Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Charlotte Matthews lives on the top floor of a building that doesn’t have an elevator. 

It wasn’t her idea, not really. Her father’s name signed the lease like always. The ceilings are high, windows taller than her, sterile white walls that don’t echo unless she screams. 

She hasn’t. Yet.

New York City doesn’t sleep, but her apartment does. It’s neat, cold. Every object is in its place, intentional. She wipes the counters twice a day even though she doesn’t cook. There’s a kettle, a few mugs, chamomile she doesn’t drink. There are art books she hasn’t opened, a single framed photo of a lavender field, hung just slightly crooked. 

She doesn’t fix it. Can’t bring herself to touch it, really. It reminds her of Switzerland.

It’s been almost a year since she was released. Discharged. Reintegrated. 

She doesn’t like the word "better." It feels like a lie someone might tell to a child. 

What she is is restrained. Kept. She doesn’t spiral anymore. She journals. She attends group therapy. She has blackout curtains and a routine and no knives in the kitchen drawer. 

She’s thirty years old. Not today, but a few weeks ago. She only remembered after receiving a birthday card in the mail from her father, all swooping cursive and perfumed niceties. A pale pink envelope. A Hallmark message she doubts he wrote himself. 

She likes to think he did. One of those small, easy lies she tells herself to blunt the ache of being known only at a distance.

The card’s still on her fridge, held up by a lavender magnet shaped like a flower. Charlotte lets herself pretend the gesture means something. Means she can freeze that little moment in time like a snapshot, keep time from progressing as fast as it does– all hazy, pill-numbed days.

The calendar across the room says otherwise. It taunts her from its spot on the wall, stark and factual. Upcoming sessions, check-ins, routine bloodwork. A refill for her meds. All written in purple ink. 

She chose the color thinking it would cheer her up. Sometimes it does. Other times, it reminds her of the dull violet haze that used to press in behind her vision, just before she’d seize. Back when they kept her in that white room with the dim lights and a mouth guard that tasted like old rubber and chalk, straps biting into her wrists.

She’d heard they changed the regulations for it a few years back. That now, you have to be fully asleep before they administer the shocks. She wonders sometimes if it’s better or worse to be awake.

They said it was for her own good. They always do.

She tried, still tries, to believe them. That’s what the therapist tells her– to trust intention, not outcome. The woman has kind eyes and speaks in a lulling tone, like she’s reading bedtime stories to a child too afraid to sleep. 

Charlotte doesn’t mind. She wants to be lulled, sometimes. Wants someone to tell her what’s real. Because most days still feel like vapor.

She wakes early now. Not because she wants to, but because her body never really left the hospital's rhythm. 5:37 AM, every day. She pads into the kitchen, barefoot, clicks the kettle on, watches the steam coil. She doesn’t like coffee anymore. It makes her stomach clench. Instead, she drinks peppermint tea, bitter and clean.

She sits on the floor in front of the big window, watching the Manhattan skyline mottle purple like blooming bruises as the sun climbs up the horizon. Breathing in for four, out for six. 

She’s not allowed to have candles in the apartment. Fire hazard. But she has a small electric diffuser that puffs lavender oil into the air every two hours. It smells like the flowers her mother planted when she was a girl, when they were still pretending to be a normal family.

There are days she gets dressed, even if she has nowhere to go. Linen trousers, soft sweaters, a short comb through her hair. Sometimes she puts on blush, just for the color. A little war paint against the drab of it all. 

Other days, she stays in the same worn t-shirt until night falls again.

She journals. She colors in adult mandalas with expensive pens. She walks laps around the apartment, seven times exactly, then stops. It makes her feel like she’s keeping something bad from happening. Like if she just keeps moving, whatever it is won’t catch her. 

She listens to music she used to cry to and doesn’t cry anymore. And she reads. God, she reads . Books on healing, trauma, mindfulness. She highlights like a student preparing for a test that never comes. 

Sometimes she writes letters to people she’ll never send. Her mother. Her father. 

Natalie. 

She tears them up afterward. Her trash can is overflowing with paper scraps.

She’s trying. She’s trying .

But there’s this ache. Not loud. Just ever-present. A small splinter under the skin every hour. A person-shaped absence. The dip of the mattress under another body. A hand that isn’t her own between her thighs.

She thinks about Natalie more than she should. Less than she used to. Somewhere in that middle place that makes every time she strays feel like picking a scab.

They haven’t spoken in weeks. Months? Time has gone slippery again. Charlotte told herself that was a good thing. No contact meant boundaries. Strength. It meant she was moving on. 

Natalie, after all, was never good for her. And God knows she had never been good for Natalie.

And yet, every time the buzzer rings, Charlotte still checks her reflection in the mirror.

It’s a Thursday when Natalie shows up. The coldest day of the year, air crisp enough to crack teeth. Charlotte’s wrapped in a cardigan three sizes too big and the hem of her pajama pants is wet from wiping up a spilled cup of sleepytime tea. 

She doesn’t expect the sound, that harsh buzz that reminds her of ECT. Doesn’t expect to feel hope spike like a needle in her neck, either.

She opens the door slowly, trying to hold onto some semblance of sense.

Natalie stands there soaked, unkempt, mascara smeared beneath bloodshot eyes, grown-out brunette hair plastered to her forehead in choppy tangles. 

She doesn’t speak. Just stares. 

Charlotte feels something shift inside her, stomach twisting like she might be sick– though the worst part is that it’s with excitement . Like a codependent dog who can’t help but make a mess when its owner finally walks through the door.

It takes her a full breath to say: “You didn’t call.”

Natalie’s lips twitch around a smirk. Not happy. But not cruel, either. Just tired. “You would’ve said no.”

Charlotte doesn’t know how to answer that, because it’s true. But it also isn’t. She thinks about the messages saved on her receiver. The way she still imagines Natalie’s voice in the middle of the night. The ache behind her ribs that never really leaves.

She steps aside, silent, lets her in.

Natalie brings the cold with her. Boots thudding against the hardwood, whiskey bottle slung low in one gloved hand. Her presence is too loud, too much , like a scream against silence. Charlotte’s space, curated and muted, already begins to tremble under the weight of her.

They sit on the couch because they don’t know what else to do.

The room feels smaller with Natalie in it. Charlotte curls her feet beneath her, sleeves hiding her hands. The silence swells.

Natalie uncaps the bottle and drinks straight from it. Her throat moves. Charlotte watches it.

Then, flatly: “So.” 

Natalie leans back, stretches one arm over the couch like this is normal. Like they do this all the time. Her eyes, though, are glassy and raw. 

“How’ve you been?”

Charlotte’s smile is faint, automatic, not quite a lie but not the truth either. “I’m… managing.”

Natalie snorts. “You always say that.”

“Well, I am. I’m doing my best. I’ve been sticking to my routine.”

Natalie lifts the bottle again. “What, like gold stars and morning affirmations?”

Lottie flinches like Natalie struck her physically. It makes her quiet for a long time. 

“That’s not fair.”

“No,” Natalie says, swallowing, “you’re right. It’s not.”

She takes another long pull. It stings, Lottie can tell– by the way her eyes pinch, the way her tongue darts over her lips.

“I’ve been working on acceptance,” Charlotte offers, too soft, trying to bridge something she isn’t sure still exists. “Letting go of judgment. Feeling my feelings without needing to identify with them.”

Natalie tilts her head slowly, like she’s being shown a trick she’s seen too many times before. “You sound like one of those mindfulness books. Next you’ll tell me to breathe into the emotion and offer it compassion .”

Lottie’s jaw tightens. “Would that be so bad?”

Natalie laughs. A breath, bitter and sharp. “I just don’t think compassion ’s in the cards for either of us.”

Silence again. The kind that scrapes.

Lottie looks away, out the window, where the snow falls fat and slow like ash. “I don’t want to fight.”

“I’m not fighting,” Natalie murmurs, fingers tightening around the bottle. “I’m just saying.”

“You didn’t have to come.” Lottie’s voice catches, barely audible. 

Natalie shakes her head. “You think I had a choice? You’re like—” She cuts herself off, stares at her hands. “Doesn’t matter.”

“You could’ve stayed gone,” Charlotte says quietly, but she doesn’t mean it. She never means it. She reaches for the throw blanket at her side, needing something to hold. “I thought you were doing okay.”

Natalie scoffs. “Define ‘okay.’” She drinks again. Harder. “If you mean still breathing, yeah. Nailed it.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No. It’s not.”

Lottie tucks her chin into her knees, voice a whisper: “I’ve missed you.”

Natalie stares at her. The bottle dangles from her fingers now, loose. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Say shit you don’t mean.”

“I do—”

“You missed me?” Natalie spits, eyes suddenly bright. “Then why’d you tell me not to come back last time? Why’d you say you needed space, that I was ‘disruptive’— like I’m some kind of fucking earthquake you could just evacuate from?”

Lottie’s voice goes small. Like a child. “I’m sorry I upset you. I know you feel hurt–”

Natalie scoffs. “Stop— don’t fucking talk to me like one of your dumbass mindfulness books, Lottie!”

She stands. The bottle hits the coffee table with a hard thunk, half the liquid already gone. “You want to do this little therapy-speak shit? You want to sit here and talk about your goddamn routine while I keep filling the hole in my head with fucking booze and pills?”

Lottie stands too, chest rising. 

“What do you want me to say, Nat? That I think about you every night? That I wake up– that I wake up fucking shaking and– and I have to remind myself not to call you, because I’m the one who told you to go?”

Natalie’s breath stutters out of her, chest rising in tandem. She steps forward, not touching, but hovering. That half-second delay like a match waiting for the strike.

She’s excited.

Lottie registers it a moment too late, but it floods her with heat. Natalie’s pupils are blown, wide enough to devour the green. Her fingers twitch, jaw tight, that low-banked hunger in her posture unmistakable. The kind of want that comes after too much waiting.

It should scare Lottie, the mania. It always used to. 

But tonight– childishly, stupidly– she gets butterflies. If nothing else, at least Natalie still wants her, somehow. Even if it’s like this.

Natalie’s voice is a rasp now, “Say it again.”

Lottie meets her eyes. Doesn’t blink.

“I missed you.”

That’s all it takes.

Natalie’s hands are on her before the words have time to settle. She grabs Lottie’s face, palms hot and rough, and kisses her like she’s trying to win the argument with her mouth. 

It’s not soft. It’s everything but. Their teeth clack together. Breath catches. Lips bruise. Lottie gasps, and Natalie chases the sound with her tongue.

Lottie’s back hits the wall hard, and she lets it. Lets Natalie slot between her thighs, pressing close, thigh grinding between her legs. Natalie’s hand fists in the hem of Lottie’s sweater, tugging it up until her stomach’s exposed to the cold air, and her mouth descends, teeth dragging against her ribs. 

Lottie’s gasp breaks into a low whimper. She threads shaking fingers through Natalie’s hair, pulls her up for another kiss that’s all lip and spit and desperation.

Natalie grins, smug and starved, shoving the sweater the rest of the way off.

They stumble toward the bedroom, half-dressed and already tangled. Natalie pushes Lottie down onto the bed like she’s claiming ground– knees between her legs, mouth trailing down her neck, nipping at her collarbone, the curve of her breast, the places where Lottie’s skin starts to twitch with impatience, need.

“You always do this ,” Natalie breathes. “Act like you’re over it then let me do whatever I want.”

It’s not cruel, not in the way it should be. It feels like an accusation. Like Natalie wants Lottie to shove her off, tell her to get out.

Her mouth finds Lottie’s nipple and Lottie arches with a cry, breath stuttering.

“I’m not—” Lottie breathes, trying to gather herself. “I’m not —”

Natalie licks a stripe up her chest, and murmurs, “Exactly.”

Her fingers slide beneath Lottie’s waistband. Slow. Knowing. Lottie’s already wet, already aching. Natalie doesn’t comment, not this time. Just drags her fingers through the slick and presses the pads against her clit until Lottie’s hips jerk up and her breath turns to a high, broken moan.

“ Shit , Nat—” she gasps, head tipping back.

Natalie kisses her again, less brutal now, more apologetic. Her fingers start to move in slow, firm circles, and Lottie’s thighs tremble, caught between wanting to push away and pull her closer, until there’s no space left to close.

“I hate you sometimes,” Natalie pants, breathless, slipping two fingers inside her in one smooth thrust. “I really fucking hate you sometimes.”

Lottie’s lips stutter and part just as needily as her thighs, spilling half-broken apologies and Natalie’s name— Nat, Nat, Nat— like a prayer said through squeaking, undeniably pleasured sobs.

Her lashes are already wet. Fluttering like the twitch of her clenching walls around Natalie’s fingers, tight and frantic. Lottie’s always been an open book to her in the end, all her pages worn and dog-eared.

Natalie wipes the tear with her thumb, gentle and almost absent-minded. Makes a sound low in her throat, something between a hush and a hum, meant to be soothing. 

But she doesn’t stop. Her fingers keep working, slick and sure, driving into Lottie with the kind of rhythm that’s half muscle memory, half resentment– both buried in shallow graves. The kind of pace that says: you wanted space, and now look at you .

It’s not tenderness, but it’s not cruelty either. It’s that strange space in between– where longing gets confused with possession, and comfort wears the same face as punishment.

Lottie’s breath catches sharp, broken. “M’close,” she mumbles, voice thinned to a whimper. There’s fear there. Real, fragile fear, that Natalie might pull away just to make her beg. That she might twist the knife by denying her the only kind of release she knows anymore.

Natalie hears it. Sees it in the way Lottie’s fingers curl tight in the sheets, not in her , afraid to get too needy.

And maybe any other night she would make her wait. Maybe she’d draw it out, test how long that soft body could tremble under her hand without snapping.

Tonight, Natalie leans in, presses a kiss just below Lottie’s jaw, slow and searing, and murmurs, “That’s okay. I want you to.”

The words are simple, but they’re everything. Permission to fall apart. The sound of a match being struck in the dark.

Lottie shatters with a sob, her back arching clean off the mattress, thighs shaking around Natalie’s wrist. Her cunt clenches so hard it’s like it’s trying to keep her inside, hold onto something that never stays. The sound she makes is raw, high, obscene, like it got dragged out of the very pit of her, where everything ugly tries to hide.

Natalie stays right there. Fingers still moving, but slower now, coaxing every last aftershock out of her. Her other hand finally threads into Lottie’s hair, grounding her, cradling her through it. Murmurs and hushes are pressed to her temple, kisses like balm to soothe a terrible burn.

And when it’s over– when Lottie’s trembling in the quiet aftermath, flushed and fucked-out and staring up at the ceiling like it might hold an answer, Natalie collapses beside her.

They don’t speak yet.

Lottie finds the edge of Natalie’s shirt and grips it like a lifeline, curling into her chest. She wants to say stay , but that’s dangerous. That’s a word that means more than just the night. So she doesn’t. She just breathes against Natalie’s collarbone, body still wrung-out and buzzing, and Natalie holds her like she’s not already planning on slipping out before sunrise.

Because she is. They both know it.

But for now, Natalie’s fingers curl around Lottie’s spine, and they pretend there’s nothing waiting outside this bed but silence. Not doctors’ appointments or bloodwork or the world. Only the trees and snow.

Lottie lies there a long moment, letting the silence stretch out across them like a warm sheet. Her heartbeat’s still too fast. Natalie’s skin is hot where their bodies touch, all sharp angles and sweat-slick.

She blinks, her lashes sticky. Her body aches, in the sweet way. The way that feels like something finally let go. Her fingers trail up Natalie’s ribs, soft and tentative, until her hand lands over her chest, where she feels the steady thrum of her pulse.

She hesitates, then lifts her chin slightly, voice small. “Do you want me to…?”

She doesn’t finish the sentence. Just lets it hang, breath warm against Natalie’s throat. Her hand trails lower, a question spelled out in touch.

Natalie’s whole body tenses like a snare.

“No.”

The word’s flat. Immediate. A hammer dropped without warning.

Lottie freezes. Her fingers recoil like they’ve been burned, tucked back to her own side of the bed. Where they belong.

“Oh,” she breathes. “Okay.”

She turns her face away, presses it into the pillow so Natalie won’t see the way her mouth pinches or how her lashes go wet all over again. This time, it’s not from pleasure.

Natalie exhales– long, slow, frustrated. “It’s not– It’s not you, Lott. Okay?”

“Okay,” Lottie mumbles, too soft to be convincing.

Natalie doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t move closer. She just lies there, staring at the ceiling like there’s something up there more important than the crying girl beside her.

And Lottie curls up a little smaller. Wraps her arms around herself the way she does in group sessions, when they make her talk about trust and triggers and the “meaningful progress” they think they see in her.

She tells herself it’s fine. That she should’ve known better. That maybe Natalie never wants softness. That maybe she only knows how to give hurt and take comfort, and that this thing between them is just that– a thing . A noose, tightening ever so slowly. A trap with no exit. 

Still, she stays.

Eventually, Natalie shifts, arm sliding under Lottie’s head like an extended olive branch. Lottie lets herself be pulled close, tucks her face into Natalie’s neck, and closes her eyes. Relishes the way she’s allowed to press her nose to the hollow of Natalie’s throat and breathe her in.

Neither of them say goodnight.

They fall asleep like that, though. Tangled, uneasy, too tired to fix anything, but too scared to pull away. The kind of sleep that feels like surrender. Like death. 

The morning seeps in slow, pale, and cold. Gray sky bleeds through the cracked blinds, painting everything in soft, indifferent hues. The kind of morning where it hurts to even breathe.

Natalie sits on the edge of the bed, half-dressed, boots in hand. Her back is to Lottie. Her shoulders tense, coiled like she’s waiting for the creak of the floorboards to betray her.

She could leave. She should.

Her eyes flick to the still form curled beneath the blanket— Lottie, barely breathing, arms tucked under her chin like a child afraid of monsters under the bed. Her mouth is parted, a little. The kind of soft that begs to be touched, held.

Natalie leans in, boots forgotten. Slowly, like she’s afraid even the air might catch her in the act. One hand brushes Lottie’s curls back from her forehead, and she presses a kiss there, letting her mouth linger. Guilty.

Lottie stirs. Her brow furrows first, then her eyes crack open, confused and sleep-heavy. 

“Nat…?”

Natalie straightens up like she’s been shot.

Lottie props herself up on an elbow, hair tangled, voice cracked and low. “Are you leaving?”

Natalie drags a hand over her face. “Yeah. I was trying to not make it a thing.”

Lottie blinks at her, slow and hurting. “It is a thing.”

“I know.” Natalie swallows, jaw clenched. “That’s why I didn’t want to wake you up.”

Lottie sits up, the sheet falling from her chest. Her voice shakes, raw at the edges. “You didn’t even want me to touch you last night.”

Natalie looks away. “I didn’t want anything from you. That’s the difference.”

Lottie flinches. Visibly. Like Natalie had slapped her instead of spoken.

Natalie runs a hand through her hair, paceing a short line at the foot of the bed. “It’s not you, alright? You think I don’t want you? That’s not–” She breaks off, shaking her head. “That’s not what this is.”

“What is it, then, Nat?” Lottie asks, pleading, A dog begging for scraps.

Natalie stops moving. The words hang there between them, thick as smoke. They both know the script– they’ve played it out before, different settings, same ache. Same exit wound.

Lottie pulls the blanket tighter around herself, lips pressed white. “Do you… Do you only come here when you hate yourself?”

Natalie’s mouth opens. Then shuts. There’s nothing honest she can say that won’t sound cruel.

So she steps back into her boots, grabs her coat. Doesn’t meet Lottie’s eyes. 

“I’ll call you this time, okay?”

Lottie’s lips quiver. She forces them steady, voice soft and defeated: “Okay.”

Natalie nods once. Hesitates at the door.

Then she leaves. No click of the lock behind her, just the sound of footsteps fading down the hall.

Lottie lays back down in the sheets that still smell like last night. She stares up at the ceiling until the tears come quiet and uninvited, and the city outside doesn’t care whether she gets up today or not.

She buries her face in the pillow and tries to go back to sleep while some trace of Natalie’s warmth still lingers.

Chapter Text

The office is warm and beige. Nothing that could trigger an outburst. Nothing to remind her of there or here, then or now. 

The carpet fuzzes under Charlotte’s boots and she keeps her jacket on, sweating at the nape. The radiator clicks like a ticking bomb.

Dr. Penner offers a smile that isn’t entirely real, but is more kindness than she’s been offered recently. “How’s your week been, Charlotte?”

She stares at the carpet. Thinks about the pills in the tiny white bottle in her coat pocket, swallowed without water most days. Thinks about Natalie’s mouth on her neck, her teeth at Lottie’s jaw, the cruel softness of her in the early morning dark.

“It’s been fine,” she lies.

Dr. Penner nods, scribbles something. “Still having trouble sleeping?”

She shrugs. “The nightmares are getting better.”

That part isn’t a lie.

Because sleep doesn’t come easy, but it comes full. Weighted with sweat, flashes of teeth and eyes and wilderness. Only lately it’s not the woods she’s afraid of– it's the echo of Natalie’s voice, cruel in its tenderness, or the shape of her body in Lottie’s bed, too vivid to be pulled from memory.

Dr. Penner watches her for a beat too long. “You seem distant today. Is everything alright?”

She chews her cheek. Doesn’t answer. Doesn’t say: Natalie was here again. Doesn’t say: I miss her every time she’s gone and I hate myself for it.

Instead Charlotte plucks at her sleeve and breathes, “Just tired.”

The train ride home is slow. Slower than usual. She stares out the window, watching New York blur into smudged gray. A boy cries two rows back. The woman next to her smells like cloves and cheap perfume.

Charlotte closes her eyes and tries to think of nothing.

But nothing always becomes Natalie. The heat of her. The way her hands know where to go before she even asks. Her voice in the dark: You’re so easy, Lott .

And Lottie had whispered, please . Had gasped it, broken around it. Like it was all she had left.

She touches her neck now, as if the ghost of Natalie’s mouth might still be there. It’s not, but the memory is raw and bright, like a wire stripped bare.

The apartment is too empty now. She kicks off her boots, drags herself past the mirror without looking. The bed still smells like last night. The sheets are twisted.

She doesn’t change them.

Instead she lies down on her side of the bed, arm flung across the pillow Natalie had used. There’s an imprint still there, faint but real.

Lottie presses her face into the fabric. Her body aches, but it’s not the kind of ache that begs for pain meds. It’s loneliness. That stupid, bone-deep kind. The kind that has her checking her voicemail even though she knows, knows deep down that Natalie won’t call.

No messages. Just silence.

She rolls over in bed and reaches for the blanket instead. Wraps it tight. Pretends it’s arms. Pretends it’s enough.

She knows it never will be.

Later, she lets the shower scald her until her skin pinks. 

Charlotte likes things clean. Charlotte uses the expensive soaps, the ones her father’s assistant keeps stocked in the cabinet. Eucalyptus and bergamot, notes of something expensive and clinical. She scrubs until her arms are flushed, until the bruises Natalie left on her hips are a little more hidden under red.

It’s fine. It’s under control. She’s under control.

She steps out, ties the towel tight. Charlotte dries her hair in stiff motions, standing in front of the mirror with the toothbrush clenched between her teeth like a gag. The mirror’s fogged, and she’s grateful. If she saw her own eyes right now she might crack.

But the steam fades faster than she wants it to. And there it is again.

Her reflection. Pale, wild-eyed, lip still swollen from Natalie’s teeth. Lottie had clawed her nails into the bedsheets last night and begged without using words. Lottie has whispered things like I don’t want to be alone again, please don’t make me wake up without you again, please just stay .

Lottie has felt real. And Charlotte hates her for it.

She leaves the bathroom lights on when she walks back to the bedroom. Just to keep shadows from crawling where they don’t belong. One of Natalie’s jackets is still hanging off the back of a chair. That pisses her off. Or maybe it makes her weak. She doesn't bother to take it down either way.

She curls up on the right side of the bed again, her side. She doesn’t dare touch the left. Her arms cross tight over her chest like she’s holding something in. Or like she’s trying to protect her ribs from caving.

She stares at the door.

The truth is, Lottie’s always waiting. That part of her that didn’t die in the hospital, that still dreams of blood and firelight and the sick kind of comfort it all gave her back then. It lives in her muscles. It waits for Natalie’s knock like a starving animal waits for food.

Charlotte tells herself it’s just habit. Just bad wiring. But Lottie knows better.

The next session begins with drizzle. It’s been raining in New York for a week, forcing the city into the throes of a miserable, frost-bitten January with a heavy, uncaring hand. 

Charlotte celebrated New Years alone with a bottle of wine sent by her father. Or maybe one of his assistants. She didn’t read the note this time. She’d downed half the bottle by midnight anyways. 

Now, she sits perched on the edge of the leather couch, not quite touching the cushion’s full depth. It makes her feel less committed. Like if she wanted, she could just stand and leave. Like she might. 

She never does.

Dr. Penner flips through her file, pen tucked behind her ear. Her voice is soft again, that condescending softness Charlotte’s grown to expect. Like she’s made of glass. Like she might shatter if touched too directly.

“You mentioned sleep had improved last week,” the doctor says, cautious, like she’s approaching a skittish dog. “Has that continued?”

Charlotte laces her fingers in her lap. Her nails are bitten raw again. She hadn’t noticed. Lottie used to tear bark off trees, skin her own knuckles on rock.

“Some nights,” she says. “Not all.”

It’s not a lie. But it’s also not the truth. She hasn’t slept a full night since Natalie last left. Her sheets still smell like her, faintly. 

Or maybe she’s imagining it. She knows that’s one of her tendencies. That thing they call symptoms so they don’t sound so scary.

Dr. Penner hums. Taps the file shut. “I’d like to suggest we adjust your dosage. The lithium. And possibly reintroduce the trazodone, just to help regulate things short-term.”

Charlotte’s head jerks, a sharp reaction before she can smooth it down. “I don’t—” she starts. Stops. Rewinds.

“I’m already taking what you prescribed.”

“I know. But given the nature of your trauma, and the intensity of what we’ve discussed, I think we may still be too conservative. I’m not suggesting anything drastic– just stabilization.”

Stabilization. Like she’s a broken table leg. Like she’s still the girl screaming in the woods, chewing dirt and flesh to feel human.

“Charlotte,” Penner says again, like her name’s a leash, tugging her back to reality by the throat. “You’ve made so much progress. But I do feel you’re holding something back. Something’s shifted.”

Charlotte looks at the bookshelf behind her instead of the woman’s face. The titles are all too neat. Organized by spine color.

She imagines saying it. I’m seeing someone. She smells like cigarettes . I love her. She hates me. She’s beautiful. She’s It’s favorite, don’t you understand?

She imagines what the therapist would write. What box she’d tick next.

“I’m just tired,” she says again, quietly. “That’s all.”

The prescription pad comes out anyway. The session ends with a new bottle to pick up and a pit in her stomach that wasn’t there before.

Later, back in the apartment again, she clutches her new pill bottle like it’s a weapon she’s not brave enough to use. 

She stares at the label. Thinks about calling Natalie. Thinks about Natalie’s teeth on her collarbone. The way she kissed her like she wanted her gone but couldn’t bear to stay away either.

Lottie whispers, somewhere in the back of her skull: Don’t take it. You need to feel this .

But Charlotte’s hand is steady when she presses the first pill to her tongue.

Three weeks pass like fog. She only knows because her calendar flips itself with the clumsy ritual of a cracked nail and an old thumbtack. Days shrink down to white noise and white pills. Mornings aren’t real anymore. Nights blur together, coated in the metallic taste of sleep aids and unfinished thoughts.

The apartment grows foreign. She stops opening the blinds. Stops showering daily. Her toothbrush dries out between uses. She lies flat on the floor sometimes, the hardwood cool against her spine, listening to the fridge hum and pretending she’s beneath the earth, somewhere no one can reach her.

Charlotte is what she calls herself now. All the time. 

Charlotte keeps the kitchen tidy, even if she doesn’t eat. Charlotte always answers politely in therapy. Charlotte forgets what Lottie looked like– how her hair felt caught in pine sap, how blood smells on snow, how she once kissed Natalie’s knuckles like they were bruised fruit and bowed to her like a God.

She doesn't know how long it’s been since she touched anything that made her feel.

Some days she stands at the window and imagines falling through it. It’s not high enough for certainty– six stories, maybe five if you count the awning– but her brain does the math anyway. Skull, meet pavement. Brain, meet silence. 

Sometimes she wonders how long it would take for someone to find her. Sometimes she hopes it’s not long at all.

Charlotte, not Lottie, is the one who writes the note in her head. It's always too polite. 

“ I’m sorry for the mess .” 

“ Please feed the plant. ” 

“ Thank you for trying .” 

She hasn’t actually written any down. Not yet.

Instead, she runs too-hot bathwater and watches the steam rise until she feels faint, leans against the tiled wall and wonders what it would be like to slip under.

She doesn’t want to die, exactly. It’s not that neat. Of course it isn’t.

It’s more like wanting to disappear. Wanting the weight to lift. Wanting silence to be actual silence , not this heavy ringing in her ears that sounds like guilt, like the thrum of winter wind through broken cabin boards.

Every time she has these thoughts, picturing Natalie’s devastated face is inevitable– raw, crying for another life she couldn’t save. Something inside her always stutters. 

She wishes that part would die first. The part that remembers. But that part is Lottie.

She stops counting days. Clocks lose meaning. Light leaks around the blackout curtains in pale, spectral slats. Enough to know it’s still happening, whatever it is. The outside. The world that hasn’t noticed she stopped participating.

Charlotte– because yes, that’s her name again, exclusively now, stiff and clean and chosen like a mask– is a ghost in her own space. Her routines are rituals stripped of belief. She brushes her teeth just to feel the sting of mint. She opens the fridge and stares until the hum becomes unbearable. She tries to read but the letters won’t stay still.

The drafts now live in her desk drawer. Folded sheets, tucked under receipts and expired prescriptions. They aren't real, she tells herself, unless she signs one. That’s the rule.

“ Don’t be mad ,” one begins, all soft loops and trembling ink.

Another:

“ I know I’m selfish. But I’m so, so tired .”

And another. The worst one:

“ You were right. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. ”

She keeps them like secrets. Like maybe they’re poems instead of what they actually are.

Sleep is a trick now. A flickering thing she can’t hold. When it comes, it’s thick with dreams she doesn’t understand: blood in snow, antlers in her bed, Natalie in the hallway whispering her name over and over while Lottie can’t make her legs move.

Sometimes she stands at the phone with the receiver half-lifted. Never finishes dialing. She doesn’t even know if Natalie still has the same number. Doubts she’d pick up if she did, anyway.

She eats crackers with no cheese. Peels string cheese and lets the curls sit on the counter until they dry. She washes a single mug and uses it every day. Keeps it in the sink like company.

And then– just as she’s tracing the crease in her worst draft, folding it smaller, tighter, like she could crush the meaning out of it–

The machine clicks.

She doesn't even register it at first. Just the mechanical whir of the tape, the red light blinking like a pulse.

You have one new message.

Her fingers tremble when she presses the button.

There’s static. And then:

“ Hey. Uh. It’s me .”

Natalie.

Her voice is rough, hoarse like she’s been smoking too much, or screaming, or both. Lottie’s knees give out. Charlotte’s knees. She sits down hard on the floor.

“ I was in the city for a thing ,” Natalie continues. “ Didn’t mean to be. Was just… It made me think about you. ”

A pause. And then, softer:

“ I had a dream about you. Thought maybe it meant something. I don’t know. You don’t have to call me. I just... I hope you’re okay .”

Natalie swallows audibly on the line, the sound staticky. 

“ If you get this— I mean, I don’t even know if you’re still— fuck, just call me back, okay, Lott ?”

The click of the line cutting out is louder than a gunshot.

Charlotte stares at the phone like it might speak again.

But it doesn’t.

She calls back so fast she doesn’t remember hitting the buttons. The cord tangles in her elbow. She’s still on the kitchen floor, half in a sunbeam for the first time in weeks, and her heart feels like a wounded animal, panting in her chest, ribs too small to hold it.

It rings once.

She breaks. Silent, messy tears. No sob, no sound. Just water spilling down her cheeks like she sprung a leak she can’t patch. Her mouth is open but no words come out.

It rings twice.

She hiccups a breath, swipes at her face, voice building in her throat like something rising to the surface after drowning too long–

Then the line picks up. A breath on the other end.

“… Hello ?”

It breaks her wide open.

Her palm flies to her mouth and she gasps like someone punched her in the stomach. She doesn’t mean to make that noise, but it comes out ugly and wet and full of every swallowed ache from the last three months.

“ Natalie ,” she sobs into the phone, and she knows it must be mortifying, the way she’s crying for her like this. A tantrum thrown by a child who lost their favorite toy. But between the pills and the rest, she can’t find it in herself to care, not really.

“ Fuck, Lottie ?” Natalie breathes. “ Hey– hey, slow down, it’s okay– ”

“It’s not,” Lottie says, the first real words she’s spoken in days. “It’s not okay, I– I didn’t think you’d answer, I thought—” she stops, because what was she going to say? I thought you forgot about me. I thought I imagined you. I thought maybe you were just another hallucination I’m not allowed to talk about in therapy .

Natalie’s quiet. The kind of quiet that means she’s smoking or pacing or staring at the wall too hard. Then:

“ You sound bad, Lottie .”

It’s said softly. Not cruel. Not unkind. Concerned in that Natalie way. Like she has to do it from a distance, but even that can’t stop the trickle of her bleeding heart from pooling at your feet.

Lottie lets out a little laugh that turns into a sob halfway through. “I feel bad.”

“ Do you want me to come over ?”

Lottie nods, fast, before realizing Natalie can’t see her. “ Please ,” she whispers into the phone. That word falling from her mouth seems to be a recurring motif in their conversations.

“ Hey, everything’s gonna be alright ,” Natalie says, and it’s so certain, so immediate, like a tether being thrown out to someone who’s already underwater. “ I’ll be there soon. Don’t go anywhere .”

Don’t go anywhere . Lottie has known Natalie long enough, stared at that little safety pin glinting at the hollow of her throat for long enough, to know what that means to her. 

She tears up the drafts in her drawer and tosses them into her overflowing trash can before Natalie arrives.

Natalie doesn't knock. She never really does. Not since Lottie gave her a spare key.

The door creaks open slow, and the quiet that spills into the apartment isn’t silence– it’s her. The air changes when Natalie enters a room. Like thunder rolling over the horizon. A deep rumble that shakes walls and bones alike.

Lottie doesn’t move.

She’s curled on the hardwood in a halo of dust motes and afternoon gold, one cheek pressed flat to the floor. Her eyes are red. Her lips chapped. There’s a tremble in her hands she hasn’t been able to hide since the call, like her body’s forgotten what stillness feels like. She's not wearing shoes. Her socks don’t match. She looks like a forgotten child in a grown woman's skin.

Natalie says nothing at first. She just steps inside and shuts the door behind her with a soft click.

Then her boots are off. Her coat’s draped over the couch that hasn’t been used since her last visit. And she’s kneeling, palms flat on either side of Lottie’s head, close enough for Lottie to smell her– cigarettes and clinging winter wind and the faint metallic sting of asphalt from the street below.

“Hey,” Natalie murmurs. “Lottie. I’m here.”

“I didn’t shower,” Lottie whispers, voice ragged, brittle as glass. She hates that it’s the first thing she worries about, but can’t stop the words from spilling out. “I’m sorry. I haven’t. I don’t even know how long. I kept meaning to but… the water...”

She doesn’t finish. 

Natalie’s hands cup her jaw, thumbs gentle on her cheeks. “Okay,” she says, like that’s enough explanation in the world. “Let’s fix that, then.”

It takes a while to get her upright. Lottie’s limbs are all wrong, like she’s forgotten the order of things. Natalie doesn’t comment. She just helps her stand, one arm around her waist, guides her down the hall to the bathroom with the soft patience of someone tending a stubborn wound with fraying stitches.

Natalie runs the water while Lottie sits on the toilet lid, trembling. The faucet’s hiss makes her flinch. Natalie tests the temperature with her wrist, then adds a capful of Lottie’s soap– lavender-scented, like nearly everything she owns. She doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t push.

When Lottie stands, her hands are clumsy on the hem of her shirt. She can barely get a solid grip.

“Here,” Natalie says, and undresses her slow, like it matters. Like she’s undoing hurt instead of the button of Lottie’s jeans.

Natalie has seen her in every state of undress, used her hands and mouth to guide her through whimpers and stifled sighs, and Lottie still feels too nude in front of her now. She awkwardly pulls her arms around herself, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor tiles where the intricate floral pattern is printed wrong.

Mercifully understanding, Natalie never takes her eyes off of Lottie’s face. Not even once.

“Come on.”

She helps Lottie step into the tub. Kneels beside it, sleeves rolled up, one hand cradling Lottie’s head as she sinks beneath the warmth. Lottie exhales a sound, high and keening, like a wounded animal.

“Too hot?” Natalie asks.

Lottie shakes her head, jaw clenched. Her lip quivers anyway.

“You’re sure?”

Another nod. Not quite firm. Her throat works around a word she can’t form. She wants to tell Natalie everything and nothing all at once– wants her to shut up and speak forever, wants her to disappear and never leave.

Natalie touches the side of her face. Just a brush. She gets it. That’s all Lottie needs.

Fingers thread through wet strands, smoothing them, gently tugging through knots. Natalie pours water with one hand, combs with the other, murmuring things she probably doesn’t realize she’s saying— there you go and almost done and something too soft to catch that might have been you’re okay now .

The bath holds them like a hush. Lottie sinks further, eyes fluttering closed. Natalie doesn’t move. Just stays, her sleeves clinging to her forearms, face unreadable in the mist curling off the water.

When Lottie finally blinks again, the steam has thinned, and the surface of the tub reflects her face in fragments. She doesn’t feel clean, exactly, but she doesn’t feel like glass on the verge of shattering anymore.

Natalie reaches for the towel and holds it out, but doesn’t hand it over. She wraps it around Lottie instead, pulls her close, chest to chest, Lottie's wet hair soaking into the cotton between them.

“I can stay a few days,” Natalie says abruptly, like she’s scared of what might happen if she leaves.

The words crack something loose in Lottie’s chest. She leans into Natalie’s shoulder, buries her face there, and sobs, loud and ugly. Natalie’s arms tighten around her, hand smoothing over her hair that clings to the back of her neck in wet, dripping coils. 

She rocks Lottie back and forth until the sobs melt into hiccups, and hiccups melt into breaths. For a long minute, neither of them says a thing.

Then: “You want to sleep?”

Lottie nods.

Natalie gets Lottie standing, helps dry her, finds her the oversized shirt she always seems to end up in after nights like this. Lottie watches her the whole time like she’s dreaming. Like Natalie might vanish, twist, or change if she looks away too long. She’s terrified of her own vision these days.

In the bedroom, Natalie pulls back the covers. Crawls in first. Doesn’t reach for her.

Lottie hesitates at the threshold. Half-shadowed, wrapped in that old shirt, wet hair clinging. Then she moves. Slides in beside Natalie, leaving space between them. A gap, a disconnect.

Natalie turns over. Takes Lottie’s trembling hand in her own and puts it over her heart, holding her gaze as the drumbeat of it thumps beneath her shirt, beneath Lottie’s palm, beneath her skin.

“Goodnight,” she says softly. 

Lottie’s face buckles. Crumples like paper left in the rain. Her voice returns in a jagged whisper: “How long is a few days, Nat?”

There’s desperation beneath it. The need to believe in something. The fear that this- this moment, this kindness– is just another liminal dream about to slip through her fingers.

Natalie flinches like she’s been struck. Her mouth opens, but the words snag in her throat.

“Fuck, Lottie. That was just– You know I’m not going to–”

Lottie doesn’t let her finish. She doesn’t want comfort; she wants proof. She moves fast, quiet, curls herself into Natalie’s side and tucks her head beneath her chin. Breath catching. Ear pressed against her chest so she can hear that thumpthumpthump without having to reach for it.

Natalie wraps both arms around her. Tight. No hesitation this time. She presses her cheek against the top of Lottie’s damp head and exhales shakily.

“Goodnight, Lott,” she says again. 

Lottie closes her eyes, clutching a handful of Natalie’s shirt like it’s the only thing keeping her here. Maybe it is.

“Goodnight.”