SEPTEMBER ROLLS AROUND, WHICH IS the month I am supposed to decide whether to stay in Seattle or return to Carsonville. But I decided a long time ago.

I call Mom and Dad to tell them. I've been calling them the whole summer, asking Mom about what I was like as an infant, asking Dad how to fix things correctly, professionally. I plan to wean my financial dependence on them away by working a shit-ton of overtime, though every time I try to broach a repayment plan for their monetary support this summer, neither of them will finalize any details. That's their way of showing love, I guess.

"Suki and I want to come back to Carsonville for the winter," I inform Mom. "If you can bear staying in the same town as Dad for a few days, I think you would really like your granddaughter. She's clever as hell."

"That's wonderful, sweetheart," Mom says surprisingly. "Let me know what dates and I'll book a hotel."

Suki and Walter break up before the month is over. I find out at another family dinner, which includes Georgia because she's Cassie's family as much as I am, when the former coughs and asks, "So, how's Walter?"

Suki shoots her a glare, which suggests that the girls have hashed it over far earlier than this discussion. In the brief, tense silence, the indie music playing from Georgia's Bluetooth speaker pushes up from the background.

"We broke up."

"Oh, my God. I'm so heartbroken," Georgia says drolly, though they really only dated from May till now. Five months. Hardly a life-changing experience. "What happened?"

(Later, from both Georgia and Suki but in separate instances, I will discover that the more I disproved the deadbeat dad image that Walter had in his mind, the more threatened and insecure he became. The way he was clamoring for time with Cassie and attention from Suki made her feel like she was actually a parent to two children, so she dropped him. Suki: no regrets. Georgia: told you.)

"You're truly a woman of tact, Georgia," Suki responds.

She winks. "It's my trademark."

"Joja!" Cassie screams from her high chair, repeating her mother. Somehow, Georgia takes that as a decisive victory in the conversation and smirks triumphantly at both the other adults at the table.

When the next song comes on, I go very still. Part of me hopes that Suki won't remember, but most of me would shrivel if she had indeed forgotten. It's one of my favorite memories of her. She meets my eyes and blushes pink, dropping her gaze to her plate of food.

Georgia notices. "Sex song? Kind of tragic, but alright."

The familiar thrumming guitar fills the room, soft enough that we'd have to stop talking to make out the smoky lyrics. Soft enough that if it was a person, I'd have to lean close in order to still hear it. Intimate.

Suki chuckles, reaching for another scoop of asparagus stems. "Oh, it's nothing," she explains casually. Nothing. I ignore the pang in my ribs. "I used to do ballroom dancing. A lifetime ago. One time, I tried to teach Terrence how to do it. I used this song because of the waltz time signature."

"And I was shockingly bad at it," I add, eager to move on.

I don't want to live in the past and project my memories on to the relationship I have with Suki right now. The past isn't the present isn't the future.

Recently I asked Georgia, "I know you didn't like Walter with Suki, but why do you like me with her? You didn't see what a mess we were in high school."

"You haven't ever seen Su without you," she retorted, "and you never will, given it's a scientific impossibility to see something you're not around to see, ain't it? So take my word for it."

But despite Georgia's machinations, I won't pursue Suki now that she's single, even after some arbitrary post-breakup grace period passes, even though we both drunkenly admitted feelings. Especially not because of that night. The sort of honesty I asked for that night was unconditional. I'd feel dirty using the things we discussed just to win her back. I wanted it to be deeper than flirting. I wanted to know her, just know her, finally.

And this is her life, her home. I still feel like a guest in so many ways.

I won't disturb anything she doesn't want me to disturb, touch anything she doesn't me to, love anything she doesn't want.

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I gave Cassie a bath after we returned from her swimming lessons today.

It's nearly getting too cold to swim comfortably, the air stinging instantly after Cassie gets out of the pool, October weather in Washington sunny but the cold sort.

I think Suki secretly loves that she gets to teach me how to parent in retrospect. Naturally, my lateness is not ideal, but now she gets to teach me all her preferred techniques and document all my moments of weakness and strength, like when I first got Cassie to lean back in the water and rest her round little head in my palm so I could scoop water onto her scalp and wash away the shampoo suds and nearly cried.

I realized the trust a kid has to have in someone to topple backwards in the water, and expect their hands waiting to catch them, and just felt so grateful.

There's this other thing called feeding to sleep, which apparently is bad. Infants become drowsy after eating, which some parents use to get them to go to bed, but Suki insists that it makes a child unable to sleep on an empty stomach, which becomes a problem later in development. (Another fact to file away.)

So always after dinner, Cassie colors or plays a game until her bedtime. The rest of tonight, I'll just read to her until she gets drowsy. On the couch, her light, warm body curls up in my lap. I spread a picture book over my knees for her to look at; it's an anti-racism book staffed by jungle animals. Some animals have stripes and some have big fur and some are really far from where their family originally comes from, and that's what makes the jungle so vibrant and interesting.

I set her down on the mattress and tuck the blanket up to her chin. I have twenty more minutes till I have to catch the bus. For now, I just watch her in her bassinet. She likes staring at me. I like staring at her, her thin strands of dark brown hair and round hazel eyes. My eyes. I hope she gets all my good parts and none of the bad.

The door opens. The light turns off, the hallway illuminating the nursery with long shadows. Somehow I can tell it's Suki instead of Georgia just by the quality of the silence. She comes to stand beside me, holding the fuzzy puppy toy that plays a piano lullaby whenever its tail is stretched out, the winding of some interior music box.

She starts the melody and puts it down by Cassie's head, who I'm too absorbed with to even look away from. "How's it been?"

"Generally, or?"

Suki puts a hand on my back, almost resting her head against my shoulder. "The summer. Your time with Cassie. Fatherhood."

"I'm more terrified than ever," I say to the dark, which makes Suki draw away imperceptibly, "but I think there's no love this large without some fear. It's the price, I think, so I'm willing to pay. I wouldn't have it any other way."

Suki swallows, making an odd nonchalant grunt. "How wise."

We both just watch Cassie's blinks getting longer and longer until my phone starts vibrating: my alarm. The absolute latest I should leave the house before I'll be late for my bus back to the city. I turn it off and fold my arms on the bassinet railing, leaning my head down.

"Mommy," Cassie says, stirring when the lullaby decelerates and peters out.

"Hi, baby. Go to sleep." Suki pulls the puppy's tail long and puts it back into the bassinet, the lullaby starting all over again.

Lowly, I whisper, "I swear, the day she calls me Dad or something, I will just dissolve. I won't know how to handle it."

Reaching down to brush Cassie's eyes closed, Suki quips, "Well, that's no good. She'll miss you if you dissolve."

"And you?"

"Yes," she chuckles, flicking my cheek on our way out. "I would also miss you if you inexplicably dissolved into thin air. But maybe the mental break would claim me first."

"Just checking." At the front door, I don't even hurry to pull my shoes on and get my jacket. It's a lost cause. My phone tells me the bus has already departed, so I'll just have to wait for the next one. I'm going to get home so late.

I walk the familiar path to the bus stop, but fifteen minutes later I spot someone briskly approaching in the pale darkness of twilight and throw a guard up. The tall trees cast obsidian shadows against the sky, while the road is illuminated by regular spotlights of orange. Most of the houses along here have either gone to bed for the night or shut their curtains; all windows dark. A shiver rolls down my spine. The person's silhouette is hard to read, until Suki gets closer and I realize she's wrapped herself in a big cardigan and wrapped her arms around that.

I call her on my phone, unsure if I should be worried. "Hey," I say when she picks up, still too far away to see her face. "Just waiting for the next bus. Is everything okay?"

"You didn't say goodbye," she teases, her voice oddly strained.

"Yes, I did," I answer, confused. I squint, but it's too dark to see if she's upset or just playing a joke on me or what. She's never walked me out to the bus station before, either; it's real close, real easy to find, and this is too quiet a neighborhood to warrant much worry. "I always make sure I say goodbye."

One second and she's close enough to hear—"Brutal honesty," I remind her, hanging up the call—one more second and she's close enough to see in sharp relief—steps heavy, eyes red-lined and watery under the streetlights.

Four years we've known each other, yet it took me this long to be able to read her like a book. Which I think I can do now. Suki was right about the pedestal thing. I've felt closer to her these last four months than the past four years and all it took was admitting that she's not perfect at all, she might or might not be the love of my life, and that she hurt the fuck out of me.

But she's still the one I want.

A rush of air exits her lungs, half defeated sigh and half incredulous exhale. She repeats, "Brutal honesty?"

"Please."

Another second and Suki's close enough to touch, walking right into me, pressing her face into my collarbone. My hands slide to her upper back, brushing against the satiny curtain of her loose hair, the scratchy wool of the cardigan.

She holds me with both arms strung loosely around my shoulders, saying, "I'm just scared this will ruin the dynamic we have right now. I don't want Cassie caught in a crossfire. Now it's good. It's stable. You make me unstable," which means she's been reading me just as well.

"Sorry about that. I was trying not to let on."

"I know." Her laugh is wet with tears. "This is a bit twisted, but I always thought between the two of us I was the better person but you were the better partner. I'm shit at loving people on the same playing field as me."

"I'm shit at the reverse," I tell her, leaning down to smell her hair. "Parents and children are a lot harder than friends and lovers."

"I disagree."

"Well, if you disagree," I deadpan. She leans her head back and laughs.

I slip one of my arms over hers to grab the back of her neck, tilting her mouth upwards to meet mine. The way she kisses hasn't changed at all. Or maybe it has, with others, but we'll always kiss like this.

I brush across her lips, working my tongue between them; Suki slides her hands into my hair, keeping me as close to her as she can get. She angles her head to press deeper, till I can taste the lost sounds at the back of her throat.

She pulls away with tear-stained cheeks and swollen lips. "Did that help you decide?"

I can't even breathe, can't even think straight. All the blood in my head is throbbing so forcefully I can see splatters of green light across my vision. I swallow around the lump in my throat. "No. You?"

"No."

She pulls me back and kisses me again. This time, I feel my heart split open and pour to her, lilting through the air with the moths in the streetlight. She's a labyrinth; I'm either standing at mouth with the chance of turning back, or I'm already in her depths pathetically clutching a string. I have no idea what I am, what is going to happen.

No love without fear, I think, and that's what I whisper to Suki the second time we part.

I'm terrified of having her. I'm terrified of losing her. She's pure laughter, dirtied bedsheets, high smiles and low tears, loud proclamations and quiet whispers. Everything that I've ever touched and not destroyed, which means this could be the thing to destroy me back.

We walk back to the house. Suki's always walked slower than me, so I slow down and hold her hand. "Maybe you should take the car instead of taking the bus all the time," she offers.

"And how do you envision a tripartite division of that car when you're in Ranscher and I'm in the city?"

"Maybe you should move in," she shrugs, throwing a secretive smile up at me. "Cassie would like it."

"Cassie," I repeat, a grin blooming on my face. "And you?"

"I would love it," Suki sighs, stepping even closer to me on the sidewalk.

"In that case, yes. I'd love to." I point out a tree standing proud on the edge of one of her neighbor's property. "Hey, look." The house is dark and quiet. "Isn't that a nice tree?"

Suki looks in the direction I indicate and whisper-shouts, "Are you serious?"

"I'm a kid at heart," I say helplessly, which brings a bout of laughter from her damning mouth.

It takes us a long time to get back to the house, but it doesn't matter because I feel like I could just pluck hours from the sky, ripe and sweet, and lay them down for my family.

We have all the time in the world. 

THE END

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O U T R O

That's wrap! I finished WTT about one month after I finished Nightlife, but this book deals with far more complicated character dynamics than the former. It's gone through a lot of revisions and taken longer to arrive fully-fledged. I am also, clearly, writing way less from personal experience than in some other stories.

The ending is supposed to be open. I wanted to avoid happily-ever-after-let's-get-married sorts of language because I myself don't know if I see that for Terrence and Suki. Maybe they try again and it doesn't work. Maybe it does. It's really up to you and how you read these characters. What they do have is a lot of history, a lot of love, a shared family, honesty and respect. But sadly, even that is not always enough to make a relationship work, especally given their long list of behaviour differences.

It is my sincere hope that you don't hate anyone in this story - even Brittany. No-one is evil in this book, a stance I'm going to treat with more nuance in the rewritten TGR. I believe in taking responsibility for one's actions, of course, but a person's trauma and background can leave deep-rooted defence mechanisms and survival tactics that manifest as being a 'bad' person. Hurt people hurt people. Hurt takes years and years to dig up and patch over. (And everyone was traumatised in some way, some just not 'on-screen' - more books coming your way.) That sort of work will always be ongoing.

TD;LR: thank you Terrence, my favorite unreliable narrator, for challenging me in every possible way as a writer. Thank you all for reading! Let's meet again in another story of mine.

Aimee x