Scene 35

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Notes26-01-25e

Moved to Scene 34

✨ Night Routine ✨

Scene 34 — “Night Routine” (Celeste POV, past tense)

[26-01-29 - Moved to Scene 34 as denouement]

Later, the apartment settled.

Not into silence exactly—into the soft domestic hum of an evening that had decided not to fall apart. The kettle cooled. The bench dried where I’d wiped it down. A neighbour’s footsteps passed once in the corridor, then faded. Somewhere outside, a car door slammed and the sound rolled away like a wave retreating.

Charli stayed at the table longer than she needed to.

Mug between her hands. Shoulders no longer up around her ears, but still held carefully, as if she didn’t quite trust the room not to change its mind.

I didn’t push her out of the kitchen. I didn’t say you should go to bed like an instruction.

I just started doing the next small things—because small things are how you convince a frightened nervous system that the world is still lawful.

I rinsed the mugs. I packed away the toast plate. I set the pathology form and papers into a neat stack and placed them on the corner of the bench—not hidden, not centred like a threat. Just... contained.

When I turned back, Charli was watching me.

Not with panic now.

With that quiet, almost stunned attention you give someone when you realise they’re not going anywhere.

“You don’t have to stay up to prove you’re okay,” I said gently.

Charli blinked. “I’m not— I wasn’t—”

“I know,” I said. “I’m not accusing you. I’m just... giving you permission to rest.”

Her gaze dropped to her mug.

“I don’t sleep well,” she admitted.

The sentence landed with a kind of shame, as if bad sleep was another way she was failing.

I kept my voice warm. “Okay. Then we don’t aim for perfect. We aim for better than last night.”

She let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

I nodded toward the hallway. “Do you want a shower, or do you want to keep the day off your skin and just change?”

Charli hesitated, then said softly, “Just change.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll put the heater on low in the bathroom anyway. Warm air helps, even if you don’t shower.”

Her eyes flicked up, surprised by the thoughtfulness.

I walked to the bathroom and clicked it on. The little fan whirred to life, a modest, steady sound. When I came back, I kept my steps unhurried, as if the pace itself could teach safety.

Charli stood slowly, tote strap still looped around her wrist like it was an anchor.

“You can leave that here,” I said, nodding at the tote. “Nothing is going to happen to it in this house.”

Charli swallowed, then set it down by the chair.

A small surrender.

Not collapse. Trust.

I held it like it mattered.

“Good,” I said quietly. “Thank you.”

She headed to her room, then paused in the hallway as if she’d forgotten what to do with her own body.

I didn’t call after her.

I waited.

A minute later she returned in clean trackies and an old t-shirt that had seen too many washes. Her hair was brushed, but still slightly damp at the roots. She looked younger like this—less put-together, less defended.

She hovered at the edge of the living room.

I was on the couch with a folded blanket over my lap, not reading, not scrolling—just present.

I looked up and patted the other end of the couch. Not a command. An offer.

“If you want,” I said. “You can sit there. We don’t have to talk.”

Charli’s throat moved. She nodded and sat, carefully, leaving a polite gap between us like she didn’t want to take up space she hadn’t earned.

I let the gap be. For now.

The lamp made a small warm circle. Outside, the streetlight threw pale bands across the curtains.

After a long minute, Charli spoke without looking at me.

“Do you think I did something... unforgivable.”

My chest tightened.

“No,” I said immediately. “You did something unsafe. That’s different.”

Charli’s hands twisted in her lap.

“I didn’t want it to stop,” she whispered.

I didn’t correct her. I didn’t argue the logic. Not tonight.

“I know,” I said.

She turned her face slightly, as if she wanted to look at me but couldn’t bear it.

“And now...” Her voice thinned. “Now it’s like everything is... watching.”

I nodded, slow. “It can feel like that.”

Charli swallowed. “Even you.”

That one hit.

I kept my voice soft, honest. “I’m not watching you to catch you out. I’m watching because you matter, and because you were alone in this for too long.”

She blinked rapidly, and the tears appeared again—quiet, unspectacular.

I didn’t tell her not to cry.

I didn’t rush to fix it.

I just stayed.

Charli wiped her cheek quickly with the back of her hand. Embarrassed.

I waited until she’d finished the motion, then asked, gently:

“Would a hug help, or would it make you feel trapped.”

Charli froze, eyes wide—not at the hug itself, but at the fact I’d given her a choice.

“A hug,” she whispered, and the words barely made it out. “I think.”

I nodded once. “Okay.”

I shifted closer slowly, telegraphing every movement so her nervous system wouldn’t mistake kindness for a sudden grab.

I opened my arms—not pulling her in, just making the option visible.

Charli moved first.

She leaned into me with a carefulness that broke my heart. Like she expected, at any second, to be told she was doing it wrong.

I wrapped my arms around her and held her the way you hold someone you mean to keep safe: firm enough to be real, gentle enough to breathe inside.

Charli made a small sound—half breath, half sob—and then her body softened against mine, as if the tension had finally found somewhere to go.

I kept my cheek near her hair, and I didn’t say anything for a moment. Let the hug speak.

Then, quietly, so it wouldn’t turn into a speech, I said:

“You’re not alone.”

Her fingers gripped the fabric at my side for a second, then eased.

A long minute passed.

When her breathing steadied, I loosened the hug—enough to check in, not enough to abandon.

“Still okay?” I asked softly.

Charli nodded against my shoulder.

I held her a little longer, then released her slowly, like letting go was something you did with care.

She stayed close. Her shoulder still against mine.

The gap she’d left when she sat down was gone.

Not because I’d taken it.

Because she’d crossed it.

I reached for the blanket and laid it over her legs, tucking it in lightly at the knee.

Charli looked down at it, then up at me.

“You’re... nice,” she said, like it was a discovery and a risk.

Something in me warmed painfully.

“I can be,” I said. “I just... don’t want you to mistake nice for permission to hurt yourself.”

Her mouth trembled, and she nodded. She understood that sentence. She lived inside it.

“I won’t,” she whispered.

I believed her—and I also knew she didn’t yet know what she’d do when fear returned.

So I made the plan small and survivable.

“Tonight,” I said, “we do three things.”

Charli sniffed. “Okay.”

“Water,” I said, holding up one finger. “Food if you can. And sleep. That’s it. No solving your whole life.”

A tiny, fragile smile flickered.

“And tomorrow?” she asked.

“Tomorrow we do bloods,” I said. “We follow the plan. Step by step. And you don’t take anything you haven’t told someone about. Deal?”

Charli swallowed.

Then she nodded, small and sincere. “Deal.”

I reached for the glass of water on the coffee table and nudged it closer to her.

She took it and drank.

After a moment she spoke again, almost inaudible.

“Can I... stay out here for a bit.”

“You can,” I said. “As long as you want.”

She looked at the lamp, the blanket, the quiet room—like she was memorising the shape of safety.

Then she leaned her head lightly against my shoulder.

Not asking.

Not performing.

Just... choosing.

I let my own breath out slowly, careful and steady.

And in the soft domestic hush, I realised something with a clarity that didn’t frighten me for once:

This wasn’t me losing discipline.

This was me learning a better kind of it.

The kind that held without trapping.

The kind that warmed without burning.

The kind that made a girl feel—maybe for the first time—that she didn’t have to be brave alone.

---

Wardrobe Resumes

✨ After Hours ✨

Absolutely, Robyn 💛🧵 Here is Scene 34 with a surgical time-lapse patch woven in: the “boring machinery” has engaged, Mara has constraints, Lauren’s done the mother-work, and the acute risk is behind them—so the stroll and the kiss land as aftermath romance, not crisis bonding.

---

Scene 34 — “After Hours” (Celeste POV) — Settled/Supervised Patch

That night, Wardrobe let go of us the way it always did—gradually.

Voices thinned. The kettle went quiet. The last pair of shears found its tin. Fabric was folded, not abandoned. The ledger closed with its familiar, satisfied weight.

Mara didn’t say goodnight. She never did. She simply kept writing until the room was no longer full of people worth supervising.

Sarah left with a wave that was too casual to be innocent.

Lauren had texted during the week—short, functional updates, no drama.

Appointments attended. Scripts sorted. Baselines logged. A specialist who didn’t blink. Bloodwork numbers filed like any other constraint: information you used, not something you sentimentalised.

Mara had asked for constraints the way she asked for grainlines—so she could build around them—and then returned to work as if the world had simply corrected itself. No commentary. No fuss. Only a quiet, relentless insistence that Charli be held safely inside the same standards as everyone else.

The acute danger was over.

Not the whole story—never that—but the cliff-edge of secrecy, the frantic improvisation, the bottle on the table: finished. The boring machine had engaged, and with it came a relief that wasn’t joy exactly, but something sturdier.

Safety that didn’t depend on luck.

I stared at Lauren’s last message longer than I needed to.

She’s okay. Don’t make a thing of it.

As if the phone had said something else underneath it.

Don’t you dare break her with your own feelings.

I didn’t reply. Not because I didn’t want to. Because I didn’t trust myself not to say too much.

When I finally stepped out into the evening air, Charli was already there—waiting near the gate, bag on her shoulder, hair tied back under a simple scarf. She looked tired and bright at the same time, the way people look when something heavy has shifted and the body hasn’t caught up.

She saw me and straightened, that old reflex half-returning.

Then she caught herself.

And stood normally.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I replied, and felt how strange it was—how intimate it sounded, coming from me, without the room around it.

We started walking.

Not toward her place. Not toward mine. Just... away.

It wasn’t a decision I announced. It was a direction my body took before my mind could turn it into policy.

Charli matched my pace without asking what we were doing, which should have been normal and wasn’t. For months she’d needed permission for every step. Now she simply walked beside me like she belonged there.

The street was quiet. The air held that faint smell of eucalyptus and cooling asphalt. Somewhere, a dog barked once and stopped, as if even dogs were tired.

Charli kept her hands on her bag strap, fingers curled tight. She wasn’t trembling. She was holding herself together in a different way—like she was trying not to disturb her own happiness by moving too quickly.

“You did well today,” I said.

Charli gave a small laugh. “At... hats?”

“At existing,” I said before I could stop myself.

She looked at me sharply, startled.

I felt my own face warm, annoyed at my lack of control.

I kept my voice even.

“You don’t apologise as much,” I said. “That’s progress.”

Charli’s mouth softened. “I try,” she said. Then, after a beat: “It’s easier when I’m not... scared all the time.”

The words sat between us.

Not a confession. A fact.

I should have responded like an adult. Like a supervisor. Like the woman who had done all this so carefully.

Instead, I heard myself say, quieter than I intended:

“I’m glad you’re not scared.”

Charli’s gaze stayed on my face. Not darting away. Not bracing for correction.

Just... looking.

It made my throat tighten.

The sidewalk dipped toward a small park—nothing romantic, just a stretch of grass and a bench and a tired little tree. I sat down without thinking. Charli sat too, careful at first, then easing as if she remembered she’d earned benches now.

For a moment we listened to the world do nothing.

Then Charli spoke, softly.

“Lauren said you kept checking,” she said.

“Checking what?”

“On me,” she said, and the embarrassment was faint, but real. “All week. At work. Not... obvious. Just—” She made a small motion with her fingers, as if miming a glance she didn’t want to name.

Heat rose in my face again. Annoyance, mostly.

“I was checking constraints,” I said.

Charli’s mouth curved in a way that told me she didn’t believe me.

“Mm,” she said, gently, and somehow the sound was an accusation and a kindness at once.

I exhaled through my nose, slow.

“Fine,” I said. “I was checking you.”

Charli went very still.

Not afraid.

Listening.

“I didn’t want you to feel watched,” I added, and heard, belatedly, how intimate that sounded. “But I needed to know you were... okay.”

Charli’s breath hitched once. “I am,” she whispered.

And then, because she was braver now—braver because the world had stopped punishing her for wanting—she said:

“You were angry.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Not at me,” she clarified quickly, old reflex rising.

I stopped that with my eyes.

“No,” I said. “Not at you.”

Charli swallowed. “Thank you,” she said, and her voice was steadier than it used to be. “For not letting me keep doing something stupid.”

I looked at her. “You hated me.”

Charli’s eyes widened, horrified. “No— I mean— not you. Not you. Just... the feeling. The idea of it stopping.”

I nodded once. I understood.

“I know,” I said. “I would have hated me too.”

Charli let out a breath—half laugh, half sob she didn’t let happen.

“I thought you’d... be disgusted,” she whispered.

The word landed hard.

I turned fully toward her.

“Disgusted?” I repeated, carefully, like I wanted her to hear how wrong it was.

Charli’s shoulders lifted in a small, helpless shrug. “People are,” she said. “Usually.”

Anger flared in me. Not hot, not wild. Cold and precise.

“That’s not your problem,” I said. “That’s theirs.”

Charli stared at me, eyes wet but steady.

“And you?” she asked, almost inaudible.

It was the simplest question in the world.

It did not feel simple.

I could have answered it a dozen ways that kept me safe. I could have lied gently. I could have dodged.

Instead I heard my own voice—slow, deliberate—like I was stepping onto a floor I hadn’t tested.

“I am not disgusted,” I said.

Charli’s mouth trembled.

“I... admire you,” I added, and felt the word pull something open in my chest. “You were alone with something frightening, and you still kept walking. You didn’t stop trying.”

Charli blinked fast, holding herself together. “You’re the one who kept me,” she whispered.

The sentence was too much like mine.

I should have corrected it.

I didn’t.

I watched her struggle for another breath.

Then she said, quietly, like a truth she couldn’t afford to decorate:

“I don’t know what I’m allowed to feel.”

There it was.

Not “I love you.”

Not “Do you want me.”

Just the core confusion of someone who has spent her life being told wanting is dangerous.

I felt, in that moment, the full weight of what I held.

If I moved wrong here, if I moved fast, if I let my own hunger steer, I would become just another person who used her.

And I would rather die.

So I did it the only way that matched who I was.

I told her the rules.

Not Wardrobe rules.

Us rules.

“Off the clock,” I said first.

Charli nodded, immediate, as if relieved there was structure.

“No secrets,” I said.

Another nod.

“And you don’t do anything because you think it will make me keep you,” I said, and my voice went sharp with it. “Do you understand me?”

Charli’s eyes widened. “I wouldn’t—”

“I know,” I said, gentler. “But you might try without meaning to. You’re trained for that.”

Charli’s throat moved. She nodded again, smaller.

I held her gaze.

Then I let myself say the thing I’d been swallowing for weeks.

“I’m having trouble keeping distance from you,” I said.

Charli went very still.

Not afraid.

Listening.

“I don’t want to be someone who holds power over you,” I continued, careful. “And I do have power. In your life. In the room.”

Charli whispered, “You’re not—”

“I am,” I said, not unkind. “Which is why I’m saying it out loud. So we can do it clean.”

Her breath shook.

“Do what?” she asked.

I looked at her mouth.

Then forced myself back to her eyes.

“This,” I said.

And because I couldn’t trust ambiguity, because she deserved certainty, I asked:

“May I kiss you?”

Charli’s lips parted. Her face went pink—soft, incredulous—and for a second she looked like she might disappear from the sheer pressure of being wanted.

Then she nodded.

Once.

Clear.

“Yes,” she whispered.

I moved slowly. Not because I was hesitant.

Because I was careful.

Because she was not something you grabbed.

My hand lifted—hovered near her cheek—and I waited one heartbeat, giving her space to pull away if she needed.

She didn’t.

She leaned into my palm like she’d been doing it in secret for months.

I kissed her—gentle, brief, a question more than an answer.

When I pulled back, Charli stayed close, eyes closed for a moment as if she was trying to hold the sensation in her body without frightening it away.

I didn’t touch her again immediately. I let her breathe.

“That,” I said softly, “is allowed.”

Charli made a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and this time I let my thumb wipe the corner of her mouth, light as air.

“You’re... sure?” she whispered.

I felt my own smile—small, steady.

“Yes,” I said. “And I’ll keep being sure tomorrow, too.”

Charli’s eyes searched my face the way they always did when she needed proof.

She found it.

Her shoulders dropped. Her whole body softened like a person setting down a burden she’d been carrying in public.

And I realised, with a kind of quiet awe, that this was the real threshold.

Not the bottle. Not the paperwork. Not the bloodwork.

This.

A girl being allowed to be loved without having to earn it by being brave.

I kept my forehead near hers, not touching, close enough to share warmth.

“We go slow,” I said.

Charli nodded.

“And if you change your mind at any point,” I added, “you tell me. No apology.”

Another nod.

Her voice was so small when she spoke, it almost didn’t make it to the air.

“Okay.”

Not “sorry.”

Not “thank you.”

Just okay.

And that—more than anything—made my chest ache.

We sat on the bench until the night grew cooler.

Then I stood.

“Come on,” I said.

Charli rose, obedient out of habit, then steadied herself and walked beside me again—closer now, shoulder almost brushing mine, as if she’d been given a new coordinate for where she was allowed to stand.

At the corner, she hesitated.

“Tomorrow,” she said, uncertain again. “At work—”

“At work,” I said, firm, “I’m still Celeste.”

Charli nodded.

“And tonight?” she asked, barely audible.

I looked at her.

The streetlight caught her face and made her look, suddenly, entirely real. Not a project. Not a question. Not a fragile thing.

A girl I wanted.

“Aren’t you clever,” I murmured, and my tone was wry enough to save us both.

Charli’s smile broke open, bright and bashful.

Then I softened.

“Tonight,” I said, “I’m still me.”

And I offered her my hand.

I didn’t take hers.

I offered.

Charli stared at it for a beat like it was something sacred.

Then she slid her fingers into mine.

Warm.

Certain.

And as we walked back toward the lit windows of the world, I realised the line I’d been holding for months had finally moved.

Not because I’d failed.

Because I’d chosen to.

---

If you’d like, the next tiny “button” scene (half a page) can be the following morning in Wardrobe mode: they’re professional, clean—yet Sarah clocks everything and decides, privately, that Celeste has finally stopped pretending she’s immune. 😉💛

---

Honest Wardrobe

✨ Morning Rules ✨

Scene 35 — “Morning Rules” (Celeste POV)

Wardrobe in the morning had a particular honesty to it.

Not the theatrical kind—no speeches, no declarations. Just the plain truth of women doing work: steam, chalk, fabric laid flat like a decision.

I arrived early, as I always did.

The room was cool and dim, lights half-on, the big tables waiting. I hung my bag on my hook. I washed my hands. I took the ledger out and opened it to the page we’d been living in all week.

Same rituals. Same body.

But something in me had shifted, and it made everything feel slightly louder.

I had slept. I had not slept. Both were true in different places.

Charli’s mouth, warm and brief against mine, was still in my nervous system like a held note.

I did not smile at it.

I catalogued it.

Off the clock, I reminded myself. No secrets. No hooks.

If I let warmth leak into the room, it would become currency.

I would not do that to her.

The kettle clicked on. The iron woke. The building began its daily inhale.

Mara arrived without greeting, as usual, coat off, sleeves rolled, face already in the work. She glanced at the ledger.

“Cap notes,” she said.

“I wrote them,” I replied.

Mara nodded once, then moved on as if I’d told her the sky was blue.

Tahlia drifted in next, carrying a roll of tape and a bag of pins. Lucy followed, expression unreadable. Bree arrived with a tote bag that looked like it could contain either lace or a small animal.

Sarah came in last, unhurried, coffee in hand, eyes bright with the kind of alertness that made me mildly want to ban her from the building.

She perched on her stool like it belonged to her and watched the room assemble.

Charli arrived five minutes after.

Not late. Not early enough to look like she was paying a fine.

Just... on time.

That, in itself, would have been unremarkable.

Except I saw it.

I felt it.

She came in with her scarf tied back neatly, hair smoothed into the shape the cap required. Her shoulders were down. Her breathing was even. She hung her bag on the hook and washed her hands, careful and thorough.

When she turned, her gaze met mine for half a beat.

No panic.

No “what are we now?”

Just a small steadiness, like she’d accepted the rules and trusted me to keep them.

I held her gaze for exactly the amount of time that was appropriate.

Then I looked back down at the ledger.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning,” Charli replied.

Her voice was normal.

The absence of tremor felt like a gift.

Or a trap.

I refused both interpretations.

Mara set a pattern down on the table with a flat slap.

“Stomacher fit,” she said. “Charli. You’re on pins and marking.”

Charli stepped forward immediately, hands ready.

“Yes,” she said.

Not “sorry.”

Not “okay, if that’s alright.”

Just yes.

Lucy slid the pattern across with the efficiency of someone passing a tool.

Charli took it and began to work, pinning cleanly, checking alignment, chalk marking with a steadiness that would have been impossible a month ago. Her fingers moved like she was no longer afraid of making contact with the work.

Her body moved like it wasn’t waiting to be told it was allowed to occupy space.

I forced myself to keep my attention where it belonged—on the ledger, on the workflow, on the morning’s tasks.

And still, my mind offered me images like sabotage:

The bench. The park. My hand hovering. Charli leaning in without flinching. The soft sound she made when I said allowed.

I wrote a note harder than I needed to.

Bree leaned over to Charli, stage-whispering.

“You look very... sorted today.”

Charli’s mouth curved. “I feel sorted.”

The words were simple.

The meaning was not.

Tahlia snorted. “Careful. Sorted’s addictive.”

Charli laughed—quiet, real—and kept working.

Sarah watched all of it with the satisfaction of someone watching a kettle reach the moment before boil.

She sipped her coffee slowly, eyes moving between Charli and me like she was reading a ledger that wasn’t on paper.

I did not look up.

I could feel her seeing anyway.

Mara called, “Celeste.”

I looked up immediately, grateful.

“Tell Lauren,” Mara said, “I want updated constraints if anything changes. Mood. Energy. Faintness. Anything.”

“I will,” I replied.

Charli’s hand paused on a pin for a fraction, then continued.

The fact that she heard Mara’s word—constraints—and didn’t flinch was another small miracle.

Not because she wasn’t sensitive.

Because she was no longer interpreting structure as rejection.

She was interpreting it as inclusion.

Sarah’s voice floated across the room.

“Awfully responsible of you,” she said, to no one in particular.

I didn’t respond.

I didn’t need to. Sarah’s remarks were less communication than weather.

She hopped down from her stool and drifted toward the cutting table, casual as a cat, and stood beside me as if she’d always intended to.

“Interesting,” she murmured, under her breath, just for me.

I kept my eyes on the page. “What is.”

Sarah leaned slightly closer, coffee breath and mischief.

“Your posture,” she said. “It’s almost... saintly.”

I turned a page. Slowly. Deliberately.

“Don’t,” I said, quietly.

Sarah’s mouth twitched. “Oh, I’m not saying anything,” she replied, far too pleased.

I wrote. I didn’t look at her.

Sarah let the silence hang a moment longer, then softened her voice into something almost kind.

“She’s happy,” she said. “Properly happy.”

I felt my throat tighten.

“Yes,” I said, and kept it flat. “And she’s safe.”

Sarah’s eyes flicked toward Charli, who was bent over the pattern, focused, calm.

“She’s safer than she’s ever been,” Sarah murmured. “Because she’s got women who mean it.”

The remark landed like a compliment and a warning at the same time.

I finally looked at Sarah then.

Her expression was not mocking now. It was sharp, sure. Protective in her own acerbic way.

“As long as you keep your rules,” she added.

My pulse thudded once, irritated at being understood.

“I intend to,” I said.

Sarah held my gaze for half a beat, then lifted her cup in a small salute.

“Good,” she said, and wandered off as if she hadn’t just named my private war.

Charli finished the marking, handed the pattern back to Lucy, and moved to the next task without hovering.

As she passed my table, she didn’t touch me.

She didn’t glance at me too long.

She simply said, very quietly, “See you later,” like it was normal.

It was normal now.

It had to be.

“Later,” I replied, and kept my voice steady.

Charli walked away.

The room continued: scissors, chalk, small laughter, fabric sliding under palms.

Mara’s pen moved across the ledger like it always did. No drama. No indulgence. Only work.

And I stood in the middle of it, holding the rules like a scaffold I’d built with my own hands:

Off the clock.

No secrets.

No hooks.

No warmth used as currency.

I could do this.

I would do this.

Because the romance—when it came—would not be something I took.

It would be something I chose carefully, with both of us fully awake.

And that morning, watching Charli move through Wardrobe as if she belonged there by right, I felt the truth of it settle in my chest, steady and relentless:

The hardest part wasn’t wanting her.

The hardest part was making wanting her safe.

---

Notes26-01-22e

Scene 35

[26-01-22]

Scene 35 — “Morning Rules” (Celeste POV)

---

Wardrobe in the morning had a particular honesty to it.

Not the theatrical kind—no speeches, no declarations. Just the plain truth of women doing work: steam, chalk, fabric laid flat like a decision.

I arrived early, as I always did.

The room was cool and dim, lights half-on, the big tables waiting. I hung my bag on my hook. I washed my hands. I took the ledger out and opened it to the page we’d been living in all week.

Same rituals. Same body.

But something in me had shifted, and it made everything feel slightly louder.

I had slept. I had not slept. Both were true in different places.

Charli’s mouth, warm and brief against mine, was still in my nervous system like a held note.

I did not smile at it.

I catalogued it.

Off the clock, I reminded myself. No secrets. No hooks.

If I let warmth leak into the room, it would become currency.

I would not do that to her.

The kettle clicked on. The iron woke. The building began its daily inhale.

Mara arrived without greeting, as usual, coat off, sleeves rolled, face already in the work. She glanced at the ledger.

“Cap notes,” she said.

“I wrote them,” I replied.

Mara nodded once, then moved on as if I’d told her the sky was blue.

Tahlia drifted in next, carrying a roll of tape and a bag of pins. Lucy followed, expression unreadable. Bree arrived with a tote bag that looked like it could contain either lace or a small animal.

Sarah came in last, unhurried, coffee in hand, eyes bright with the kind of alertness that made me mildly want to ban her from the building.

She perched on her stool like it belonged to her and watched the room assemble.

Charli arrived five minutes after.

Not late. Not early enough to look like she was paying a fine.

Just... on time.

That, in itself, would have been unremarkable.

Except I saw it.

I felt it.

She came in with her scarf tied back neatly, hair smoothed into the shape the cap required. Her shoulders were down. Her breathing was even. She hung her bag on the hook and washed her hands, careful and thorough.

When she turned, her gaze met mine for half a beat.

No panic.

No “what are we now?”

Just a small steadiness, like she’d accepted the rules and trusted me to keep them.

I held her gaze for exactly the amount of time that was appropriate.

Then I looked back down at the ledger.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning,” Charli replied.

Her voice was normal.

The absence of tremor felt like a gift.

Or a trap.

I refused both interpretations.

Mara set a pattern down on the table with a flat slap.

“Stomacher fit,” she said. “Charli. You’re on pins and marking.”

Charli stepped forward immediately, hands ready.

“Yes,” she said.

Not “sorry.”

Not “okay, if that’s alright.”

Just yes.

Lucy slid the pattern across with the efficiency of someone passing a tool.

Charli took it and began to work, pinning cleanly, checking alignment, chalk marking with a steadiness that would have been impossible a month ago. Her fingers moved like she was no longer afraid of making contact with the work.

Her body moved like it wasn’t waiting to be told it was allowed to occupy space.

I forced myself to keep my attention where it belonged—on the ledger, on the workflow, on the morning’s tasks.

And still, my mind offered me images like sabotage:

The bench. The park. My hand hovering. Charli leaning in without flinching. The soft sound she made when I said allowed.

I wrote a note harder than I needed to.

Bree leaned over to Charli, stage-whispering.

“You look very... sorted today.”

Charli’s mouth curved. “I feel sorted.”

The words were simple.

The meaning was not.

Tahlia snorted. “Careful. Sorted’s addictive.”

Charli laughed—quiet, real—and kept working.

Sarah watched all of it with the satisfaction of someone watching a kettle reach the moment before boil.

She sipped her coffee slowly, eyes moving between Charli and me like she was reading a ledger that wasn’t on paper.

I did not look up.

I could feel her seeing anyway.

Mara called, “Celeste.”

I looked up immediately, grateful.

“Tell Lauren,” Mara said, “I want updated constraints if anything changes. Mood. Energy. Faintness. Anything.”

“I will,” I replied.

Charli’s hand paused on a pin for a fraction, then continued.

The fact that she heard Mara’s word—constraints—and didn’t flinch was another small miracle.

Not because she wasn’t sensitive.

Because she was no longer interpreting structure as rejection.

She was interpreting it as inclusion.

Sarah’s voice floated across the room.

“Awfully responsible of you,” she said, to no one in particular.

I didn’t respond.

I didn’t need to. Sarah’s remarks were less communication than weather.

She hopped down from her stool and drifted toward the cutting table, casual as a cat, and stood beside me as if she’d always intended to.

“Interesting,” she murmured, under her breath, just for me.

I kept my eyes on the page. “What is.”

Sarah leaned slightly closer, coffee breath and mischief.

“Your posture,” she said. “It’s almost... saintly.”

I turned a page. Slowly. Deliberately.

“Don’t,” I said, quietly.

Sarah’s mouth twitched. “Oh, I’m not saying anything,” she replied, far too pleased.

I wrote. I didn’t look at her.

Sarah let the silence hang a moment longer, then softened her voice into something almost kind.

“She’s happy,” she said. “Properly happy.”

I felt my throat tighten.

“Yes,” I said, and kept it flat. “And she’s safe.”

Sarah’s eyes flicked toward Charli, who was bent over the pattern, focused, calm.

“She’s safer than she’s ever been,” Sarah murmured. “Because she’s got women who mean it.”

The remark landed like a compliment and a warning at the same time.

I finally looked at Sarah then.

Her expression was not mocking now. It was sharp, sure. Protective in her own acerbic way.

“As long as you keep your rules,” she added.

My pulse thudded once, irritated at being understood.

“I intend to,” I said.

Sarah held my gaze for half a beat, then lifted her cup in a small salute.

“Good,” she said, and wandered off as if she hadn’t just named my private war.

Charli finished the marking, handed the pattern back to Lucy, and moved to the next task without hovering.

As she passed my table, she didn’t touch me.

She didn’t glance at me too long.

She simply said, very quietly, “See you later,” like it was normal.

It was normal now.

It had to be.

“Later,” I replied, and kept my voice steady.

Charli walked away.

The room continued: scissors, chalk, small laughter, fabric sliding under palms.

Mara’s pen moved across the ledger like it always did. No drama. No indulgence. Only work.

And I stood in the middle of it, holding the rules like a scaffold I’d built with my own hands:

Off the clock.

No secrets.

No hooks.

No warmth used as currency.

I could do this.

I would do this.

Because the romance—when it came—would not be something I took.

It would be something I chose carefully, with both of us fully awake.

And that morning, watching Charli move through Wardrobe as if she belonged there by right, I felt the truth of it settle in my chest, steady and relentless:

The hardest part wasn’t wanting her.

The hardest part was making wanting her safe.

---

Notes26-01-31rv1

✨ After Hours ✨

[26-01-29]

Absolutely, Robyn 💛🧵 Here is Scene 34 with a surgical time-lapse patch woven in: the “boring machinery” has engaged, Mara has constraints, Lauren’s done the mother-work, and the acute risk is behind them—so the stroll and the kiss land as aftermath romance, not crisis bonding.

---

Scene 35 — “After Hours” (Celeste POV) — Robyn's tweak

---

That night, Wardrobe let go of us the way it always did: gradually.

Voices thinned. The kettle went quiet. The last pair of shears found its tin. Fabric was folded, not abandoned. The ledger closed with its familiar, satisfied weight.

Mara didn’t say goodnight. She never did. She simply kept writing until the room was no longer full of people worth supervising. Sarah left with a wave that was too casual to be innocent. Lauren had texted during the week—short, functional updates, no drama.

Appointments attended. Scripts sorted. Baselines logged.

A specialist who didn’t blink. Bloodwork numbers filed like any other constraint: information you used, not something you sentimentalised.

Mara had asked for constraints the way she asked for grainlines—so she could build around them—and then returned to work as if the world had simply corrected itself. No commentary. No fuss. Only a quiet, relentless insistence that Charli be held safely inside the same standards as everyone else.

The acute danger was over.

Not the whole story, but the cliff-edge of secrecy, the frantic improvisation, the bottle on the table: finished. The boring machine had engaged, and with it came a relief that wasn’t joy exactly, but something sturdier: safety that didn’t depend on luck.

I stared at Lauren’s last message longer than I needed to.

She’s okay. Don’t make a thing of it.

As if the phone had said something else underneath it.

Don’t you dare break her with your own feelings.

I didn’t reply. Not because I didn’t want to. Because I didn’t trust myself not to say too much.

When I finally stepped out into the evening air, Charli was already there: waiting near the gate, bag on her shoulder, hair tied back. She looked tired and bright at the same time, the way people look when something heavy has shifted and the body hasn’t caught up. She saw me and straightened, that old reflex half-returning.

Then she caught herself.

And stood normally.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I replied, and felt how strange it was: how intimate it sounded, coming from me, without the room around it.

We started walking.

Not home. Just... away.

It wasn’t a decision I announced. It was a direction my body took before my mind could turn it into policy. Charli matched my pace without asking what we were doing, which should have been normal and yet, it really wasn’t. For months she’d needed permission for every step. Now she simply walked beside me like she belonged there.

The street was quiet. The air held that faint smell of eucalyptus and cooling asphalt. Somewhere, a dog barked once and stopped, as if even dogs were tired. Charli kept her hands on her bag strap, fingers curled tight. She was holding herself together in a different way, like she was trying not to disturb her own happiness by moving too quickly.

“You did well today.”

Charli gave a small laugh. “At... hats?”

“At existing,” I said before I could stop myself.

She looked at me sharply, startled. I felt my own face warm, annoyed at my lack of control. I kept my voice even.

“You don’t apologise as much,” I said. “That’s progress.”

Charli’s mouth softened. “I try,” she said. Then, after a beat: “It’s easier when I’m not... scared all the time.”

That simple fact sat between us. I should have responded like an adult or a supervisor. Like the woman who had done all this so carefully. Instead, I heard myself say, quieter than I intended:

“I’m glad you’re not scared.”

Charli’s steady gaze stayed on my face, not darting away or bracing for correction, just... looking. I felt a knot of tension grow in my throat.

The sidewalk dipped toward a small park, just a stretch of grass and a bench and a tired little tree. I sat down without thinking. Charli sat too, careful at first, then easing as if she remembered she’d earned benches now.

For a moment we listened to the world do nothing. Then Charli spoke, softly.

“Mum said you kept checking.”

“Checking what?”

“On me,” she said, and the embarrassment was faint, but real. “All week. At work. She noticed. Not... obvious. Just—” She made a small motion with her fingers, as if miming a glance she didn’t want to name.

Heat rose in my face again. Annoyance, mostly.

“I was checking constraints.”

Charli’s mouth curved in a way that told me she didn’t believe me.

“Mm,” she said, gently, and somehow the sound was an accusation and a kindness at once. I exhaled through my nose, slow.

“Fine,” I said. “I was checking on you.” Charli went very still, eyes fixed on my face, listening. “I didn’t want you to feel watched,” I added, and heard, belatedly, how intimate that sounded. “But I needed to know you were... okay.”

Charli’s breath hitched. “I am,” she whispered. And then, because she was braver now—braver because the world had stopped punishing her for wanting—she said:

“You were angry.”

“Yes.”

“Not at me?” I saw an old reflex rising. I stopped that with my eyes.

“No,” I clarified. “Not at you.”

Charli swallowed. There was a long pause. We both watch a leaf from the sad tree settle in the grass.

“Thank you,” she said finally, and her voice was steadier than it used to be. “For not letting me keep doing something stupid.”

I looked over at her with pursed lips.

“You hated me.”

Charli’s eyes widened, horrified.

“No— I mean— not you. Not you. Just... the feeling. The idea of it stopping. I was scared.”

“Look, I get it,” I said. “I would have hated me too.”

Charli let out a breath—half laugh, half sob she didn’t let happen.

“I thought you’d... be disgusted,” she whispered.

The word landed hard. I turned fully toward her.

“Disgusted?” I repeated, carefully, like I wanted her to hear how wrong it was.

Charli’s shoulders lifted in a small, helpless shrug. “People are,” she said. “Usually.”

I closed my eyes: anger flared in me. Not hot: cold and precise.

“That’s not your problem,” I said. “That’s theirs.”

Charli stared at me, eyes wet but steady.

“And you?” she asked, almost inaudible.

It was the simplest question in the world. It did not feel simple. I could have answered it a dozen ways that kept me safe. I could have lied gently. I could have dodged. Instead I heard my own voice—slow, deliberate—like I was stepping onto a floor I hadn’t tested.

“I am not disgusted.” Charli’s mouth trembled. “I... admire you,” I added, and felt the word pull something open in my chest. “You were alone with something frightening, and you still kept walking. You didn’t stop trying.”

Charli blinked fast, holding herself together.

“You’re the one who kept me going,” she whispered.

The sentence was too much like mine. I should have corrected it.

I didn’t.

I watched her struggle for another breath. Then she said, quietly, like a truth she didn't want to put in so many words for fear of defiling something precious:

“I just don’t know what I’m allowed to feel.”

“You’re allowed to feel what you feel,” I said. “You’re allowed to want. You’re allowed to be confused.” She looked like permission might be the more dangerous thing.

“And here’s what I can promise,” I said, because I needed her to hear it before anything else went wrong. “You don’t have to earn me. Not with bravery. Not with obedience. Not with suffering.”

She swallowed.

“I won’t take what you haven’t offered,” I said. “And if I ever feel myself pushing—if my feelings start steering—I will stop. Because you don’t exist to carry my hunger.”

I turned to look at her properly.

“And I need you to know,” I said, “I’m not neutral.” “And I need you to know,” I said, “I’m not neutral.”

The sentence landed like something I couldn’t fold back up.

I’d been acting as if neutrality was a kind of virtue. As if the absence of appetite meant I was simply disciplined—busy, above it, immune.

But sitting beside her, in the dark quiet of the park, I couldn’t pretend anymore.

This wasn’t responsibility dressed up as care. This wasn’t me being good at holding a line.

This was want—clean, physical, unmistakable. And it wasn’t pointed at anything the world would call male.

The humiliating part wasn’t that I wanted Charli.

The humiliating part was how obvious it suddenly was that I’d been avoiding the larger truth for years. That I’d tried to do the sensible thing once—boys, expectation, the neat little script—and felt nothing I could trust. I’d called it boredom. I’d called it standards.

It wasn’t standards.

It was direction.

I looked at her properly—at the softness in the set of her mouth, the careful way she occupied space, the way her gentleness wasn’t weakness but choice. A girl’s way of moving through the world, even when the world refused to name it.

My throat tightened. Not with doubt. With fear.

“I’m telling you this,” I said, “because I can feel myself wanting you, and I don’t trust want to behave just because I have rules.”

Charli went very still, eyes wide and steady.

“You don’t have to earn me,” I added, and forced the words to be plain, not performative. “Not with bravery. Not with obedience. And not with suffering.”

She swallowed.

“I won’t take what you haven’t offered,” I said. “And if I feel myself pushing—if I feel myself enjoying the fact that you’d let me—I will stop.”

Her breath shook. “Celeste…”

“I know,” I said softly. “That’s why I’m saying it out loud.”

I held her gaze until it stopped being a test and became what it actually was: trust.

“So what do we do?” she whispered.

I took a slow breath, letting the answer be honest instead of tidy.

“We do it clean,” I said. “No trading. No guessing. No you trying to be whatever you think I want.”

Her eyes flicked to my mouth and back again, like she couldn’t help it.

“This?” she asked, barely audible.

My pulse thudded, not panic—something quieter and deeper.

“Yes,” I said. And then, because she deserved certainty and I refused to turn her into a foggy maybe, I said it plainly:

“I want to kiss you.”

I didn’t move.

“May I?”

“I want to kiss you.” And I didn’t move. “May I?”

Her face went pink—soft, incredulous—and for a second she looked like she might disappear from the sheer pressure of being wanted.

Then, with a nod, Charli’s lips parted.

“Yes,” she whispered.

I moved slowly, carefully. Charli was not something you grabbed. My hand lifted—hovered near her cheek—and I waited one heartbeat, giving her space to pull away if she needed.

She didn’t.

She leaned into my palm like she’d been doing it in secret for months.

I kissed her—gentle, brief, a question more than an answer.

When I pulled back, Charli stayed close, eyes closed for a moment as if she was trying to hold the sensation in her body without frightening it away.

I didn’t touch her again immediately. I let her breathe.

“Remember, you don’t have to earn this,” I said softly.

Charli made a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and this time I let my thumb wipe the corner of her mouth, light as air.

“You’re... sure?” she whispered. I felt my own smile—small, steady.

“Yes,” I said. “And I’ll keep being sure tomorrow, too.” Charli’s eyes searched my face the way they always did when she needed proof.

She found it.

Her shoulders dropped. Her whole body softened like a person setting down a burden she’d been carrying in public. And I realised, with a kind of quiet awe, that this was the real threshold. Not the bottle. Not the paperwork. Not the bloodwork.

This.

A girl being allowed to be loved without having to earn it by being brave. I kept my forehead near hers, not touching, close enough to share warmth.

“We go slow.”

Charli nodded.

“And if you change your mind at any point,” I added, “you tell me. No apology.”

Another nod. Her voice was so small when she spoke, it almost didn’t make it to the air.

“Okay.”

Not “sorry” or “thank you”. Just okay. And that, more than anything, made my chest ache. We sat on the bench until the night grew cooler. Then I stood.

“Come on, let’s go home.”

Charli rose, obedient out of habit, then steadied herself and walked beside me again: closer now, shoulder almost brushing my bicep, as if she’d been given a new coordinate for where she was allowed to stand. At the corner, she hesitated.

“Tomorrow,” she said, uncertain again. “At work—”

“At work,” I said, firm, “I’m still Celeste.”

Charli nodded.

“And tonight? At home?” she asked, barely audible.

I looked at her. The streetlight caught her face and made her look, suddenly, entirely enticing. Not a delicate issue or a problem to be solved. A girl I wanted.

A girl.

I wanted.

“Aren’t you clever,” I murmured: my tone wry enough to save us both. Charli’s smile broke open, bright and bashful.

“Tonight,” I said quietly, “I’m still me.”

And I offered her my hand.

I didn’t take hers.

I offered.

Charli stared at it for a beat like it was something sacred. Then she slid her fingers into mine. Warm. Certain. And as we walked back toward the lit windows of the world, I realised the line I’d been holding for months had finally greyed.

Not because I’d failed.

Because I’d chosen to.

---

Wardrobe in the morning had a reassuring honesty to it: the simple truth of women doing work—steam, chalk, fabric laid flat like a decision, the whir of sewing machines and the 'ding' of the kettle.

I arrived early, as I always did. The room was cool and dim, lights half-on, the big tables waiting. I hung my bag on my hook and washed my hands. I took the ledger out and opened it to the page we’d been living in all week.

Same rituals, same body, but something in me had shifted, and it made everything feel slightly louder. I had slept. I had not slept. Both were true in different places.

Charli’s mouth, warm and brief against mine, was still in my nervous system like a held note.

It was enjoyable and instrusive, all at the same time. So, I catalogued it. Off the clock, I reminded myself. No secrets. No hooks. If I let warmth of our sofa leak into this room, it would become currency Sarah and others would spend in a heartbeat. I would not—could not—do that to Charli.

The kettle clicked on. The iron woke. The building began its daily inhale. Mara arrived without greeting, as usual, coat off, sleeves rolled, face already in the work. She glanced at the ledger.

“Cap notes,” she said.

“I wrote them,” I replied.

Mara nodded once, then moved on as if I’d told her the sky was blue.

Tahlia drifted in next, carrying a roll of tape and a bag of pins. Lucy followed, expression unreadable. Bree arrived with a tote bag that looked like it could contain either lace or a small animal.

Sarah strode in last, unhurried, coffee in hand, eyes bright with the kind of alertness that made me mildly want to ban her from the building. She perched on her stool like a referee at a tennis match and watched the room assemble.

Charli arrived five minutes after. Not late, or early enough to seem enthusiastic.

Just... on time.

That, in itself, should have been unremarkable.

Except I saw it—differently. And heard my heart in my ears.

She came in with her hair tied back neatly, smoothed into the shape the cap required. Her shoulders were down. Her breathing was even. She hung her bag on the hook and washed her hands, careful and thorough. When she turned, her gaze met mine for half a beat. A small steadiness: like she was following rules and trusting me to keep them.

I held her gaze for exactly the amount of time that was appropriate, then I looked back down at the ledger.

“Morning.”

“Morning,” Charli replied. Her voice was normal. The absence of tremor felt like a gift. Or a trap. I refused both interpretations.

Mara set a pattern down on the table with a flat slap.

“Stomacher fit,” she said. “Charli. You’re on pins and marking.”

Charli stepped forward immediately, hands ready. Lucy slid the pattern across with the efficiency of someone passing a tool. Charli took it and began to work, pinning cleanly, checking alignment, chalk marking with a solid steadiness. Her body moved like it wasn’t waiting for permission to occupy space.

I forced myself to keep my attention where it belonged: on the ledger, on the workflow, on the morning’s tasks. And still, my mind flashed images like sabotage: the bench. The park. My hand hovering. Charli leaning in without flinching. The soft sound she made when I said may I.

I wrote a note harder than I needed to.

Bree leaned over to Charli, stage-whispering.

“You look very... sorted today.”

Charli’s mouth curved. “I feel sorted.”

The words were simple. The meaning was not.

Tahlia snorted. “Careful. Sorted’s addictive.”

Charli laughed—quiet, real—and kept working.

Sarah watched all of it with the satisfaction of someone watching a kettle reach the moment before boil. She sipped her coffee slowly, eyes moving between Charli and me like she was reading a ledger that wasn’t on paper.

I did not look up. I could feel her seeing anyway.

Mara called, “Celeste.”

I looked up immediately, grateful.

“Tell Lauren,” Mara said, “I want updated constraints if anything changes. Mood. Energy. Faintness. Anything.” I nodded.

“I will.”

Charli’s hand paused on a pin for a fraction, then continued. The fact that she heard Mara’s word—constraints—and didn’t flinch was another small miracle, not because she wasn’t sensitive, but because she was no longer interpreting structure as rejection.

She was interpreting it as inclusion.

Sarah’s voice floated across the room.

“Awfully responsible of you,” she said, to no one in particular.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. Sarah’s remarks were less communication than weather. She hopped down from her stool and drifted toward the cutting table, casual as a cat, and stood beside me as if she’d always intended to.

“Interesting,” she murmured, under her breath, just for me. I kept my eyes on the page.

“What is.”

Sarah leaned slightly closer, coffee breath and mischief.

“Your posture,” she said. “It’s positively... saintly.”

I turned a page. Slowly. Deliberately.

“Don’t,” I said, quietly. Sarah’s mouth twitched.

“Oh, I’m not saying anything,” she replied, far too pleased.

I wrote. I didn’t look at her. Sarah let the silence hang a moment longer, then softened her voice into something almost kind.

“She’s happy, you know,” she said. “Properly happy.”

I felt my throat tighten.

“Yes,” I said, and kept it flat. “And she’s safe.”

Sarah’s eyes flicked toward Charli, who was bent over the pattern, focused, calm.

“She’s safer than she’s ever been,” Sarah murmured. “Because she’s got women who mean it.”

The remark landed like a compliment and a warning at the same time.

I finally looked at Sarah then. Her expression was not mocking now. It was sharp, sure: protective in her acerbic way.

“As long as you keep your rules,” she added.

My pulse thudded once, irritated mostly at myself for being so transparent.

“I intend to.”

Sarah held my gaze for half a beat, then lifted her cup in a small salute.

“Good.”

She wandered off as if she hadn’t just named my private war. Charli finished the marking, handed the pattern back to Lucy, and moved to the next task without hovering. As she passed my table, she didn’t touch me. She didn’t glance at me too long.

She simply said, very quietly, “See you later,” like it was normal.

It was normal now.

It had to be.

“Later,” I replied, and kept my voice steady.

Charli walked away. The room continued: scissors, chalk, small laughter, fabric sliding under palms. Mara’s pen moved across the ledger like it always did. No drama. No indulgence. Only work. And I stood in the middle of it, holding the rules like a scaffold I’d built with my own hands:

Off the clock. No secrets. No hooks.

No warmth used as currency.

I could do this.

I would do this.

Because the romance, when it came, would not be something I took.

It would be something I chose carefully, with both of us fully awake.

And that morning, watching Charli move through Wardrobe as if she belonged there by right, I felt the truth of it settle in my chest, steady and relentless: the hardest part wasn’t wanting her.

The hardest part was making wanting her safe.

---

w

ww

✨ The Bench ✨

That night, Wardrobe let go of us the way it always did: gradually.

Voices thinned. The kettle went quiet. The last pair of shears found its tin. Fabric was folded, not abandoned. The ledger closed with its familiar, satisfied weight.

Mara didn’t say goodnight. She never did. She simply kept writing until the room was no longer full of people worth supervising. Sarah left with a wave that was too casual to be innocent. Lauren had texted during the week—short, functional updates, no drama.

Appointments attended. Scripts sorted. Baselines logged.

A specialist who didn’t blink. Bloodwork numbers filed like any other constraint: information you used, not something you sentimentalised.

Mara had asked for constraints the way she asked for grainlines—so she could build around them—and then returned to work as if the world had simply corrected itself. No commentary. No fuss. Only a quiet, relentless insistence that Charli be held safely inside the same standards as everyone else.

The acute danger was over.

Not the whole story, but the cliff-edge of secrecy, the frantic improvisation, the bottle on the table: finished. The boring machine had engaged, and with it came a relief that wasn’t joy exactly, but something sturdier: safety that didn’t depend on luck.

I stared at Lauren’s last message longer than I needed to.

She’s okay. Don’t make a thing of it.

As if the message had said something else underneath it.

Don’t you dare break her with your own feelings.

I didn’t reply. Not because I didn’t want to. Because I didn’t trust myself not to say too much.

When I finally stepped out into the evening air, Charli was already there: waiting near the gate, bag on her shoulder, hair tied back. She looked tired and bright at the same time, the way people look when something heavy has shifted and the body hasn’t caught up. She saw me and straightened, that old reflex half-returning.

Then she caught herself.

And stood normally.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I replied, and felt how strange it was: how intimate it sounded, coming from me, without the room around it.

We started walking.

Not home. Just… away.

It wasn’t a decision I announced. It was a direction my body took before my mind could turn it into policy. Charli matched my pace without asking what we were doing, which should have been normal and yet, it really wasn’t. For months she’d needed permission for every step. Now she simply walked beside me like she belonged there.

The street was quiet. The air held that faint smell of eucalyptus and cooling asphalt. Somewhere, a dog barked once and stopped, as if even dogs were tired. Charli kept her hands on her bag strap, fingers curled tight. She was holding herself together in a different way, like she was trying not to disturb her own happiness by moving too quickly.

“You did well today.”

Charli gave a small laugh. “At… hats?”

“At existing,” I said before I could stop myself.

She looked at me sharply, startled. I felt my own face warm, annoyed at my lack of control. I kept my voice even.

“You don’t apologise as much,” I said. “That’s progress.”

Charli’s mouth softened. “I try,” she said. Then, after a beat: “It’s easier when I’m not… scared all the time.”

That simple fact sat between us. I should have responded like an adult or a supervisor. Like the woman who had done all this so carefully. Instead, I heard myself say, quieter than I intended:

“I’m glad you’re not scared.”

Charli’s steady gaze stayed on my face, not darting away or bracing for correction, just… looking. I felt a knot of tension grow in my throat.

The sidewalk dipped toward a small park, just a stretch of grass and a bench and a tired little tree. I sat down without thinking. Charli sat too, careful at first, then easing as if she remembered she’d earned benches now.

For a moment we listened to the world do nothing. Then Charli spoke, softly.

“Mum said you kept checking.”

“Checking what?”

“On me,” she said, and the embarrassment was faint, but real. “All week. At work. She noticed. Not… obvious. Just—” She made a small motion with her fingers, as if miming a glance she didn’t want to name.

Heat rose in my face again. Annoyance, mostly.

“I was checking... constraints.”

Charli’s mouth curved in a way that told me she didn’t believe me.

“Mm,” she said, gently, and somehow the sound was an accusation and a kindness at once. I exhaled through my nose, slow.

“Fine,” I said. “I was checking on you.” Charli went very still, eyes fixed on my face, listening. “I didn’t want you to feel watched,” I added, and heard, belatedly, how intimate that sounded. “But I needed to know you were… okay.”

Charli’s breath hitched. “I am,” she whispered. And then, because she was braver now—braver because the world had stopped punishing her for wanting—she said:

“You were angry.”

“Yes.”

“At me?” I saw an old reflex rising. I stopped that with my eyes.

“No,” I clarified. “Not at you.”

Charli swallowed. There was a long pause. We both watched a leaf from the sad tree settle in the grass.

“Thank you,” she said finally, and her voice was steadier than it used to be. “For not letting me keep doing something stupid.”

I looked over at her with pursed lips.

“You hated me.”

Charli’s eyes widened, horrified.

“No— I mean— not you. Not you. Just… the feeling. The idea of it stopping. I was scared.”

“Look, I get it,” I said. “I would have hated me too.”

Charli let out a breath—half laugh, half sob she didn’t let happen.

“I thought you’d… be disgusted,” she whispered.

The word landed hard. I turned fully toward her.

“Disgusted?” I repeated, carefully, like I wanted her to hear how wrong it was. Charli’s shoulders lifted in a small, helpless shrug.

“People are,” she said. “Usually.”

I closed my eyes: anger flared in me. Not hot: cold and precise.

“That’s not your problem,” I said. “That’s theirs.”

Charli stared at me, eyes wet but steady.

“And you?” she asked, almost inaudible.

It was the simplest question in the world. It did not feel simple. I could have answered it a dozen ways that kept me safe. I could have lied gently. I could have dodged. Instead I heard my own voice—slow, deliberate—like I was stepping onto a floor I hadn’t tested.

“I am not disgusted.” Charli’s mouth trembled. “I… admire you,” I added, and felt the word pull something open in my chest. “You were alone with something frightening, and you still kept walking. You didn’t stop trying.”

Charli blinked fast, holding herself together.

“You’re the one who kept me going,” she whispered.

The sentence was too much like mine. I should have corrected it.

I didn’t.

I watched her struggle for another breath. Then she said, quietly, like a truth she didn't want to put in so many words for fear of defiling something precious:

“I just don’t know what I’m allowed to feel.”

“You’re allowed to feel what you feel,” I said. “You’re allowed to want. You’re allowed to be confused.” She looked like permission might be the more dangerous thing.

“And here’s what I can promise,” I said, because I needed her to hear it before anything else went wrong. “You don’t have to earn me. Not with bravery. Not with obedience. Not with suffering.”

She swallowed.

“I won’t take what you haven’t offered,” I said. “And if I ever feel myself pushing—if my feelings start steering—I will stop.”

I turned to look at her properly.

“And I need you to know, you don’t exist to carry my hunger,” I said, the words scraping on the way out, “because I’m not… neutral.”

The sentence landed like something I couldn’t fold back up.

I’d been acting as if neutrality was a kind of virtue, as if the absence of appetite meant I was simply disciplined—busy, above it, immune—but sitting beside her, in the dark quiet of the park, I couldn’t pretend anymore. This wasn’t responsibility dressed up as care. This wasn’t me being good at holding a line.

This was me wanting—clean, physical, unmistakable. And it wasn’t pointed at anything the world would call male.

The illuminating part wasn’t that I wanted Charli.

The revealing part was how obvious it suddenly was that I’d been avoiding the larger truth for years. That I’d tried to do the sensible thing once—boys, expectation, the neat little script—and felt nothing I could trust. I’d called it boredom. I’d called it standards.

It wasn’t standards.

It was direction.

I looked at her properly—at the softness in the set of her mouth, the careful way she occupied space, the way her gentleness wasn’t weakness but choice. A girl’s way of moving through the world, even when the world refused to acknowledge it.

My throat tightened. Not with doubt: with fear.

“I’m telling you this,” I said, “because I can feel myself wanting you, and I don’t trust want to behave just because I have rules.”

Charli went very still, eyes wide and steady. Her breath shook.

“Celeste…”

“I know,” I said softly. “That’s why I’m saying it out loud.”

I held her gaze until it stopped being a test and became what it actually was: trust.

“So what do we do?” she whispered.

I took a slow breath.

“We do it without guessing,” I said. “Without you trying to be whatever you think I want.”

Her eyes flicked to my mouth and back again, like she couldn’t help it.

“You want… me?” she asked, barely audible.

My pulse thudded, not panic—something quieter and deeper.

“Yes,” I said. And then, because she deserved certainty and I refused to turn her into a foggy maybe, I said it plainly:

“I want to kiss you.”

I didn’t move.

“May I?”

Her face went pink—soft, incredulous—and for a second she looked like she might disappear under the sheer pressure of being wanted.

Then, with a nod, Charli’s lips parted.

“Yes,” she whispered.

I moved slowly. My hand lifted—hovered near her cheek—and I waited one heartbeat, giving her space to pull away if she needed.

She didn’t.

She leaned into my palm like she’d been doing it in secret for months.

Her mouth was softer than I expected—soft in a way that made my body register the kiss as fact, not idea.

The shock wasn’t pleasure. It was how quickly pleasure reorganised me. How something I’d kept tidy for years went loose at one touch, like a ribbon you didn’t realise you’d been pulling tight.

I pulled back before I could take more than she’d given, and hated myself for wanting to go back in. Charli stayed close, eyes closed, as if she was trying to keep the sensation in her body without frightening it away.

I didn’t touch her again immediately. I let her breathe.

“Remember,” I said softly, “a kiss doesn’t cost you your freedom.”

Charli made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. My thumb found the corner of her mouth and wiped it, light as air.

“You’re… sure?” she whispered.

I felt my own smile—small, steady.

“Yes,” I said. “And I’ll keep being sure tomorrow, too.”

Charli’s eyes searched my face the way they always did when she needed proof.

She found it.

Her shoulders dropped. Her whole body softened like a person setting down a burden she’d been carrying in public. And I realised, with a kind of quiet awe, that this was the real threshold. Not the bottle. Not the paperwork. Not the bloodwork.

This.

A girl being allowed to be loved without having to earn it by being brave. I kept my forehead near hers, not touching, close enough to share warmth.

We sat on the bench until the night grew cooler. Then I stood.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

Charli rose, obedient out of habit, then steadied herself and walked beside me again: closer now, shoulder almost brushing my bicep, as if she’d been given a new coordinate for where she was allowed to stand. At the corner, she hesitated.

“Tomorrow,” she said, uncertain again. “At work—”

“At work,” I said, firm, “I’m still Celeste.”

Charli nodded.

“And tonight? At home?” she asked, barely audible.

I looked at her. The streetlight caught her face and made her look, suddenly, entirely enticing. Not a delicate issue or a problem to be solved. A girl I wanted.

A girl.

I wanted.

“Aren’t you clever,” I murmured: my tone wry enough to save us both. Charli’s smile broke open, bright and bashful.

“Tonight,” I said quietly, “I’m still me.”

And I offered her my hand.

I didn’t take hers.

I offered.

Charli stared at it for a beat like it was something sacred. Then she slid her fingers into mine. Warm. Certain. And as we walked back toward the lit windows of the world, I realised the line I’d been holding for months had finally greyed.

Not because I’d failed.

Because I’d chosen to.

---

Wardrobe in the morning had a reassuring honesty to it: steam, chalk, fabric laid flat like a decision—the women’s work that didn’t ask permission.

I arrived early, as I always did. The room was cool and dim, lights half-on, the big tables waiting. I hung my bag on my hook and washed my hands. I opened the ledger to the page we’d been living in all week.

Same rituals, same body—yet something in me had shifted, and it made everything feel slightly louder. I had slept. I had not slept. Both were true in different places.

Charli’s mouth—warm and brief against mine—was still in my nervous system like a held note. Enjoyable. Intrusive.

So I catalogued it.

Off the clock, I reminded myself. No secrets. No hooks.

If I let the warmth of last night leak into this room, it would become currency. Sarah, among others, would spend it in a heartbeat. I would not do that to Charli.

The kettle clicked on. The iron woke. The building began its daily inhale.

Mara arrived without greeting, coat off, sleeves rolled, face already in the work. She glanced at the ledger.

“Cap notes,” she said.

“I wrote them.”

Mara nodded once and moved on as if I’d told her the sky was blue.

The others drifted in: tape, pins, tote bags, quiet hellos. Sarah last, unhurried, coffee in hand, eyes bright with the kind of alertness that made me briefly consider banning her from the building on principle.

Charli arrived five minutes after. Not late. Not early enough to look eager, just… on time.

It should have been unremarkable, except my body registered it as information, not just my head.

She came in with her hair tied back neatly, smoothed into the shape the cap required. Shoulders down. Breathing even. She hung her bag and washed her hands, careful and thorough. When she turned, her gaze met mine for half a beat—steady in a way that felt like trust. I held it for exactly the amount of time that was appropriate, then looked back down at the ledger.

“Morning.”

“Morning,” Charli replied. Normal voice. No tremor.

Mara set a pattern down on the table with a flat slap.

“Stomacher fit,” she said. “Charli. You’re on pins and marking.”

Charli stepped forward immediately, hands ready. Lucy slid the pattern across with the efficiency of someone passing a tool. Charli took it and began to work: pinning cleanly, checking alignment, chalk marking with solid steadiness. Her body moved like it wasn’t waiting for permission to occupy space.

I forced my attention where it belonged: the ledger, the workflow, the morning’s tasks. And still, my mind tried to sabotage me with flashes: the bench. My hand hovering. Charli leaning in without flinching. The soft sound she made when I said may I.

I wrote a note harder than I needed to.

Bree leaned toward Charli, stage-whispering. “You look very… sorted today.”

Charli’s mouth curved. “I feel sorted.”

Tahlia snorted. “Careful. Sorted’s addictive.”

Charli laughed—quiet, real—and kept working.

Sarah watched it all with the satisfaction of someone watching a kettle approach boil. She sipped slowly, eyes flicking between Charli and me like she was reading a ledger that wasn’t on paper. I didn’t look up. I could feel her seeing anyway.

Mara called, “Celeste.”

I looked up immediately, grateful.

“Tell Lauren,” Mara said, “I want updated constraints if anything changes. Mood. Energy. Faintness. Anything.”

“I will.”

Charli’s hand paused on a pin for the smallest fraction, then continued. The fact that she heard constraints and didn’t flinch wasn’t because she’d gone numb. It was because structure no longer sounded like rejection.

It sounded like inclusion.

Sarah’s voice floated across the room. “Awfully responsible of you.”

I didn’t respond. Sarah’s commentary was less communication than weather. She drifted to the cutting table and stood beside me like she’d always intended to.

“Interesting,” she murmured, for my ears only.

“What is.”

“Your posture,” she said. “Positively… saintly.”

I turned a page. Slowly. Deliberately.

“Don’t.”

Sarah’s mouth twitched. “Oh, I’m not saying anything.”

Silence hung for a beat. Then her voice softened into something almost kind.

“She’s happy,” she said. “Properly happy.”

My throat tightened.

“Yes,” I said, and kept it flat. “And she’s safe.”

Sarah’s eyes flicked to Charli bent over the pattern, focused, calm.

“She’s safer than she’s ever been,” Sarah murmured. “Because she’s got women who mean it.”

The line landed like a compliment and a warning. She met my gaze, sharp and sure.

“As long as you keep your rules.”

My pulse thudded once—irritation, mostly at myself for being so readable.

“I intend to.”

Sarah lifted her cup in a small salute.

“Good.”

Then she wandered off as if she hadn’t just named my private war.

Charli finished the marking, handed the pattern back, and moved to the next task without hovering. As she passed my table she didn’t touch me. She didn’t look at me too long.

She simply said, very quietly, “See you later,” like it was normal.

It was normal now.

It had to be.

“Later,” I replied, and kept my voice steady.

Charli walked away. The room continued: scissors, chalk, small laughter, fabric sliding under palms. Mara’s pen moved across the ledger like it always did. No drama. No indulgence, only work. And I stood in the middle of it, holding my rules like a scaffold I’d built with my own hands:

Off the clock. No secrets. No hooks.

No warmth used as currency.

I could do this.

I would do this.

Because the romance, when it came, would not be something I took. It would be something I chose carefully, cleanly: with both of us fully awake.

And that morning, watching Charli move through Wardrobe as if she belonged there by right, the truth settled in my chest, steady and relentless:

The hardest part wasn’t wanting her.

The hardest part was making wanting her safe.

---

Notes26-01-31rp

Published

✨ The Bench ✨

[Celeste]

That night, Wardrobe let go of us the way it always did: gradually.

Voices thinned. The kettle went quiet. The last pair of shears found its tin. Fabric was folded, not abandoned. The ledger closed with its familiar, satisfied weight.

Mara didn’t say goodnight. She never did. She simply kept writing until the room was no longer full of people worth supervising. Sarah left with a wave that was too casual to be innocent. Lauren had texted during the week: short, functional updates, no drama.

Appointments attended. Scripts sorted. Baselines logged.

A specialist who didn’t blink. Bloodwork numbers filed like any other constraint: information you used, not something you sentimentalised.

Mara had asked for constraints the way she asked for grainlines—so she could build around them—and then returned to work as if the world had simply corrected itself. No commentary. No fuss. Only a quiet, relentless insistence that Charli be held safely inside the same standards as everyone else.

The acute danger was over.

Not the whole story, but the cliff-edge of secrecy, the frantic improvisation, the bottle on the table: finished. The boring machine had engaged, and with it came a relief that wasn’t joy exactly, but something sturdier: safety that didn’t depend on luck.

I stared at Lauren’s last message longer than I needed to.

She’s okay. Don’t make a thing of it.

As if the message had said something else underneath it.

Don’t you dare break her with your own feelings.

I didn’t reply. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t trust myself not to say too much.

When I finally stepped out into the evening air, Charli was already there: waiting near the gate, bag on her shoulder, hair tied back. She looked tired and bright at the same time, the way people look when something heavy has shifted and the body hasn’t caught up. She saw me and straightened, that old reflex half-returning, then she caught herself.

And stood normally.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I replied, and felt how strange it was: how intimate it sounded, coming from me, without the room around it.

We started walking.

Not home. Just… away.

It wasn’t a decision I announced. It was a direction my body took before my mind could turn it into decision. Charli matched my pace without asking what we were doing, which should have been normal and yet, it wasn’t. For months she’d needed permission for every step. Now she simply walked beside me like she belonged there.

The street was quiet. The air held that faint smell of eucalyptus and cooling asphalt. Somewhere, a dog barked once and stopped, as if even dogs were tired.

Charli kept her hands on her bag strap, fingers curled tight. She was holding herself together in a different way, like she was trying not to disturb her own happiness by moving too quickly.

“You did well today.”

Charli gave a small laugh. “At… hats?”

“At existing,” I said before I could stop myself.

She looked at me sharply, startled. I felt my face warm, annoyed at my lack of control. I kept my voice even.

“You don’t apologise as much,” I said. “That’s progress.”

Charli’s mouth softened. “I try.” Then, after a beat: “It’s easier when I’m not… scared all the time.”

That simple fact sat between us. I should have responded like an adult or a supervisor. Like the woman who had done all this so carefully. Instead, I heard myself say, quieter than I intended:

“I’m glad you’re not scared.”

Charli’s steady gaze stayed on my face, not darting away or bracing for correction, just… looking. I felt a knot of tension grow in my throat.

The sidewalk dipped toward a small park, just a stretch of grass and a bench and a tired little tree. I sat down without thinking. Charli sat too, carefully at first, then easing as if she remembered she’d earned benches now.

For a moment we listened to the world do nothing. Then Charli spoke, softly.

“Mum said you kept checking.”

“Checking what?”

“On me.” The embarrassment was faint, but real. “All week. At work. She noticed. Not… obvious. Just—” She made a small motion with her fingers, as if miming a glance she didn’t want to name.

Heat rose in my face again. Annoyance, mostly.

“I was checking... constraints.”

Charli’s mouth curved in a way that told me she didn’t believe me.

“Mm,” she said, gently, and somehow the sound was an accusation and a kindness at once. I exhaled through my nose, slow.

“Fine,” I said. “I was checking on you.” Charli went very still, eyes fixed on my face, listening. “I didn’t want you to feel watched,” I added, and heard, belatedly, how intimate that sounded. “But I needed to know you were… okay.”

Charli’s breath hitched. “I am,” she whispered. And then, because she was braver now—braver because the world had stopped punishing her for wanting—she said:

“You were angry.”

“Yes.”

“At me?” I saw an old reflex rising. I stopped that with my eyes.

“No,” I clarified. “Not at you.”

Charli swallowed. There was a long pause. We watched a leaf from the sad tree settle in the grass.

“Thank you,” she said finally, and her voice was steadier than it used to be. “For not letting me keep doing something stupid.”

I looked over at her with pursed lips.

“You hated me.”

Charli’s eyes widened, horrified.

“No— I mean— not you. Not you. Just… the feeling. The idea of it stopping. I was scared.”

“Look, I get it,” I said. “I would have hated me too.”

Charli let out a breath—half laugh, half sob she didn’t let happen.

“I thought you’d… be disgusted,” she whispered.

The word landed hard. I turned fully toward her.

“Disgusted?” I repeated, carefully, like I wanted her to hear how wrong it was. Charli’s shoulders lifted in a small, helpless shrug.

“People are,” she said. “Usually.”

I closed my eyes: anger flared in me. Not hot: cold and precise.

“That’s not your problem,” I said. “That’s theirs.”

Charli stared at me, eyes wet but steady.

“And you?” she asked, almost inaudible.

It was the simplest question in the world. It did not feel simple. I could have answered it a dozen ways that kept me safe. I could have lied gently. I could have dodged. Instead I heard my own voice—slow, deliberate—like I was stepping onto a floor I wasn’t sure was safe.

“I am not disgusted,” I said. Charli’s mouth trembled. “I… admire you.” I felt the word pull something open in my chest. “You were alone with something frightening, and you still kept walking. You didn’t stop trying.”

Charli blinked fast, holding herself together.

“You’re the one who kept me going,” she whispered.

The sentence was too much like mine. I should have corrected it.

I didn’t.

I watched her struggle for another breath. Then she said, quietly, like a truth she didn't want to put in so many words for fear of defiling something precious:

“I just don’t know what I’m allowed to feel.”

I paused a moment before answering.

“You’re allowed to feel what you feel,” I said. “You’re allowed to want. You’re allowed to be confused. And here’s what I can promise,” I said, because I needed her to hear it before anything else went wrong. “You don’t have to earn me. Not with bravery. Not with obedience. Not with suffering.”

She swallowed.

“I won’t take what you haven’t offered,” I said. “And if I ever feel myself pushing—if my feelings start steering—I will stop.”

I turned to look at her properly, my hands gripping the bench.

“And I need you to know, you don’t exist to carry my hunger,” I said, the words scraping on the way out, “because I’m not… neutral.”

The sentence landed like something I couldn’t fold back up.

I’d been acting as if neutrality was a kind of virtue, as if the absence of appetite meant I was simply disciplined—busy, above it, immune—but sitting beside her, in the dark quiet of the park, I couldn’t pretend anymore. This wasn’t responsibility dressed up as care. This wasn’t me being good at holding a line.

This was me wanting—clean, physical, unmistakable.

The revealing part was it wasn’t pointed at anything the world would call male.

What struck me hardest wasn’t that I wanted Charli: it was how obviously I’d been avoiding the larger truth for years: that I’d tried to do the sensible thing before—boys, expectation, the neat little script—and felt nothing I could trust.

I had called it boredom, standards.

It wasn’t standards.

It was direction.

I looked at Charli thoughtfully: at the softness in the set of her mouth, the careful way she occupied space, the way her gentleness wasn’t weakness but choice. A girl’s way of moving through the world, even when the world refused to acknowledge it.

My throat tightened. Not with doubt: with realisation. She was the lost girl in the restroom—now sitting here beside me—who was actually in that little script.

“I’m telling you this,” I said, “because I can feel myself wanting you, and I don’t trust want to behave just because I have rules.”

Charli went very still, eyes wide and steady. Her breath shook.

“Celeste…”

“I know,” I said softly. “That’s why I’m saying it out loud.”

I held her gaze until it stopped being a test and became what it actually was: trust.

“So what do we do?” she whispered.

I took a slow breath.

“We do it without guessing,” I said. “Without you trying to be whatever you think I want.”

Her eyes flicked to my mouth and back again, like she couldn’t help it.

“You want… me?” she asked, soft as moonlight.

My pulse thudded, not panic—something quieter and deeper.

“Yes,” I said. I swallowed hard, and held my breath for a moment. Finally, I said:

“I want to kiss you.”

We stared at each other.

“May I?”

Her face went pink—soft, incredulous—and for a second she looked like she might disappear under the sheer pressure of being wanted.

Then, with a nod, her lips parted.

“Yes,” she whispered.

I moved slowly. My hand lifted, hovered near her cheek... and I waited one heartbeat, giving her space to pull away.

She didn’t. Instead, she leaned into my palm like she’d been doing it in secret for months.

I leaned over, felt her warm face radiating onto mine. Our lips... touched. Her mouth was softer than I expected—soft in a way that I welcomed and yet, didn't really anticipate.

What undid me wasn’t the pleasure. It was the release—the instant my careful composure loosened, like a ribbon finally allowed to fall.

I pulled back before I took more than she could give, and hated myself for needing more. Charli stayed close, eyes closed, almost holding her breath, as if she was trying to keep the sensation in her body without frightening it away.

I let her breathe.

“Charli,” I said softly, “a kiss doesn’t cost you your freedom.”

Charli made a soft sound. My thumb found the corner of her mouth and wiped it, light as air.

“You’re… sure?” she finally whispered.

I felt my own smile—small, steady.

“Yes,” I said. “And I’ll keep being sure tomorrow, too.”

Charli’s eyes searched my face and her shoulders dropped, her whole body softening like a person setting down a burden she’d been carrying too long. And I realised, with a kind of quiet awe, that this was the real threshold we had finally crossed. Not the bottle. Not the paperwork. Not the bloodwork.

This.

A girl being allowed to be loved without having to earn it by being brave.

I kept my forehead near hers, not touching, close enough to share warmth. We sat on the bench until the night grew cooler.

Finally, I stood.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

Charli rose, obedient out of habit, then steadied herself and walked beside me again: closer now, shoulder almost brushing my bicep, as if she’d been given a new coordinate for where she was allowed to stand. At the corner, she hesitated.

“Tomorrow,” she said, uncertain. “At work—”

“At work,” I said, firm, “I’m still Celeste.”

Charli nodded.

“And tonight? At home?” she asked softly, biting the side of her bottom lip. Coy.

I shook my head and looked at her. The streetlight caught her face and made her, suddenly, so enticing. No longer a delicate issue or a problem to be solved: the girl I wanted.

A girl.

I wanted.

“Aren’t you clever,” I murmured: my tone wry. Charli’s smile broke open, bright and bashful.

“Tonight,” I said quietly, “I’m still me.”

And I offered her my hand.

I didn’t take hers.

I offered.

Charli stared at it for a beat like it was something sacred. Then she slid her fingers into mine. Warm. Certain. And as we walked back toward the lit windows of the world, I realised the line I’d been holding for months had finally greyed.

Not because I’d failed.

Because I’d chosen to.

---

Wardrobe in the morning had a reassuring honesty to it: steam, chalk, fabric laid flat like a decision—the women’s work that didn’t ask permission.

I arrived early, as I always did. The room was cool and dim, lights half-on, the big tables waiting. I hung my bag on my hook and washed my hands. I opened the ledger to the page we’d been living in all week.

Same rituals, same body: yet something in me had shifted, and it made everything feel slightly louder. I had slept. I had not slept. Both were true in different places.

Charli’s mouth—warm and brief against mine—was still in my nervous system like a held note. Enjoyable. And intrusive.

So I catalogued it.

Off the clock, I reminded myself. No secrets. No hooks.

If I let the warmth of last night leak into this room, it would become currency. Sarah, among others, would spend it in a heartbeat. I would not do that to Charli.

The kettle clicked on. The iron woke. The building began its daily inhale.

Mara arrived without greeting, coat off, sleeves rolled, face already in the work. She glanced at the ledger.

“Cap notes,” she said.

“I wrote them.”

Mara nodded once and moved on as if I’d told her the sky was blue.

The others drifted in: tape, pins, tote bags, quiet hellos. Sarah last, unhurried, coffee in hand, eyes bright with the kind of alertness that made me briefly consider banning her from the building on principle.

Charli arrived five minutes after. Not late. Not early enough to look eager, just… on time.

It should have been unremarkable, except my body registered her arrival, not just my head.

She came in with her hair tied back neatly, smoothed into the shape the cap required. Shoulders down. Breath even. She hung her bag and washed her hands, careful and thorough. When she turned, her gaze met mine for half a beat—steady in a way that felt like trust. I held it for exactly the amount of time that was appropriate, then looked back down at the ledger.

“Morning.”

“Morning,” Charli replied. Normal voice. No tremor.

Mara set a pattern down on the table with a flat slap.

“Stomacher fit,” she said. “Charli. You’re on pins and marking.”

Charli stepped forward immediately, hands ready. Lucy slid the pattern across with the efficiency of someone passing a tool. Charli took it and began to work: pinning cleanly, checking alignment, chalk marking with solid steadiness. Her body moved like it wasn’t waiting for permission to occupy space.

I forced my attention where it belonged: the ledger, the workflow, the morning’s tasks. And still, my mind tried to sabotage me with flashes: the bench. My hand hovering. Charli leaning in without flinching. The soft sound she made when I said may I.

I wrote a note harder than I needed to.

Bree leaned toward Charli, stage-whispering. “You look very… sorted today.”

Charli’s mouth curved. “I feel sorted.”

Tahlia snorted. “Careful. Sorted’s addictive.”

Charli laughed—quiet, real—and kept working.

Sarah watched it all with the satisfaction of someone watching a kettle approach boil. She sipped slowly, eyes flicking between Charli and me like she was reading a ledger that wasn’t on paper. I didn’t look up. I could feel her seeing anyway.

Mara called, “Celeste.”

I looked up immediately, grateful.

“Tell Lauren,” Mara said, “I want updated constraints if anything changes. Mood. Energy. Faintness. Anything.”

“I will.”

Charli’s hand paused on a pin for the smallest fraction, then continued. The fact that she heard constraints and didn’t flinch wasn’t because she’d gone numb. It was because structure no longer sounded like rejection.

It sounded like inclusion.

Sarah’s voice floated across the room. “Awfully responsible of you.”

I didn’t respond. Sarah’s commentary was less communication than weather. She drifted to the cutting table and stood beside me like she’d always intended to.

“Interesting,” she murmured, for my ears only.

“What is.”

“Your posture,” she said. “Positively… saintly.”

I turned a page. Slowly. Deliberately.

“Don’t.”

Sarah’s mouth twitched. “Oh, I’m not saying anything.”

Silence hung for a beat. Then her voice softened into something almost kind.

“She’s happy,” she said. “Properly happy.”

My throat tightened.

“Yes,” I said, and kept it flat. “And she’s safe.”

Sarah’s eyes flicked to Charli bent over the pattern, focused, calm.

“She’s safer than she’s ever been,” Sarah murmured. “Because she’s got women who mean it.”

The line landed like a compliment and a warning. She met my gaze, sharp and sure.

“As long as you keep your rules.”

My pulse thudded once—irritation, mostly at myself for being so readable.

“I intend to.”

Sarah lifted her cup in a small salute.

“Good.”

Then she wandered off as if she hadn’t just named my private war.

Charli finished the marking, handed the pattern back, and moved to the next task without hovering. As she passed my table she didn’t touch me. She didn’t look at me too long.

She simply said, very quietly, “See you later,” like it was normal.

It was normal now.

It had to be.

“Later,” I replied, and kept my voice steady.

Charli walked away. The room continued: scissors, chalk, small laughter, fabric sliding under palms. Mara’s pen moved across the ledger like it always did. No drama. No indulgence, only work. And I stood in the middle of it, holding my rules like a scaffold I’d built with my own hands:

Off the clock. No secrets. No hooks.

No warmth used as currency.

I could do this.

I would do this.

Because the romance was not something I was taking. It was something we chose carefully, cleanly: with both of us fully awake. And that morning, watching Charli move through Wardrobe as if she belonged there by right, the truth settled in my chest, steady and relentless:

The hardest part wasn’t wanting her.

The hardest part was making wanting her safe.

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