A small, sour premonition rose in Oakley's chest. Grace looked too composed, too formal—the face people put on when they've come to deliver a verdict.
"Go on," Oakley said, bracing.
Grace went quiet, eyes lowered, as if arranging chessmen. "I think you were right before."
Before? Oakley sifted for which knife she might have tossed.
"What do you mean?"
Grace chose each word like it might explode. "I don't have the right to tell you what to do. So… let's really not interfere with each other anymore. For real this time. I won't comment on your friends again. And about cheating—if it's going to happen, rules won't stop it. If it isn't, rules aren't needed. Also… the agreement we made is a little against human nature. If you fall for someone and want out, I won't keep you. When my grandmother is alive and needs us to appear together, we show up together. That's all."
She'd kept Oakley's sentences, every last one, filed away and brooded over them until they became policy.
Grace pressed a thumb to the faint pinprick on her arm. "One more thing. We… shouldn't keep up certain intimacies."
She didn't know how Oakley separated body from feeling. She couldn't. That path led only one way—down, deeper, all the way into wanting and then into love. And she didn't trust herself to carry that weight. She remembered, with a cold clarity, why she'd chosen this marriage instead of love-first, marriage-later: if she ever slipped, if something triggered her and she rebooted to an even number-colder version of herself, it would be a disaster for the one who loved her.
Oakley didn't speak at first. Then she laughed.
So this was it. Since the hospital, something unnameable had shifted; now Grace was giving it a shape and a set of rules.
"So you're drawing a clean, absolute line," Oakley said, arms cinched tight around her waist. "Even if I apologize from the bottom of my heart, you still can't forgive me—is that it?"
"It's not that it's unforgivable," Grace said, fingers finding the tender spot on her arm again. "I think this is better for both of us."
Forgive, don't forgive—strange words. She could reason that she ought to be sad, but her feelings were a haze, like watching someone else's life. And yet she knew too well that if this happened again, she'd crack open the same way. Better to cut the cord now.
Oakley laughed again, thinner. "And you won't 'keep' me. How considerate."
She'd wondered if Grace could like her even a little. Apparently not. If you liked someone, would you calmly discuss infidelity with the detachment of a meteorologist?
"Fine." Oakley studied her a long moment. "No problem. We go back to where we started. That's perfectly okay."
Her smile had corners; her voice ran a pitch high, like glass held to a flame.
"Angry?" Grace asked quietly.
"Why would I be?" Oakley pushed her hair behind one ear and drummed her fingers lazily at her waist. "We're just… housemates. You don't like me; I don't like you. We're not dating. What's there to be mad about?"
Silence pulled a chair between them.
"Also," Grace said after a beat, "I have a trip in a few days. I'll be away and—"
"You don't have to tell me," Oakley cut in.
Grace looked up.
Oakley shifted, smiling too brightly. "We're roommates, right? Roommates don't need to report their schedules. We just… perform for family when required. The rest—separate lives."
"I understand," Grace said. "I won't say more next time."
I understand. I won't say more.
Oakley repeated them in her head until her temples throbbed. She'd agreed to this, yes. But agreement didn't come with anesthesia. She wasn't stupid; she understood what this meant. It was a gate swinging shut. Now and always, there would be no them.
"Let's end here for today," she said, smoothing a hand through her hair and turning away.
"Mm. Good night," Grace answered.
Polite, immaculate. Strangers in nice shoes passing on a quiet street.
Oakley took two steps, then stopped. "I almost forgot. About what I said today—whether or not you mind, I need to say this clearly."
She'd come out to say exactly this.
Grace didn't answer, only watched her from the doorway.
Oakley stared at nothing for a long moment, then spoke, fast, the words clicking like beads. "First—my 'sorry' was real. And I have to admit: that sentence was passive aggression. I wasn't defending Ellisa. I was projecting."
"I spent a stretch of time being… twisted up. Paranoid. A little like Ellisa. When you labeled her bad with such certainty, I didn't protect her—I protected a damaged little piece of me. My narcissism was wounded, so I lashed out."
"I took it personally. I wanted to prove you wrong, to break your logic. So that stab? It wasn't objective. It was loaded with my mess. Don't let it live in your chest."
There. Laid bare, ungilded.
After she shut her door, Oakley leaned against it and breathed, hard. Her mind buzzed like a struck wire; her eyes went wet. She scrubbed the shine away with two brisk swipes.
She sat on the sofa a minute and then laughed at herself.
Fine. Roommates it is. Freedom. She could go wherever, with whomever, answer to no one. Wasn't that gorgeous?
Except her eyes burned again. She pressed a tissue to the rim of each lid and snorted softly. Ridiculous. Cry—for what? As if she liked Grace that much. As if Grace were irreplaceable.
What was there to like?
A face too beautiful. A voice too smooth. A mind quick as rain. Generous hands. Skill. Gentleness that felt like being seen. So she liked her a little. So what?
Excuse you, Oakley Ponciano was not exactly an understudy. People called her a walking bouquet, a woman-shaped sin. Suitors could queue from here to the Great Wall. Even if Grace wanted to chase her, she'd need to take a number.
Whatever. Oakley had a seven-second memory when she wanted it. By morning, she could forget anyone.
She folded her arms tight across her middle and stared at the wall art, trying on the armor of a woman who has killed love with her bare hands.
It lasted two minutes. Then her nose stung; she folded into her palms and laughed and cried without a sound until her scalp felt hot.
Grace stood a long time after Oakley left.
How strange. Thinking Oakley had scolded her on Ellisa's behalf had made her angry. Learning that Oakley hadn't—that the anger had been about something else—softened the place inside it landed.
She went back to her room and straight to the bath.
She filled the tub, undressed mechanically, bound her hair, and eased into heat. By logic, it should have been peace—medicine taken, water holding her up. But the moment she shut her eyes, Oakley rose behind them. When she managed to scatter the image, the voice came.
Later she dried off, plugged in her phone, and lay down.
Sleep didn't want her. Maybe she'd stolen too much of it that afternoon. She adjusted the pillow, tried again.
A small, clean sound—the click of a door down the hall. Oakley's, the ear supplied.
Grace lifted her head in the dark and listened. Footsteps approached, then veered, then went down the stairs. Doing… what?
Black filled the room. She could see nothing, the way she could rarely see her own heart.
She laid her cheek back on the pillow, eyes closed. But her ears kept working of their own accord, counting Oakley's movements; her mind mapped where Oakley was, how long she'd been there. The feeling—of being tugged by someone else's small motions—was unfamiliar and a little unbearable. Like a feather teasing her sternum.
Twenty minutes later the house went quiet, and the pill turned gravity back on. She slept hard and long and woke with only the vaguest tatters of absurd dreams, none she could keep hold of.
Morning. She opened the curtains, aired the room, went downstairs.
The routine was a comfort. Heat the frozen breakfast, pour the milk, carry the plate to the table, eat.
Halfway through, footsteps on the stairs. Grace looked up.
Oakley, in panda-print loungewear. Adorable, irritatingly so.
After last night, they looked at each other and found their mouths empty.
"Morning," Grace said first.
Oakley smoothed her wild hair and nodded, not speaking. She walked to the kitchen and swung the upper cabinet open to retrieve the half-finished fruit muesli she'd shoved up there days ago. She was in a mood for easy: pour, add milk, done.
Unfortunately, she'd stashed it high enough to be a problem—easy to jam in, hard to bring down. She jumped once, succeeded only in nudging it deeper.
Grace's shadow slid beside her. "I'll get it."
She reached up and plucked the box down, simple as that, and held it out.
Oakley lowered her eyes to that white, fine-boned hand. Beautiful, still. Tendons faint beneath the skin. She remembered those fingers on her bare shoulder and had to bite her lip.
She took the box. "Thanks," she said, languid and small.