Once upon a time, Oakley waved the banner of no-marriage like a dare. One life was fine, she said; why step willingly into a two-person grave.
"Yeah." She smoothed a hand through her hair, trying to tug herself loose from Grace, to lift her face out of that private dusk.
Ellisa watched her with wide, glassy eyes. After a beat she smiled. "All I remember is you swearing you'd rather die than marry."
"Ha." Oakley lowered her gaze to the pale crescent at her thumbnail. "People change. Truth is, even last year I still didn't want it."
"But then you met Grace," Ellisa hesitated, "and changed your mind? So… you must love her a lot?"
Love?
The word stalled her breath. Oakley blinked, then asked, almost levelly, "Tell me—what do you think love is?"
Ellisa's brows tipped. If Oakley had to ask, did that mean she and Grace were not so steady after all?
"Well," Ellisa said, counting nothing out, "if I love someone, I'm thinking of them all the time. I miss them. And I also…"
"Want to possess them. No matter what."
"Okay," Oakley murmured, twisting her mouth, letting the thought trail—refusing to give it more air than it deserved.
The line inched forward. Oakley took two small steps with it and then, as if remembering a dropped stitch, turned to Ellisa. "Right—didn't you say you were only working here for now? Where next?"
"Back to Skylark." Ellisa's smile broke soft and sweet.
"Skylark?" Surprise lit the soft planes of Oakley's face. "When? I live there. Tell me when you come. Come find me."
"You live in Skylark too?" Ellisa lifted a hand to her lips, wide-eyed with delight.
"Mhm." Oakley's smile gentled, warm as lamplight. "And if you need anything, you ask me, alright?"
Ellisa nodded so fast she looked like a bobblehead. "Yes, yes! I will. I love hanging out with you—don't get sick of me."
"How could I?" Oakley laughed. "Just come."
"Deal~" Ellisa studied the pert line of Oakley's nose, her eyes swiveling with a small, coy mischief. "Oh—also."
"What?"
Words had been pressing for years, and she chose to let them out. "That fight we had back then—it wasn't your fault. It was me. I hated watching you get close to other people. I wanted you to be only mine. I was petty, and I picked a fight. I'm sorry."
On that baby-doll face sat a deep, guileless remorse, as if sorrow had puffed her cheeks and trembled at her mouth.
Oakley hadn't expected this—Grace had told her something similar, and now here it was again, the same shape held up to the light. She looked at Ellisa for a long, quiet moment; then a smile broke across her, helpless and bright.
"Okay. I hear you," Oakley said, her eyes gone oddly tender. "I accept your apology. It's alright. It's over. Who didn't make a fool of themselves when they were young?"
"Mmm…" The big eyes filled quickly, like cups under a faucet. Ellisa frowned at her own tears. "I always regretted it. I… I've missed you so much."
Oakley drew a breath, then, just as she had when they were girls, reached out and stroked Ellisa's head, open-handed and sure. "Don't cry. It's past. Look—I'm here now, aren't I? We're here."
Oakley's greatest flaw was her fierce forgetfulness; she never learned from the same bruise twice. Her greatest virtue was the same—she refused to gnaw endlessly on one wrong bone. If a problem was solved, it was solved. If not, then that was another matter.
Forgetful, yes. Not a fool.
At the touch to her crown, Ellisa wavered and gave in. "Then… Oakley, can I hug you?"
Oakley opened her arms without theatrics, her smile bright as a ribbon. "Come here."
Ellisa's nose wrinkled; the tears toppled. She dove in and looped her arms around Oakley. "You're so good to me."
She did look truly sorry. And truly heart-sore.
Oakley had never been able to stand a girl in distress. She patted Ellisa's back and murmured, "Alright, alright. No tears."
As it was back then, like protecting a twin.
Across the way.
Grace Barron and Evelyn had been on their way to buy hot vanilla rice pudding from a festival cart when they stumbled on a small, irresistible booth—a tumbled table of handmade trinkets, tiny and bright.
A wooden sign leaned against a milk crate: COLLEGE STARTUP.
"Adorable," Evelyn said, stopping in her tracks before dropping into a crouch, chin level with the wares.
"Take your time," the vendor chirped. "I design and make them all myself—no mass-market Amazon stuff. You won't find these anywhere else."
Evelyn lifted a brooch, studying it with the gravity of a curator. "Lovely. I'm looking."
Grace crouched beside her.
As promised, everything was sweet and singular, carrying the slight, exquisite wobble of a human hand. You could feel the attention in each seam and bevel. Grace liked people who put their attention where their hands were.
After a minute's sorting, Evelyn held up a pin. "What about this?"
Grace considered the brooch, then considered Evelyn. "It suits you."
Then, unbidden, Oakley floated to mind. Grace sifted through little treasures, selecting and rejecting with care. "Think Oakley would like these?"
"If you want to give them to her, buy them," Evelyn said lightly. "Most women love pretty little things—too many is never enough."
"Mmm." Grace chose a few, then glanced at her, wry. "You make me sound like I'm not very… girly."
"No," Evelyn said, gentle but exact. "You've just weathered a lot. You keep feelings in line with thought—control first, emotion second. The upside is you don't shatter easily, and you can see cleanly when others can't. The downside is you might misread the small, delicate signals."
Maybe. Grace smiled—tired at the edges, private in the center—and paid.
They turned with their pudding cups and, by the simple mischief of lifting their heads at the same time, spotted Oakley and Ellisa a short way off.
Ellisa was folded into Oakley's side. They were laughing, hip-to-hip, loose and playful. Intimate.
Grace watched from the distance, and a smile touched her mouth.
Oakley looked better—spark back under her skin, her old quick energy rethreaded through her limbs. Good.
Evelyn glanced that way, then at Grace. Her face said she was thinking. She often was.
In the end she couldn't hold it. "Grace."
"Hm?" Grace turned, the smile still caught on her lips like a stray thread.
Evelyn studied her face and didn't answer at once.
Grace must care for Oakley, right? Agreement or not, a marriage on paper still casts a weather.
If Grace truly had no interest, she wouldn't be thinking of Oakley at a craft booth, wouldn't be buying her little gifts. Even with a contract, indifference is a clean, cold room: you do what's necessary and you turn off the light.
But Grace, hurt too many times, had grown numb in places. The instrument panel of feeling flickered and misfired. She might not see herself clearly.
By rights, Evelyn's own longing for Grace should have made her a spectator with a wish to see a wreck, because a wreck might open a road for her. She couldn't do it.
If Grace cared—if care deepened, as care does, with time—then when Oakley found someone else and chose to shatter the bargain, Grace would be left to bleed.
"Can I ask something blunt about your marriage?" Evelyn said.
Grace thought a moment. "There's one rule: neither of us can cheat."
"And," Evelyn said, flicking a finger against the tickle of hair at her temple, "very intimate touch with someone else—still okay?"
Grace understood: it was about Oakley and Ellisa's generous closeness. She shook her head slightly. "Two women aren't policed the way a straight couple is. If marriage meant cutting off every woman around me, I'd have no friends at all. Besides, two straight women are often like that."
"I see…" Evelyn's brow knit. "But what if Ellisa… isn't straight?"
Not every queer woman who pressed near a wife did it with clean hands. Evelyn could say that because she knew her own intent, and she knew others'.
Grace's smile froze, then fell away. She turned to Evelyn, sharply attentive.
Air thinned.
"I think I've seen her before," Evelyn said carefully. "Ellisa. I think I walked past her breaking up with an ex. A girl. She's memorable—she's got that doll face. And I'm good with details."
The implication needed no more light.
If Ellisa wasn't straight and was clinging to Oakley like that, the matter wasn't small. It shadowed the contract; it yanked the line taut.
Grace folded an arm across her middle, thumb pressed to the soft at her lower lip. She said nothing.
The line moved; the vendor handed over two steaming cups. "That'll be twenty-four."
"Right." Grace reached for her phone. It froze. She opened her wallet and stared at the bills inside, and something—frayed nerves, the sudden ice in her belly—made her tongue slip. "Do you take… Monopoly money?"
Both Evelyn and the vendor blinked. After a heartbeat, the man looked up, belly first, eyebrows climbing. "Huh?!"
"I've got it," Evelyn said quickly, tapping her own phone.
By the time she looked up from paying, Grace was already walking toward Oakley.