Page 45 of You, Only You

"This doesn't fix anything," she said.

"I know."

"The trust thing is going to take time. I'm going to be checking. Watching. Looking for signs. That's not fair to you, and I'm going to do it anyway, because it's how I'm built."

"I understand."

"And if I find something again..."

"You won't."

"If I do."

"Then you leave. You told me that. I heard you."

She squeezed my hand. I squeezed back. The city glittered below us, indifferent and beautiful.

"Your sister," Lindsey said after a while. "She's good for you."

"She'd say the same about you."

"She doesn't know me."

"She knows I called her at midnight to talk about my feelings instead of building a contingency plan. She considers that a miracle." I paused. "Her word. Miracle. She's dramatic."

"Runs in the family."

"I'm not dramatic."

"You ripped a car door off its hinges and then tried to tell me it was a mechanical issue."

"It was already damaged..."

"Will."

"...Fine. It was dramatic. I was motivated."

The almost-laugh was back. That sound she made that wasn't quite a laugh but changed the air between us. I was collecting those sounds. Filing them. Not operationally. Just... because.

"Tomorrow night," I said. "The Mendez operation."

"I know."

"Are you ready?"

"No." Her thumb moved across my knuckles, slow and absent, like she was thinking about something else while her hand did its own thing. "But I don't think ready is the point. The point is going anyway."

"Spoken like someone who's been spending too much time with me."

"God, don't I know it."

We stayed on the balcony for a long time after that. Not talking. Not planning. Just standing together in the cold, holding hands, looking at a city that didn't care about us and not caring that it didn't care.

At some point, her head drifted sideways and came to rest against my shoulder. I didn't move, didn't adjust, didn't do anything that might break the contact. I just let her lean, and held her hand, and breathed.

The fear was still there. Massive. Undiminished. Nicole had lied, or maybe the timeline was just longer than one evening.

But standing here, with Lindsey's head on my shoulder and her hand in mine and the wreckage of my mistake still fresh between us, I noticed something else. Something I hadn't felt in the living room when I was sitting with the fear alone.