Archive of Our Own ^beta

One day, in the middle of the week, Miorine wakes up to a thought that feels right and wrong: we’re going on a date today.

That can’t be right. She’s twenty-two, single, and it’s graduation day. She braces herself as she sits up, disoriented when she manages it without so much as a click in her joints. She shakes her head. No, no. She’s eighty-seven, married, and it’s date day. She reaches for the other side of her bed, a habit. Her hand falls through the air and meets the sheets of her childhood bed.

Deep in her chest, at the core of her heart, she begins to understand.

She’s twenty-two and eighty-seven. She’s the only child of a single mom who would give up the world for her and, at the same time, orphaned. She’s graduating with a degree in botanical science in a few hours, and she’d owned one of the most prominent companies in the universe—or, she supposes, in another universe.

The sheets beneath her hand feel scratchy and thin. They feel real.

Why? How? What does it mean?

An answer comes to her, and she claws her hand into her chest, fingertips pressing, feeling, counting.

It happened in her sleep. Quiet and merciful. There was nothing to blame.

A shiver traces her spine as if remembering the cold, cold touch that stole her away and brought her here. Her heart slams against her hand as if shocked that it’s been given a new lease on life. Tears burn the back of her eyes. She draws her legs into her, hides her face in her palms, feels her knees bend and meet the back of her hands. She heaves a heavy breath. It catches in her throat and trips out of her strangled and twisted.

Waking up alone is not a feeling she has missed. It shouldn’t be anything new, but today—today, she has somehow lived through six decades of waking up in the middle of the night, an arm wrapped tight around her waist or an elbow digging into her ribs; in the aftermath of a nightmare, groggy comfort whispered into her hair or lips pressed against her temple; in most mornings, a heartbeat underneath her ear or a chin atop her crown.

Seventy years ago, in a dream, “Stay forever.”

Suletta had kept her promise, after all. And oh, oh, it’s going to break her heart. How will she wake up? How long will she cry? Who’s going to be there for her? Nadi was supposed to visit them today. She was going to take them out for lunch before leaving them so they could enjoy the afternoon, the sunset, the dinner, the jazz, the dance, the kisses, the night. Miorine won’t be there for any of it.

She—needs to get ready. There’s a dress in the back of her closet she’d already decided to wear for today’s ceremony. Hopefully, the dean won’t give one of his long-winded speeches, making the same point over and over, keeping everyone there far longer than they should be.

Her throat is tight; her chest is flayed wide open. Where should she be? She wraps her arms around herself, trying to hold herself together.

There’s a knock on her door. Then, in a voice both familiar and almost unrecognizable, “Darling?”

Her world careens violently. “Mom?”

Her mother steps inside, and Miorine wishes she could see her clearly—it’s been so long; it’s been no time at all—but she’s crying, and all the world is a mess of colors and light and things that shouldn’t be possible. She’s asked questions she can’t hear. How many times has she dreamed of this? How many times has she tried to remember what her mother looks like? How many times has she told Suletta—

Arms wrap tightly around her, and it takes her a moment to realize that she’d let a sound out, some profound, nameless thing wrenched out of her most tender parts.

“It’s okay.”

She’s twenty-two and eighty-seven.

“Oh, darling, it’s okay.”

She was supposed to go on a date today. She’s going to her graduation instead.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Miorine weeps.

Her mother’s face is older than she remembers it ever being. Forty-eight, the answer comes to her, because she knows this as much as she knows that she’d been twelve when she lost her mother the first time. Miorine can’t help it – she presses her fingertips into the lines of her face, the etched smile, the creased brow, the crinkles at the corner of her eyes.

“You used to do that a lot when you were small,” Notrette murmurs, worry written all over the face Miorine can’t believe she’s touching. “What’s wrong, little love?”

“You left me. A long time ago.”

Notrette frowns and holds her wrists. “I would never.”

Miorine swallows tears. “You didn’t have a choice. I never learned how to stop missing you.”

“I’m right here, Mio-Mio. Did you have a nightmare?”

She’d told Suletta this once. It wasn’t that she hated being called this nickname; it was that it hurt to hear it.

“You don’t remember?”

Her mother’s hold on her wrists tightens, eyes searching, looking for the thing that’s hurting her. It’s the face she’d made when Miorine was seven in this life, trying to understand why she had bruises around her tiny arms and finding the answer in her father. They’d left him the same night.

It’s getting easier, she thinks, to be two versions of herself woven into one body.

“Remember what?”

She sighs, losing strength in her hands. Nothing is ever so easy. Notrette brings their hands down to her lap, her touch careful and, somehow, real.

“Miorine,” her mother pleads, tone wavering but stern. “Explain it to me.”

“You won’t believe me. I barely believe it.”

Her mother cups her cheek and raises her gaze. They’re sitting face to face on her childhood bed, and a part of Miorine still thinks she’s seeing a ghost.

“You were sobbing in my arms,” her mother says fiercely. “I’ve never seen you cry like that. Try me. Please.”

So, Miorine does.

How do you condense a life so well-lived?

Miorine has had practice. Once, a long, long time ago, she’d brought Suletta to her mother’s grave. They’d stared at it, surrounded by the somber air of loss, until Suletta asked her, aren’t you going to talk to her? What’s the point, Miorine remembers asking, tongue sharp to protect an ache. She won’t hear it anyway. Suletta had insisted that she couldn’t know that, and anyway, there was no harm in doing it. She’d then introduced herself to the etched stone and told her everything she could think of. It felt silly to Miorine, and unnecessary, until she’d muttered, hi, Mom and found that she couldn’t stop at that.

They had stayed in front of her grave for hours after that.

Her mother is here now, and she’s listening.

Miorine does it much the same way she did that first time. In false starts and awkward stumbles, she tells her everything. About being young and being hurt, about traveling through the stars and hopping from planet to planet, about senseless fighting and endless fixing. Every major event of her life: getting engaged, having a birthday, marrying, giving birth, making a home, falling in love. She is full of every moment of her life that has made her, and she lays them out with painstaking gentleness, all eighty-seven years of it.

Then, it ends the way all love stories end: “I left her behind. Suletta.”

Saying her name out loud yanks at her like this is not where she’s supposed to be.

“Now, I’m here,” she exhales, voice no more than a hoarse whisper. “With you.”

Her mother is silent, but she hasn’t let go of her hands. Miorine remembers that she’s a doctor in this life.

“I’m not insane, Mom.”

Her mother shakes her head. “I wasn’t—”

“You were. It’s okay. I know how this sounds.”

She lets one of her hands go and pinches the bridge of her nose. Miorine almost laughs. She wonders how much of her mother hides in her habits, if you can be loved by someone so deeply that they’re in the things you do.

“Are you still my daughter?”

Miorine recoils slightly. The question hurts. “Yes.” I will always be attached to you, Miorine. “Mom, I—please don’t leave me again.”

Notrette startles, and Miorine avoids her gaze, ashamed of how she needs her, still, at twenty-two and eighty-seven.

“If I ever left you,” she says slowly, firmly. “Then, I think you can trust that I never wanted to.” Miorine lifts her chin just in time to see her mother grimace. “To be honest with you, I don’t know how to wrap my mind around this. I-I don’t know if I believe you, but you’ve never lied to me, and you were…”

She falters, frowning, the lines of her face deepening. Looking at her feels strangely like looking in the mirror. Aside from a few creases here and there, the sharper jaw, and the longer hair, Miorine had looked like her when she aged.

“I’m here, darling,” Notrette promises suddenly, eyes sweeping, taking in whatever face Miorine wears when she’s stricken by the loss of her. “You haven’t lost me just yet. We’ll… What do you say about setting this aside for now? I think we both need time to process. And you need to graduate.”

Miorine snorts. It seems so inane even though she’d spent four years working for her degree. “Do I really need to—”

“Don’t argue with me now, Mio-Mio. Just because you’re—how old are you now?”

“Twenty-two and… eighty-seven.”

“Christ.”

Miorine laughs. Her mother glares at her, though she can’t hide how the corners of her mouth lift into a grudging smile.

“I can’t believe I’m lecturing an 87-year-old.”

“I’ll listen to you.”

“The words every mother wants to hear.”

Miorine nods with an exasperated sigh. “We can only wish.”

Her mother looks a little discombobulated. “That’s right. You had a daughter. I had a granddaughter?”

“Nadi,” Miorine whispers, hand to her heart. “You would’ve loved her.”

Notrette’s face smooths as she studies her again. “Tell me about her, then. And your wife.”

A memory finds its way back to its proper place, a hazy thing a part of her didn’t think would be so important. Miorine’s eyes well up in tears.

Her mother squeezes her hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“She’s here, too.”

“Nadi?”

Miorine shakes her head, stumbling to her feet in haste.

An acquaintance. An education undergrad named Suletta Samaya.

Graduates and parents line the entrance to the school’s gym. Like everything else, it feels familiar to her—she’d dated a jock for two months when she was nineteen; it didn’t end well—and utterly new. Suletta is waiting by the wings, surrounded by family and friends. Miorine mistakes her for Ericht until she catches a glimpse of her eyes—sharp and playful—and clothes—dark jumpsuit and fitted. Elnora is there, too, and Miorine reels at the shock of red hair and the man she thinks might be Nadi’s namesake.

She’s not there for them.

It’s not hard to find her. She stands half a head taller than her sister, her hair cascading down to her waist, dress a flowy white that makes her look like something out of a dream. The world rights itself beneath Miorine’s feet.

She feels the pull of Suletta’s gravity. She felt it in freshman year and thought to herself that they could be friends. But life can push thoughts away—they ran in different circles; there were always projects, deadlines, and parties; she preferred the quiet, and Suletta was almost always surrounded by friends. She should’ve—she doesn’t know what she should’ve done. But it matters that she’s here, too.

She can’t look away, and she almost goes to her, the way sunflowers face the sun, the way wanderers keep the North Star in sight, the way anyone lost gravitates to something familiar, hoping it’ll lead them home. They were lab partners once, orbiting each other like distant planets in the same solar system. They were married once, two planets colliding, becoming something singular and entirely new. Of course, she almost goes to her. Except—

Suletta catches her gaze. She looks confused. Uncertain. She gives a hesitant wave.

Miorine turns away.

“Was that her?”

Miorine stares hard at her feet. “She doesn’t remember.”

Her mother tucks her against her side, her hold a little too tight, as if she’s trying to keep her together. “She’s… tall.”

Despite herself and everything else, Miorine manages to laugh. It comes out damp and choked, and her mother kisses the top of her head.

“Did she ever make you feel small?”

“Only when I needed to be.”

Notrette hums, and her voice is soft when she says, “A good one, then.”

“The very best.”

Ushers come to coax them into the venue, telling parents where they should sit and instructing the graduates where to line up. Her mother reluctantly leaves her, and Miorine almost asks her to stay if only to soothe the sharp loneliness threatening to carve her heart out of her chest. She feels hollowed, her ribs holding nothing but vast, desolate space.

She swallows hard, buries her nails into her palms, and wonders when she’ll wake up. She goes through the motions. She does what’s asked of her. Wait here, walk through here, sit here.

It’s been wonderful to be with her mother, to hear her talk and watch her make faces and feel her against her. But she’d gotten used to being without her. She has never been no one to Suletta.

“H-Hello.”

Pierced, Miorine snaps back into her body.

Suletta flushes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I-I just wanted to say hello.”

Later, Miorine will call it a miracle that she doesn’t cry.

She can’t fathom what she’s doing where she is—surely, there must be other surnames between Rembran and Samaya—and her stomach tenses at the suddenness of being in Suletta’s space.

“Hi,” Miorine breathes out of instinct before realizing that even though this version of herself has less to be angry about, she has still heard people call her cold, aloof, intimidating.

The surprise on Suletta’s face says as much. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we were lab partners…?”

“I—remember.”

Relief, stark and pure, comes out of Suletta through a smile. Miorine aches.

The ceremony starts, and they turn their bodies forward. It’ll be a while before they’re called up to the stage, and there are so many of them that there’s a constant murmur from parents and friends and graduates that it wouldn’t be strange to keep a quiet conversation going. She wants to know her, be someone more to her for the moment than her old lab partner, leave something of an imprint so that this Suletta doesn’t forget her.

“Is there anyone here for you?” She asks out of the corner of her mouth.

Suletta glances at her and subtly shifts closer, their shoulders brushing, sharing room. “My family,” she tells her, quiet and happy. “I didn’t think my parents could make it, but they made time for me.”

“What do they do?”

“Aerospace engineers. My sister’s a pilot.”

“And you’re in… education?”

Suletta turns to her with a beam. “You do remember!”

Miorine huffs, a part of her falling back into old habits, her fists unclenching. “Keep it down. Don’t get too excited about it.”

Suletta maintains her smile. “Sorry. Yes, I’m in education. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. I still have to get my license, but I’m going to volunteer for a nonprofit in the meantime. Just for the experience, you know? I’ll be starting with a small one near here in a couple of months.”

“Will you be doing anything until then?”

Suletta does a tiny wiggle in her seat, her smile turning into a grin. “My sister and I are gonna travel. Nowhere in particular. Just… wherever the road takes us, she said.”

She has so much going for her, her life plotted and planned.

Miorine faces forward. Suletta has no room for her.

“Sounds like you have it figured out.”

Suletta tilts her head at her, and her tone is gentle when she asks, “What about you, Ms. Miorine? Do you know what you’re going to do yet?”

Miorine’s exhale catches in her throat. She hopes Suletta doesn’t notice. She’s so tired.

“Live, I guess.”

Suletta has nothing to say to that, but she doesn’t laugh. She seems to accept it as it is, like she did in another life when everyone else laughed and mocked her for wanting to go to Earth. Miorine remembers exactly why she fell in love with her the first time.

“C-Can I tell you something?” Suletta asks hesitantly, her hands curling and uncurling on her lap. “I wanted to be your friend.” Miorine turns to look at her just in time to catch a blush leaping up to Suletta’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. Is that weird?”

Miorine softens. “Yeah. I don’t… hate it, though.”

“S-So, we’re friends?”

Miorine snorts. “We’ll see.”

Suletta nods, utterly serious. “I’ll take it.”

Neither of them says anything about how big and wide the world is, how life can take them too far apart to see what would happen if they became more than what they are now, how they might not see each other after this. It feels too late. But if it’s at all possible, Miorine has no doubt that Suletta will find a way.

Or so she hopes.

The announcer calls her name. She stands and wonders if it’ll ever get easier to leave Suletta behind.

“Good luck, Suletta.”

Suletta smiles up at her. “To you too, Ms. Miorine.”

Months pass like sand squeezing past clenched fists. Miorine grits her teeth through it, and when she wakes alone, she convinces herself that the ache must’ve come from her jaw. Some things remain difficult—sleeping alone, the nights she keeps herself awake wondering if everyone she’d left behind is doing okay, cooking for one person—but slowly, mercifully, some things get easier.

The world, she learns, is much the same as her old one when it revolves around money and power. She betrays her experience as she plays the game. She works as a sustainability consultant and astounds her clients, earns good money and a reputation in a quarter, dips her toes into investments and builds capital within another two months.

She tries not to overdo it; her mother looked at her like a stranger the first time she doubled the money she’d invested and pulled it out just days before she predicted the company’s stocks would fall. It’s fine. This isn’t the endgame. She’s had enough of this kind of life.

She wants something simpler this time around. The kind of quiet she’d wished in between running GUND-ARM and fixing the mess her father’s company had caused. A small life, she thinks. The one she only felt she had when she could afford to stay with Suletta and Nadi for blissful weeks. So, she works, and she earns, and she saves. In between, she gets better at having lived two lives and fails to learn how to stop looking for Suletta in anything remotely familiar.

“There are others, you know,” her mother said to her once, eyes worried despite the heavy-lidded gaze of a long, tiring day and a shared bottle of wine.

Miorine draped half of herself over their dining table, warmed by the wine and her mother’s company. “I know who I want.”

Notrette shook her head and laid a palm over her head. “I wish you weren’t so stubborn.”

“Where do you think I got it?”

Her mother laughed wryly. “Didn’t I teach you to respect your elders?”

Miorine smiled. “I’m technically—”

“Don’t you dare, young lady. You look twenty-three, so you’re twenty-three.”

“Sure, Mom.”

She’d understood where her mother was coming from. Still, she made her choice long ago. She’ll stand by it.

Eight months after graduation, she quits her job. She transitions to freelance work, pools the money she’d saved and the money her mother gave her as a graduation gift, and builds a flower shop. She asks the contractors to add a greenhouse in the back. There are forms to submit, suppliers to partner with, materials to buy, tools to use, and—all the while, at every success and stumble, she finds that she still turns around, a story at the tip of her tongue, and no one to listen to it.

She names the shop Nadi and hopes it’ll help Suletta find her in a world so big and wide.

/

Of course she wonders. She’s not as idealistic or romantic as Suletta. When the weeks stretch on too long, and it’s hard to do what she said she’d do, she asks the questions.

What if Suletta falls in love with someone else? What if they’ve missed their chance? What if they’re simply not meant to be together in this life?

She never finds answers, but she finds her faith and seizes it in her hands until she stops hurting. She has always believed in Suletta more than anything and anyone.

She wonders, too, if maybe she’d made it all up, if she’d slept too deeply, if she’d lost her mind somehow. But then, she stops a kid in the park just because she has her daughter’s laugh, or she wakes up calling for Suletta and loses her all over again, or startles like she’d seen a ghost when her mother rounds a corner too fast.

She decides that she wouldn’t feel loss like this if she never had them in the first place. She cradles the grief close to her heart and calls it proof. They were real, and she loved them, once upon a time.

Suletta wanders into the shop on the day of its opening. The small bell signals her arrival, a gentle tune settling warmly into the open space and calling Miorine out front. And—

There you are.

Clad in pressed brown slacks, a crisp white button-down, and a long blue coat, she looks like she belongs here. Miorine’s heart swells at the sight of her, surrounded by yellows and pinks, reds and whites, browns and greens.

Hello there.

“Ms. Miorine?” Suletta says, surprised and confused. “This is yours?”

“We’re not open yet,” stumbles out of her mouth, a ready-made response.

Suletta winces and smiles sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I-I can go—”

“Don’t,” Miorine rushes, panic sharp and ice-cold in her gut. She swallows and tries to be steadier than she feels. “I don’t mind. You can stay for a while.”

Suletta brightens. “I saw the display. It’s beautiful in here, Ms. Miorine.”

“Well. It’s a flower shop. What did you expect?”

Suletta blushes and laughs a little. “I guess you’re right. But I’ve been to others, and I like this one a lot.”

Miorine clears her throat and fiddles with the sleeves of her sweater. “Thank you.” She fumbles for something to say, anything, gripped by a need to make the most out of this chance. “How—How have you been?”

Suletta sways on her feet. “Great! I’m a teacher now. Elementary. I have the cutest kids.”

Miorine smiles a little, leaning her back against the counter. “Did you travel after all?”

“You remember that?”

“Were you expecting me to forget?”

“No!” Suletta flusters. “I just—anyway, um, we traveled before the school year started. I don’t think we’re going to do it again.”

Miorine huffs a laugh. “That bad?”

“We got stranded. Mom was so mad, Dad had to come to get us, and someone had to tow Eri’s car. It was fun before that, though. But I think… if we travel again, I’m going to tell Eri that we need a plan,” she sighs. “How about you, Ms. Miorine? It looks like you’ve been busy.”

“I have been,” Miorine says slowly. “I’ve been working. Mostly. Trying to get all of this set up.”

“Well,” Suletta smiles, gaze sweeping over the flowers. “I think you did a wonderful job.”

“So you’ve said. Do you like—flowers?”

Suletta nods and doesn’t mention the awkward pause Miorine stumbles around. She walks to the bunch of sunflowers, bending a little to meet them face-to-face.

“I love them,” Suletta says. “I have this encyclopedia at home about the language of flowers. I used to stay up at night just reading it.”

Miorine bites the inside of her cheek. It isn’t hard to imagine her curled up on the couch, reading a thick, illustrated book. In their old life, Chuchu had told Suletta that flowers could mean something. Suletta was fascinated, and Miorine would often come home to her telling her all about which flowers she’d learned about that day and which ones she thought they could grow in their garden.

“Were you looking to buy something?”

“Is it okay?”

“Sure. You’d be my first customer.”

Suletta straightens with a grin. “Really?”

Miorine huffs. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It kind of is. I’d love to be your first customer.”

Miorine laughs helplessly. “You’re so…” She shakes her head. “Just pick a flower, Suletta.”

It’s the sunflowers she gets. She picks three of the biggest, happiest ones and pays for them in cash, refusing to hand them over so Miorine can wrap them. She rummages in her bag and exhales triumphantly as she pulls a red ribbon out. Miorine has no choice but to watch her tie them up with an uneven bow.

“Did you want a card with that?”

Suletta shakes her head, then picks up the bunch. “No, thank you. But will you… Um, come here?

Miorine raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

Suletta pouts. “Please?”

Miorine sighs but acquiesces, moving around the counter until she’s standing in front of Suletta. “Now what?”

She shouldn’t be as surprised as she is when Suletta extends the flowers to her, grinning proudly, blushing prettily. “Congratulations on your grand opening, Ms. Miorine.”

Her cheeks warm. Appropriate, for the 23-year-old that she is. “You—You’re giving me flowers from my shop?”

Suletta stands her ground, and Miorine has the sudden thought that Suletta has stepped into her confidence earlier here, wears it better than the 24-year-old version of her in the old life.

“You should have a piece of something beautiful you built. So that you can enjoy it, too. It’s only fair.”

“Oh?” Miorine teases breathlessly. “Is it?”

Suletta nods. “Yes. Sunflowers are perfect for you today.”

Miorine takes them. “What do they mean?”

“That I’m happy for you,” Suletta answers warmly, eyes bright and so, so kind. “And that I hope nothing but good things for you and yours.”

Miorine offers a smile, something small and shaky. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Suletta’s confidence falters here, finally, and she glances at her watch, face falling a little.

“You have to go?”

Suletta gives her an apologetic look. “Classes start at eight.”

Miorine doesn’t want to say it. But life trudges on, no matter what she wants. “Go, then.”

“See you around, Ms. Miorine.”

Miorine drops her gaze, unwilling to see her leave. “You know where to find me.”

Ten minutes before the grand opening, right after the bell sings a lonely tune, Miorine hides in the storage room. She hugs the sunflowers to her chest ever so gently and loses strength in her knees. She trembles, alone, and when she cries, it is out of pure, visceral relief.

The next time Suletta happens upon her, it’s at a Walmart.

Miorine had been prepared for the challenges of a new, small business. So far, her flower shop is only starting to generate foot traffic. She’s not in any rush to scale, and besides, Nadi’s already doing exceptionally well for a month-old shop that cropped out of nowhere. She doesn’t need employees yet, but she does need competent suppliers who can at least deliver potting soil when they agreed they would so that she doesn’t find herself in a Walmart, trying to figure out how she’s going to haul two twenty-pound bags off the shelf, never mind out the door.

Suletta finds her just as she’s wondering if she can get away with stealing a shopping cart.

“Ms. Miorine? May I help?”

Miorine feels steadier this time around. She doesn’t startle, even though her heart skips clumsily at the sound of her voice. She gives her a once-over, a habit she never quite got rid of after Quiet Zero, like a part of her had been hardwired to make sure that Suletta’s okay. And right now, she looks… rundown, if Miorine had to choose a word for it.

She’s still smiling gently, bright around the edges and reaching her eyes. But she’s sporting heavy eyebags and clothes that look as if she’d thrown them on for comfort and then slept in them. She’s also holding a single cup of noodles.

“You look like you need help.”

A laugh sputters out of her. “You can tell?”

“Who can’t?”

Suletta blushes. “Oh, well. Everyone has tough days sometimes. What about you? You seemed really angry with the…” She glances at the shelf. “Soil?”

Miorine sighs. “Incompetence. I’m unlucky enough to suffer the consequences.”

“I didn’t know soil can be incompetent.”

Miorine snorts. “Not the—” She squints at Suletta. “You’re kidding.”

Suletta grins. “Yes.”

“I guess you’ll be fine if you can still tease me at a time of need.”

“I appreciate your faith in me,” Suletta giggles. “Were you worried?”

Miorine rolls her eyes and hopes she’s not wearing her affection too blatantly. “If I feed you actual food, will you help me?”

“You don’t have to bribe me, Ms. Miorine. I was going to help regardless.”

“Yeah, well, like I said. You look like you need help, too. Let’s call it an even trade and leave it at that.”

“Or…” Suletta hesitates, smiling bashfully. “We can call it friends helping each other.”

Miorine huffs a laugh. “Still on that mission, huh? Fine. Whatever.” She points at a brand. “Get me two of those and leave your cup noodles somewhere.”

Suletta beams, the expression on her face undermining the eyebags she’s sporting.

Miorine has a moment of doubt right before Suletta picks up the bags. But she does it easily and smoothly, with an effortlessness that Miorine isn’t used to seeing. She reminds herself that this Suletta has never been to battle, doesn’t have scars save for the ones she might have from a proper childhood, has no need for anything more than a warm meal and proper sleep.

Something uncomfortable twists in her stomach as she watches Suletta lift the bags onto the conveyor belt. Suletta is the same in most things—her gentleness, how she smiles, what she knows about flowers—but there are differences. Small, subtle things, but there all the same. This is not her Suletta, but she is Suletta, and Miorine wishes she knew what it means for her.

They make it halfway back to Nadi before she notices that Suletta’s lost in thought, too.

“Any reason why you look like you’ve been run over?” Miorine tries.

Suletta seems to startle a little before she smiles apologetically. “I don’t want to burden you—”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know.”

“O-Okay, um,” Suletta hesitates. She pauses, then, “I think I’m just a little tired. You know how I volunteered for a nonprofit… before?”

“Yeah?”

Suletta shrugs. “I thought I knew what to expect, you know, when I really do start teaching. It’s—I had ideas. What kind of teacher I want to be, how I want my students to learn. I think I may have been too… naïve? Even if I’m willing to work and give effort, I think I’m realizing that it’s not going to be enough with things like funding and standardization.”

“So? Are you going to give up?”

The answer leaps out of Suletta. “No.” She smiles wistfully. “I have this student. He’s… He doesn’t learn like the rest of his friends, and he’s always behind in his classes. I figured out that he’s more of a visual learner and that he likes to break down the more complicated stuff into simpler blocks so that he knows how and why. I tried to adapt to him. It was worth it. He cried the first time he got an A.”

“Except, not every teacher’s willing to do what you did.”

“No,” she murmurs again. Then, she plasters a smile. “Though, if I ever run out of options, I think I make a pretty good delivery person for your shop.”

Miorine swipes at her elbow before keeping the door open for her. “I don’t think you mean that. That kid you helped? He’ll remember you. I’m willing to bet there’ll be more like him who could use a teacher like you.”

Suletta leans the bags against the counter. “You’re right.” A mildly panicked look crosses her face. “But I really wouldn’t mind helping you out! I mean—I like your company so…”

Miorine snorts. “I know what you meant, idiot.”

She beckons her to the greenhouse in the back, intending to whip up a quick salad with what she has. Suletta makes a noise in the back of her throat, wide-eyed and briefly speechless as she takes in the greenhouse. And then, as if fated, wished, or guided, her gaze falls on the tomatoes.

Miorine crosses her arms over her chest. In defense or in an attempt to hold herself, she doesn’t know.

“You can have one if you want.”

“Are you sure?” Suletta breathes even though she’s already making her way to one of the tomatoes. “I almost feel bad about eating them. They look so good.”

Miorine shrugs and doesn’t go to her, afraid she won’t be able to act like someone who’s only starting to get to know her, afraid to scare her away. “I can make more.”

Suletta drops to her haunches in front of the tomatoes and picks one, carefully harvesting it. She looks up at her, and Miorine nods.

Suletta bites into it. Her eyes shine just like they did in another life. All the while, nostalgia messes with everything in Miorine’s chest. It’s a little too hard to breathe with a heart so swollen to the point of bursting, but she takes air stubbornly, trying to keep her footing, trying to be just one version of herself lest she says something inexplicable like, I miss you.

“If you need a break,” Miorine mutters, only halfway to hoping that Suletta will miss whatever she says next. “You’re welcome to come here and help me.”

Suletta grins, tomato juice at the corner of her mouth. “You know, Ms. Miorine, I think I might take you up on that.”

Suletta keeps her word.

She drops by at least once a week, bringing heavy shoulders and frustrated sighs, and Miorine puts her to work every time. She waters the flowers, operates the counter, and—if there’s nothing to do—joins her in the greenhouse and grades her papers while Miorine tends to her crops.

It seems to help, at least. Suletta leaves with her number the first time she comes by to help, then takes home a brighter smile and an ease to her step after every stint at Nadi’s. She never asks for anything in return but never rejects an offer of her tomatoes. She listens attentively when Miorine gives her pieces of herself that she’d forgotten this Suletta doesn’t know yet.

The familiarity, Miorine decides, is as welcome as it is dangerous. Sometimes—when Suletta asks her to teach her about the crops, when she’s there every time she turns around, when the shop echoes Suletta’s giggles—it’s a balm to the soul, soothing her aches and pains, coaxing her shoulders away from her ears. Other times—when she forgets that this isn’t the Suletta she’d married, when she’s halfway to leaning over and kissing the frown away from her brow, when she wants to take her hand and play with a ring she won’t find—it’s a knife’s edge to the skin of her neck, freezing her in place, drawing a line she mustn’t cross lest she loses her all over again.

It is hard work, to pretend that Suletta isn’t the reason why she thinks this world feels right even with its newness and strangeness.

“Do you have friends, Ms. Miorine?” Suletta asks her one day.

Miorine lets her gaze wander away from the ledger she’d been working on. She raises an eyebrow at Suletta sitting on the floor, leaning against the big pot of dwarf citrus that Miorine had placed by the counter where she’s sitting.

“I can have them if I want them. Did you think I can’t?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Suletta says with a pout.

She peers at her, eyes serious and—and fond. Miorine swallows. She looks away.

“I just… I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about anyone.”

“Life. You know.”

It’s somewhat true. Even in this life, Miorine wasn’t blessed with the ability to let people in faster than they could lose interest. She had a few here and there, mostly friends out of a shared disdain for a professor or friends out of forced proximity in a classroom. Some promised to see her after graduation; no one has so far made good on their promises. Miorine doesn’t begrudge them. She knows what it’s like to be thrust upon the world under the guise of freedom only to find that there are problems to be solved, taxes to understand, debt and rent to pay, new responsibilities and obligations and expectations to be met.

She’d lost the ones who stayed. Or, she supposes, she’d left them behind, the few—Sabina, Guel, Lilique—who would go on to outlive her.

“You look so sad sometimes. I-I worry about you.”

She stiffens. Her breath hooks somewhere between her heart and her throat as if naming the emotion she feels from time to time made it all the more real.

“I’m fine, Suletta.”

“Really?” Suletta asks quietly, curiously. It doesn’t sound knowing, and Miorine sighs as she looks at her with a wry smile.

“I’m not alone if that’s what you’re worried about. At the risk of sounding like a child, I do have my mother.”

Suletta shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s childish. Not everyone can say the same, but if it’s true for you, I think that’s wonderful.”

“What’s your relationship with your mom like?”

“The best,” Suletta grins. “Please don’t make me choose between her and Dad.”

“Sounds like you’ve been teased about that.”

“Mostly Eri. I love Mom because she gives the best advice, but I also love Dad because he’s so much fun. I know they love me.”

Miorine softens. “Good.”

“We were talking about friends, though.”

Despite herself, Miorine laughs. “You’re not gonna let that go?”

“Nope,” Suletta insists. “I was just wondering, I guess. Do you have someone other than your mom, Ms. Miorine?”

“I have you, don’t I?” Miorine mumbles.

Suletta smiles something soft. “Of course.”

Miorine doesn’t know how to explain that she never got used to losing people, never found out if it could hurt less, never knew how to let people in without thinking that she would lose them someday and somehow. Suletta knows it, too. She’d told her about a childhood friend who went away and never came back, her paternal grandmother losing the battle to cancer, a pet that died of old age. She should know, but it seems that no matter the universe, Suletta will always be a tad braver than she is.

She huffs. “I’ll try. If that makes you happy.”

“I just think more people should know how amazing you are. And besides, if it doesn’t go well,” Suletta hesitates, blushing. “You’ll have me anyway.”

Miorine hides her heart with a smirk. “So full of yourself.”

Suletta’s blush deepens, and Miorine thinks it is harder work to be without her at all. She’ll learn to be content with this. Maybe.

It’s her mother who points it out.

“I think it’s a good idea,” she tells her over breakfast the next day, her face still twisting at the sight of Miorine’s black coffee, apparently still unused to some of her new habits no matter how many times she’s seen them.

“I never said it wasn’t,” Miorine mutters, feeling chastised. “I was just…”

“You were waiting. You hit pause on your whole life because you were waiting.”

Miorine looks up from her mug. Everything about her mother turns tentative, and Miorine already knows that she won’t want to hear what she’s going to say next.

“Mom,” she pleads.

“I have to ask, little love,” Notrette murmurs, apology tucked in the spaces.

Miorine grips her mug. “No, you don’t. I don’t want to think about it.”

Notrette straightens in her seat, lips thinning. She’s not angry, Miorine understands. She’s worried. Miorine would resent it, she thinks, if she hadn’t spent much of her old life looking for her every time things got hard or painful or sad.

All at once, she resigns.

Her mother reaches across the table for her hands. Of course—of course—Miorine meets her halfway.

“What are you going to do if she never remembers?”

Stricken, Miorine bows her head.

“I didn’t want to think about it,” she says again, half of her soul torn to shreds in a single moment. “You don’t get to just—you weren’t even there for me for so long. What gives you the right to—”

She snaps her mouth shut.

“I can be here for you now, Mio-Mio,” her mother whispers. “I know you know that I have my doubts. But I think I’ve seen enough to know that it’s true that I left you once. I don’t know how, and I do, and that scares me. But it doesn’t matter because I can be here for you now—for the hard questions and the hard feelings after. If only you’d let me.”

Miorine grips her mother’s hands, angry and desperate.

Her mother plows on; they’re so similar this way.

“You’ve been waiting. I understand.”

She jerks her gaze up, fire in her veins. “How can you—”

Her mother smiles, and it is sad. “It might not be the same, but I’ve lost people I love, too. I’ve waited, too. It’s lonely work, my love. I never want you to be lonely.”

The fight ebbs away, and Miorine chokes on one breath, then two, then three.

Her shoulders sag, her spine bows, her fingers tremble. Then, softly, with loss at the tip of her tongue and in the back of her eyes, she says, “I wanted you to meet her.”

Notrette’s eyes water. “I’m sure I would’ve loved her. I already like her in this life, at least.”

“Is that enough? Can it be enough?”

Her mother’s hold on her hands tightens, trying to keep her here, trying to convince her to be here. “Oh, little love,” she says so tenderly that Miorine thinks her heart might break. “I wish I could answer that for you.”

It’s back-breaking, the trying.

She reaches out to the friends she’d made in this life, brushes off their surprise, and meets them outside of Nadi. They’re good people, but they’re not her people, and she does her best to remember that she’d never given them a proper chance until now. She lets them in a little, telling them about her flower shop and what she’s been up to. They ask her what was difficult, what was fun, what more she can say about it all. It’s genuine, and it’s times like this when Miorine spends more time settling into this new life than she does resenting it.

On a random Thursday, she walks into a pottery class. One of her friends—Annie, if she remembers correctly—mentioned that it was worth trying. She texts her a picture and gets overzealous replies in return, as well as an all-caps instruction to stay right where she is for the two minutes it’ll take Annie to find pants. Miorine heeds her request, and they take the introductory class together. It hits her, sometime in the middle of Annie laughing mercilessly at her so-called bowl, that she has never really had time for hobbies. She had gardening in her last life, but she also had GUND-ARM and Suletta and Nadi. She supposes now’s a good time as any to see what else she’s allowed to do now.

She doesn’t try to date. It wouldn’t be fair to them. Sometimes, she wonders if she has any right to be angry about being alone in her memories when she had been the one who did the leaving behind. She thinks that it might be easier to be the one who got left behind. At least she knows how to grieve. But then, she remembers how she’d died—in her sleep, in Suletta’s arms—and she realizes that this is a cruel thought. After all, she also knows how to love.

Suletta comes by more frequently. Some days, it is easy to look at her and see the woman she has become in this life – a teacher, well-loved and hardworking, gentle to a fault. They rub shoulders in front of the tomatoes, and they tease each other over bouquets. They are young, their whole lives ahead of them. On other days, Suletta will ask her a question – do you play any instruments, Ms. Miorine? – and Miorine will only realize that she’s been staring at her expectantly when Suletta gives her a confused look. The piano, she will answer, heart splintering, because there she’ll be again, waiting for her to remember. Her joints will creak, and her spine will make itself smaller, and these will be the days when her muscles feel stretched too thin over her bones.

She’s so tired. Still, she tries, and tries, and tries some more.

A miracle happens on a Tuesday afternoon, just ten minutes after Suletta breezed in through the door, all broad smiles and skips in her steps. She’d stopped coming by under the guise of needing a break. She’d offered excuses and reasons until she gave up and admitted that it just feels like a part of her routine now: helping, planting, and Miorine. She doesn’t even text for notice anymore, not after Miorine had told her, clearly, that she’s welcome anytime.

Perhaps any other day would’ve been fine. But today, Miorine had forgotten that her mother would be leaving work early to help around the shop, claiming that she needed to do something other than cutting up people and patching them back together.

So, here they are, Suletta and Notrette, in the shop Miorine built from the ground up and named after a daughter she had in another life.

“Hello,” her mother greets softly. “You must be Suletta. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Suletta shoots up to her feet—she’d been crouching, pruning the roses—and clasps her hands in front of herself, bowing slightly. “Ms. Notrette,” she smiles shyly. “It’s very nice to finally meet you.”

You have no idea.

She hadn’t been keeping them apart, at least not intentionally. But she’d found some measure of mercy in being with them one at a time, and she’d clung to that because she’d been trying.

Miorine labors through a breath. Her heart is swollen, bruised, and tender to the touch.

“Are you opposed to hugs? I want to thank you for helping my daughter.”

Suletta blushes. “It’s really no trouble, but,” she shuffles hesitantly. “If you’re okay with it—”

Notrette snatches her by the shoulder and embraces her. They’re almost the same height, Suletta standing only half an inch taller. Suletta returns the hug gingerly, smile softening, shoulders relaxing, body surrendering. She turns her head just slightly and falters at the sight of her.

“Ms. Miorine…?” She tests, pulling halfway out of Notrette’s arms, brow creasing, eyes wide.

“I—yes?”

Notrette breaks off Suletta to see her. Her whole face gentles. She turns to Suletta.

“I’d like to speak more with you, but later, I think. I’ll go out and get us some dinner.”

She whispers something Miorine doesn’t hear before she comes to stand in front of her, cupping her cheek and pressing a kiss to her temple. “I’ll come back in a little bit. This is a good thing, Mio-Mio.”

She leaves, and Miorine reaches a hand up to her own cheek. Her fingers come away damp with saltwater.

Suletta peers at her, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“I’m fine. I’m okay. Don’t look.”

It does little to reassure Suletta, who takes a deep breath, closes the distance in two strides, and embraces her. Miorine trembles, whimper caught in her throat.

“I’m not looking, Ms. Miorine,” Suletta murmurs, arms tightening around her.

Miorine curls her fingers into Suletta’s stomach, clutching. “You met my mom.”

Suletta’s chin rests gently on her shoulder. “I did,” she whispers hesitantly. “Should I not have…?”

Miorine laughs brokenly. “I wanted you to meet her. For so long. So, so long.”

Suletta doesn’t ask. “You look a lot like her. Do you think she’ll like me?”

“She’ll love you.” This is real. This is real. “Oh my god,” she says in a ruined whisper. “Suletta. You met my mom.”

“Yes,” Suletta answers, voice carrying all the questions Miorine can’t answer.

Miorine unravels at the seams. “Good. I’m glad.”

They close Nadi early, moving to the greenhouse and setting takeout boxes on their laps. Suletta glances at her from time to time, so Miorine tries to be present even though she feels like she’s watching it happen, a dream she’s had one too many times.

Her mother has made it her mission to fluster Suletta as much as possible, her eyes dancing every time Suletta flushes as red as her hair. She switches targets when she notices that Miorine’s struggling to keep herself here, launching into stories about her childhood. The first time she lost a tooth to the floor because she’d been too stubborn to ask for help to reach a book she’d wanted up high; the scrapes on her knees she’d gotten because she didn’t want to use training wheels on her bike; the time she stayed up the whole night, waiting for the tooth fairy so she can squeeze more money out of them. Miorine glares at her mother every time, willing her to shut up.

“I think it’s cute,” Suletta, ever the peacemaker, offers after a particularly embarrassing story about a three-year-old Miorine refusing to wear pants.

Notrette smiles, serene and satisfied. “That, is the right response. I quite like you, Suletta.”

Suletta—bless her—blushes pink. “I-I’m glad. Ms. Miorine talks about you a lot.”

“All good things, I hope?”

“Mom, who do you think I am?”

“My daughter, who’s supposed to adore me.” Notrette narrows her eyes at them. “Why do you still call her so politely?”

Miorine shrugs and smirks at Suletta. “Wanna try just my name?”

Suletta chokes on her orange juice. The floor must be interesting with how intensely she stares at it. “Um. Miss—I mean, M-Miorine.”

Her whole face goes red.

Miorine gestures at her. “That’s why.”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Notrette laughs, patting Suletta’s cheek. “You call her whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Suletta’s shoulders drop in relief. “We used to visit my grandparents a lot when I was young,” she explains, eyes wistful. “They stayed at a nursing home even though my parents tried to tell them that it was okay for them to stay in our house.”

“So, you got used to being so polite?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Notrette huffs in a way that eerily reminds Miorine of herself. “Save that for when I’m fifty and look like a ma’am.”

Suletta tilts her head. “I, um, I don’t think you could ever look fifty, Ms. Notrette.”

Her mother clutches her chest, and Miorine rolls her eyes.

“A charmer. An adorable one at that.”

“Suletta, are you flirting with my mother?”

Suletta looks at her, wide-eyed. “I-I was just being honest!”

“Don’t let my daughter fool you. She just wants you to compliment her more.”

Of course, Suletta takes this at face value. She smiles. “You’re beautiful, too, Ms. Miorine.”

Miorine throws a tissue at her. Notrette laughs as Suletta dodges, and Miorine decides—perhaps for the first time—that this new life is worth the grueling effort it asks of her.

She falls in love with this Suletta, too. The way she worries her bottom lip when she’s trying to understand what her student wrote in the essay she’d assigned, the way she learns how to make Notrette’s coffee exactly the way she likes it so that she can prepare a warm mug every time she comes by before or after the hospital, the way she group-calls her family every Friday to ask them what she should bring for dinner. How she smiles and how she blushes and how she pouts – all familiar, still things that play at Miorine’s heartstrings.

Perhaps Suletta will remember. Perhaps she won’t. It doesn’t matter; she loves her not for her memories but because of who she is. Suletta is Suletta, and so, Miorine will remain as she has always been.

Of course, she falls in love with her. Of course.

It’s hard not to notice. Suletta has grown more observant since she met her mother, and Miorine feels the weight and pull of her gaze on her more often than not. She never follows it up with questions Miorine still can’t fathom how she’d answer, if it ever comes to that, without consigning Suletta’s fate to the one she had in another life, without swaying her feelings one way or another, without giving her context that could change everything. She’s not afraid; she simply refuses to repeat the mistakes she’d made in a distant past.

Miorine doesn’t want anything to change. She’s used to this routine now and has only learned how to live in it. Change would disrupt. Change would threaten. Change, she thinks as she grips a mug of hot chocolate and fears looking Suletta in the eye, would come anyway, no matter how far or how hard she runs.

“What?” She asks, just in case she’d misheard.

She knew she'd given a little too much away when she took a sip of Suletta’s hot chocolate. It was the same as the one her wife used to make—cocoa powder, milk, sugar, and the faintest hint of vanilla. Grief is too big a thing to hide away; look closely, and it’ll make itself known. Suletta has been looking.

A note of hesitation seeps into Suletta’s tone. “I-Is my being here causing you pain, Ms. Miorine?” She repeats.

Miorine stirs her drink. “Why would you ask me that?”

Suletta is quiet.

It had gotten colder after the sun went away. Usually, Suletta would stay until just before dinner—sometimes, she’d stay longer at Notrette’s insistence—then go home to do some work or meet some colleagues at a local dive bar or have dinner with whichever one of her family was available for a meal. She’d suggested having hot chocolate as they waited for the last of Miorine’s regulars. She’d served it in the largest mugs she could find and sat beside her behind the counter.

The lights are golden, the shop is warm, and Miorine’s life stumbles a little off-course.

Suletta isn’t looking at her either, but her hands are busy, one worrying the thread of her jeans, the other fiddling with her mug’s handle. She shifts in her seat.

“I just noticed… Sometimes, when you look at me o-or your mom, you seem… You get this faraway look. I don’t know how to describe it. I think you look sad, but that’s—that’s not it. Not always. And I’ve been wanting to ask. Even though I feel like I shouldn’t.” She takes a deep breath. “Am I hurting you?”

Miorine sighs. She hasn’t lied to Suletta in seventy years. She won’t start now.

She looks at her and finds her cautious, worried, everything softer in between.

“Yes, and no.”

Suletta’s face closes a little, the corner of her eyes creasing halfway to a flinch. “I see,” she murmurs.

“It’s not something I can explain,” Miorine tells her gently, wary of mishandling the heart suddenly in her hands. “It’s confusing for me, too. I wish I—” She shakes her head; she wishes for far too many things for someone who’s already been given what most don’t get. “It’s not you.”

It’s whoever calls themselves a god. It’s the memories, and the lives, that she shouldn’t have. It’s that she has her, but she also lost her, and she doesn’t know if she’s grateful or grieving or, impossibly, both. It’s that it’s hard to be all of these things at once. It’s hard, and lonely, and she wishes someone would know exactly what she means when she says, I have loved you twice over.

She shifts closer and rests her shoulder against Suletta’s. They drink hot chocolate. People pass by, shops along the district flip their signs, their mugs keep their fingertips warm. Miorine breathes mindfully. Suletta melts against her.

“I never want to cause you any pain,” she murmurs.

“I know,” Miorine exhales and thinks she knows exactly what will happen next. “I know that. It’s not your fault.”

Suletta rests her head against her crown. Miorine closes her eyes and savors it. It may be the closest she will be to her for a while.

The greenhouse flourishes. Miorine sits in the midst of what she’s grown – greens, oranges, and yellows catching her eye. There’s nothing to do. She had closed her shop early, both because she had no more flowers to sell and because Suletta hasn’t been by in two weeks. For once, she isn’t waiting. She’d known it was going to happen, because Suletta is kind, because Suletta doesn’t want to hurt her, because Suletta—even if she doesn’t have the memories Miorine has—still knows what she needs.

She needs this. Having nothing to do and no one to see. She’d been afraid to ask for it, too raw with loss and too scared to tempt fate. But they’re fine; her mother called her earlier to tell her that she was going to have a late-night surgery, and Suletta had messaged her to tell her that she hoped she had a good day. It’s the middle of the week, a thrice-damned Wednesday at that, so her friends are either too busy or too tired. She’s alone, and it’s exactly what she needs.

She doesn’t have to worry about acting too differently in case she gives her mother a stroke in her attempts to grapple with the implications of what’s real for Miorine. She doesn’t have to be wary about how much of her affection she shows in case it drives Suletta away or sends her into a crisis. She doesn’t have to contemplate an invitation to go out and pretend that she’s only twenty-three and hasn’t outgrown clubs and bars.

Things are clearer in the quiet. She can be who she is. She pulls her knees into her chest, closes her eyes, and touches all her pieces. She died; she came back to life. She’d grieved her mother, always; her mother is alive, vibrant, and beautiful. She had a daughter who wielded her fire and carried a heart like Suletta’s; she has a flower shop of all things, because it had been the privilege of her life to watch her daughter bloom. She left her wife behind, and she misses her; Suletta is here, and she misses her.

Her life had become so much more than she knew how to handle, and she’d fumbled with it, held it at arm’s length, and lost track of what was right in front of her because she kept looking back. She’d tried to make sense out of it. She should’ve known better. Eighty-seven years, and she really should’ve known better.

Life will never fit into a box, a label, a word. There’s no manual. All she can do is take her pieces and face it, find joy, tend to her pain, laugh herself into a breathless fit, cry until she’s blissfully empty, look up, watch a sunrise or a sunset if she wakes up too late, try and do better than let something beautiful pass her by, be scared shitless, do it anyway, love deep and true, say goodbye when it’s time, pause when she needs to, lean on somebody, help somebody, live, die, and, maybe, live again.

She wants to cry. She laughs quietly instead. No one ever mentioned how exhausting, and messy, and beautiful a second chance would be. But her mother is alive in this life, Suletta is here, she has her whole second life ahead of her. She will miss everyone she’s ever lost or left behind, but she thinks her wife would call her silly if that’s all she does. Her daughter would agree and gently shove her out the door.

Miorine stops trying to be either twenty-three or eighty-seven. She allows herself to be both. She breathes. It comes stunningly easy.

Goddamn it. Onward it is.

Miorine decides that if she’s ever given a chance to be face-to-face with the god who plucked her out of her life and dropped her unceremoniously into this one, she will punch them in their guts. The least they could’ve done was warn her so she wouldn’t do the deer-in-headlights thing every time she’s faced with a ghost seemingly appearing in broad daylight, bringing about ten children into her shop.

“Nika?”

The girl—short-cropped hair, blue eyes, the same smile—startles and whips around, unintentionally dragging a child into the motion.

“Ms. Nanaura,” the boy whines, wriggling out of her hold and joining his friends cooing by the pansies.

“Um, you wouldn’t happen to be Ms. Miorine, would you?”

“I-I am.”

Nika brightens in recognition. “Suletta mentioned you once or twice. It’s nice to meet you. I didn’t realize she’d talk about me enough that you’d recognize me. I’m the substitute teacher.”

Miorine gathers herself. Suletta did mention that at least a couple of months ago, but she hadn’t dropped a name to go with the story, likely because they were new to each other.

“She mentioned you,” she echoes wryly, an inside joke heavy in her tone. “Once or twice.”

Nika steps forward and offers a hand. Miorine takes it.

“Well, it’s wonderful to put a face to the name finally.” Something catches her eye, and she lets go. “Kids! What did we say about touching?”

A girl raises her hand. “Ask first.”

“Yes. So, Heather, what are you doing?”

Another kid backs away from the tulips, looking mildly guilty but too awed to really pull it off. “Not asking. But, Ms. Nanaura, they’re all so pretty.”

Miorine softens. She waves off the apologetic look from Nika.

“Were you looking to buy something?”

“The kids wanted to buy Suletta some flowers. I thought it was a great idea until we stepped out of the school gates,” Nika sighs in fond exasperation.

Miorine hides a laugh. “Right. I can help. What’s the special occasion?”

Nika startles again before frowning lightly. “She’s… in the hospital.”

Miorine’s heart drops to her feet. “She’s—what?”

Nika raises her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew! You’re all she’s been talking about, and I—”

“What happened? Is she—”

“She’s okay! I promise. She got some second-degree burns. Nothing serious or life-threatening. They just wanted to keep her for a few days to help with the—Ms. Miorine, are you okay?” Nika reaches over to clamp a steadying hand on her shoulder.

Miorine barely feels it. Hospital, burns. She feels light-headed. She locks her knees in place. The suddenness, the things out of her control, the reminder that nothing is ever set in stone—

“How?”

Nika peers at her cautiously. “She was making a home visit for one of the kids. The fire started in a neighbor’s apartment. It spread too fast.”

A teary child steps in front of them, head bowed, fingers curled into her dress. “It was my fault. Ms. Suletta saved me.”

Miorine swallows and lowers herself to a crouch. She makes fists and asks her fingers to stop trembling before offering them to the little girl in front of her. She hesitates then rests her small hands in Miorine’s palms.

“It’s not your fault,” Miorine tells her clearly. “Are you okay?”

Big, teary eyes meet hers. She nods. “But what if Ms. Suletta’s mad at me?”

“I’m very sure she’s not. If anything, I think she’d only be worried about you. But if you’re okay, then I’m sure she’d be happy to know it. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

The child sniffles. “Vivi.”

“Okay, Vivi. How about we pick some flowers for Ms. Suletta to make her happy?”

She wipes messily at her face, blushing when Miorine takes over for her and dabs at her cheeks with a sleeve. “Yes, please.”

Miorine helps Nika herd the children over to the brightest, happiest-looking bunch. She has them line up, handing stems of yellow pansies, daisies, and, to Vivi, the largest sunflower. She teaches them how to have gentle hands and how to hold something beautiful, and, in the process, reminds herself that this is how she should go about it all. Gently, gratefully, knowing that nothing in this world lasts forever.

She arranges a basket filled with everything vibrant. She hands it to Nika.

“It’s beautiful, Ms. Miorine. Do you want to give her this yourself?”

Miorine rolls her eyes playfully, wondering if Nika is always a busybody, no matter the universe. “Because something happened?”

The joke flies over Nika’s head, but she shrugs. “You look like you need to see her. And I’m sure she’d be glad to see you.”

Vivi shuffles to her, hesitant, before wrapping her fingers around Miorine’s pinky. “Please come?”

Miorine glares at Nika but takes Vivi’s hand in hers. “This is cheating.”

Nika laughs. “Don’t blame me. It’s not my fault that Suletta’s kids are just the best.”

“I need to—” She feels Vivi squeeze her hand. She sighs. “Can you wait? I need to close my shop.”

Nika has the grace and decency to hide her amusement. “Of course.”

Miorine leans her head back against the wall just outside of Suletta’s room, listening to her exclaim and laugh with the children. She’s in no rush; it’s enough for her that she can hear her. Nika had attempted to convince her to go with them, but she refused, not because she needed to prepare herself but because she wanted to give her this moment. It’s a sweet gesture, and like she once said to her, she deserves a piece of something beautiful she had a hand in.

They won’t be able to stay for long. They have a curfew, and Nika will need to bring them back safe and sound well before their parents are supposed to pick them up. She can wait. Anyway, she’d suffered worse things in a hospital than the strange note of sun-warmed leaves and watered soil mingling with the usual antiseptic.

Inside, a child squeals in glee. She can hear Nika’s moot attempts to temper their noise and her half-hearted rebukes at whatever Suletta had done to get the quiet Vivi to make such a happy sound. Good, she thinks. Vivi’s too young to carry the world on her shoulders.

She listens, and she breathes, and she thinks that if she closes her eyes, she could invoke a memory from days lived in the countryside, feel the grass brush against her ankles, hear the wind coming from a mile away. She misses it still, but even though the ground beneath her feet is tiled, the walls are white, and the aircon rattles some distance away, it’s the same sound of joy. Almost as if she’d carried it with her somehow, or like the world will always sound like this so long as Suletta is in it.

“Come on, kids, let’s leave Ms. Suletta to rest.”

“I wanna stay!”

“Me too!”

There’s a ruckus, and Miorine can only chuckle to herself. Suletta says something to them. She can’t hear what exactly, but it’s followed by a chorus of whines. The door slides open. Miorine straightens. She puts a finger to her lips as soon as the first kid spots her. The boy grins and mimics her movement, coming over to hug her leg before stage-whispering a thank you. Miorine sets a hand on his head.

“You’re welcome,” she murmurs. “Go on. Hold a friend’s hand.”

“Like flowers?”

Miorine smiles. “Yes.”

The boy grins and turns around, finding a friend and putting his hand in hers. She can see their brows furrow, mouthing gently, gently, and she thinks that they have much to learn from children.

Vivi tugs at her sleeve. Miorine drops down to her haunches and is immediately hugged.

“She’s not mad,” Vivi whispers. “Just like you promised.”

Miorine rubs her back. “Good.”

Vivi kisses her cheek and skips to her friends.

“Ever considered being a teacher?” Nika asks her as she leads the last kid out of Suletta’s room.

“They only like me because I don’t give them homework.”

Nika snorts. “You may have a point. Thank you for the flowers, Ms. Miorine. We’ll see you around.”

The kids wave at her in full view of Suletta’s open door. Miorine huffs a laugh and waves back. She watches them leave until they turn a corner before squaring her shoulders and taking her turn.

Suletta has been craning her head to peek out the doorway, apparently having caught the not-so-secretive way the children had said their goodbyes to her. She blinks at the sight of her. Her left wrist is bandaged, so are both of her shins. Miorine’s chest tightens.

“You can’t keep doing this to me.”

Suletta unsubtly pinches her cheek like she can’t believe she’s here. Honestly, where does she think the flowers came from?

“I-I’m sorry?” She sputters. “This… is the first time, though?”

Miorine laughs helplessly, and it lightens Suletta’s expression to a sheepish grin. “Never mind. Are you okay?”

“I will be. They were just worried about aftercare, but I’ll be going home in two days.”

Miorine sighs, closes the door, and crosses the room. The chair beside Suletta’s bed is just as uncomfortable as the one she’d sat on for weeks, just waiting for her then-Holder to wake up. It dredges up memories she’d rather not have. She frowns at the bandages.

“Were you worried about me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

This, for reasons unknown, makes Suletta giggle.

Miorine shakes her head. “Jumping into fires, really?”

Suletta shrugs. “I don’t regret it. But yes, I’ll try not to do it again.”

Miorine reaches over and flicks her forehead.

“I-I deserved that,” Suletta pouts. “But I promise I’m okay. They say I’m healthy enough to avoid some scarring.”

“Good.”

Suletta peers at her curiously, and Miorine ticks an eyebrow at her.

“You seem… better,” Suletta tests. She hesitates. Then, softly, like she’s afraid to ask, “Is everything clear for you now?”

Miorine nods. “Yes.”

“T-Then…?”

“I want to be here. Is that okay?”

Suletta’s smile is slow to come, and shy, and happy.

Miorine receives it deeply. She has been reborn into this world, wailing her way into it befitting of any newcomer to life. She has babbled, crawled, figured out how to use her new knees to hold herself up. She lays an open palm on Suletta’s bed. Suletta places her hand into hers willingly. Miorine curls her fingers around the weight like a grasp reflex – unthinking, unself-conscious, and instinctive. She wants to be here.

Suletta welcomes her gently. “How have you been, Ms. Miorine?”

“Better than you, apparently.”

Suletta chokes on a laugh, hand squeezing hers.

Miorine smiles. “I’m good.” She is both twenty-three and eighty-seven when she adds, “I just missed you is all.”

Suletta blushes. “I missed you, too.”

Life takes mercy on her and eases on its twists and turns. It concurs with the old routine, forgives Miorine for noticing its pain more than she did its comfort the first time, and gives her days and weeks to settle back into its warmth.

She tries to be kinder to herself. In the mornings, it looks like talking to her mother about Nadi because she’d dreamt about her in full color, her seven-year-old who rode her wife’s shoulders and squealed so loudly that it got a few neighbors to stop what they were doing just to watch the scene. Or it might look like sitting next to her mother instead of across her for breakfast, leaning her shoulder against hers because she’d missed her. Or it might look like going to the shop early to get that moment Suletta had helped her have, the quiet, the calm, the just-being.

During the day, she juggles her freelance work and business with a flourish that evades the young, doing it despite her mother’s befuddlement and using skills she’d spent a lifetime honing. She greets her regulars more warmly, opens her heart to one or two by asking how they are and caring enough to want to know the answer, and invites her friends to the shop if they’re free or if they want to. She tells her mother about the tomatoes and laughs at the barrage of questions launched her way.

Suletta comes back, first with bandages, then without. Miorine has decided to let her come to her, if she will. She chooses gratefulness instead of lack for the way Suletta has taken to walking with her to the grocery or to the park or to a random ice cream parlor that caught their eye. Sometimes, she stays for dinner, and Notrette has taken to tossing her sly, conspiratorial winks behind Suletta’s back. Miorine ignores it, content to revel in the elation of a wish heard and granted, happy to share space with them who make a place for her to belong in a vast world.

The downpour begins around the time Suletta usually comes over on Saturdays, always in the afternoon, because she spends most of her day catching up with her family and planning lessons. It’ll be difficult for her to come in this weather, and Miorine texts her to tell her that she doesn’t have to. She gets no response.

Odd.

Miorine tries not to put too much stock in it. She balances her books, checks on the greenhouse, and serves a customer looking for a bouquet for a date she seems very nervous about. She texts her mother to check if she made it to the hospital okay and gets a long rant about the weather in response. She replies with a wish for good luck with the surgery they have scheduled for the night. Her mother replies with a row of kissy faces that make Miorine snort and scrunch her nose.

An hour later, Suletta still hasn’t replied.

She gets to closing time. No response.

She’s about to get up to flip the sign on the door and call Suletta when said door blows open, letting cold wind and rain into the shop. Suletta stumbles in, soaked to the bone.

“What—” Miorine jumps to her feet, half-startled and half-worried.

She marches to her and pulls her in by the wrist, closes the door and flips the sign.

“You’re shaking,” Miorine glares. “What were you thinking, coming here when it’s pouring outside?”

Suletta is wide-eyed, frozen under her touch. “The tomatoes,” she says in a near babble. “Or—Or—”

“The tomatoes will survive a day without you, idiot.” Miorine looks around the shop, trying to find something to help her get dry.

She spots the hoodie draped over her chair. It’ll have to do. “Wait here.”

She moves to get it, ducking under the counter for anything else that might help, even just a hand towel. She finds a new pack of microfiber cloth stashed in the shadows. She grabs it before straightening and scowling fiercely at Suletta, reproach at the tip of her tongue. Except—

“Suletta?”

Suletta stands where she’d left her, dripping onto the mud mat, her hair disheveled. Her face is wet. Miorine can’t tell if it’s rain or tears. A low, broken whimper decides for her. Miorine drops everything in her hands and crosses her shop in half a second.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Miorine searches her for injuries, anything amiss, something that might explain how Suletta sinks her teeth into her lip hard enough to bleed. “Hey, hey,” she tries to soothe, hands grabbing at Suletta’s elbows. She’s trembling violently. Miorine doesn’t think it’s because of the cold. “Suletta.”

Suletta inhales sharply, then closes her eyes, squeezing them shut.

Miorine doesn’t think she’s breathing when she opens them again, but she exhales through parted lips, an audible sound soaked in relief. Suletta sets her hands on her hips, a tentative thing, like she’s afraid. It does something to her, and Miorine watches, uncomprehending, when Suletta’s face breaks open into a smile, small and shaky and somehow sad, brow losing its creases, eyes filling rapidly until Miorine has no doubt that she’s crying.

“I was—” A sob drowns what Suletta wants to say.

She stumbles forward, forehead coming to rest against hers, so close that Miorine can’t help how her heart picks itself up and runs. Suletta looks her straight in the eye, unblinking, soul wide open.

“Mio.”

Miorine’s heart finds the limits of her chest and slams into her ribs.

Suletta loses to her tears. “Mio, Mio.”

Miorine fumbles with her hands and gets them to grasp at Suletta’s chest, knuckles paling as she clutches at her sweater. “Are you—Did you—”

Suletta’s mouth twists to match a sob, her hold tightening at the sound of her voice. She tries. Once, twice, thrice, lips parting to speak only to falter over and over until finally, “I was hoping I’d see you.” She pulls her closer. “And here you are. I lost you, and here you are.”

Miorine’s breath staggers, hooking painfully in her throat. Her eyes burn. “Suletta? My Suletta?”

Suletta’s eyes close as if struck, agony and relief painted all over her. “Yes. Yes, I’ve always been yours. But you were gone. And cold. And you—in my arms—” She weeps. Brokenly, like there’s something irreparable and in pieces buried in her throat, “You were gone, but here you are.”

Miorine throws herself into her arms; wrapping, embracing, gripping. “I’m here, oh my god,” she stutters, still catching up but already ruined somewhere deep. “I’ve been—” Her chest heaves, pushing against Suletta’s and coaxing it to tremble. She shakes her head, her body heavy with disbelief. “I’m right here.”

Suletta’s knees hit the ground—in prayer, in loss, in rapture—and Miorine follows her all the way down. She opens her mouth. A sound erupts out of her, nameless, shameless, and utterly human—the bawl and exclaim of someone lost finally found.

There is a space between experience and language where words are inadequate. The unutterable, where the expression of impact and emotion captures the experience far better than phrases ever could. Suletta remains in this space. Hiccups and hitched breaths halt whatever she wants to say whenever she tries; tears flood her eyes just when Miorine thinks she has nothing more left to give. Miorine understands, suddenly, why her mother seemed more than willing to try and believe something impossible.

Miorine reads her the best she can. Suletta shivers because she’s cold, soaked, and exhausted, so Miorine gathers her up and helps her to her feet, keeping her steady until her knees understand that they must hold her up. She attempts to let go. Suletta pales, grabbing her hand and pushing into the spaces between her fingers before she can get far. So, Miorine murmurs apologies, squeezes her hand, and closes the shop one-handed. She checks on the greenhouse, places locks, turns off the lights.

Her grasp on her composure is tenuous at best, but she holds her heart at arm’s length and asks it to wait.

“Is there anyone at your place?” Miorine asks her quietly, wiping at the tears on Suletta’s cheek. “I don’t have anything of yours in my house, but we need to change. Just a yes or no, love.”

A breath leaves Suletta, shallow and hitched. She shakes her head.

“Okay,” Miorine whispers. “Do you have your phone on you?”

Suletta nods. She attempts a deep breath, trying to gather herself. She fails, and more tears rise to her eyes as she shuffles and tips forward, forehead coming to rest against Miorine’s shoulder as if in apology.

“It’s alright,” Miorine whispers, rubbing her back. “I’ve got you. I’ll take your phone, okay?”

She feels a nod.

Suletta keeps her phone in her front pocket, and Miorine manages a wry smile when she finds that it doesn’t even have a passcode. She’s too trusting for any world, her blind faith in the good of anyone she meets almost a challenge, a gauntlet thrown, as if daring them to be anything but deserving of what she gives them. Her throat closes almost gently at the thought, and she steels herself almost forcibly.

She gets them a ride—neither of them is in any condition to walk; Suletta doesn’t need the pressure to be anything more than she is now; Miorine doesn’t think her composure can last that long—and she’s thankful that Suletta had her address saved in the app. She squeezes her hand and folds her lips into her mouth when Suletta immediately gets it, drawing herself up and letting her pull them out of the shop. She’d missed it, this ease, this knowing. A thought—an emotion—for later.

The rain has long since stopped, but the air is frigid, so Miorine huddles close as they wait. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes, and Suletta keeps their hands folded together as the car pulls away from the curb. She looks dazed, far away. She glances at her so often that Miorine catches her gaze and holds it.

“Hello,” she mouths, soundless and still, somehow, heartfelt.

Miorine traces a finger with the tip of her thumb. “Hi,” she mouths back.

Suletta swallows, faint pink and streetlight-gold tears dusting her cheeks. Softly, in nothing more than a whisper, “I missed you.”

Miorine wears her heart on her sleeve. The world blurs a little. “I missed you, too.”

The place Suletta calls her own is a modest one-bedroom close to the school she works at, housed in a mid-sized building that prides itself on its grace in age. Miorine has never been here, but she finds herself in the vase of flowers Suletta has on the coffee table, the book on agriculture Suletta had borrowed sitting on the couch, a scribble of her number in her handwriting pinned to the fridge.

Neither of them speaks. It’s too much and so much, and when Miorine finally overflows in effortless tears, Suletta only takes her hand and walks her through her apartment. Miorine can only watch as Suletta pulls two sets of clothes, both hoodies and sweatpants, glancing at her every once in a while like she just needs to make sure that she’s still there. In the bathroom, they take turns drying each other’s hair, turning their backs so they can get changed without leaving each other’s space or crossing a line that may or may not be there, then coming together forehead to forehead and palms to palms.

Suletta swallows. Tries. Fails, then tries again. “Hot chocolate?” Something easy, something safe.

Miorine wipes Suletta’s cheeks and closes her eyes when Suletta does the same for her. “Okay.”

In the kitchen, Miorine feels her wide-open heart settle down a little. She learns where Suletta keeps her mugs—high up in the cabinets because she didn’t have to think about anyone else who might not be able to reach them—and what’s in her fridge—not nearly enough, but there are tomatoes in the bottom shelf—and how she prepares the drinks in her home—still the same, still familiar, a piece of their old life impossibly here before they were anything to each other.

They settle on her couch, side by side.

“I-I died, I think” is the first thing Suletta manages to say in a rasp that hurts to hear. “I was sitting on the porch, watching the sunset. I was waiting for N-Nadi—”

She falters, and Miorine presses closer despite the ache sitting heavily in her chest. Suletta must’ve been on that old chair she’d refused to give up on, a rickety thing that had seen the repair shop one too many times. Nadi must’ve been preparing something to drink. The sunset must’ve been so warm that if Miorine closed her eyes, she might be able to feel it against her skin.

“Take your time,” Miorine whispers.

She feels Suletta hold onto the tension for a beat before it seeps out of her in a wobbly exhale.

“My chest hurt a lot. I thought I was just missing you,” she breathes like it was the obvious answer for every bit of hurt she had to endure after. She pauses long enough for Miorine to look at her.

She’s staring hard at her hot chocolate, her eyes growing terrified, like they’d been when they were waiting to hear if she’d be allowed out of the hospital after Quiet Zero following months-turned-a-year of working hard, getting her hopes up, and coping with the delays. Miorine sets a hand on her thigh. Suletta’s bottom lip quivers, but she presses her fingers against Miorine’s pulse, counting quietly, mouthing the numbers: one, two, three. Her face smooths with awe.

Miorine feels like she’s paper-thin, like this could tear her apart. In my arms, Suletta had said. She wonders how many times she called her name, if she’d felt for a pulse over and over, how long she held her and wept. She swallows the thought. She doesn’t want to know.

“I’m sorry.”

Suletta startles a little, her gaze snapping up to meet hers. “It wasn’t your fault. You wouldn’t have—it wasn’t your fault.”

Miorine bites into the inside of her cheek. “Still. Were you alone… after?”

Suletta softens and intertwines their fingers. “Nadi didn’t want me to be, so I wasn’t. I didn’t want to keep her. She has her life, too. I tried to tell her, but she’s still a lot like you, still refuses to listen when she’s decided.”

Miorine manages a small laugh. Suletta’s eyes brighten at the sound.

“That’s also partly your fault, you know.” Then, softly, “Is she going to be okay?”

Suletta offers a sad smile. “She will be. I don’t think she’d be surprised w-when she finds me. I just wish that it won’t break her heart, but… Well, she’s stronger than we could’ve hoped she’d be.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “I have a daughter.” She blushes, twenty-four years old and young. “We have a daughter. This is maybe a little… weird.”

“You’re not going to ask if this is real?”

“No.” Instant. Vehement. Eighty-nine years old and ripe with loss. “It’s real.” Her fingers grip hers. “Right?”

Miorine throat tightens. “Yes. I promise.”

Suletta’s hold eases, her shoulders slumping. She shivers, grimacing. “So, I really died. I-I don’t think I like it.”

The lump in Miorine’s throat bursts into a laugh, damp and hoarse but a laugh all the same. “I don’t think anyone would. I remember, too.”

“You weren’t in pain, right?”

Miorine shakes her head. “No. I fell asleep there and woke up here. That’s all there was to it.”

Suletta’s face is gentle. “I’m glad.” She wears a watery smile as she melts back into the cushions. “I’m so relieved. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, but I’ve been coming to see you for a—a year now, and it’s all so confusing, but I’m so—” Her eyes widen, some thought cutting through the rest of whatever she was going to say next.

Miorine wants to hear it, wants her to keep talking if only to make this more real. “What is it?”

“Um,” Suletta hesitates, starting to fidget and straighten, facing her a little more. “I don’t know if this is the right time to tell you, but I figured that maybe I should considering we were… I was going to tell you anyway, but not—not like this—”

“Suletta—”

“I love you,” Suletta barrels on, an unstoppable force, a dead-on path from point A to point B, a star streaking across the sky, unknowingly carrying wishes and dreams, bringing them to wherever they go to be fulfilled. She takes Miorine’s breath away. “I loved you when you were gone and I couldn’t—find you anywhere,” she gasps at the weight, but she remains undeterred. “And I’ve been falling in love with you since… since Walmart even though I didn’t know it yet. I think… so long as I’m me, whatever that means, I’ll love you again and again. And if I find you in the next life,” she looks at her, eyes resolute. “If I’m lucky enough to have another life with you, I’ll love you again. I just wanted you to know. Just—Just in case. I don’t know if I told you before we fell asleep. Before. I never want to regret not telling you ever again.”

The force of her slams into Miorine, and she trembles in the aftermath. She leans forward to set her mug on the coffee table, then takes Suletta’s and does the same. She moves herself, not to avoid because it’s too late for that, but to meet, to be the immovable, to be point B, to be the dreamer who makes it happen. She straddles Suletta. Cradles her jaw. Suletta looks up at her like she’s somehow the miracle.

“Walmart?”

Suletta laughs shakily, her hands grasping at her hips. “Even before. And after.” She shrugs helplessly. “Every time you’re you and I’m me.”

Miorine starts crying, unraveled thread by thread. She nudges Suletta’s nose, breathes the air she breathes, and pleads, “Say it again.”

“Miorine,” Suletta whispers, stricken with wonder and drenched in awe, her lips quivering. “I love you.”

Something swells, from a murmur to a roar, from a prelude to a crescendo, from nothing to brimming. Gooseflesh crawls up her spine and chases the heat up to her neck and down to her limbs, and she dares to lean in with a motion so small, so slight. Suletta responds to it—completes it—gently, carefully, bravely, heart on her lips, leaving it between Miorine’s own as if in offering, as if she’d never wanted it back in the first place, as if returning it to where it belongs.

It turns into a disaster of a kiss, too full and too fast and too hard, saying nothing about how they’ve perfected this over decades, and Miorine whimpers in relief. She tilts her head the way she’s done hundreds, thousands, a million times before, a habit reborn anew, stolen from an old life and introduced to a new one. She inhales sharply and presses insistently, and Suletta pulls her closer like she’s still too far away even now. It’s the first time all over again, pure love curling her toes and leaving her gasping against Suletta’s parted lips.

“You didn’t remember, and I—”

Suletta brushes something apologetic and gentle against her mouth. “I remember now. I’m sorry I made you wait.”

Miorine kisses her back, her cheeks as wet as Suletta’s.

“I—” She wraps her arms around Suletta, holding her close, keeping her here. “I love you, too.”

Suletta rises up, a sob caught in the back of her throat, her mouth begging to taste the words. She lifts and twists until Miorine is on her back. She kisses like she’s starved and still searching, and Miorine lets her take what she needs from the tip of her tongue.

“You were—”

“I know, I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay, just please,” Suletta breaks away but doesn’t go far, breaths ragged and ruined. “Please be real this time.”

Miorine leans up to kiss her cheek, her jaw, her neck. She guides her down to her chest, right above her heart.

For a moment, Suletta is still.

And then, she shudders, curling smaller against her. Miorine holds her and lets her listen.

The morning dawns early for Miorine. She muffles a groan, trying to keep it down, more than aware of Suletta’s deep, quiet breaths brushing against her collarbone.

Her head hurts. Her back, too. They’d fallen asleep on the couch, exhausted from all the crying, too new to the impossible reality to risk letting each other go. She’d missed Suletta’s weight on her, the warmth she radiates in her sleep, the way she fits in her spaces. She’d tried her best to settle into this life as it was, but she won’t lie: a part of her—the part that chose Suletta years and years ago, the part that gave away her faith and placed it in Suletta’s hands—would’ve waited, no matter how long it took.

Suletta shifts against her, nuzzling deeper.

“Are you awake?” Miorine murmurs.

Suletta mumbles incoherently, wiggling until she freezes. She shoots up, looks down at Miorine, and presses a palm against her chest. The panic is there for half a second. The fear, too. Then, her shoulders slump in relief. She giggles incredulously.

Tired of crying, Miorine tests a smirk. “Bold of you.”

Suletta squeaks and snatches her hand back, cheeks aflame. “S-Sorry! I just needed to check. You know,” she says sheepishly.

Miorine smiles. She knows that there will be days when they’ll cry about it, when they’ll wake in the middle of the night looking for each other, when they’ll struggle with what it means to have lived and died and lived again. But for today, they’re okay.

“I know,” she says quietly. “Good morning, Suletta.”

Suletta brightens, balancing herself with a palm she sets beside Miorine’s ribcage. Her smile is sweet and pretty, so young that it hits Miorine, for the first time, that they’ll be doing this all over again.

“Good morning, Ms. Miorine.”

Miorine raises an eyebrow. “Are you going back to that?”

Suletta tries biting back a grin. “I haven’t asked you yet if I can call you Mio in this life. Can I?”

“Do what you want.”

“Just not Mio-Mio, right? Because—” Her eyes bulge as she chokes on her words. “I met your mom. I met my… mother-in-law? Wait. Are we girlfriends or wives?” She frowns. “Actually, should I ask you to be my girlfriend? I asked last time. Should I do it again? O-Or do you want to go out on dates first?”

Miorine sighs then chuckles, sitting up and pressing a kiss to Suletta’s cheek. “How about we have coffee first before you panic about any of that?” She pulls back and considers her. “But let’s settle one thing. Be my girlfriend.”

Suletta seems to stop breathing. “You—”

Miorine shrugs with a nonchalance she doesn’t actually have, what with the riot of fluttering things in her stomach. “You said it yourself. You asked last time. It’s only fair I ask you this time, right? So?”

She is bowled back on the couch, her arms suddenly full of Suletta. “Yes. Yes, please.”

Miorine wheezes a laugh. “Suletta!”

Suletta pops up, beautiful in her happiness. “Sorry, sorry, are you okay? I’m just so happy!”

Miorine softens and lifts herself a little to kiss her. “Me too.”

“I think this is the first time we’ll be girlfriends. Can you believe it?”

“We—” Miorine pauses. They were engaged before they were even friends in their first life. “Huh.”

Suletta giggles. “I can’t wait to have all the firsts we missed last time.”

Miorine smiles. “Think you have another lifetime in you?”

“Mio,” Suletta laughs, gathering her in her arms and holding her tight. “Yes. I want another one with you. I want all of it, again, with you.”

Miorine hides her face in her neck, her cheeks warm and aching from the force of her smile. “It’s too early for you to be this sappy.”

“Coffee?”

Miorine squeezes her. “Yeah.”

(Suletta notices her first. Her eyes stray away from Miorine—a rare thing, Notrette has found; despite her daughter’s reservations, she has always had Suletta’s undivided attention—and she gets the pleasure of seeing her eyes widen with recognition. She shoots to her feet and slips out from behind the counter, squeezing Miorine’s shoulder as she passes her by. Notrette can’t help the knot of affection she feels as Suletta pulls the door open for her, immediately taking the bags of lunch she’d gotten on the way here.

“Hello, Ms. Notrette,” she greets, excitable and flushing. “It’s very nice to finally meet… you?” Her head tilts adorably in confusion. “But we’ve met. I think.”

Notrette hears her daughter sigh before she can respond, and Miorine steps away from the counter, approaching them and setting a hand on Suletta’s back in a way that strikes Notrette as odd.

“It takes a while to get used to. Don’t rush it.” She turns to her. “Hi, Mom. Did I forget you were helping today?”

Somehow off-balance, Notrette shakes her head and kisses her daughter’s temple. “No. I just thought I’d pass by. The hospital doesn’t need me today.”

Miorine snorts. “You’re bored, you mean.”

Notrette shoots her a mock glare. “Don’t sass me, young lady.”

Miorine hums noncommittally. “You can help Suletta prune the flowers.”

Suletta smiles. “Shall we, Ms. Notrette?”

Notrette huffs a laugh, patting Suletta’s cheek. “Always so polite. You might want to put those away first, though.”

“R-Right!”

Miorine steals the bags from Suletta. “I’ll do it,” she insists with a smirk Notrette doesn’t understand but obviously makes Suletta nervous. “You have a fun time with Mom.”

“Mio—”

“Nope.”

She walks away before Suletta can argue, and Notrette tries not to laugh at how she fidgets.

“She’s teasing you?”

Suletta’s shoulders slump, but she smiles despite the healthy blush on her cheeks. “Always.”

This, too, is odd in a way Notrette can’t pinpoint.

It piles up, the little things. To be a mother is to notice; a sneeze can quickly turn into a respiratory infection, peanuts could be an allergen, a subtle twist at the corner of her daughter’s mouth could suggest discomfort or, worse, pain. A good mother would pay attention, and Notrette has spent half her life trying to be one.

She thinks maybe they’ve progressed. After all, Miorine didn’t come home last night, only messaging her to let her know she’d be staying at Suletta’s. It wouldn’t be a surprise. They’ve been moving slowly but steadily down a path she knows her daughter wants, and it had been an unexpected joy to watch them fumble, push, and pull with all the gracelessness and eagerness of young love. Suletta seems more nervous around her, her hands a little clammy when she insists on taking the fertilizer bags from her. Miorine, too, has been smiling to herself, a small, soft thing she doesn’t even seem to notice she’s wearing.

It'd explain a lot, but Notrette also finds that it doesn’t explain all of it.

They seem… settled. Calm the way new lovers very rarely are. There’s an ease to them that befuddles Notrette at the same time that it makes her ache, something sweet and warm curling in her chest the more she notices. Suletta takes the bell peppers from Miorine’s lunch, and her daughter doesn’t blink, doesn’t thank her, as if it is the way it’s always been. Once, then twice, she catches them reaching for each other, a hand squeezing her daughter’s hip or fingers brushing away Suletta’s bangs. They dance around each other, used to the length of each other’s limbs, like they know how much space they’re welcome to take, how close they can be without suffocating or squeezing or caging.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Notrette asks her daughter as soon as they hit a lull in customers.

Suletta’s in the back, washing their utensils and sorting out the remnants of their lunch. Her daughter blinks at her, attention pulled away from the bouquet she’s arranging for a later pick-up. She smiles.

“I was wondering when you’d notice.”

Notrette leans her hip on the counter and crosses her arms. “You could never keep a secret from me, Mio-Mio. What makes you think this time will be any different?”

Miorine exhales a laugh and inclines her head in concession. Suletta comes out the back, wiping her hands with a clean cloth.

“Perfect timing.”

Notrette watches her daughter extend a hand that Suletta instantly takes despite her confusion.

“Mom,” Miorine smirks, mischievous and young. “Meet my wife.”

Suletta startles. Notrette’s breath catches.

“Mio, I thought I was your girlfriend first?”

“You’re my wife too, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but—” Suletta glances up. “I think you surprised your mom. Ms. Notrette, are you okay?”

“Oh, she’ll be fine.”

Suletta shakes her head disapprovingly before pulling the chair from the counter and guiding Notrette to it. Notrette lets her.

It had been hard to believe. She remembers the tears Miorine had cried that morning, how she’d clutched at her, how she’d clawed at her own chest as if trying to get to the source, stanch the bleeding, or rip it all out altogether. She’d explained when she was asked, but Notrette has always preferred to believe what can be proven. Reincarnation is lovely to believe, but up until today, it has been nothing but a far-fetched concept immune to proof. But she loves her daughter, and she will bend how she sees the world if she must, no matter how hard or unbelievable.

She’d tried, at least. She was given proof time and again, tiny little things that may be insignificant. How she started taking her coffee black, how she’d played markets like it was a round of Monopoly, how she says names—Nadi, Suletta, Mom—like she’d loved them so long that it’s become a part of her. The look in Miorine’s eyes, the depth of them, how they look almost out of place in a face so young. As hard as it was to believe, Notrette found that it was just as hard not to believe that her daughter had, in fact, reincarnated.

Suletta kneels in front of her, eyes worried.

“Truly?” Notrette rasps.

Suletta softens and blushes, hands resting primly on her lap. “Hello again, Ms. Notrette. I’m so happy that we know each other in this life.”

Notrette seeks her daughter’s gaze and finds them lighter, happier, and fonder than they have ever been. Miorine finishes up the bouquet and comes to kneel beside Suletta. Their hands meet and rest on Suletta’s lap.

“The day I married Ms. Miorine was the happiest day of my life,” Suletta begins like she had a speech prepared, an answer for what she wants her to know should they ever meet. Notrette reels but listens. “She was amazing, and kind, and patient, and I loved her for that and more. And then, she gave us Nadi,” she says like a prayer, eyes closing for a brief moment. Miorine leans her head on her shoulder. “Many times, I wish you’d been a part of our lives, and I know Mio wished that, too. We were happy, and we missed you. And I promised myself that if we ever meet, I would tell you that Ms. Miorine was loved by so many.”

Tears leap to Notrette’s eyes. It’s hard for her to hear, again, that she’d left Miorine once upon a time, but this would be exactly what she would want to know, what she would spend the afterlife wondering, what she would wish for her daughter over and over.

She laughs through a sniffle. “Suletta, I don’t know who was vying for my daughter’s hand in that other life, but if I had to choose for her, I think it’ll be you every time.”

Suletta’s face brightens, and she puffs her chest a little.

Beside her, Miorine smiles, serene and at peace. “I knew you’d love her.”)

This is where they begin.

Suletta takes to the new reality like a duck to water, nimbly wading through two sets of memories and going with the flow. She’d decided not to tell her family. The other life wasn’t good to them, she said, it’s nice to see them be happy in this one. Miorine had accepted it, conceding that there was no merciful way to tell her father that he’d died before Suletta met him, her sister that she’d lost her body, her mother that there had been blood on her hands. They insist on meeting her, and Miorine thinks it’s the right decision to let who they were in another life lie in graves. Ericht hugs Suletta with a gusto that makes Miorine feel tender, Elnora welcomes her with a smile that hides nothing, and Nadim is every bit Suletta’s gentleness. They are good to Suletta, and that’s all that matters.

Not much has changed; Suletta is still a teacher, she still comes by in the morning and in the afternoon to help at the shop, Miorine still offers consulting services whenever there’s a high-paying client. Life trudges on, and it takes a few days for Miorine to notice that there’s one thing Suletta isn’t handling well. It’s in the calls she gets too early in the morning, the fresh red framing Suletta’s eyes when she comes by before going off to teach, how she needs a handful of minutes just holding Miorine close, counting her heartbeat, and pressing into the warmth of her. Suletta can no longer wake up alone.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought I’d get used to it, but—”

“When was the last time you woke up okay?”

“Um.”

A sigh, equal parts exasperated and fond. “We’re moving in together. We’ll go apartment hunting this weekend.”

“I—” A sniffly laugh. “Yes, please.”

And that was that.

Days later, Notrette, Annie, Ericht, and Nika show up to help them move into a two-bedroom apartment that faces east, chosen for the sunrise streaming through high windows and a small balcony. It reminds them of their home in another life, albeit smaller, more industrial, and less likely to have bursting pipes. Ericht, of course, makes a joke about U-Hauls and wins over Annie. Letting them meet will hopefully be Miorine’s biggest mistake in this life.

They find that this world is more familiar than they thought it would be. Guel comes into Miorine’s shop, harried and disheveled, asking for flowers his political mentor can give his husband. He doesn’t remember, but he smiles gratefully the way he did when she and Suletta would let him stay at their house so that he could get away from his company for a little while and spend time with his goddaughter.

On another day, Suletta brings Chuchu over. She shows up angry at the bureaucracy in schools and is more than willing to vent her frustrations by tilling the soil in Miorine’s greenhouse despite her skepticism about its cathartic possibilities. She’s a new teacher at Suletta’s workplace, and Miorine listens to them fantasize about a school of their own making.

During a walk, a bookstore draws Suletta in. They find Elan behind the counter, the one they didn’t know they lost, and Suletta manages to hide her tears until they’re back outside.

“Should I be worried?” Miorine teases as she holds Suletta’s hand and guides her to a nearby park.

Suletta bursts into a watery laugh. “Mio, that was a lifetime ago.”

There’s more. Two tourists with backpacks on their shoulders pass them by at the grocery store, and Suletta names them Sophie and Norea with a look that spells relief. Lilique applies for the assistant florist position that Miorine opens the moment it’s made clear that she’s only keeping herself afloat because Suletta helps so often. Notrette takes on two new residents named Aliya and Till. Every day, Miorine settles a little more in this life and dares to believe that everyone they’ve ever held dear will find their way to them, one way or another.

“Do you think we’ll have Nadi too?”

It is morning, too early for Miorine’s taste. But Suletta had roused her to ask if they could watch the sunrise and didn’t play fair when she added, just like old times. So, she’d allowed herself to be lifted up, blankets and all, and carried to the outdoor loveseat they’d gotten as a housewarming present from her mother.

She rests her head against Suletta’s shoulder and cradles her coffee mug. “I hope so.”

The sun is warm against her skin; the sky is clear. Little by little, she’s coaxed out of dreams and settled, almost gently, back into the waking world, the real, the here and now.

“Do you think she’ll remember?” She asks this time because she would want to hear about the life she’d lived after them, if she ended up having kids after all, if she felt loved even after they were gone.

Suletta cups her cheek and guides her into a kiss, the first of today, tender and slow. “Even if she doesn’t, I’ll be happy just to have her with us again.”

Miorine nudges her nose. “I feel the same.”

Suletta smiles and tucks her closer against her side. For a moment, they are quiet.

It’s easy, being this way with Suletta. There is so much joy in breathing with her and watching the sun warm the world inch by inch. She doesn’t take it for granted. It’s a miracle to be here with her. Their bones are strong, their faces are young, they have years and decades ahead of them. Maybe they’ll do this a third time, a fourth and a fifth even. It doesn’t matter. She will never have enough time with Suletta. So, she takes her hand and holds it gently, traces the lines of her palm and twines her fingers around hers.

“I love you, Suletta.”

The hand in hers holds her back. Squeezes. “I love you, too, Mio.” Suletta rests her temple against her crown. “What do you want to do today?”

Miorine smiles. “I was thinking we could go on a date.”

She knows the grin she hears in Suletta’s voice, the one that blooms, beautiful and brilliant, when she says, “I’d love that.”