A Dawn of New Beginnings, Part 1

VP and BP Standings
Erin - 99 VP - 5100 BP - 2 Achievs
Liesa - 96 VP - 3200 BP - 3 Achievs
Sam - 95 VP - 7700 BP - 2 Achievs
Norah - 94 VP - 1850 BP - 3 Achievs
Claire - 87 VP - 8900 BP - 2 Achievs
Emi - 86 VP - 6050 BP - 3 Achievs
Marissa - 77 VP - 5000 BP - 2 Achievs
Dawn - 75 VP - 5800 BP - 3 Achievs
Emily - 62 VP - 5600 BP - 2 Achievs (2 used)
Chloe - 45 VP - 7350 BP - 1 Achiev
Riley - 42 VP - 7100 BP - 3 Achievs
Myra - 20 VP - 6800 BP - 1 Achiev
Laura - 18 VP - 6950 BP - 1 Achiev

Andy woke to a soft weight pressed against his ribs and the hush of rain still clinging to the Suite’s windows. For a moment, he didn’t move—just lay there, his body heavy in the sheets, content to exist in the narrow gap between dream and morning. Norah’s head rested on his chest, her hair tangled across his shoulder and the length of her bare back warm beneath his hand. Her feet, small and slightly cold, hooked behind his calves as if determined to anchor them both.

He let the silence linger. Outside, the world was gray and new, the ocean invisible behind a drift of low cloud. On the floor near the bed, Norah’s dress lay in a loose, defeated heap.

Norah stirred first. She mumbled something indistinct, half a word, then burrowed her cheek deeper into his skin. Andy could feel the faint vibration of her pulse, the measured exhale of her breath. He closed his eyes again, trying to pin the moment in place a little longer.

It was Norah who broke the spell, her voice scratchy and low. “What time is it?”

Andy blinked at the bedside clock. “Seven-thirty. Maybe closer to eight.”

She groaned, a dramatic sound muffled by his chest. “I should get up.” She made a weak gesture toward the dress, but her body stayed put, unwilling or unable to move.

Andy stroked her hair, gentle. “You’re allowed to take a morning off.”

She snorted. “That’s not how you win, Cooper.” But when he didn’t answer, just kept his hand in her hair, she relented, letting herself go limp against him.

The rain picked up, tapping on the glass like a gentle summons. For a while, neither of them moved. Andy let his thoughts settle on the night before—the laughter, the game, the way Norah’s ambition had melted, leaving something softer in its place. He was used to women who guarded their feelings like secrets, but Norah’s defenses had always been more elaborate, more necessary. Seeing her lay them down, even for a night, felt like watching a glacier crack and reveal a seedling beneath.

“Remember when it didn’t rain here?” Norah asked, suddenly. “We only had perfect days, until…” She trailed off, uncertain, but Andy knew. Until Laura’s birthday, the day that led into the challenge which would bring her back. He wondered if something had broken, with that event.

Norah shifted again, propped herself up on one elbow, and looked down at him. Her hair was a wreck, her eyes still smudged with sleep, but she wore the expression of a woman who’d gotten what she wanted, and wasn’t shy about it.

“You’re thinking,” she said. “I can see it on your face.”

“Am I that obvious?”

She grinned, teeth showing. “Only to people who know you.” She tried to sit up, but without her heels she couldn’t stand—she had to crawl, fingers and knees sinking into the sheets. She traced a finger along his jaw, then—still on hands and knees—flicked him on the nose. “I’m hungry.”

He matched her grin, slow and lazy. “Scrambled eggs? Or are you going to judge my technique again?”

She scoffed, wriggling out of the tangled sheets and slithering off the bed. She paused mid‐crawl and glanced over her shoulder, oddly titillated by how he watched her curves shift with each arm stroke. Then she continued, crawling across the carpet until she reached the living room. Each inch felt deliciously exposed under his gaze.

At the couch, she abandoned the crawl and slipped into her shoes, the click of leather heels echoing in the quiet apartment. Once upright, she fetched her dress from the bedroom floor. Andy followed, pulling on sweats and a T-shirt, padding barefoot behind her to the kitchen.

She took charge at the fridge with the same ruthless efficiency she’d shown at the wine cooler last night. “We’re doing this my way,” she declared, already pulling out eggs, butter, and a wedge of cheese.

Andy saluted and leaned against the counter.

Norah cracked the eggs into a bowl, whisked them with a fork, and measured the salt precisely with the tip of a teaspoon. Not a pinch, not a dash—measured. She set the pan on the burner, turned it to low, and poured in the egg mixture. With graceful, unhurried sweeps, she coaxed the eggs toward fluffiness. “The secret is low heat and patience,” she said without looking up. “You can’t rush it. You let the eggs do what they want, but you nudge them toward excellence.”

He grinned. “I thought you only knew how to make three things.”

Norah smirked. “To my standards, yes. Still working on scrambled eggs. But they’re decent enough to show off.”

Andy couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that how you approach everything?”

She shrugged, still stirring. “It’s how I approach the stuff that matters.” She folded the eggs over themselves, sprinkled in the cheese, and waited until it melted before sliding the golden scramble onto two plates. She handed him one, then carried the other over to the small window table.

They ate in comfortable silence, the only sounds the soft scrape of forks and rain drumming on the glass. Andy watched her study each bite, pausing between mouthfuls to make mental notes—about flavor, about texture, maybe about him, or the curious lightness she carried this morning. He’d anticipated awkwardness after last night, but Norah—heels firmly in place—seemed freer than he’d ever seen her.

She finished her eggs, then set her fork down and laced her fingers behind her head, stretching like a cat. “I have to go,” she said, not sounding happy about it. “I promised Myra we’d meet in the gym. I’m still trying to teach her how to lift properly.”

Andy smiled. “Let me know when you can out-bench Sam.”

She snorted. “I’d sooner win the wish.”

She stood, cleared the plates, and rinsed them in the sink. He expected her to rush, but instead she lingered, hands in the warm water, eyes fixed on the world beyond the window. After a moment, she dried her hands and turned to him.

Her face was serious, but not cold. “Thank you,” she said, the words quiet but solid. “For not making me feel stupid last night.”

Andy met her gaze. “It was a good night.”

A faint blush rose in her cheeks. “Don’t get sappy on me, okay?”

He grinned, and she smiled back, a real smile.

At the door, she looked at him for a long moment, as if memorizing the scene, then stepped in close, rising on tiptoes to kiss his temple.

“Don’t forget my hearth,” she whispered, the words almost lost in his hair.

Then she was gone, heels clicking down the hall, the scent of her lingering in the quiet that followed.

Andy stayed where he was, the warmth of her kiss still blooming on his skin. He thought about the night before, the morning after, the way Norah had let herself be seen. He understood, now, that this was what she’d been working toward all along—not the wish, not the victory points, but the permission to let herself belong.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, wandered to the window, and watched the rain blur the world into soft grays and greens.

Andy finished his coffee standing, watching the rain bead on the patio glass. The morning was strangely silent, not even the chirp of birds that usually staked out the gutter under the eaves. He could feel Norah’s absence in the Suite, a faint ripple of unbalanced energy, like a song that ended mid-note and left your ears searching for its echo.

He took the dishes to the sink, rinsed them with more care than they required, then wiped down the counter. He moved through the Suite, past the thick, still-damp towel Norah had used to dry her hair. In the bedroom, the pale expanse of wall was broken only by the painting. It hung opposite the bed, precisely centered, commanding attention no matter where you stood.

Katherine was waiting for him.

She stood as she always did—before a painted field of poppies, sun-bright, with a curve to her hip that suggested both casualness and an old, bone-deep ache. Her hair was a black sheet, long as her body, and the brushwork caught the blue in her irises so perfectly. The painting’s magic had its own logic, and so she could change her posture, look toward him or away, and even pace laterally if she needed. But the constraints were absolute: she could never leave her ground, never turn her back, never hide herself from the world.

He stood in front of her, hands at his sides, and tried to summon the right words. It always felt like the start of a confession. Maybe it was.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s just me.”

Katherine’s expression softened instantly—a small thing, but unmistakable. She bent her head, letting the fall of her hair curtain one cheek, then straightened, as if bracing herself for whatever news he carried. She couldn’t speak, but her attention was absolute. She gave him the floor. She was happy to see him, he could feel it in the waves of affection that emanated from her. He was glad he could have given her this way of communicating, even he he hoped it would not be necessary forever.

He started with the easy stuff. The weather, the Suite, the way Norah had filled the space this morning, trailing the scent of cardamom and sharp, clean sweat. Katherine’s lips twitched—an almost-smile, an I remember, too. He told her about Laura’s pranks, which made both of them smile. He could feel her amusement and tender affection rolling off of her in waves.

But the words gathered weight as he kept going. He told her about his worries about Laura’s state of mind, about the flare-ups—Erin’s flowers blooming, Dawn’s halo of light, the reconstituted egg in Laura’s hand. He spoke of Arabella’s cryptic words, the sense that the game was tilting, that something bigger and weirder than even Harem Hotel was winding up beneath them all.

“I don’t think it’s just a contest anymore,” Andy said, voice low. “It feels like we’re… changing. Not just our bodies, but—” He shook his head, at a loss for the right analogy. “Arabella said it wasn’t what I thought, but she wouldn’t explain, and honestly, I don’t know what to think. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it just… doesn’t.”

Katherine shifted her weight. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. Then, slow, she brought one hand up and pointed to herself. She circled her palm in the air—keep going, I’m listening.

Andy hesitated. “I’ve started thinking about marriage,” he said. He was almost ashamed of the word, how heavy it felt in his mouth. “The others—they keep bringing it up, like it’s the prize at the end. Not the wish, not even the freedom. Just being together. With me.” He laughed, the sound brittle. “I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t want to let them down, but… me? Marrying me is a prize? Arabella must be putting love elixirs in the food.” He chuckled.

Katherine’s mouth curved, gentle and a little sad. She reached up and traced a strand of her hair behind her ear, the gesture so familiar that for a moment, Andy forgot she’d never done it outside the paint. She made another motion: both hands to her heart, then away—like blowing a kiss, or offering it up. Her eyes said, That’s what matters. Not the wish. Not the game. Just the giving.

He felt the old guilt rise. “I wish you could tell me what you think,” he said, and meant it. “I wish you could yell at me, or make fun of me, or… anything. I wish you were here, really here, and not stuck in a frame while the rest of us keep moving. The Comfort gift helps a little, but it takes too long between visits.”

Something flickered across Katherine’s face—pain, maybe, but not directed at him. She pressed her hand to the inside of the canvas, fingers splayed, as if testing the strength of the boundary. She looked at him, eyes shining with a wetness that the oil paint couldn’t quite hide. She shook her head, just once, and then made the old sign: finger to chest, then to his, then a looping circle between them. He felt her love, tinged with a little ache, but above all, her trust in him.

Include me, she’d said before. Let me belong, even if it’s only in this way.

Andy closed his eyes for a second, then exhaled. “It’s not fair,” he said. “You’re the only one who doesn’t get a say. I’m sorry I can’t fix it yet.”

Katherine watched him, unblinking, until the silence in the room filled every crack. She put her palm flat against the barrier again, and this time, the yearning in her face was so naked it made his throat ache.

He didn’t think. He just stepped forward, until his breath fogged the glass that separated him from her. He pressed his own palm to the frame, matching her hand exactly.

And then, without another word, he kissed her.

The surface was cold, unyielding, but as soon as his lips made contact the world snapped inside out.

It was not paint, not canvas, not a museum trick, not even a dream. For a single, impossible moment, he felt her—warm, trembling, alive. Katherine’s lips met his with a hunger that was almost violent; her mouth moved against his with a desperation so intense it left him dizzy. He could feel her breath, taste the salt on her tongue, and the sigh that broke from her chest could have shattered every window in the Suite.

She kissed him back, hard, her hands gripping his face through the impossible membrane, pulling him closer, refusing to let go. He didn’t know if he was inside the painting or if she had crossed over, but the contact was real—more real than the dreamscape of the Comfort Gift, her real, flesh-and-blood lips, her breath, her scent, the feeling of her skin under his hands, her warmth, a rebellious strand of black hair that tickled his cheek. For that moment, she wasn’t a secret or a casualty; she was a woman, and she wanted him, and she would not be denied.

He broke the kiss first, gasping for air, his head spinning. Katherine drew back too, her face flushed, her chest heaving, her eyes wide with the shock of what they had done. Her fingers hovered at her lips, as if afraid to believe they were still there.

They stared at each other, stunned, the distance between them both infinite and gone.

Andy reached for the frame, half expecting to find a way through, but the canvas was solid again, cool and inert. The magic—whatever it was—had vanished, leaving only the echo of her lips and the impossible hope that it could happen again.

He stepped back, dizzy, and watched as Katherine pressed her hand to the inside of the glass, her eyes bright with unshed tears and something wilder, stronger, than before. She nodded, once, slow and deliberate.

He nodded back. "I'll find a way," he murmured, an oath even more than a promise.

Then he turned away, his heart beating out a rhythm he’d never heard before, and left the room.

For a long time after Andy left, Katherine did not move. She stared at the place where his face had been, lips parted, breath caught in a state of perpetual disbelief. The painted world behind her seemed to vibrate—poppies fuzzed at the edges, sunlight fractured into gold and white, even the air on her side of the barrier shivering with the aftershock.

She touched her mouth, fingertips trembling. It was still there: the ghost-heat of his lips, the taste of his breath, the weight of a kiss that should have been impossible. In the long years since she’d been sealed inside this world, she had felt every permutation of loneliness, every ache, every hunger for contact. She had felt joy in the dreamscape when he had summoned her there. But never this. Never the echo of a touch so real, so present, it made her body hum like it was waking from a coma.

She pressed both palms to the glass, searching for a seam, a hinge, anything that would let her through. There was nothing but the slick, cool barrier. On the other side, Andy’s silhouette hovered, uncertain, as if he too was waiting for the painting to spit her out. He brought his hand to the frame, lined his palm up with hers, and for an instant they were so close that she could almost hear the thump of his heart.

He leaned in again, a **** experiment, and kissed the glass a second time. Katherine waited—hoped—aching for the impossible breach. This time, the surface stayed cold. She felt nothing but the chill of paint and canvas, the universe snapped back to its old, indifferent rules. She swallowed a sob, **** herself to stay steady. Andy rested his forehead on the frame, eyes squeezed shut, a man grieving a miracle.

They stayed like that, mirrored and mute, the weight of their separation pressing down until Katherine thought it might flatten her where she stood. She let her hand linger on the glass as long as she could, tracing the outline of his through the invisible wall. Her body burned with the memory of his lips; her mind raced, wild with the hope that maybe, it could happen again.

Andy spoke then, so softly it was more vibration than sound: “I’ll find a way. I promise.”

She nodded, blinking away tears. The words were a balm. She had waited fourteen years for any touch, and in the space of a single heartbeat she’d tasted not just any touch, but a kiss - Andy’s. She could feel the old isolation stirring, ready to reclaim her, but now it was different. Now it had a name, and it was not invincible.

He stepped back, finally, the absence of his hand a new kind of loss. Katherine let her own hand drop. She watched as he turned, the lines of his body etched with sorrow and determination, and vanished from her view.

Alone again, she stared at the blank wall behind the glass, willing herself not to forget. The touch, the heat, the certainty that even in this impossible place, she was still alive. Still wanted.

She let herself cry—soft, silent tears that left no trace on the paint but filled her with a bittersweet warmth. When the last tear fell, she straightened her shoulders, reset her hair, and let the sun in her little world dry her face.

She would wait. That was what she did best. But this time, she was not just waiting to be rescued, or remembered, or mourned.

She was waiting for the world to break, just a little, so she could step through and kiss him for real, again.

Room 5 was not built for brooding. It wanted to be a space for laughter, for secrets traded under blankets, for the lazy chaos of two women brushing teeth at the same sink and fighting for closet space. But this morning, it was a holding cell.

Emi sat on the edge of the bed, one foot tucked under her, the other grazing the floor. The sheets were undisturbed behind her—she’d barely slept, and judging from the shape of the other side, neither had Marissa. The air was heavy with the last of the rain, thick and sour-sweet like the moment after a storm when the world can’t decide if it wants to be clean or drowned. Emi had never liked the rain, not even as a child. The sound of it always made her feel as if she’d missed a train or a party, something irretrievable and slightly pathetic.

She watched Marissa from across the room. The older woman was perched on the window seat, knees drawn up under her chin, gaze fixed on the shifting glass. She looked elegant even in her misery—her hair pulled into a precise bun, her robe drawn tight at the waist, her posture so upright it made Emi’s back ache just to look at it. Even at a distance, Emi could see the bruise-blue circles under Marissa’s eyes and the angry red bloom at her cheekbone where she’d pressed it against the glass for too long. Her breathing was shallow and even, but her fingers danced ceaselessly over the skin of her forearm, tracing invisible words.

Emi had tried, for two hours, to coax Marissa out of the loop. She had started gentle: “There’s still time for breakfast.” She’d escalated to jokes, to dumb stories from their weeks on the island, to a pointed critique of Norah’s oatmeal technique. Nothing. She had even tried the **** move—mentioning Andy and last night’s Hearth, hoping jealousy or FOMO would do what kindness hadn’t. Marissa hadn’t even flinched.

Now, Emi just sat there. Watching. Waiting. The urge to do something, to fix it, crawled under her skin, but she remembered what the therapist at UCSD had said about “allowing for stillness.” She doubted the therapist meant “stillness” quite like this—like being paralyzed in the path of a speeding car—but she was trying, in her way, to honor the idea. It was hard. Emi wasn’t built for confrontation, or for patience. She wanted things to be nice, and easy, and over.

Outside, the rain softened to mist, blurring the world beyond the window into gradients of white and green. A little patch of sunlight fought its way through, catching on Marissa’s hair and lighting it like a halo. Emi wanted to say something about it, but the words felt brittle and performative. So she didn’t.

They sat that way until the clock in the lobby below bonged the half-hour. The sound startled Marissa, just slightly—her fingers clenched, her jaw set—but otherwise she didn’t move. Emi watched the micro-expressions drift across Marissa’s face, a language she was only now starting to learn. There was anger there, and pride, and—underneath it all—a disappointment so dense it bent the light around it.

Finally, Emi spoke. “I know you don’t want to talk about it,” she said, her voice so soft she worried it would evaporate on the way across the room, “but you don’t have to be alone, either.”

Marissa blinked. For a moment, she seemed to consider looking at Emi. But her eyes went back to the rain. She said nothing, but her fingers started up again, tracing circles, then ellipses, then—maybe—question marks.

Emi took a breath. She remembered, from the Garden, the feeling of being trapped in your own head. She remembered what it was like to have the world expect things of you, and to know you couldn’t give them. She remembered the guilt and the helplessness. So she changed tactics.

She slid off the bed, crossing the room in slow, careful steps, and sat down on the window seat beside Marissa. Not too close—just near enough that their knees almost touched. She folded her hands in her lap, six arms tangled together like a basket of snakes, and let herself be still.

They sat that way, in silence, for several minutes. Marissa’s breathing slowed. Emi could hear it now, the in-and-out of air, the tension easing by microscopic increments.

When she felt brave enough, Emi reached out with her second left hand—the one that never trembled, even when she was scared—and placed it, very lightly, on Marissa’s forearm. The touch was feather-soft, almost apologetic.

Marissa didn’t flinch away. She didn’t react at all, at first. But after a long moment, she shifted, her arm rotating under Emi’s hand until their palms were almost, but not quite, touching.

They stayed like that for a while.

Eventually, Emi spoke again, her voice no louder than the rain. “Would you go to the beach with me?” she asked. “Not to see anyone, or talk, or… anything. Just to sit. I think it would help.”

Marissa didn’t answer. Not right away. But Emi could feel her weighing the offer, rolling it over in her mind like a stone in a river. Finally, she nodded—one short, sharp bob of the head. “Okay,” she said, and Emi felt the word in her bones.

They got dressed with minimal ceremony—Emi in a soft cardigan and loose linen pants, Marissa in her standard hotel-issue resort wear, though she left the shirt hanging open in a way that made Emi’s cheeks go hot for a second before she looked away. Marissa’s cleavage, pale and impossible, commanded the entire field of vision. It was distracting in a way that felt almost cruel, but Emi suspected that was part of the point. Marissa’s nipples, hard and obvious under the thin white top, looked like punctuation marks: exclamation points, maybe, or the dot over a question mark.

They walked through the quiet halls in silence. Marissa’s steps were careful and deliberate, her body held together by the kind of poise that was more armor than grace. Emi trailed beside her, keeping pace, matching her breathing to Marissa’s. She could feel the older woman’s anxiety vibrating just under the skin—an EMF field of tension so strong it made Emi’s arms want to curl up and shield her own chest. She didn’t.

The beach was empty. The storm had cleared most of the guests; even the diehard sunbathers were gone. The sand was smooth and damp, dotted here and there with the washed-up flotsam of the previous night’s storm: a blue plastic shovel, a coil of kelp, a dead crab with one claw raised in mute accusation. The water was flat and gray, the horizon a single, unwavering line.

They sat on a driftwood log just above the tide line. Emi drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, making herself as small as possible. Marissa sat upright, hands on her thighs, spine as straight as the edge of a ruler.

For a long time, they just listened to the waves.

Emi thought about saying something—about childhood, or heartbreak, or the nature of time—but every word felt like a pebble tossed into a well. Instead, she let her mind drift, her eyes tracing the sweep of the bay, the way the light flickered and died across the wet sand.

It was Marissa who broke the quiet. “Thank you,” she said. The words sounded like they had been sanded down, all the edges gone. “For not asking me to explain.”

Emi nodded. “You don’t have to. I just wanted… company.”

Marissa made a sound—almost a laugh, but not quite. She looked at Emi, really looked at her, and Emi felt the full **** of those blue eyes. “It’s not your job to fix people,” Marissa said, voice gentle.

Emi smiled, a little crooked. “I’m not trying to fix you,” she said. “Just… be here.”

Marissa nodded, eyes going distant again. She let her head fall forward, hair spilling over one cheek. She stared at the horizon like she was trying to find something in it—some answer, some escape.

The waves rolled in and out. Emi watched the patterns: two small, one big, then a pause. She wondered if anyone else noticed things like that, or if it was just her. She remembered, suddenly, the Garden—the feeling of being intertwined, of knowing what other people needed without having to be told. She wondered if it was possible, here in the real world, to reach out and touch someone’s pain the way you could in a dream.

She glanced at Marissa again. The older woman looked tired. Not just physically, but soul-deep tired, the kind you couldn’t nap away. Her posture had softened, her hands now limp in her lap, her feet digging little furrows in the sand. There was a tremor in her jaw, almost invisible, but Emi saw it.

Emi scooted a little closer on the log, slow enough not to spook her. She let her left hand rest on the wood, palm up, open and waiting. After a minute, Marissa’s hand found hers. The grip was tentative, but it held.

They stayed that way for what felt like hours. Marissa’s breathing grew slower, deeper, her eyes fluttering shut every so often as if she was testing the idea of sleep and finding it less terrifying than she’d remembered.

Emi watched her. She didn’t know what else to do. She just let herself exist in the space, letting her six arms settle around her body, letting the morning sun warm her skin and the sound of the sea fill her head.

After a while, Marissa’s head tilted sideways, just a bit, and landed on Emi’s shoulder. The touch was gentle, not a collapse but a permission, a letting-go. Emi’s heart beat faster, but she didn’t dare move. She just sat, letting the weight anchor her in place.

She didn’t know how long they sat like that—five minutes, twenty, more. But eventually, Emi felt Marissa’s grip on her hand slacken, her breathing slow and even out, her body go limp.

Marissa was asleep.

Emi froze, unsure of the protocol. She didn’t want to wake her, but she also didn’t want to let her fall. So she just held Marissa upright, using her own body as a scaffold. The sensation was oddly familiar—like holding a child, or a cat, or a bird with a broken wing.

Marissa twitched once, then stilled. Her lips parted, a slow exhale escaping. Her hair tickled Emi’s collarbone, and she resisted the urge to brush it away.

It was then that Emi felt it—the memory, or maybe the echo, of what she’d experienced in the Garden of Glass. A sensation that wasn’t quite a thought, or a dream, or a memory, but some third thing. She could feel the shape of Marissa’s pain, the sharp edges and the hollow core. She could sense the loops—the way Marissa kept circling back to the same questions, the same regrets, the same bitter certainty that she was not enough.

Emi didn’t try to analyze it. She just listened.

She dipped into the hush that grew between them, letting Marissa’s **** mind supply the story. She let her own mind wander, not willfully, but as though following a wind that moved through the inner chambers of the woman sleeping against her. At first it was only sensation: the drag of damp, cold sand under bare toes, the taste of unsweetened tea brewed from old, brittle leaves, the itch of a wool sweater at the crook of an elbow. These things were not hers—she’d never worn wool, never tasted tea that bitter—but she recognized them all the same. They belonged to Marissa, woven into the muscle memory of her body, and Emi found herself drifting in the undertow, the sensations accumulating into a kind of wordless biography.

Images flickered up from the depths, rapid-fire: a hospital corridor lined with beige linoleum, the clock on the wall ticking steadily past each hour; two little girls in matching blue jumpers, one standing behind the other, hands gripping the handles of a wheelchair; a teenager hunched over a spiral notebook, filling page after page with the same sentence, written in different scripts and styles. The repetitions were a comfort, a way of tuning out the chaos around her. Emi could feel the comfort, the need for order, almost as if it were her own.

She followed the current. She saw Marissa aging up through the years—not as a smooth progression, but as a series of hard, discontinuous jumps. At twelve, she was a little girl who said yes to everything, eager to please, terrified of mistakes. At seventeen, she was the only one in her friend group who never got invited to the parties, always the ride, never the passenger. At twenty, she was a psychology major, skipping her own classes to ferry her sister to appointments, then coming home to cook meals that nobody ate. At twenty-five, she was a grad student, taking on extra clients for the faculty advisor who’d quietly started ghosting his patients. At thirty, she was already tired. Already so, so tired.

It wasn’t a sad story, exactly. Emi could see the moments of light, too: the time she won a blue ribbon in a science fair, the pride in her father’s eyes; the afternoon spent reading The Phantom Tollbooth with her sister, the two of them laughing at the weirdness of the world; the rare weekends when her mother’s pain was manageable, and they’d drive out to the state park, walk the trails, pick wildflowers along the fence line. The memories were full of color and motion. But even in the best moments, Emi could sense the weight dragging behind, the gravity that bent Marissa’s life around it.

She saw Marissa in her professional life, too: a therapist’s office, furnished in the kind of bland comfort that promised safety but never delivered it. Marissa sat in the good chair, notebook balanced on her knee, listening to the confessions of others. She was brilliant, attentive. A hundred times, Emi watched her say the right thing, give the right advice, help a client reframe their pain in a way that made it bearable. But every time, the session ended and Marissa was left alone, the air thick with what nobody had said. Emi felt the tension in her shoulders, the way she clenched her jaw, the way her hands always found something to fidget with once the client was gone.

And then there was the hollow. The blankness behind the face Marissa wore for the world. Emi saw her at home, sitting on the edge of a bed, phone in hand, composing and deleting a dozen texts before finally giving up. She saw her in restaurants, pretending to study the menu while everyone else laughed and gossiped and paired off, always the odd number in the group. She saw her sitting in her car outside the grocery store, key in the ignition, listening to an old playlist she’d made for a friend who’d stopped returning calls. Emi wanted to reach out, to touch her, to say: It’s okay. I see you. But she was only a passenger, carried along in the wake of someone else’s sadness.

The dream changed. It jumped to the recent past, to the argument with Laura—voiced and replayed a thousand times, in dozens of variations. In this version, Marissa tried to stand her ground. She tried to be brave, to speak the truth of her own needs. But Laura’s anger, sharp and unyielding, washed over her. Emi felt the heat of it, saw Marissa’s face crumble just slightly, watched her retreat inside herself. In the dream, Emi could see that the loss was more than just a lost friend; it was an echo of every disappointment that had ever come before. A pattern, a curse, a story told over and over.

Emi’s own heart ached with the memory. She wanted, so fiercely, to intervene. To take Marissa’s hand and pull her out, to tell her that she was not alone, that she was good enough, that failing to save someone didn’t make her unworthy of love. The urge was almost physical. She tightened her arms around Marissa’s sleeping form, careful not to wake her, and thought as hard as she could about the idea of comfort. Of safety. Of being wanted, not for fixing other people, but for simply existing.

She didn’t know what she expected. She hadn’t been able to do it in the Garden, not really—there, her attempts at healing had only ever been temporary, a bandage over the wound rather than a cure. But as she thought of warmth and acceptance, of rest and release, Emi felt something shift in the dream.

It was subtle at first, a change in the lighting or the temperature of the air. The coldness that pervaded Marissa’s memories softened; the shadows thinned. Emi saw Marissa walking down a hallway that no longer echoed with the click of her hard-soled shoes, but with the soft patter of bare feet. She saw her sitting by a window, sunlight on her face, eyes closed but not in exhaustion—in peace. In the therapist’s office, the chairs were now mismatched, some with bright floral patterns, and there were plants everywhere: ferns, pothos, a massive, unruly monstera with leaves bigger than Marissa’s head. The clients still spoke, still brought their pain, but this time, Marissa let it pass through her instead of holding on to it. She still cared, still listened, but it didn’t hollow her out anymore.

The argument with Laura replayed, but this time, Marissa didn’t play the therapist. She recognized Laura’s pain for what it was, what it needed: simply another human being to hold her, to tell her everything would be okay without schemes, tactics, techniques. She was sad, yes. But she let herself cry alongside Laura, let herself be angry alongside Laura, let herself be human. And in the dream, Laura listened, and found in Marissa someone who could offer not just listening, but consolation, support, friendship. And that was enough.

Emi felt the dream respond to her efforts. There was resistance, at first—like trying to stretch a muscle that had been knotted for years. But it didn’t break; it bent, slowly, inexorably, as Emi pressed the idea of comfort into every corner. She pictured Andy’s hands, gentle and sure, massaging the tension from Marissa’s shoulders. She conjured her own presence, sitting close, sharing a dumb joke, letting the moment hang without the need to fix it. She remembered the other women—Liesa, Claire, even Riley—and the ways each had wanted (and sometimes failed) to give Marissa what she needed. Emi let all those efforts count, even the ones that didn’t work. She let them build up, a pile of small kindnesses, a scaffolding strong enough to hold a human soul.

The dreamscape changed again. Emi saw Marissa as a child, but this time someone was there to catch her when she fell. She saw her alone in her car, but instead of silence, music filled the space—a silly pop song, a memory of a road trip with friends, laughter. She saw Marissa on the beach, head on Emi’s shoulder, and in that moment, she felt a surge of gratitude, of relief, of finally being seen and held.

Emi couldn’t tell if the change would last. She didn’t know if she’d fixed anything, or if she’d just offered a brief respite from the storm. But as Marissa slept on, her breathing easy and deep, Emi hoped that it would be enough. That when she woke, she wouldn’t remember the dream exactly, but she’d carry a little of it with her: the ease, the acceptance, the knowledge that she didn’t have to carry the whole world alone.

Amidst the wonder for what had just happened, Emi hoped, with all her heart, that it would be enough.