Chapter 10

The fairy lights are on. Jordan strung them around the window frame months ago—her touch on my space, her studio aesthetic bleeding into my suite—and now they're just part of the room. Soft gold against the blush walls. The window is cracked open, and the spring air carries the sound of the fountain in the courtyard, louder now with the melt feeding it.

Jordan is on the couch beside me. Her feet are tucked under her, her pink bob falling into her eyes as she scrolls through her phone. She's wearing the oversized denim jacket with the painted mural—the one Madison made, the one she wears everywhere—and a silk camisole underneath. Her sandalwood scent mixes with my Jo Malone. The combination has become the smell of home.

"What did you want to be?" she asks without looking up. "When you were a kid. Before the marketing thing. Before the startup."

The question is casual. Intimate in the way Jordan's questions always are—low and unhurried, making space for whatever answer I give. The body doesn't tense. Madison's memories supply the answer before I even have to search for it.

"A photographer," I say. "I had this old Polaroid camera I found at a flea market. Took it everywhere. Drove my mom crazy because I kept spending my allowance on film."

Madison at twelve. The Polaroid heavy in her hands, the satisfying click and whir. She took photos of everything—the Brooks Estate gardens, her brother making faces, her own reflection in the hallway mirror. Her father said she had an eye. Her mother said it was a nice hobby. Madison knew, even then, that "nice hobby" meant "don't get your hopes up."

The memory surfaces with the word film—the chemical smell of the developing print, the way the image emerged slowly from the white. I blink, and it recedes. But the emotional residue lingers: the hope, the disappointment, the slow realization that she would never be a photographer. She would be practical. She would be successful. She would be what her mother wanted.

Jordan looks up from her phone. Her grey-blue eyes are soft in the fairy-light glow. "You never told me that before."

"Didn't I?" But I know I didn't. Madison didn't talk about the Polaroid. The failed dreams. The things she gave up.

"No." Jordan sets her phone aside. "You always say you wanted to be in business. That you were born for it."

"That's the official story."

"What's the real one?"

The question lands, and something aches behind my ribs. Not the guilt hum—that's always there, a low note in the chord. This is different. Sharper. Jordan is looking at me with love and trust and genuine curiosity. She wants to know her girlfriend. She wants to know the person she's been falling deeper in love with—the one who's calmer, more present, the one who finally figured out what matters.

But she's asking Madison. She's looking at Madison's face and touching Madison's body and loving Madison's soul. The answers I give are from Madison's memories. The dreams I describe are Madison's dreams. The woman she loves isn't here.

I'm here. And she doesn't know.

"There was a summer," I say, the words coming from Madison's memories, fluid and natural. "I was sixteen. I'd saved up for this photography workshop—a week in the city, real photographers teaching real techniques. I was so excited I couldn't sleep for three days before. And then my mom..." I pause. The memory is vivid. The disappointment is fresh, even though it's years old. "My mom said no. She'd already enrolled me in a business camp. 'More practical,' she said. 'Something you can actually use.'"

Jordan's expression shifts. Her jaw tightens. She's heard enough about Diane to know what that meant. "You never went."

"I never went." I shrug. Madison's shrug—dismissive, moving on. "It's fine. I'm good at marketing. I like it."

"But it's not what you wanted."

"No. It's not."

The silence stretches. The fairy lights flicker—a gust of wind through the cracked window. The fountain murmurs in the courtyard. Jordan reaches over and takes my hand. Her fingers are cool, slightly dry. The pressure is familiar. Comforting.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "That you didn't get to go. That she didn't let you."

The ache sharpens. She's comforting Madison. She's sorry for Madison's lost dream. I'm just the one holding her hand.

"It was a long time ago," I say. "I have a good life now. I have you."

Jordan lifts my hand to her lips and kisses my knuckles. The gesture is so tender, so intimate, that the ache and the love tangle together in my chest until I can't tell them apart. "You do have me," she says. "And I'm not going anywhere."

---

Later, we walk.

It's become a habit—the evening walk, the loop through the quiet streets around the Brooks Estate. The spring air is cool but not cold. The trees are budding, pale green against the dark sky. The streetlights cast pools of gold on the pavement. Jordan walks beside me, her hands shoved into the pockets of her denim jacket. My own hands are at my sides.

She's been quiet since the couch. The question about dreams opened something—a door she didn't know was there. I can feel her processing it, the way she processes everything: slowly, carefully, turning it over in her mind.

"Thank you," she says finally. "For telling me. About the photography thing."

"Thanks for asking."

"I want to know all of it," she says. "Everything you never told me. All the dreams you gave up. All the things you still want."

The ache pulses. She wants to know Madison. She's falling deeper in love with a ghost.

"I'll tell you," I say. "Whatever you want to know."

She nods. Her hands are still in her pockets. The street ahead of us is empty, the houses dark, the only sound our footsteps on the pavement.

I reach for her hand.

The decision is mine. Not Madison's muscle memory. Not an inherited instinct. I want to hold her hand. I want the warmth of her fingers between mine. I want her to know—even if she doesn't know—that the person reaching for her is me.

My fingers slide between hers. Her palm is cool from the night air, a little dry. She glances at me. The smile that spreads across her face is slow and warm and just for me.

"Hey," she says softly.

"Hey."

She squeezes. The warmth spreads up my arm, into my chest, a small, quiet pulse of something that is not quite joy and not quite relief but somewhere in between. The secret hums beneath it—a low note, a quiet shadow. She's holding Madison's hand. She's smiling at Madison's face. But the choice to reach out was mine. The warmth in my chest is mine. The love I feel for her—filtered through Madison's memories, experienced through my own consciousness—is mine.

We walk. The streetlights pool gold on the pavement. The trees rustle with the first spring leaves. Jordan's hand is warm in mine, and the secret hums beneath the warmth, and both things are true. They will always both be true.