It was half past ten by the time I made it into my flat. It’d been less than a week since I’d left it, but it had a stale smell that I couldn’t get rid of. I sighed, tossed the magazines on a table in the trash and opened the windows.

I hadn’t slept well. I wasn’t sure why I’d slept at Lotte’s family’s flat. Lotte hadn’t wanted to see me, not that I blamed her, but I think I’d had some insane hope that she’d change her mind in the middle of the night and come to me so I could apologize.

Since that hadn’t happened, I’d slept terribly, a combination of guilt and my withdrawals. I didn’t even have a desire for the pills, knowing that getting more meant seeing Della. Which I decidedly did not want.

After getting up, I left for the appointment I’d made with my GP. It’d been humiliating to admit my weakness to him, but he’d been supportive, as much as a GP could be. We’d talked through options—with him at the practice or with the local drug service, but I’d decided to keep seeing him through my treatment, which would start with methadone. I wanted to try detox, but my GP had worried that because I’d already tried, unsuccessfully, to wean myself off that I’d slip up again.

It still felt like defeat, but I knew my resolve to quit was stronger than my desire to keep taking painkillers, so I felt confident that I’d see this through.

I grabbed orange juice from the fridge and downed it in one gulp, tossing the pill into my mouth at the end. I eyed the pamphlet from Narcotics Anonymous, deciding to make that call for meeting information that afternoon.

There was a knock on my door, so I abandoned my orange juice and answered it.

“What are you doing here?”

“That’s not much of a greeting, Samson.” Della strolled in, under my arm that blocked the door, and acted like she owned the place.

“Get out, Della, and don’t come back. I’m done with you, in every way imaginable.”

She merely laughed at me and plopped herself on my sofa. “Oh, that’s funny, Sam.”

“I’m not laughing. Get out.” The one thing my GP had told me was to make sure to steer clear of anyone that encouraged my habit—which was Della.

“But I brought you a welcome home present.”

She produced the baggie of pills from her purse and shook them.

I was proud that the temptation for them didn’t make me wish for them for even a second. “I’m not buying.”

“I said they were a present, Sam. You don’t have to pay for them, just take them.” She tossed them to my end table and I strode across the room and shoved them back into her purse.

“Get out, Della. I won’t say it again.”

“What’s gotten into you? You were practically salivating the last time I waved a few pills in front of your face.”

She was rotten, like a witch with a poisoned apple. She delighted in exploiting my weakness.

“You went to Ames’ pub and told him I’m an addict, and you honestly believe I’d be happy to see you? Are you mad?”

“Oh, come on. Like he believed me.”

“He did, especially when I confirmed it. I’m done, Della. With your games, with the drugs. I don’t want to see you ever again. You’ve caused entirely too much chaos in my life.”

“Sam.” The voice wasn’t Della’s. I turned to the doorway, where Lotte stood, taking in Della and me.

Fuck.

“Oh, Lotte. You’re here.” Della stood from the sofa and moved toward Lotte. I wanted to shove Della out the door, not let her even breathe the same air as Lotte, but I knew I couldn’t touch her. So I didn’t. Still, I balled my fingers into fists at my sides.

“Bye Della,” Lotte said, stepping to the side and motioning for Della to exit.

Instead, Della turned to look at me. She snapped her purse closed and gave me a sour look. “A week from now, you’ll be on your knees, begging me for more.”

“You keep saying that I’ll be begging you, but the only one I see begging is you. Get out of my flat, now.”

Lotte stepped out of Della’s path and closed the door behind her.

She turned to me, her eyes wide and dark. My little bird. So beautiful.

“Lotte, I’m sorry. I promise you, she was only here for a moment before you came. She tried to get me to take more, but I refused.”

“I know. I know you want to quit, Sam.”

“I have quit.” But that wasn’t the reason she was here. “I’m so sorry, Lotte. I should have never told Ames a word. I opened my mouth and I was wrong. You told me that in secret, and I betrayed your confidence.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and looked around the room. “I know. Ames told me. He feels like shit about it.”

“So do I.”

“You look terrible.”

“I don’t doubt it.” I ran a hand through my hair. I wanted to hold her. She looked at me over her shoulder as she walked around the room. Her eyes fell to the prescription on my island. “Methadone,” I told her. “I’ve been to my GP this morning.”

She touched the bottle and then looked at me. “Already?”

“I’m committed to getting through this.”

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, and the tension she’d carried into my flat dissolved. “I need to do that next. But I haven’t pulled. I do this.” She shoved her hands into her pockets. “Something I read on a blog.”

“But you will get help?” I asked. It was as if my small sentence brought back the tension.

“Yes. I have too many people worried about me. And,” she pulled her hands back out and laced her fingers together. “I want to get better. I don’t want to be a slave to my compulsions.”

“That’s good, Lots. Really, really good.”

She looked at me with something close to a smile on her lips before turning, and looking around the apartment. “I’ve never been here before.”

I looked around, seeing what she was seeing. My flat was little more than one room with a bed and a kitchenette. “It’s a mess. I’m sorry.”

“That’s the third sorry. Are you going to keep apologizing?”

“I’m not sure.” I was restless, not knowing what to do with my hands. She walked over to the window and took in one of my painted canvases.

“This is pretty,” she said. It was a painting of a woman’s back, flexed so that her muscles were pronounced. “You weren’t lying when you said you liked parts of women’s bodies.”

“I do.” She was making me nervous, not continuing our conversation. “Why are you here, Lotte?”

“To see you.” She turned around, hands clasped in front of her. “I shouldn’t have run away last night.”

“But I did something terrible.”

“It really wasn’t that terrible. I don’t know when I would’ve told Ames, or even how. You jumped the gun, sure, but there are worse things than confiding someone else’s secret.” She met my eyes and turned slowly, to look at another painting. “So, I’m sorry for running.”

“You were tired.”

She smiled sadly at me. “You’re making excuses for me. Don’t.” Her hands went to her hair, and because I knew what she was doing, without thinking, I echoed her word back to her.

“Don’t.”

She froze, and her hands came down.

“You have no reason to be nervous, Lotte. There’s nothing you can say to me that I don’t deserve to hear. But I don’t want to see you hurt yourself. Hurt me before you hurt yourself.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”

“I’d deserve it.”

“Why are you so hard on yourself?” she asked, sadness etched on her face.

“I don’t know. Because someone has to be.”

“Stop.” She said it so softly, but with such power that I had to obey.

“Okay.” I took a tentative step forward. “So, you’re here to apologize, too?”

“Yes. I’m two sorries behind you now, I need to catch up.” The side of her mouth tipped up in a smile.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“I’m sorry that Ames ripped into you because of me.” She held up two fingers. “And I’m sorry I didn’t come out to the living room, where you slept. If I’d known, I probably would have.” She held up a third finger.

“It was probably for the best. You deserved to be mad at me for a bit.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. I just wanted to hold her. I just wanted to love her. I wanted everything.

“I’m not mad at you. I’m upset that you took away my chance to come clean to Ames, but it’d done, and I’ve learned that I don’t have much room in my heart for anger. I’ve lost so much.” Her voice caught on that, and she pressed a fist to her stomach. “I don’t want to lose anyone else, and I don’t want to keep losing time.” She’d been looking at the ground but lifted her head. Her lips trembled open, her blue eyes wide. “Remember what you said in the hotel, about how you couldn’t get close enough to me? I’ve felt that way for so long. I didn’t really understand it until the last few years. I’m never satisfied, I always, always want more with you.” She took a deep breath. “I love you, Sam.”

I pressed my palm to the counter that separated us.

“I’ve loved you for, well, just about half of my life, so I am pretty solid on it now.”

“You love me.”

“That’s my secret. I’ve been holding onto it a long, long time.”

I moved around the counter and after two beats of my heart, she was in my arms. “It’s the best secret I’ve ever heard.” I kissed her, the first time in our home country since the day she’d left. I picked her up and set her on my counter. She leaned in to kiss me, but I kept her back by holding her shoulders. I slid across them to her neck, cradling her.

Her arms came up, and she laid her hands on mine. The back of her arm was in my view, and I stopped to look at the dots on her arm. “Lyra,” I said, touching each dot.

She tilted her head to the side. “Lyra?” Then, understanding came over her face. “You said that at my going-away brunch.”

“It’s the constellation of freckles you have here.” I drew the lines between them that matched the constellation.

“No one knew what you were talking about,” she said with a laugh. God, how I loved her laugh.

“No, because I’d blurted it out.” I brushed the hair away from her face. I turned my head over, looked at the canvas I’d started after she’d left. The Lyra constellation. “There.”

She cocked her head to the side as she stared at it. “That’s the constellation?” She looked down at my arm. “You’ve drawn me, you’ve painted me. What next?”

“Now,” I said, taking a deep breath. I felt the tremble in my arms. “Now, Lotte, I love you.” Her eyes got wider. “I realized it when we were in the hot air balloon, when you’d chased away my fears. But I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you for longer than that.”

“Not as long as I’ve loved you.” She nuzzled my nose with hers.

“Do you want to win that badly?” I asked her, reveling in this moment, with my little bird and her Botticelli eyes.

“No one wins in love,” she breathed against my lips. “Because it’s a gift.”

She was mine, she was in my arms. She didn’t hate me. My little muse, the one to bring my art back into my life. She was mine.

“You love me?” she asked.

I traced a finger over her chin, the lines of her body that I loved nearly as much as I loved what lay beneath all that alabaster skin. “I do. And you love me.”

“For half of my life, remember.”

“I guess I need to catch up.” She smiled at me, and I scooped her up in my arms, bringing her to my bed. “I hope you don’t have any plans today.”

“Not a single one,” she whispered as I closed in on her.

“Good. Because you’re not close enough for my liking.” And I’d work on that, all day and all night if I needed to. And all the days and nights that followed.

The End