Chapter Text
Charlotte Matthews lives on the top floor of a building that doesn’t have an elevator.
It wasn’t her idea, not really. Her father’s name signed the lease like always. The ceilings are high, windows taller than her, sterile white walls that don’t echo unless she screams.
She hasn’t. Yet.
New York City doesn’t sleep, but her apartment does. It’s neat, cold. Every object is in its place, intentional. She wipes the counters twice a day even though she doesn’t cook. There’s a kettle, a few mugs, chamomile she doesn’t drink. There are art books she hasn’t opened, a single framed photo of a lavender field, hung just slightly crooked.
She doesn’t fix it. Can’t bring herself to touch it, really. It reminds her of Switzerland.
It’s been almost a year since she was released. Discharged. Reintegrated.
She doesn’t like the word "better." It feels like a lie someone might tell to a child.
What she is is restrained. Kept. She doesn’t spiral anymore. She journals. She attends group therapy. She has blackout curtains and a routine and no knives in the kitchen drawer.
She’s thirty years old. Not today, but a few weeks ago. She only remembered after receiving a birthday card in the mail from her father, all swooping cursive and perfumed niceties. A pale pink envelope. A Hallmark message she doubts he wrote himself.
She likes to think he did. One of those small, easy lies she tells herself to blunt the ache of being known only at a distance.
The card’s still on her fridge, held up by a lavender magnet shaped like a flower. Charlotte lets herself pretend the gesture means something. Means she can freeze that little moment in time like a snapshot, keep time from progressing as fast as it does– all hazy, pill-numbed days.
The calendar across the room says otherwise. It taunts her from its spot on the wall, stark and factual. Upcoming sessions, check-ins, routine bloodwork. A refill for her meds. All written in purple ink.
She chose the color thinking it would cheer her up. Sometimes it does. Other times, it reminds her of the dull violet haze that used to press in behind her vision, just before she’d seize. Back when they kept her in that white room with the dim lights and a mouth guard that tasted like old rubber and chalk, straps biting into her wrists.
She’d heard they changed the regulations for it a few years back. That now, you have to be fully asleep before they administer the shocks. She wonders sometimes if it’s better or worse to be awake.
They said it was for her own good. They always do.
She tried, still tries, to believe them. That’s what the therapist tells her– to trust intention, not outcome. The woman has kind eyes and speaks in a lulling tone, like she’s reading bedtime stories to a child too afraid to sleep.
Charlotte doesn’t mind. She wants to be lulled, sometimes. Wants someone to tell her what’s real. Because most days still feel like vapor.
She wakes early now. Not because she wants to, but because her body never really left the hospital's rhythm. 5:37 AM, every day. She pads into the kitchen, barefoot, clicks the kettle on, watches the steam coil. She doesn’t like coffee anymore. It makes her stomach clench. Instead, she drinks peppermint tea, bitter and clean.
She sits on the floor in front of the big window, watching the Manhattan skyline mottle purple like blooming bruises as the sun climbs up the horizon. Breathing in for four, out for six.
She’s not allowed to have candles in the apartment. Fire hazard. But she has a small electric diffuser that puffs lavender oil into the air every two hours. It smells like the flowers her mother planted when she was a girl, when they were still pretending to be a normal family.
There are days she gets dressed, even if she has nowhere to go. Linen trousers, soft sweaters, a short comb through her hair. Sometimes she puts on blush, just for the color. A little war paint against the drab of it all.
Other days, she stays in the same worn t-shirt until night falls again.
She journals. She colors in adult mandalas with expensive pens. She walks laps around the apartment, seven times exactly, then stops. It makes her feel like she’s keeping something bad from happening. Like if she just keeps moving, whatever it is won’t catch her.
She listens to music she used to cry to and doesn’t cry anymore. And she reads. God, she reads . Books on healing, trauma, mindfulness. She highlights like a student preparing for a test that never comes.
Sometimes she writes letters to people she’ll never send. Her mother. Her father.
Natalie.
She tears them up afterward. Her trash can is overflowing with paper scraps.
She’s trying. She’s trying .
But there’s this ache. Not loud. Just ever-present. A small splinter under the skin every hour. A person-shaped absence. The dip of the mattress under another body. A hand that isn’t her own between her thighs.
She thinks about Natalie more than she should. Less than she used to. Somewhere in that middle place that makes every time she strays feel like picking a scab.
They haven’t spoken in weeks. Months? Time has gone slippery again. Charlotte told herself that was a good thing. No contact meant boundaries. Strength. It meant she was moving on.
Natalie, after all, was never good for her. And God knows she had never been good for Natalie.
And yet, every time the buzzer rings, Charlotte still checks her reflection in the mirror.
It’s a Thursday when Natalie shows up. The coldest day of the year, air crisp enough to crack teeth. Charlotte’s wrapped in a cardigan three sizes too big and the hem of her pajama pants is wet from wiping up a spilled cup of sleepytime tea.
She doesn’t expect the sound, that harsh buzz that reminds her of ECT. Doesn’t expect to feel hope spike like a needle in her neck, either.
She opens the door slowly, trying to hold onto some semblance of sense.
Natalie stands there soaked, unkempt, mascara smeared beneath bloodshot eyes, grown-out brunette hair plastered to her forehead in choppy tangles.
She doesn’t speak. Just stares.
Charlotte feels something shift inside her, stomach twisting like she might be sick– though the worst part is that it’s with excitement . Like a codependent dog who can’t help but make a mess when its owner finally walks through the door.
It takes her a full breath to say: “You didn’t call.”
Natalie’s lips twitch around a smirk. Not happy. But not cruel, either. Just tired. “You would’ve said no.”
Charlotte doesn’t know how to answer that, because it’s true. But it also isn’t. She thinks about the messages saved on her receiver. The way she still imagines Natalie’s voice in the middle of the night. The ache behind her ribs that never really leaves.
She steps aside, silent, lets her in.
Natalie brings the cold with her. Boots thudding against the hardwood, whiskey bottle slung low in one gloved hand. Her presence is too loud, too much , like a scream against silence. Charlotte’s space, curated and muted, already begins to tremble under the weight of her.
They sit on the couch because they don’t know what else to do.
The room feels smaller with Natalie in it. Charlotte curls her feet beneath her, sleeves hiding her hands. The silence swells.
Natalie uncaps the bottle and drinks straight from it. Her throat moves. Charlotte watches it.
Then, flatly: “So.”
Natalie leans back, stretches one arm over the couch like this is normal. Like they do this all the time. Her eyes, though, are glassy and raw.
“How’ve you been?”
Charlotte’s smile is faint, automatic, not quite a lie but not the truth either. “I’m… managing.”
Natalie snorts. “You always say that.”
“Well, I am. I’m doing my best. I’ve been sticking to my routine.”
Natalie lifts the bottle again. “What, like gold stars and morning affirmations?”
Lottie flinches like Natalie struck her physically. It makes her quiet for a long time.
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” Natalie says, swallowing, “you’re right. It’s not.”
She takes another long pull. It stings, Lottie can tell– by the way her eyes pinch, the way her tongue darts over her lips.
“I’ve been working on acceptance,” Charlotte offers, too soft, trying to bridge something she isn’t sure still exists. “Letting go of judgment. Feeling my feelings without needing to identify with them.”
Natalie tilts her head slowly, like she’s being shown a trick she’s seen too many times before. “You sound like one of those mindfulness books. Next you’ll tell me to breathe into the emotion and offer it compassion .”
Lottie’s jaw tightens. “Would that be so bad?”
Natalie laughs. A breath, bitter and sharp. “I just don’t think compassion ’s in the cards for either of us.”
Silence again. The kind that scrapes.
Lottie looks away, out the window, where the snow falls fat and slow like ash. “I don’t want to fight.”
“I’m not fighting,” Natalie murmurs, fingers tightening around the bottle. “I’m just saying.”
“You didn’t have to come.” Lottie’s voice catches, barely audible.
Natalie shakes her head. “You think I had a choice? You’re like—” She cuts herself off, stares at her hands. “Doesn’t matter.”
“You could’ve stayed gone,” Charlotte says quietly, but she doesn’t mean it. She never means it. She reaches for the throw blanket at her side, needing something to hold. “I thought you were doing okay.”
Natalie scoffs. “Define ‘okay.’” She drinks again. Harder. “If you mean still breathing, yeah. Nailed it.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No. It’s not.”
Lottie tucks her chin into her knees, voice a whisper: “I’ve missed you.”
Natalie stares at her. The bottle dangles from her fingers now, loose. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say shit you don’t mean.”
“I do—”
“You missed me?” Natalie spits, eyes suddenly bright. “Then why’d you tell me not to come back last time? Why’d you say you needed space, that I was ‘disruptive’— like I’m some kind of fucking earthquake you could just evacuate from?”
Lottie’s voice goes small. Like a child. “I’m sorry I upset you. I know you feel hurt–”
Natalie scoffs. “Stop— don’t fucking talk to me like one of your dumbass mindfulness books, Lottie!”
She stands. The bottle hits the coffee table with a hard thunk, half the liquid already gone. “You want to do this little therapy-speak shit? You want to sit here and talk about your goddamn routine while I keep filling the hole in my head with fucking booze and pills?”
Lottie stands too, chest rising.
“What do you want me to say, Nat? That I think about you every night? That I wake up– that I wake up fucking shaking and– and I have to remind myself not to call you, because I’m the one who told you to go?”
Natalie’s breath stutters out of her, chest rising in tandem. She steps forward, not touching, but hovering. That half-second delay like a match waiting for the strike.
She’s excited.
Lottie registers it a moment too late, but it floods her with heat. Natalie’s pupils are blown, wide enough to devour the green. Her fingers twitch, jaw tight, that low-banked hunger in her posture unmistakable. The kind of want that comes after too much waiting.
It should scare Lottie, the mania. It always used to.
But tonight– childishly, stupidly– she gets butterflies. If nothing else, at least Natalie still wants her, somehow. Even if it’s like this.
Natalie’s voice is a rasp now, “Say it again.”
Lottie meets her eyes. Doesn’t blink.
“I missed you.”
That’s all it takes.
Natalie’s hands are on her before the words have time to settle. She grabs Lottie’s face, palms hot and rough, and kisses her like she’s trying to win the argument with her mouth.
It’s not soft. It’s everything but. Their teeth clack together. Breath catches. Lips bruise. Lottie gasps, and Natalie chases the sound with her tongue.
Lottie’s back hits the wall hard, and she lets it. Lets Natalie slot between her thighs, pressing close, thigh grinding between her legs. Natalie’s hand fists in the hem of Lottie’s sweater, tugging it up until her stomach’s exposed to the cold air, and her mouth descends, teeth dragging against her ribs.
Lottie’s gasp breaks into a low whimper. She threads shaking fingers through Natalie’s hair, pulls her up for another kiss that’s all lip and spit and desperation.
Natalie grins, smug and starved, shoving the sweater the rest of the way off.
They stumble toward the bedroom, half-dressed and already tangled. Natalie pushes Lottie down onto the bed like she’s claiming ground– knees between her legs, mouth trailing down her neck, nipping at her collarbone, the curve of her breast, the places where Lottie’s skin starts to twitch with impatience, need.
“You always do this ,” Natalie breathes. “Act like you’re over it then let me do whatever I want.”
It’s not cruel, not in the way it should be. It feels like an accusation. Like Natalie wants Lottie to shove her off, tell her to get out.
Her mouth finds Lottie’s nipple and Lottie arches with a cry, breath stuttering.
“I’m not—” Lottie breathes, trying to gather herself. “I’m not —”
Natalie licks a stripe up her chest, and murmurs, “Exactly.”
Her fingers slide beneath Lottie’s waistband. Slow. Knowing. Lottie’s already wet, already aching. Natalie doesn’t comment, not this time. Just drags her fingers through the slick and presses the pads against her clit until Lottie’s hips jerk up and her breath turns to a high, broken moan.
“ Shit , Nat—” she gasps, head tipping back.
Natalie kisses her again, less brutal now, more apologetic. Her fingers start to move in slow, firm circles, and Lottie’s thighs tremble, caught between wanting to push away and pull her closer, until there’s no space left to close.
“I hate you sometimes,” Natalie pants, breathless, slipping two fingers inside her in one smooth thrust. “I really fucking hate you sometimes.”
Lottie’s lips stutter and part just as needily as her thighs, spilling half-broken apologies and Natalie’s name— Nat, Nat, Nat— like a prayer said through squeaking, undeniably pleasured sobs.
Her lashes are already wet. Fluttering like the twitch of her clenching walls around Natalie’s fingers, tight and frantic. Lottie’s always been an open book to her in the end, all her pages worn and dog-eared.
Natalie wipes the tear with her thumb, gentle and almost absent-minded. Makes a sound low in her throat, something between a hush and a hum, meant to be soothing.
But she doesn’t stop. Her fingers keep working, slick and sure, driving into Lottie with the kind of rhythm that’s half muscle memory, half resentment– both buried in shallow graves. The kind of pace that says: you wanted space, and now look at you .
It’s not tenderness, but it’s not cruelty either. It’s that strange space in between– where longing gets confused with possession, and comfort wears the same face as punishment.
Lottie’s breath catches sharp, broken. “M’close,” she mumbles, voice thinned to a whimper. There’s fear there. Real, fragile fear, that Natalie might pull away just to make her beg. That she might twist the knife by denying her the only kind of release she knows anymore.
Natalie hears it. Sees it in the way Lottie’s fingers curl tight in the sheets, not in her , afraid to get too needy.
And maybe any other night she would make her wait. Maybe she’d draw it out, test how long that soft body could tremble under her hand without snapping.
Tonight, Natalie leans in, presses a kiss just below Lottie’s jaw, slow and searing, and murmurs, “That’s okay. I want you to.”
The words are simple, but they’re everything. Permission to fall apart. The sound of a match being struck in the dark.
Lottie shatters with a sob, her back arching clean off the mattress, thighs shaking around Natalie’s wrist. Her cunt clenches so hard it’s like it’s trying to keep her inside, hold onto something that never stays. The sound she makes is raw, high, obscene, like it got dragged out of the very pit of her, where everything ugly tries to hide.
Natalie stays right there. Fingers still moving, but slower now, coaxing every last aftershock out of her. Her other hand finally threads into Lottie’s hair, grounding her, cradling her through it. Murmurs and hushes are pressed to her temple, kisses like balm to soothe a terrible burn.
And when it’s over– when Lottie’s trembling in the quiet aftermath, flushed and fucked-out and staring up at the ceiling like it might hold an answer, Natalie collapses beside her.
They don’t speak yet.
Lottie finds the edge of Natalie’s shirt and grips it like a lifeline, curling into her chest. She wants to say stay , but that’s dangerous. That’s a word that means more than just the night. So she doesn’t. She just breathes against Natalie’s collarbone, body still wrung-out and buzzing, and Natalie holds her like she’s not already planning on slipping out before sunrise.
Because she is. They both know it.
But for now, Natalie’s fingers curl around Lottie’s spine, and they pretend there’s nothing waiting outside this bed but silence. Not doctors’ appointments or bloodwork or the world. Only the trees and snow.
Lottie lies there a long moment, letting the silence stretch out across them like a warm sheet. Her heartbeat’s still too fast. Natalie’s skin is hot where their bodies touch, all sharp angles and sweat-slick.
She blinks, her lashes sticky. Her body aches, in the sweet way. The way that feels like something finally let go. Her fingers trail up Natalie’s ribs, soft and tentative, until her hand lands over her chest, where she feels the steady thrum of her pulse.
She hesitates, then lifts her chin slightly, voice small. “Do you want me to…?”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. Just lets it hang, breath warm against Natalie’s throat. Her hand trails lower, a question spelled out in touch.
Natalie’s whole body tenses like a snare.
“No.”
The word’s flat. Immediate. A hammer dropped without warning.
Lottie freezes. Her fingers recoil like they’ve been burned, tucked back to her own side of the bed. Where they belong.
“Oh,” she breathes. “Okay.”
She turns her face away, presses it into the pillow so Natalie won’t see the way her mouth pinches or how her lashes go wet all over again. This time, it’s not from pleasure.
Natalie exhales– long, slow, frustrated. “It’s not– It’s not you, Lott. Okay?”
“Okay,” Lottie mumbles, too soft to be convincing.
Natalie doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t move closer. She just lies there, staring at the ceiling like there’s something up there more important than the crying girl beside her.
And Lottie curls up a little smaller. Wraps her arms around herself the way she does in group sessions, when they make her talk about trust and triggers and the “meaningful progress” they think they see in her.
She tells herself it’s fine. That she should’ve known better. That maybe Natalie never wants softness. That maybe she only knows how to give hurt and take comfort, and that this thing between them is just that– a thing . A noose, tightening ever so slowly. A trap with no exit.
Still, she stays.
Eventually, Natalie shifts, arm sliding under Lottie’s head like an extended olive branch. Lottie lets herself be pulled close, tucks her face into Natalie’s neck, and closes her eyes. Relishes the way she’s allowed to press her nose to the hollow of Natalie’s throat and breathe her in.
Neither of them say goodnight.
They fall asleep like that, though. Tangled, uneasy, too tired to fix anything, but too scared to pull away. The kind of sleep that feels like surrender. Like death.
The morning seeps in slow, pale, and cold. Gray sky bleeds through the cracked blinds, painting everything in soft, indifferent hues. The kind of morning where it hurts to even breathe.
Natalie sits on the edge of the bed, half-dressed, boots in hand. Her back is to Lottie. Her shoulders tense, coiled like she’s waiting for the creak of the floorboards to betray her.
She could leave. She should.
Her eyes flick to the still form curled beneath the blanket— Lottie, barely breathing, arms tucked under her chin like a child afraid of monsters under the bed. Her mouth is parted, a little. The kind of soft that begs to be touched, held.
Natalie leans in, boots forgotten. Slowly, like she’s afraid even the air might catch her in the act. One hand brushes Lottie’s curls back from her forehead, and she presses a kiss there, letting her mouth linger. Guilty.
Lottie stirs. Her brow furrows first, then her eyes crack open, confused and sleep-heavy.
“Nat…?”
Natalie straightens up like she’s been shot.
Lottie props herself up on an elbow, hair tangled, voice cracked and low. “Are you leaving?”
Natalie drags a hand over her face. “Yeah. I was trying to not make it a thing.”
Lottie blinks at her, slow and hurting. “It is a thing.”
“I know.” Natalie swallows, jaw clenched. “That’s why I didn’t want to wake you up.”
Lottie sits up, the sheet falling from her chest. Her voice shakes, raw at the edges. “You didn’t even want me to touch you last night.”
Natalie looks away. “I didn’t want anything from you. That’s the difference.”
Lottie flinches. Visibly. Like Natalie had slapped her instead of spoken.
Natalie runs a hand through her hair, paceing a short line at the foot of the bed. “It’s not you, alright? You think I don’t want you? That’s not–” She breaks off, shaking her head. “That’s not what this is.”
“What is it, then, Nat?” Lottie asks, pleading, A dog begging for scraps.
Natalie stops moving. The words hang there between them, thick as smoke. They both know the script– they’ve played it out before, different settings, same ache. Same exit wound.
Lottie pulls the blanket tighter around herself, lips pressed white. “Do you… Do you only come here when you hate yourself?”
Natalie’s mouth opens. Then shuts. There’s nothing honest she can say that won’t sound cruel.
So she steps back into her boots, grabs her coat. Doesn’t meet Lottie’s eyes.
“I’ll call you this time, okay?”
Lottie’s lips quiver. She forces them steady, voice soft and defeated: “Okay.”
Natalie nods once. Hesitates at the door.
Then she leaves. No click of the lock behind her, just the sound of footsteps fading down the hall.
Lottie lays back down in the sheets that still smell like last night. She stares up at the ceiling until the tears come quiet and uninvited, and the city outside doesn’t care whether she gets up today or not.
She buries her face in the pillow and tries to go back to sleep while some trace of Natalie’s warmth still lingers.