Glimmers, Part 2

The Library was always cold, even when the rest of the hotel hummed with the island’s damp heat. Claire liked the way the silence here made everything sharper: the grit of old paper in the air, the flick and skip of pages turned, the way the uneven table bit into her forearms when she pressed too hard. She and Norah sat in a corner alcove, a two-top desk already littered with spirals of handwritten notes and a pair of nearly identical coffee mugs—both now cold, both lined up exactly parallel to the edge.

Norah wrote with a ballpoint, her letters so straight and neat it made Claire’s looping cursive look like earthquake seismograph. Claire alternated between sketching abstract floorplans (drawn, erased, redrawn) and jotting questions in the right-hand margin of her notebook. She had a habit, when she didn’t know the answer, of just writing the question again, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in Sanskrit, as if translation might somehow resolve the meaning.

“Okay,” Norah said, “walk me through the logic one more time.” She didn’t look up, just kept her eyes on the lined page, as if the answer might leap from the margin if she stared it down long enough.

Claire wrote: If the challenge is to design a ‘sanctuary,’ the key constraint is that it must serve both the Master and the harem as an oasis, but also be a reflection of the designer’s own wishes. She slid the notebook across. Then, as an afterthought, underlined the last clause twice.

Norah scanned it, then shook her head. “You’re thinking too much like a rules lawyer. It’s a game. The challenge is to win—meaning, you design a sanctuary that makes Andy want to spend all his time there. That’s what the judges want.” She sipped her coffee, didn’t seem to notice it was barely above fridge temperature. “All the rest is just narrative window dressing.”

Claire considered, then tapped a line on her own page: What is the win condition? She drew an arrow to physical comfort, then another to emotional resonance, and a third to novelty / surprise. Her pen hovered, unsure what to write next.

Norah leaned in, her perfume a complicated mixture of rose, sandalwood, and the faintest ghost of jasmine. “You can’t beat Emi at novelty. Or Sam at surprise. But you have a lock on emotional resonance.” Her tone, as always, was both compliment and warning.

Claire nodded, but her focus was half on the table, half on the object Norah had been spinning between her fingers for the past ten minutes—a white icosahedral die, each face dotted with gold numbers. Norah rolled it absently, always catching it before it finished its circuit. The symmetry of the thing caught at the edge of Claire’s vision every time, and she found herself waiting for the moment it would slip, just once, and scatter across the desk.

She grabbed her own coffee, took a sip, and nearly made a face.

Norah was still talking, but now more to herself: “The real trick is to build something so irresistible he can’t help but want to bring the others with him. That’s how you get control of the group. That’s how you win the challenge, if everyone wants to be in your sanctuary.” She stopped, rolled the die again, then looked at Claire, her gaze sharp. “So what are you thinking? Real answer, not the book report.”

Claire felt the question dig under her ribs. She uncapped her pen and, after a brief pause, wrote: I want to design a space where no one ever feels lost. She wrote a second line, smaller: It would be a map of all the ways people could get back to each other.

Norah’s lips twitched, the faintest hint of respect, or maybe amusement. “That’s very you,” she said. “But I don’t know that that will win.”

Claire wrote: Why do you want to win?

Norah barked a laugh, surprised. She looked at the ceiling, considered, then spun the die with her thumb and let it go just a little too long. It skittered across the table, bounced once, and came to rest on a 12. Norah caught it, smiled. “I grew up in a house where nobody noticed unless you broke something. Or won at something. So I learned to do both.”

Claire made a note, then, after a moment, underlined break three times.

“You think that’s funny?” Norah asked, half teasing.

Claire shook her head, then wrote: I think it makes sense. But you don’t have to break this to win. She hesitated, then, in smaller script: What if the win is to keep it whole?

Norah read it, and something in her face changed—not softer, exactly, but less rigid. “You think the show is fixable? Like, for real?”

Claire shrugged, then pointed at the diagram she’d made earlier: a circle with a dozen paths spiraling out from the center, all labeled with initials (C, R, D, M, etc.). There is only one wish, but we all are bound to Andy regardless. Maybe the point is to build something that works for all of us.

They sat in silence, a long one. Norah rolled the die, let it stop on its own. “You’d make a good Game Master,” she said.

Claire gave her a smile, and for the first time since sitting down, she felt less like prey and more like a co-conspirator.

They went on like that for a while, sketching possibilities and shooting down the worst ideas, Claire chasing structure and Norah sniffing out every possible exploit. After a bit, Norah’s focus drifted: her eyes flicked from the desk to the big window overlooking the terrace, then back to the die. She fidgeted, her hand shifting to her phone and back.

Claire watched, then pointed at the dice. You look like a pro.

Norah shrugged, but her fingers didn’t let go. “My older sister gave me a set when I left for college. Said it would bring me luck.” She rolled again, this time a 19.

Claire wrote: Does it?

Norah grinned, this time for real. “Sometimes.” She pocketed the die, then started gathering up her pages. “I have to check in with Sam. I’ve got questions to make my character suck less.” She slid the last few pages into her folder, then paused. “You gonna be here?”

Claire nodded, then raised her pen in farewell.

When Norah left, the silence was so complete that Claire could hear the clock on the far wall tick twice before it faded into background again. She sat for a while, reviewing the notes and layouts, but her attention kept slipping back to the empty space where the die had been. She wrote a new word, big and blocky at the top of the next page: facets.

Then she packed her things, tucked the notebook under her arm, and went to look for Arabella.

The spa was a world apart from the rest of the island—a warm, hushed pocket where time moved in languid, fat ripples, and the world beyond the frosted windows was a memory best left untroubled. Erin had insisted on the outing (“You can’t solve every problem with anxiety baking, Chloe”), and so the three of them—Erin, Chloe, and Emily—slipped out in the middle of the afternoon, found the spa mercifully empty, and wasted no time in occupying the big, shallow mineral pool at its heart.

They spent a long while just floating there. The water was warm enough to lull even the hardest nerves, and the steaming surface shimmered with faint, opaline colors whenever anyone moved. For once, none of them felt the need to talk.

It was Chloe who finally broke the silence, her voice small but unhurried: “I don’t think I’ve been this still in two years.” She ran her fingers through the water, watched the pattern of the ripples, then rested her arms on the edge of the pool. “Feels like cheating, honestly.”

Emily, hair fanned around her head like a spill of spun sugar, bobbed to the surface, blinked the water from her lashes, and grinned. “If this is cheating, sign me up for a lifetime of it.” She turned to Erin, who was perched on the pool ledge, legs stretched in front of her, eyes closed. “You’re the boss here. Verdict?”

Erin cracked an eye, considered the question, then shrugged. “It’s research. For the challenge.” She said it in the same dry tone she used for everything, but the corners of her mouth twitched. “We need to understand relaxation before we can design a ‘sanctuary,’ right?”

Chloe nodded, then, after a beat: “I used to go to a spa near my apartment. They did this float tank thing—sensory deprivation?—but I always got the giggles and ruined the experience for everyone else.” She sighed, a little dreamy. “My apartment had one of those clawfoot tubs, but the water heater could never fill it up all the way. I think I spent more time boiling kettles than actually soaking.”

Emily snorted, “Back home, I’d have killed for a real bath. In New York it was always showers. The hot water never lasted, and my roommate had a habit of using all the good towels when she came back from the gym.” She glanced over at Chloe. “You were in Chicago, right? Is it true what they say about the lake effect?”

Chloe’s face lit up. “Winters are basically war crimes. But in spring, all the cherry trees bloom at once, and it’s so pretty you forget how much your skin hurts from February. I used to take my kids on field trips to the zoo, just to give them an excuse to run around without gloves. My first year teaching, I made them all hats, and two of them still show up on the Christmas cards.”

Emily propped her chin on her arms, her expression open and easy. “I used to think I’d end up teaching, too. Or maybe working at a museum. But then I got recruited as a bartender by a woman who claimed I had ‘vintage slut energy.’” She let the words settle, then grinned at Erin, who did not, in fact, smile back. “That job didn’t last very long, but it gave me my start in bartending. It was decent money.” She sighed. “I really wanted to show my art in a gallery, but no one ever gave me the chance.”

Erin’s voice, when it came, was a low hum: “You could still do it, if you wanted.”

Emily considered, then said, “Maybe.” She didn’t sound like she believed it.

Chloe tucked her knees up to her chest, which took some doing, given her new proportions. She was wearing a bikini that looked more like an act of charity than a garment, and every time she shifted, the top fought a losing battle to stay in place. “What about you, Erin? What did you want to be?”

Erin blinked, surprised to be asked. “A park ranger,” she said, without preamble. “Or a scientist. I liked the idea of being the person who went out into the wild and actually learned things. In college, I studied environmental science and worked on a river clean-up project. I got a job in city conservation after that, mostly urban renewal stuff. My last big project was converting an old canal into a wetland. It was—” she paused, searching for the word, “—messy, but worth it.”

Emily, impressed: “That’s… really cool.”

Erin shrugged. “It wasn’t glamorous. Most of the time, I was filling out grant paperwork or negotiating with angry old men who didn’t want to lose their backyard golf courses.” She let herself sink a little deeper into the water, shoulders relaxing. “I didn’t really plan on settling down, you know? I always thought I’d end up in a field somewhere, counting frogs for a living.” She glanced at her own skin, the mint-green of it seeming to glow in the underwater light. “Joke’s on me, I guess.”

Emily reached over and flicked a drop of water at her, not hard, just a quick snap. “You look good in green.”

Chloe, nodding, “You really do. It’s like, I don’t know, very vintage Poison Ivy. In a good way.”

Erin huffed, but she let herself smile.

She settled further onto the stone ledge, stretching her arms along the rim of the pool, and let her body float. For a while, none of them spoke, the only sound the subtle glug of the jets and the distant call of a seabird on the breeze. Chloe leaned back too, pillowing her head on a rolled spa towel. The fabric was so soft it threatened to swallow her whole; with her hair fanned out and her expression gone a little dreamy, she looked like a drowned Pre-Raphaelite, minus the drama.

It was Emily who broke the lull, wriggling up so only her chin and her knees broke the surface. “You know,” she said, “if you told high-school me that someday I’d spend an afternoon in a luxury spa with two beautiful women, both of whom have boobs bigger than my head, I would have said—no way, I’d be the towel girl. Or, more likely, the comic relief.” She grinned at the others, but her cheeks pinked, as if she’d just confessed something mortifying.

Chloe, who had apparently fallen halfway asleep, snorted. “You’re definitely funnier than a towel girl,” she said, then immediately covered her mouth as if the joke had been too much.

Erin rolled her eyes, but it was more affection than exasperation. “If anyone here’s comic relief, it’s me,” she said. “My life is just a series of failed plans with bonus dirt.”

“That’s what I like about you,” Emily replied, voice syrupy and sweet. “You’re all… anti-drama. Most people would be paralyzed by the, uh…” She waved at Erin’s naked body, the forest-green skin and the way her breasts seemed to defy the law of gravity, “the everything. But you just own it.”

“I don’t own it,” Erin said, though she was smiling. “I just ran out of fucks.”

Chloe laughed, her chest heaving in the water, and for a minute they just let themselves drift, the warmth pulling the sting from every nerve.

“I do kind of miss clothes,” Emily admitted. She paused, rearranging her hair so that it fanned in a deliberate sheet over her breasts, the pink streaks casting a faint glow on her collarbones. “I liked putting together an outfit. Like, using color to make a statement, or picking the perfect necklace to go with a t-shirt. Now my hair does all the work.” She pouted, then smiled at Chloe. “I think you’d get it.”

Chloe ducked her head, embarrassed but pleased. “I used to love cardigans. My closet was just—like, every pastel you could imagine. I’d organize them by color and mood.” She grinned, glancing down at her own body, the bikini top barely containing her chest, a faint shimmer of milk at one nipple. “Now it’s more like… whatever can keep me in compliance with public decency laws.”

“You could rock a lab coat,” Erin said, and it was such a weirdly sincere thing to say that both Emily and Chloe cracked up, the sound echoing off the tiles.

Chloe, catching her breath, said, “You know what’s wild? My old apartment was a basement studio with no windows. I had to buy all these fake plants just to make it feel alive, and I’d talk to them when I got home from work. Now I can walk outside anytime, and I’m still most comfortable in, like, the smallest, coziest room in the hotel.” She scrunched her face, as if not sure what to make of the revelation. “Maybe it’s just what you’re used to.”

Emily nodded. “I moved every year for, like, three years. College, then with Rachel, my roommate.” She shrugged, letting the float take her. “I don’t think I ever really made a home out of any of them. It was just—rent, repeat, survive. But here, even with all the weird, I feel more… stable, I guess.”

Erin’s mouth quirked. “I was never good at homes. After my parents broke up, my mom moved us twice when I was a kid. Then I got to college and just kept going. The closest was the months I lived with Andy, but after that fizzled out, I thought if I ever got stuck in one place, I’d turn into my mother.” She glanced at Chloe, who listened with the attentive, nonjudgmental calm of someone who’d heard the same from dozens of anxious parents. “Now, I guess I am stuck, but in the weirdest, best way?”

Chloe nodded, then picked up the thread: “When I got my first teaching job, my parents thought I’d be there a year, tops. But I loved it, even when it was awful. My kids were—some of them had really rough home lives. I think I wanted to be the one person who wouldn’t leave, you know? Even if it was only for a year or two.” She went quiet, then shrugged. “It sounds kind of silly, when I say it out loud.”

“It doesn’t,” Emily said. “It makes perfect sense.” She sounded a little awed.

Chloe gave her a grateful smile.

Erin poured herself a glass of champagne from the bottle balanced on the tile, then poured for Chloe and Emily. “Cheers,” she said, and they clinked, the glasses fogging from the water’s heat.

For a while, they sipped in companionable silence.

It was Emily who brought it up next. “What do you guys think we’ll do, you know, after the show?”

Chloe didn’t hesitate. “I want to teach again. I like it.” She swirled the champagne, watching the bubbles. “And I still want a family. It doesn’t have to be the old-fashioned way. Just… children, and people who stick.”

Emily grinned. “I hope you get, like, six kids. Maybe you’ll open your own school. I’d send my future imaginary kids there.” She sipped, then licked the drop from her lip. “I’d like to do art again. Not for money, just because I want to. But I’d still like to show it in a gallery, someday.” She looked up at Erin. “What about you?”

Erin thought about it. “I’d like to work with plants, somewhere. Maybe a greenhouse, or a botanic garden. Or maybe just run away to the woods every weekend.” She smirked, “Now that I’m half-plant, maybe I could just hibernate in the off season.” She looked at the water, a little embarrassed. “I don’t think I could handle suburbia, though. Not again.”

Emily, seeking the bright side, said, “At least we’re in it together. There’s strength in numbers, right?”

Erin nodded. “Yeah. I’d take this over being a solo mutant in Chicago, any day.”

That broke the tension, and for a while, they just floated, the world outside forgotten.

Eventually, Chloe said, “What about Andy? Where do you think he’ll want to go?”

Emily grinned. “I think he’ll go wherever the harem wants him. That’s the kind of person he is, isn’t it? But he lived near New York before, and that’s where Marissa and Sam live too, so maybe we’d all end up there.” She made a face. “I’d love good New York bagels again.”

Chloe snorted, “You just want the pizza.”

“Who doesn’t want the pizza?” Emily countered.

Erin finished her glass and set it on the rim. “He told me once that he wanted to live somewhere green, but not too far from civilization. Maybe upstate?”

Chloe made a soft noise, setting her glass on the pool’s rim. “Would it be weird if we all moved in together? Like, post-show?” The question was aimed at no one, but her gaze floated to the ceiling, as if an answer might drip down with the condensation. “I mean—realistically. Do you think we’d want to?”

Emily snorted, water beading on her nose. “I think the question is: how many bathrooms would we need before there’s a full-scale mutiny?” She glanced at Erin, who considered this with her usual evenness.

Erin considered. “We’d have to have rules. Like, chores, and enough bathrooms, and a heavy-duty boiler, and a rotating dinner schedule.”

“Absolutely,” Emily agreed. “Also, a sun room for you, and a laundry room with extra capacity, and a soundproofed art studio for me so I don’t annoy everyone with my music taste.”

Erin raised her glass. “As long as there’s a yard. And a greenhouse. And maybe a treehouse, for nostalgia’s sake.”

Chloe nodded, and for a moment, she looked almost serious. “If we lived together, do you think it would be weird? I mean, the show is one thing, but in real life, people have to work, and commute, and do all the boring stuff. We’d have to make a plan.”

Emily, thoughtful: “Well, most of us probably can’t go back to normal jobs. Not with…” She ran a hand down her front, indicating her enforced nudity. “Unless we go viral and make a fortune on OnlyFans, but, like, I doubt I’d have the discipline to keep up with the content schedule.”

Chloe giggled. “You could do one of those body paint TikTok accounts. People love those.”

Erin smiled, but she caught the undercurrent. “Would you be okay with that, Em? Like, being seen all the time?”

Emily shrugged, then looked down. “I don’t know. I think it would be easier if we were together, and everyone got it. But if I had to go to the grocery store alone…” She shivered, despite the heat. “I think it would be hard. I know Andy said there are Reality Adjustments for sale, but even if no one noticed, I would.”

Chloe nodded. “We’d have to find a city big enough that no one cares. Or maybe just make our own little place and never leave.”

They all laughed, but the mood shifted—a little more real, a little less like a daydream.

“I’d give it a week before the first food fight,” Erin said. “But I’d take my chances over returning to ‘normal’—if that’s even an option for any of us anymore.”

Chloe rolled her head, eyes curious. “Isn’t that a little sad, though? Not being able to go back?”

Emily shrugged, hair splaying out like coral beneath the water. “I don’t know if I want to. Not the old way, anyway.” She seemed to surprise herself with that admission, then followed it up quickly: “I don’t even know what I’d do, if I wasn’t with you guys. Everything before this feels… less.”

For a moment, none of them spoke. The steam above the water pulled their words into the air and let them drift, unsaid.

Chloe’s voice was smaller when she spoke again. “Do you think that’s because the show is magic, or because we changed on our own?”

Emily considered, then nodded mischievously, “Yes.” She stretched, elbows hooked on the pool ledge.

Chloe snorted, but her cheeks flushed pink with delight. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You know,” Emily said, eyes closed, voice small. “I’m really glad Andy picked me, but I’m even gladder that I landed with you all. It could have been… a lot more mean girls, a lot less—” She gestured, coming up empty, “whatever this is.”

Erin’s face went thoughtful. “Sisterhood of the Traveling Boobs?”

Emily cackled, so hard she almost inhaled water. Chloe let out a helpless snort, clapping a hand to her mouth. Erin smiled, not unkind, and they let themselves unravel into giggles for a long, lovely minute.

When the laughter faded, Chloe looked down at the creamy, rose-pink ring around her glass. “What would you really want, if you could wish for anything after this? Not the pageant answer.”

Emily shrugged. “Honestly? I just want to wake up somewhere and not hate the mirror. Have someone who wants me there, who doesn’t see me as a punchline. That would be enough.” She blinked, then caught herself: “God, that sounded pathetic. Sorry—”

“It’s not pathetic,” Chloe said. “I think about that a lot, too. Sometimes, I used to practice smiles in the morning before teaching, just so the parents wouldn’t think I was broken.” She nudged the water, trailing circles with her fingertips. “Here, I can just be… me.”

Emily gave her a look, but it was soft, not biting. “You’re not broken, Chloe.” She paused. “And if you ever want a weird roommate when we’re out, I call dibs.”

Chloe’s smile brightened, for a second as dazzling as her milk-white skin.

Erin, who’d been quietly tracing the veinwork on her forearm, thought about Emily’s question about the wish and said, “I think I’d want to make something. Like, a garden so big you can’t see the edge, or a forest that remembers you were there. I know that sounds tree-hugger, but…” She shrugged. “I like the idea of leaving a mark, even if it’s just in seeds.”

Chloe hummed, thoughtful. “Do you want kids?”

Erin blinked, then seemed to weigh it seriously. “Used to think they would not be for me. But lately…” She blushed deep green. “Lately, it’s not such a bad thought, if I can have them.”

“Noted,” Emily said. She grinned. “What about you, Chloe? Would you want a big family?”

Chloe hesitated, then nodded, slow. “Yeah. But only if they didn’t mind being smothered by baked goods and terrible singing in the mornings.” She grinned, shyly. “I’ve always wanted twins. Or triplets.”

Erin grinned. “If you keep leaking, I’d say your odds are good.”

Chloe giggled, covering her mouth. “Shut up.”

The moment hung, fizzy and soft, a perfect effervescent hush. Emily caught it, tucking it away somewhere safe.

Chloe, a little softer, said, “I don’t know if it’s wrong to say it, but… I kinda hope Marissa is right about the harem bond. I think I’d miss everyone if I ever had to go back alone. Like, more than I could even say.”

Emily reached over and, without thinking, took her hand. “You don’t have to. You’re stuck with us now.”

Erin joined the chain, fingers wrapping around Emily’s wrist. “I’m not leaving,” she said, tone matter-of-fact, lifting her glass to her lips. “Not unless I’m pruned by fo—” And vanished, as if blinked out by an unseen editor.

The glass hit the stone ledge with a faint clink, rolling in a perfect circle before coming to rest.

Chloe blinked at the empty spot, then looked at Emily. “Did she—?”

Emily just smiled, a slow, delighted thing. “Looks like Andy needed her.” She scooted a little closer to Chloe, lowering her head until her hair draped around them both like a privacy curtain. “You’re not allowed to vanish on me, okay?”

Chloe shook her head, wide-eyed but smiling. “Not planning on it.”

They sat in the steam, close together, the world narrowing to the two of them and the slow drift of warmth all around. Somewhere, a clock ticked, but it seemed a million miles away.

Emily let her head rest on Chloe’s shoulder. “I hope we get to keep this,” she said, almost a whisper.

Chloe said, “I hope so, too.”

The water lapped gently, and the quiet closed back in around them.

The quiet, after dark, made Laura’s entrance into Andy’s Suite feel illicit, even though the keycard in her hand was proof she belonged there. The elevator doors whispered open; both of her stepped out onto the thick hallway carpet, moving as one. She paused just inside the threshold, letting the scent of Andy’s space seep in—clean laundry and something else, familiar but unnameable. Andy-ness, perhaps?

For a heartbeat too long, neither of her moved, as if the Suite itself were holding its breath with her.

The Suite was dark, but not empty-dark; rather, it had the lived-in hush of a place that expected its occupant back any moment. The lamps were set to Andy’s usual level—dimmed, so the white of the marble floors picked up what little light there was and flung it in soft halos against the walls. There were two coffee mugs by the sink, a spoon abandoned to dry at a rakish angle. On the couch, a scatter of index cards and a half-folded origami crane. The room felt warm in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.

Both of Laura’s bodies slipped inside, one of them carrying a sling bag that clinked gently as she moved, careful not to let the elevator doors hiss in alarm. She shed her sandals in perfect sync, then padded barefoot over the cold marble. She didn’t go far at first—just enough to be fully inside, just enough that leaving again would take effort. She had an agenda tonight—small, mischievous, maybe pointless, but entirely hers.

First, the bed. Andy’s was a slab of midnight blue today, big enough for four or five, as she could attest personally, but always made up for one. The pillows, always stacked in an orderly way, were fat, memory-foam jobs with cooling gels, then a thin, hospital-grade pancake for neck support.

The sight of the sheets tugged at something in her chest, sharp and sweet all at once.

Laura went to work unstacking the pillows, flipping them end-for-end and reversing the pillowcases so that the tags stuck out, facing the ceiling. It took effort to make her two selves work in concert, rather than mirroring each other, but it was worth it. Both smiled. She glanced at the naked-woman painting over the dresser. That thing gave her the creeps. Shaking her heads, she told herself to focus.

Next, the top sheet. The hotel staff always tucked it in with a soldier’s neatness, but Laura preferred chaos. She untucked, retucked, then gathered the far corner and set to folding, her hands working in mirrored choreography. The plan was to make a swan—the way Emi had taught her, years ago, in the dead of a sleepover night, under the fort of blankets and the low, conspiratorial whisper of childhood secrets. Emi and Andy had gotten as far as pigeons and foxes, but Laura had always aimed higher.

It was insanely hard, now, with four hands, and using a blanket instead of paper. She found herself fighting her own symmetry: when one set tried to fold, the other instantly matched, and the result was more a doughnut than a bird. She made herself stop, slow down, and **** one body to hold the sheet while the other pinched and creased. The sensation was deeply weird, like learning to write with her left hand after years of dominance, but also thrilling. She felt herself flush at the accomplishment. This, she realized, was how Andy must have felt when he’d finally gotten Emi’s crane to stand upright.

After a few minutes, she had her prize: a wrinkled, sad, but unmistakable sheet-based origami crane perched atop the sheets, wings too short and the neck too long, flopping down under its own weight, but good enough for her purposes. She placed it in the center of the bed, as if it were a royal guest awaiting inspection.

For a moment, both of her just looked at it, the temptation to climb in beside it flickering awake, but she smothered it. She had already done too much damage as it was.

On to the desk. Laura took a moment to examine the scatter of Andy’s day: scribbled notes (“Thank Dawn,” “Check in with Chloe,” “Check on Myra—she seemed off”), and a single, perfectly preserved candy fish in a clear wrapper. The sight made her breath catch. She remembered this, too—the way Andy would save the best for last, how he’d never eat the final candy in any bag, how he’d sometimes line them up in a row and tell her each one had a name. She picked up the fish, held it up to the light, then set it back down, exactly as she’d found it.

Laura opened the sling back one of her selves was carrying, and emptied it, then began to stack the seashells she had brought into a pyramid on the coffee table. It was a silly, nothing kind of thing—childish, even—but the pleasure of balancing each shell, watching the structure lean and wobble and then somehow not collapse, was immense.

Staying would have felt good, she knew, but she squashed that feeling. This felt earned.

She tried to make each body do a separate task: one hand placing, the other steadying, each set of fingers working independently. It took effort, sweat even, but when she managed it—when the two of her could act out of sync, just enough to be more than a machine—she felt a jolt of pride. The pyramid stood, crooked but solid, a small monument to her own stubborn will.

For the finishing touch, she found a scrap of paper and a pen. With one of her selves, she wrote one word in the center of the page:

Gotcha.

She folded the note in half, then tucked it under the beak of the sheet-crane, so the first thing Andy would see when he entered the bedroom was a misshapen bird and a message. A way of being there without taking more than she was given.

She wondered if he’d recognize her handwriting, or if the memory would come from the word itself, the inside joke of it.

She had one seashell left. On a whim, she dropped it into the spoon in the kitchen.

Both bodies paused at the door on the way out. Laura took one last look at the Suite—the way the lights warmed it, the mug with its ring of coffee stain, and through the double door to the bedroom, the sheets ruffled and the pillows askew, the crane watching over it all like an old friend. The ache of leaving was real, and so was the pride in doing it anyway.

It didn’t feel like a prank. It felt like a secret handshake, a way of saying: I am here, I am back, and I am still me.

She walked out, both mouths smiling, and left the Suite just as she’d found it: dark, but not empty. It was enough.