”

Laura moved in tandem, both bodies perching on the edge of the sectional, one to his left and one to his right. She sat with her knees pulled up, just like Emily had, and looked everywhere but at Andy.

After a long, fidgety silence, she said: “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Andy exhaled slowly. “I know you didn’t. But… yeah. It was a bad moment to walk in.”

Laura flinched. Both bodies did. “She looked really upset.”

“She was,” Andy said softly. “Not because of you—but she already felt like she was taking up space she hadn’t earned.” The words landed heavily.

For a long while, neither Andy nor Laura spoke. There was only the afterimage of Emily’s exit, the hush of the Master’s Suite settling like a thick blanket, too warm to breathe through. Laura’s two bodies sat hunched at opposite ends of the couch, arms tight across their midsections, the effect more like bookends than a person and her duplicate. In that pose, the symmetry made it all the more obvious that Laura, for all her multiplicity, had shrunk in on herself.

Andy stayed still. He didn’t rush to fill the space, didn’t reach for her yet. He could feel how precarious the moment was — how easily any reassurance could tip into dismissal, how easily silence could harden into blame.

Laura’s gaze kept darting toward the door Emily had gone through, then away again, as if afraid that if she looked too long, she’d see the shape of the harm she’d just caused. One body’s foot tapped restlessly against the rug; the other mirrored it a heartbeat later, slightly out of sync.

Andy saw a flicker cross her face—gone too fast to name. One body straightened, the other tightened, and then both of them went rigid at once, as if she’d caught herself thinking something she didn’t want to own. She swallowed hard. Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and for a moment she wouldn’t look anywhere at all.

Andy waited, hoping that the silence might fill with something softer, but it only seemed to distill the misery in the room. After what felt like a long minute, Laura said, "I really didn’t mean to barge in," both voices perfectly aligned, as though the bodies were auditioning for a haunting.

He didn’t answer right away. He let the words sit, un-smoothed.

“You are part of this too, you know,” he said finally, gentle but not dismissive.

She shot him a look—two, actually, in sequence: one bitter, one stricken. "Doesn’t mean I should make things worse," she said. "I— I keep getting in the way." The last part came out in stereo, but both mouths snapped shut at the same instant, as if the thought were too embarrassing to let run on.

Andy shook his head once, slow. “You’re not trying to,” he said. “But tonight… yeah. That was a collision.”

Laura winced.

“Emily just needed some time,” Andy continued. “She came here because she didn’t know where else to put herself. Walking in like that didn’t help—but that doesn’t mean you meant to do that.”

Laura picked at a spot on her left arm, the fingers of both bodies finding the same imperfection, even though only one actually had a speck of fluff. "I get it," she said. "But I could tell she was upset. I don’t want to be the one making it harder for everyone else." She exhaled, a double rush of breath that fogged up the glass coffee table in front of them. "It’s so weird," she added, softer now, "because every time I feel like I’m getting used to this, I do something that makes me hate myself all over again."

Andy felt the familiar helplessness of that kind of confession—the kind you couldn’t fix without lying. So he **** himself, despite the temptation, and didn’t try to fix it.

He reached out and let his hand rest on Laura’s left knee. Her body tensed, then shivered; the right-hand self mirrored it, even though he hadn’t touched her. He didn’t pull back.

"There’s something I need to talk to you about," he said. He glanced at her faces, looking for permission.

She gave it, both heads nodding, but her lips pressed tight as if bracing for a blow.

He took a breath, then: "The others are going to notice, if you start using your key a lot."

Laura froze. A flinch, then a slow, sinking slump, both bodies folding inward like origami. "I wasn’t," she started, then stopped. "I didn’t mean to," she tried, then stopped again. "It just— I wanted to be close to you for a while. Today was a lot." The two voices wobbled near the end, each masking the other’s vulnerability by tripling it.

He squeezed her knee. "I want that too. But you know how this works, right? If you start using your key whenever you want, the others will think you’re getting special treatment."

The words hung there, ugly but necessary.

Laura looked at him, both faces angled just so. "But I’m not," she said, and for the first time, there was a note of something raw and childish in it, the old hurt under the grown-up tone. "I’m just using what they gave me. I didn’t ask for this." The last word was a double whisper.

Andy let the words roll in the silence, searching both of Laura’s faces for what came next. She’d been the one to crash in and make things awkward, but the hurt in her voices was so real and doubled that he wanted to catch both of her at once and not let go. He did the next best thing: he scooted across the couch, drawing both of Laura’s knees under his palms, so that whether she was one person or two, she’d feel it everywhere.

Laura was quiet for a long stretch. The left body curled tighter, chin to knee, as if trying to disappear into her own bones; the right one sat up, jawline tense, and fixed Andy with an unblinking stare. In stereo, she said, “What am I supposed to do? Walk around pretending I don’t care?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to pretend. But I don’t want to lose the others, either.” He hesitated, trying to shape the truth so it didn’t feel like a knife. “If they think you’re my only priority, they’ll get scared. Maybe even jealous. And I can’t fix that by telling them it isn’t true—they have to see it in what I do.”

Laura gripped her own shin so hard her knuckles went white. “But you just told me you want me here.”

“I do,” he said. “I want you everywhere. But I want to do this right, for everyone. Including you.”

Both bodies flinched. Andy could see that she understood, but hated it. He remembered, then, the way Laura had always thrown herself into things with a kind of reckless devotion—never half in, never halfway anything. It was why he’d loved her since before he even had a word for it.

He found the courage to say it, low and certain: “It’s not about what the others think of you, Laura. It’s about making sure nobody gets left behind. If it looks like I’m only with you, or always with you, someone else is going to feel as empty as you do, right now.”

Laura drew a long, trembling breath, as if splitting the air between her two selves. “That’s what I was doing,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t use the card until tonight. I just—today was so much. I wanted to feel normal. Like I was yours. I wanted—” She broke off, both mouths snapping shut, and the silence that followed was almost thick enough to touch.

Andy didn’t fill it. He waited. Slowly, both of Laura’s bodies relaxed a fraction, the tension in her shoulders unwinding like rope that had been pulled too tight. “I don’t want to be the reason someone else hurts",” she said. “But I also don’t want to be the one who keeps losing you, over and over. I did that once, already.”

Andy reached for both sets of hands, holding them together in his lap. “You’re not going to lose me. I’m not going anywhere. But I can’t only belong to one person, here. And it’s not because I don’t love you. It’s because I do.”

Laura’s eyes—four of them now—searched his face for the lie. When she didn’t find one, she looked away, a flush spreading from the jawlines to the tips of both noses. “I just want you to myself, sometimes,” she said.

He nodded. “You can have me to yourself. Sometimes. Just not in a way that tells everyone else they don’t matter. I don’t want to hurt anyone else by accident. And I don’t want to mess up what I have with the others, or what you have among yourselves, by making it look like you’re better than the others.”

Laura absorbed the words, both bodies nodding in slow unison. There was a calm in her now, a kind of exhausted clarity that Andy recognized from years ago, when she’d fallen out of a tree and knocked the wind out of herself but refused to let the pain win. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’ll try. I don’t want to be a problem.”

Andy didn’t contradict her right away. He shifted closer instead, grounding the moment with presence before words.

Then, quietly: “You’re never a problem. But right now, you’re carrying more weight than you know.”

The right body pressed its forehead to his, while the left tucked in at his side. Andy closed his eyes and breathed it in: the shampoo in her hair, the slight salt of tears, the impossible doubling of presence that made it feel like he was holding the whole world in his arms—or at least the part of it that trusted him enough to lean in.

He didn’t know how long they sat like that. The Suite felt different with both of her here, not just in a metaphysical way but in the actual physics of the place: the air was charged, all static and possibility, as if the universe was waiting to see if they’d pull themselves together or shatter. Andy felt Laura’s heartbeats, one on either side, thumping out of sync until he squeezed both hands at once, and she relaxed into the touch.

Eventually, the left body said, “What about the key? Should I give it back?” The question was not quite a plea, but close.

He shook his head. “It’s yours. You earned it.” He paused, choosing care over certainty. “But if you need to see me, just… let me know first. Or if you use it, don’t stay too long. Let the others have room to breathe, too.”

Laura nodded, both heads in tandem, a little relief melting the lines around her mouth. “Can I still come here if I just want to see you for a minute? Or if I need—” She didn’t finish, but Andy knew what she meant.

“Always,” he said. “Always, always, always. Just… not as the only place either of us knows how to land.”

They were quiet for a while. The world outside the Suite was probably chaos—girls arguing in the hall, the ocean smashing against the shore, maybe even the buzz of a helicopter bringing more weirdness to the island—but here, it was just the three of them, folded together on a couch that barely fit two.

Andy broke the hush. “You know, you don’t have to pretend you’re fine just for me.”

Laura snorted, both bodies at once. “That’s not how it works. If I let myself fall apart, you’d want to fix it. But you can’t fix this. Not all of it.”

He let that land. “Maybe not. But I can make sure you don’t go through it alone.”

A strange, thin smile spread across both faces. “You’re still so much the same,” Laura said, “but I can’t figure out if that’s a good thing or not.”

He laughed. “I’m not sure, either.”

A silence followed, this time easier, softer. She tucked her selves under Andy’s arm and closed her eyes. For a moment Andy could imagine that the world really was balanced at last—or at least not tipping so fast he couldn’t keep up.

“Do you think they’ll forgive me?” Laura asked, after a minute.

He squeezed her hand. “They might need time.” Then, more firmly: “But they’ll see you trying. That matters.”

Both bodies sighed, this time in perfect sync. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

The hush that followed was the realest thing in the world. There was nothing left for either of them to say; nothing, at least, that didn’t feel like more damage, or more apology. Andy had heard enough of the doubled sorrow in Laura’s voice to know when to leave it alone, and Laura—well, she had always been braver about pain than he was. They sat, pressed together at the knees and shoulders, until the world outside the Master’s Suite faded into irrelevance and the room’s dimness grew thick with the warmth of being forgiven, for now.

He didn’t know how long it was before Laura—one body still tucked to his side, the other slumped on the floor with her head on his thigh—finally said, “I should go,” so soft it could have been a thought instead of a sound.

But before Andy could answer, a quiet, almost apologetic chime rang through the Suite. It wasn’t loud—less a bell than the suggestion of one, a pulse of recognition in the bones. The lamps blinked, once, then settled back to their low golden glow.

Andy looked at the clock on the side table. Ten on the dot. He felt, rather than remembered, what came next, the rules that governed every night in the Master’s Suite: after ten, the elevator stopped working, except for someone going up if they’d been invited beforehand. Anyone in the Suite at curfew stayed until morning.

He’d lost track of time, and now it was too late.

Laura felt it first—the knowledge rippling through both bodies at once. She sat upright, blinking as if just woken, then stared at the bedroom door, then at the window, then back at Andy, both sets of eyes wide and glassy. “What was that?” she asked.

He told her: “It’s curfew. The doors are locked until morning.” He tried to make it sound ordinary, unremarkable, but the words clanked into the quiet like a dropped wrench.

Laura went still. Not a freeze, not a flinch—just a complete halt, like a deer that realizes it has already been hit and is waiting for the pain to catch up.

“Oh,” she said.

For a moment, Andy tried to read her reaction, but it wasn’t just one reaction: it was several, tumbling over each other. Relief, followed instantly by shame, followed by a kind of horror. The whiplash in her face—her faces—told him everything. He braced for what came next.

Laura’s hands flew to her hair, tugging both ponytail and loose strands as if they might offer a shield. “I didn’t mean to—” she started, but then her voices collided, the right-hand body blurting, “I’m not trying to—” at the same time as the left said, “I swear I wasn’t—” They clamped shut, the symmetry ruined, the apology doubled and lost.

Andy tried to catch her eye. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s really okay, Laura.”

But she shook her heads, hard. “No, it’s not. Now it’s going to look like I… like I did this on purpose. Like I used the card just to stay here.” The words tumbled out, sharp and miserable, one body’s voice chasing the other’s. “I didn’t want to make it look like—”

Andy stopped her. “Laura, I know. I believe you.”

“Claire and Erin are going to notice,” she said suddenly, both voices tight and precise. “I’m supposed to be rooming with them. When I don’t show up, they’re going to know exactly where I am.” She swallowed. “And they’re the ones who’ll take it the worst.”

Andy felt that land. Of course they would.

“Hey,” he said, voice low and steady. “Nobody’s going to think less of you. I’ll tell them it was me. I should have told you about curfew. You didn’t know. That’s on me, not you.”

She didn’t answer. Both bodies just stared at the rug.

“It’s not a crime to want to be with me, you know,” Andy tried, aiming for warmth, but it came out too soft. He meant it, but the sting in Laura’s silence said she didn’t believe it.

After a long time, she said, “You know what everyone is going to think, tomorrow.” The words were measured, as if she’d practiced them in her head a hundred times. “They’ll think I’m using the key to get extra time with you. That I can’t stand being away, even for a night. That I’m trying to crowd everyone else out.”

He was going to say, That’s not true. But she beat him to it, both mouths moving together: “And they’d be right.”

Andy didn’t try to argue with that. He just let it hang, and waited to see what would fill the space.

When Laura spoke next, her voices were quieter, her eyes downcast. “I’m sorry if this makes it harder. I don’t want to be… I don’t want to be the girl who wrecks it for everyone. Especially not for Claire and Erin,” she added after a beat. “They’ve been… they’ve been trying. They didn’t have to be kind to me, and they were. I don’t want to repay that by hurting them.””

He squeezed her hand, both hands, as if that might make the message clearer. “I don’t think you’re wrecking anything. I want you here. But we’re in this together, okay? If it makes someone else feel left out, or… or demoted, or like they mean less, we have to talk about it.”

Laura gave a tiny nod. It was enough.

They sat for a while in the hush of the Suite, the steady hush of waves from the open window the only sign that time was still moving. Eventually, Andy felt the tension in Laura’s frame ease, just a bit, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, both bodies at once. He closed his eyes, let the warmth and weight of her settle in, and let himself think, selfishly, about how good it felt to have her there—not instead of the others, but as part of the whole, fragile constellation he was trying not to drop.

A long time later, when the lamps had dimmed to a dull orange and the Suite was lit only by the faintest wash of moonlight, Andy carried Laura—both of her in his arms, nestling against each other as if seeking to comfort herself—into the bedroom. He set her down, pulled the covers over both, and slipped in between.

They didn’t talk, at first. They lay facing the ceiling, side by side, the silence as dense as ocean fog.

Eventually, Laura spoke. It was not two voices now, but one, the two bodies in perfect sync: “Can I ask you something?”

Andy turned his head toward her. “Of course.”

She stared up, eyes reflecting the blue-tinged dark. “If I said I wanted every minute of you, would you think less of me?”

He didn’t answer right away. He searched her face—the way both mouths were set in a line, the way four hands fidgeted at the seam of the blanket, the way her knees curled slightly toward his.

“No,” he said, finally. “I’d think it was honest. But I also know you wouldn’t take it, even if I offered.”

She gave a bitter little laugh. “I want to. I want to say I don’t care about anyone else, just you. I want to be selfish and not feel bad about it. But I can’t.” She drew a shaky breath. “I’m scared if I ever really let myself have all of you, I’d never let you go.”

Andy rolled to his side, propped up on an elbow. “I know,” he said.

Laura smiled, small and sad. “That’s not even the part I’m scared of,” she said. “It’s that I’ll never be enough. Not for you. Not for anyone.” She closed her eyes.

Andy heard the words—never be enough—and felt the familiar pull of their bond tighten, like gravity suddenly asserting itself. When she opened her eyes again and looked at him, the room fell away: the walls, the bed, the island itself thinning to nothing until there was only the space between them, charged and certain.

He didn’t speak at first. He let that connection hold, let her feel that he was there, fully.

Then he said, quietly, “You’re enough with me, Laura.” He didn’t qualify it. Didn’t weigh it or measure it. Just let it sit between them, steady and unguarded.

Laura made a small sound in her throat—a sound of skepticism, maybe, or just the reflexive flinch that came with being told she was loved without conditions. It was a sound Andy recognized from her childhood, the one she made when she didn’t want to be consoled, only to know that someone else was listening.

They lay in the hush of the Suite, the moonlight painting everything in a gray wash, shadows doubling and tripling where Laura’s two bodies curled together. One of her selves was pressed against Andy, the other turned away, knees drawn up to her chest. When she spoke again, it was as if both voices came from the same dark corner of the bed.

“I believe you,” she said, with a faint wobble. “I do. It’s just… I think I’m still learning what enough feels like.”

Andy reached for her hand under the blanket. Her palm was cold, and her fingers, though small, shook with the effort of holding it together. He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed.

“Me too,” he said.

They were quiet for a while. Andy listened to her breathing, the way it matched and then misaligned, the way it sometimes stuttered before falling back into rhythm. He realized, with a kind of awe, that she wasn’t asking him to fix this. He had offered to use Coauthor on anyone who wanted, and he knew it would have been easy to ask him to simply… edit her jealousy out of her. But she wasn’t asking. Not with Gifts. Not with power. She was choosing to sit inside the jealousy, the fear, the wanting—and do the work anyway. Even when it would be ugly, or difficult. He knew why, and it made his heart burst: because she thought he was worth the struggle and the pain. Because she loved him, and he loved her.

They were quiet for a while. Andy listened to her breathing, the way it matched and then misaligned, the way it sometimes stuttered before falling back into rhythm. It would have been easy to let the silence do the rest, to let exhaustion flatten the edges off the night and erase the mess of feelings. But Andy didn’t want to leave it unfinished. Not this time.

“Hey,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “Tomorrow, when you see the others, do you want me to be there with you? In case—”

Laura cut him off, a tiny, grateful smile flickering over both mouths. “You don’t have to,” she said. “But… I’d like it, if you wanted to.”

“I do,” he said. “I just want to make sure nobody gets left out, is all. Especially you.”

This time, she didn’t flinch. She squeezed his hand and, with a soft sigh, let her head roll to the side so both sets of blue eyes were on him. The bond hummed again, quiet but unmistakable. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” she said.

He nodded. “Yeah. I think we are.”

She managed a laugh. It was rough, and it cracked in the middle, but it was real. “You realize we just made a relationship agreement, right?”

Andy snorted. “Isn’t that what people do?”

Laura rolled her eyes. “It’s what people do when they’re not trying to win the love Olympics.” She let go of his hand, only to drape her arm over his chest, anchoring herself there. “Just… promise me you’ll tell me if I ever go too far. If I ever start taking up more than my share of you.” There was a beat. Not resistance, exactly, but rather acceptance that this wouldn’t be easy.

He nodded. “I will. But I don’t think you’ll need it.”

She closed her eyes. “I won’t like it,” she admitted. “I’m probably still going to get jealous. Maybe a lot.” She exhaled. “But I won’t ask you to change me. I want to get better at this, myself. I was given this second chance and I promised I would do better. I don’t want magic to do the work for me.”

Andy felt that land harder than any declaration could have.

She snuggled closer, her bodies curling together against him like three thirds of a whole. He kissed the top of her heads, first the left, then the right. “I love you.”

They lay in that strange, doubled embrace until the world receded to the edges of the bed. Andy felt the rise and fall of Laura’s bodies, the warmth of her against his side and the echo of her presence on his other flank. He didn’t know how long they stayed that way. Time, in the Master’s Suite, had a habit of folding in on itself, the hours gone in a blink, or stretching out forever. But when the silence finally softened enough to let sleep in, Andy realized he wasn’t just okay with the new reality. He was ready for it.

In the morning, there would be apologies. There would be jealous glances in the lobby, and careful conversations at breakfast. There would be a need to explain, to justify, to make sure nobody felt as if the world had shifted under their feet without warning. But for now, there was this: a double heartbeat beside his own, a set of arms that held on like they’d never let go again, and the knowledge that, for the first time since her return, Andy didn’t feel like he was breaking the world by loving who he loved.

The first thing Andy noticed, before he even opened his eyes, was the warmth. It radiated against his chest, along his legs and his arms, as if he were sandwiched between two separate, living sources of sunlight. The second thing was the smell: Laura. Not perfume, not even laundry, but some impossible combination he knew since his childhood, an essential Laura-ness that he could never quite place, but could always smell, intoxicating, grounding. He let himself stay in that not-quite-awake state for as long as he could, breathing her in, memorizing the topography of the moment before the rest of his brain caught up and reminded him that the world had changed, absolutely and forever.

He opened his eyes slowly, bracing for the unreality, and found himself face to face—faces to face—with two Lauras, both tangled up in the sheets, both watching him with identical electric blue eyes. They immediately tried to burrow beneath the covers, as if to escape the embarrassment of being so thoroughly perceived.

“Good morning,” they said, identical voices muffled against his sides, under the blankets, and this time the stereo effect was so perfect it made Andy’s breath catch.

He propped himself up on one elbow, trying to look nonchalant, and failed to hide his grin. “So this is what they mean by three’s company, huh?”

Both Laura’s selves rolled their eyes. But only one said, “You’re insufferable,” while the other flicked a pillow at his chest with surprising accuracy. Pillow warfare commenced, briefly and with much giggling on all sides, until Andy got the pattern of Laura’s synchronized bodies and caught the offending missile, lobbing it harmlessly across the mattress. Both Laura’s selves ended up sprawled on top of him, her doubled laughter warm and unguarded and completely harmonized, as if the two voices had been singing together their entire lives.

Andy felt it then—the way the bond settled when they were like this. Not loud, not dramatic. Just a quiet alignment, like two compasses finally pointing the same way. Laura’s breathing evened out against him, both rhythms slowing, the jitter that had lived in her shoulders since last night easing a fraction.

The sunlight in the Suite was syrup-thick, coating everything in a honeyed glow. Andy watched as Laura stretched both sets of arms above her heads, then yawned so wide her eyes watered. He propped himself up on an elbow. “You’re going to have to teach me how to handle two of you before coffee.”

Laura snorted. “Just wait until I figure out how to coordinate tickling. Maybe you should have thought about that before you signed up for this circus.” Her eyes glinted. “You’re the one who wanted a harem. I’m just keeping things interesting.”

Andy pretended to groan, but inside he was almost giddy. “This is a waking nightmare,” he declared, only to be immediately tickled on both sides by four merciless hands. He yelped, tried to twist away, and found himself pinned by an avalanche of giggling Lauras.

When Laura finally relented, Andy found himself flat on his back, both of her curled up on either side, heads resting against his shoulders. All he knew, right then, was that with Laura’s return, he felt more alive and more himself than he had in years.

They lay there for a while, not talking, just letting the silence settle. Eventually, Laura propped herself up, her hair a wild mess of morning tangles, and looked at him with a new kind of seriousness. “Hey,” she said, voices a notch softer. “Are you okay? With… all this?” She gestured vaguely at the two of her.

Andy thought about it. He wasn’t even sure if he deserved this much happiness, after everything. But for once in his life he wanted to be selfish, to let himself be happy. So he reached up, brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, and smiled. “I’m good,” he said, and meant it.

Both Lauras beamed at him, and the effect was so dazzling he had to look away. He felt a brush of lips against his forehead, then a second, and then she disentangled her selves from the covers, stretching and yawning in tandem as she padded toward the bathroom. Andy lay there a moment longer, watching the way sunlight caught in her hair, the way her movements were perfectly synchronized. He wondered if this was what healing looked like—not a return to what had been lost, but an acceptance of everything fractured and strange and new.

When he finally got up and headed toward the bathroom himself, he found Laura brushing her teeth side by side, crowding the sink and jostling herself for mirror space. She noticed him in the doorway and, without missing a beat, made identical faces at his reflection.

“Don’t even think about using the toilet until we’re done in here,” she said, with mock severity. “Master’s privileges don’t extend to morning routines,” she added after a beat.

Andy held up his hands in surrender. “Far be it from me to get between a woman—women?—and her toothpaste.”

He ended up waiting his turn in the shower, listening to the sound of water running, and Laura’s soft, melodic singing under the shower, in stereo. It was the most mundane, ridiculous, domestic thing he’d ever heard, and it made him want to laugh and cry at the same time.

When she finally emerged, her selves were dressed in the same pajamas, of course, and had their hair in identical messy buns. Laura looked at Andy, and then dissolved into giggles again.

“What?” he said, genuinely confused.

Laura leaned in, eyes sparkling. “Nothing. You just look… incredibly lost.”

He shrugged. “I’ll get used to it.”

Laura nodded in tandem, satisfied. “Good,” she said.

They ate breakfast in the Suite. Andy recalled how Laura used to hate breakfast back when she was a child, and he also remembered the few tricks he had learned to get her to eat something before school. He made toast (too much butter, just the way Laura used to like it), and they argued over which flavor of hotel jam was best. (“Strawberry,” said Laura. “Raspberry, obviously,” said Andy, and got two simultaneous **** glares for his trouble.) By the time they finished eating, the strangeness had faded a little. Or maybe it had just become their new normal.

“We should probably get ready,” she said, when they were done. “The others are going to wonder where we are.”

Andy nodded. “Are you okay with that?”

Laura hesitated. Not long—but long enough that Andy could feel the echo of her worry brush against him, the familiar tight coil of anticipation and dread. He didn’t rush to fill it.

“I’m… less panicked than I was,” she said finally. “Which feels like progress.” She gave a crooked smile. “I’m still scared. Just not drowning in it.”

“That counts,” Andy said.

She exhaled, a real breath this time, and nodded. “Yeah. It does.” Then, quieter: “I don’t want to sit here imagining everything they might think. That’s how I spiral.”

Andy reached for her hand. “Then don’t do it alone.”

She squeezed his fingers—four hands tightening at once. “Deal.”

By the time they reached the elevator, the tremor in her movements had faded to something manageable. Not gone—but no longer in control.

Andy held Laura’s hands as they descended. She leaned into him, not hiding, just borrowing steadiness. He felt her attention brush against his, the bond flaring softly—not erasing her fear, just giving it somewhere to rest.

At the threshold to the lobby, she paused, both bodies hovering in the space between elevator and daylight.

“You ready?” Andy asked.

Laura hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I think so. It’s just—” She looked at him, eyes wide and ****. “It’s going to be a lot, isn’t it?”

He met her twin gazes, searching for some way to make it easier. “Probably,” he said. “But you’re not doing it alone.”

Both of her smiled, this time a little lopsided, a little less perfect, but more real for it. “Thanks,” she said, in unison. She took a breath, straightened both backs, and nodded. “As ready as I’m going to be.” She glanced at him, both sets of blue eyes searching his face. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to just that look—his presence anchoring her, her fear acknowledged but no longer running the show.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it.”