Scene 49¶
Notes26-01-23e¶
Scene 46¶
[26-01-23]
Scene 46 — “Daylight” (Lauren POV)
Morning always tells the truth.
Night can be anything—fear, adrenaline, loneliness dressed up as clarity. Night makes people reach for whatever feels like a handrail.
But morning… morning is where you find out whether the handrail is still wanted when the floor is stable again.
I woke before Sarah did, because mothers don’t sleep well after danger. Even when the danger is gone, your body keeps listening for it like an animal.
The apartment was quiet in the clean way it gets quiet when someone safe is asleep in the next room.
I lay still on the couch for a moment and listened.
No coughing. No restless pacing. Just Sarah’s breathing, deep and steady through the cracked door.
Good.
I made tea first, because boiling water is a kind of prayer: something you do with your hands while your mind measures the day.
Toast followed. Not because toast is magic, but because it’s non-threatening. It’s what you feed someone when you want them to feel cared for without feeling managed.
While the kettle worked, I checked my phone.
No new messages from the venue. No update from the building manager. No fresh nonsense from a blocked number.
Still, I made a note to myself: encourage medical check. Not because I wanted to escalate things into drama, but because women don’t get to rely on luck.
I heard a shift from the bedroom—sheet rustle, a small exhale, the sound of someone waking and trying to decide if they’re in a place that’s allowed.
Then the door opened.
Sarah stood in the doorway in my spare t-shirt, hair a mess, eyes narrowed like she was judging the light for being too cheerful.
She looked… human.
Which, for Sarah, is an intimate state.
She didn’t step all the way in. She stayed on the threshold like she might still bolt out of politeness.
“Morning,” she said, voice rough.
“Morning,” I replied. “Water first.”
She made a face that was half annoyance, half obedience, and came to the kitchen.
I poured her a glass and handed it over without ceremony.
Sarah took it with both hands and drank like someone who’d been taught, at some point, to trust procedure.
Remembering it now.
When she finished, she set the glass down and glanced at the toast.
“Are you trying to make me a Victorian invalid,” she muttered.
I let my mouth twitch. “Yes. It’s my long-term plan.”
Sarah huffed a laugh—small, but real—and slid onto the chair by the window.
Not the couch.
The chair.
Distance maintained.
Control reclaimed.
Good.
I placed the toast in front of her and sat opposite, keeping my posture relaxed, my voice ordinary.
“How’s your head?” I asked.
Sarah grimaced. “Like someone’s rewired it badly.”
“Fair,” I said. “Nausea? Dizziness?”
“Less,” she admitted. “Still… wrong. But less.”
I nodded, filing it.
“I’d like you to get checked today,” I said gently. “Even if it’s just a GP. Blood pressure, basics. If you think someone put something in your drink—”
Sarah’s eyes sharpened. Instantly defensive.
“I don’t know they did,” she said.
“I know,” I replied. “You don’t have to prove it. You only have to take care of your body.”
Sarah stared at the toast like it had offended her.
Then, quietly: “Okay.”
Not “fine.”
Not “whatever.”
Okay.
A second “okay” in less than twelve hours.
That was… notable.
I didn’t push. I didn’t turn it into a lecture. I let it sit like a small win.
For a minute, the only sound was her chewing and the kettle cooling, the familiar domestic noises that make a life feel possible.
Then Sarah cleared her throat.
Here it comes, I thought. Pride.
And it did.
“I’m sorry,” she said, automatically. Fast, as if she could throw it at the floor and move on.
I looked at her, calm.
“No,” I said. “Not that.”
Sarah’s jaw tightened. “Lauren—”
“No,” I repeated, not unkind. “You don’t apologise for being in danger. You don’t apologise for calling someone. You did the correct thing.”
Sarah’s eyes flicked up to mine, then away. The smallest hint of colour climbed her cheeks—anger at being seen, probably.
“I hate needing help,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
That was all. No pep talk. No insistence.
Just acknowledgement.
Sarah took another bite of toast, slower now, as if her body was remembering it could accept care without owing anything in return.
She swallowed. Then, after a pause that felt like a door opening by a millimetre, she said:
“I remember what I said last night.”
My chest went very still.
I kept my face calm.
“Yes,” I replied, careful. “Me too.”
Sarah’s fingers tightened around the mug I’d given her, knuckles whitening slightly. She didn’t drink. She just held it like an anchor.
“I meant it,” she said, voice low.
The words were simple, but Sarah saying I meant it was… enormous.
Because Sarah doesn’t say anything she can’t defend in court.
My pulse quickened. I didn’t move closer. I didn’t rush.
This had to stay clean. Proper.
“I’m glad,” I said softly.
Sarah looked up then, properly, meeting my eyes.
Her expression wasn’t soft. Sarah wasn’t suddenly a different person.
But something in her gaze had changed.
Less armour.
More decision.
“It wasn’t just because I was scared,” she said, as if she resented the need to clarify it. “I mean, I was scared. But that’s not why I—”
She stopped, frustrated with language.
I waited.
She exhaled sharply, then said it in the most Sarah way possible—like she was stating a fact she’d verified twice:
“I wanted you to come.”
The sentence landed in the kitchen like a bell.
I felt warmth rise through me—quiet, steady—and I held it there, contained. Not because I wanted to hide it, but because Sarah would recoil if I made her the centre of a romantic spectacle.
“I did come,” I said. “Every time you call, I’ll come.”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
I blinked once.
“No,” I agreed, and let my voice soften a fraction. “It isn’t.”
Sarah sat very still, as if her body had decided that moving might make the moment break.
Then she said, with a kind of blunt honesty that nearly undid me:
“I don’t know what to do with it.”
I nodded.
“That’s okay,” I said. “We don’t have to do anything dramatic.”
Sarah’s mouth twitched. “Your obsession with boring is unbearable.”
“It works,” I replied.
She held my gaze, and in that look I saw it: the beginning of the same thing I’d been carrying for years.
Not as a lightning strike.
As a slow, inevitable shift of gravity.
Sarah wasn’t reaching for me as a mother.
She was reaching for me as… me.
A woman.
A possibility.
The realisation didn’t make me giddy. It made me careful.
Because if Sarah was beginning to feel it, she’d be terrified of it. Not because she was ashamed of women—Sarah didn’t do shame that way.
But because wanting someone meant giving them leverage.
And Sarah hated leverage.
I stood and rinsed a plate to give my hands something to do.
When I turned back, Sarah was watching me.
Not suspicious.
Just… present.
“You can go home whenever you want,” I said gently. “No pressure. No expectations.”
Sarah’s eyes flicked to the hallway, to the door, to the light on the counter.
Then back to me.
“I know,” she said.
A pause.
Then: “Can I stay a bit longer?”
The request was quiet, but it was the most intimate thing she’d said all morning.
My chest tightened.
“Yes,” I said simply. “Of course.”
Sarah exhaled, a long breath that sounded like surrender—not to me, but to the fact that she wanted what she wanted.
I poured more tea, because tea is what you do when you’re making a new shape of life.
And as Sarah sat at my kitchen table in my spare t-shirt, eating toast like it was a contract she hadn’t yet signed, I felt the truth settle more firmly inside me:
This wasn’t a night thing.
This wasn’t fear.
This wasn’t rescue.
This was daylight.
And Sarah, inconvenient and sharp and brave, was beginning to reach for me on purpose.
Properly.
Yes. This is exactly the right kind of blossom for them: touch as truth, not sex as plot device. And the “workplace slip” is perfect because it lets you prove (again) that Wardrobe’s safety isn’t vibes — it’s standards, and standards have consequences even when the love is real. 💛🧵
Below is a clean run of three scenes that do what you’ve asked:
- Scene 47 (Celeste POV): floodgates open by accident — Charli’s touch is revealed as unbearably gentle; Celeste wants more.
- Scene 48 (Celeste POV): Charli slips at work (small, “innocent,” but unsafe), and the risk becomes real.
- Scene 49 (Celeste POV): consequences — not cruelty, not punishment theatre: structure. Celeste leads, sets boundary, and re-anchors Wardrobe’s safety. Charli learns.