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Carmy tumbles off her, rolls quite gracefully onto the space beside her, sheets rumpled and crumpled. There’s a thin sheen of sticky-sweat cooling in the muggy air between them. It’s intense—it always is with him.
Sydney feels his fingers stretch as his hand begins the search for her own, fingers brushing across the bed until they find their prize, soft skin meeting soft skin. She stares blankly at the ceiling—at the vintage paper ceiling lamp they’d gotten for his bedroom at a flea market in Lincoln Square. His fan turns lazily in the corner, spinning in circles that mirror the jumble-bumble of her thoughts.
She thinks he’s talking—maybe. She doesn’t know. Maybe he’s speaking to her—but his voice is muffled, too distant, like how it feels when someone says your name in a dream but things are too hazy and nonsensical for it to compute.
It’s their day off. It’s six, maybe seven? Seven p.m. . The sky is still a little light outside, she sees through the window. She and Carmy went for a run together this morning and had lunch with her Dad and Natalie. They workshopped the menu for a bit and went with everybody else to see Ebra’s ceramics exhibition in the Loop—he’s been taking classes once a week. They came back to his apartment. They had cous-cous for dinner. The walls of his bedroom loom ominously around her.
She feels him moving beside her but it doesn’t sink in until there’s a sudden warmth between her legs, a tender press of something soft—a washcloth. He’s always gentle with her, and she appreciates that about him. He cleans her up silently.
“Syd,” his voice cuts through at last, a little bit quiet, almost like he’s trying to be careful, but for the most part it’s just normal ol’ Carm.
“Hm?” she murmurs, eyes staring holes into the ceiling.
It feels like something is wrong—or at least, that’s what her gut is trying to tell her.
“You okay?” he asks, and the cloth disappears, replaced by his furnace-like warmth as he shifts closer.
Sydney welcomes him into the cradle of her arms, sighing as he kisses her forehead. It almost makes her feel like her usual self again. He lowers his head onto her bare chest, curls of hair tickling her nipple. He kisses her underboob and she doesn’t answer him.
—
She loves prepping fennel—slicing it so thin, almost translucent in her palm. It’s rhythmic and obsessing and the motion of her knife grazing the cutting board is almost soothing enough to ward her distractions away. She’s always distracted these days, it feels like.
She keeps looking, glancing at Carm—over by the stove with a sauce stain on the sleeve of his t-shirt, and, gosh, those biceps that want to burst out of said sleeve. He got a new tattoo last week—a walk-in flash from his favorite artist. A pair of race dogs on the back of his arm. He unconsciously scratches the second skin.
His brow is furrowed in deep concentration as he tells one of the line cooks the veal fat story. The set of his jaw is just like she’s seen in a hundred different pictures of him as a kid—he hasn’t really changed much. She’s been thinking about that too much lately—him as a kid, as a baby. His baby photos, some shown to her by himself, most by Nat, his tiny face scrunched up and all pinky-pudgy.
He looked so serious, even as a baby.
Curly-haired and wide-eyed, hardened by the kitchen.
It makes her think of herself.
Inside his wallet he has a picture of her at the age of two, dressed to the nines and being carousel-ed in her stroller, probably on the way to church.
Since her Mom died, her Dad and her don’t go much. They always try to make Christmas, but rarely does it ever pan out. Every night, however, Sydney prays—and she doesn’t believe in much, but it’s appeasing. She prays, knowing her Dad is doing the same across town, feeling traces of her Mom tingle in her heart.
Sometimes, Carmy prays with her and it makes her fall in love again and again.
But the picture of her—he’d called her the cutest baby he’d ever seen, ribbed her about her little cheeks and her huge eyes. She’d rolled her eyes, but the way he said it, so glaringly earnest, God—it made her wonder.
She’s so scatter-brained. One thought to the other, and the next, and the next.
Her knife slips.
The fennel tumbles.
The metal bowl clatters onto the counter, scattering pieces of fennel everywhere.
“ Shit ,” she groans at the noise, wincing when people turn to look at her. “Sorry guys,”
Tina and one of the new freshmen she’s training—Liz, who is, in many ways, a mini-Tina—are beside her in an instant. Sydney tells her she’s okay but Tina is unconvinced because she knows how to read Sydney like a book. Her eyes narrow and her lips purse in a way that tells Sydney she isn’t buying it.
She glances toward Carmy.
She smiles, barely-there, but soft, enough for him to notice. He tilts his head to the side, lips twitching in a way that’s not quite a smile but close enough. It’s a silent conversation— Are you okay s and I’m fine s. Sydney likes to believe they’re both totally psychic and telepathic. Their little secret.
There’s a beat, and then Marcus says something, pulling Carmy’s attention away.
—
Every morning her alarm goes off and she mentally berates herself for forgetting to change it from By The Seaside to something less grating.
Carmy is gone, his side of the bed cold and rumpled as she stumbles from under the duvet, groggy and half asleep. Her scarf is askew, a few braids loose—those stragglers. She’d slept like a baby, so deeply, so intensely. Carmy finger-banged her to near-death last night and her orgasm was so acute—so fractalizing, it put her straight to sleep.
Sydney rubs her eyes, blinking against the light as she shuffles down the hallway, bare feet brushing across cherry-hardwood.
When she reaches the living room she sees him in all his glory—ruffled hair, loose Dickies and all, fresh from the grocery store and arms full of tote bags as he sets them down on the counter. He looks up rights as she comes into view. A grin blossoms across his face.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” he teases. His voice is soft—like warm laundry.
The air in his apartment is still warm—too warm. The AC he ordered hasn’t arrived yet and the one he has now is busted beyond repair. His fan has been working overtime and the open windows do what they can.
So, she’s not wearing a shirt. Just a pair of his boxers that hang low on her hips because she doesn’t know where her underwear ended up after they went flying over his shoulder last night.
Sydney doesn’t respond, just shuffles toward him like a moth to a flame, eternally drawn to him. Her head rests against his shoulder, face smushed in his neck as he laughs softly. His lips press against the side of her throat in a lazy kiss.
Then, he scoffs, but his one hand travels up to squeeze her boob while the other slips into the back of her boxers. “Good morning to you, too,” he murmurs, nipping at her skin. “I gotta put these groceries away, though.”
She groans as he pulls away from her, but is content when his hand remains on her hip. “Mmm, too early. Why so many bags?”
Carmy sets a loaf of whole grain bread on the counter, and a bag of the brand of sunflower seeds she loves snacking on. He says, matter-of-factly— “‘Cause I sleep well at night knowing my girl is well-fed and comfortable while she’s in my home.” he pulls out a Bulk Barn container of tahini and Sydney swoons.
She falls back into him and smiles into his skin and doesn’t say anything.
He moves around the kitchen, unpacking eggs, greens, her favorite matcha mix that she knows cost him quite a buck. Eventually, he reaches into one of the last bags, pulls out a decently sized box and hands it to her. “Here,” he says. “Can you put these in the bathroom?”
Sydney blinks. she takes the box and glances down—tampons.
“Oh, sweet,” she says. “thanks for these.”
When she reaches the bathroom, she opens the cabinet beneath the sink and tucks the box on top of his stash of toilet paper. It’s halfway through when she pauses.
It’s an unwelcome thought—
She hasn’t had her period yet this month.
In fact, her period is four days late, now that she thinks about it.
Her hands freeze and her eyebrows furrow as a cold knot starts to form in her stomach. She pictures a calendar and tries her hardest to retrace her steps, figure out what she hopes is senseless paranoia.
Sydney closes the cabinet door and just stands there for a second.
She isn’t sure what to do with herself.
The bathroom is suddenly too small and too quiet. She takes a deep breath and her pulse quickens, heart thudding and thudding, thudding in her chest.
Fuck .
—
When Pete and Natalie walk into the kitchen with Celia perched on Pete’s hip, all giggles and small fingers—Sydney almost snaps.
She’s a year and a half now, and it’s startling—the many ways in which time manifests. It seems like just yesterday she was just a tiny thing of flesh and red cheeks, born to the world, squirming in her mother’s arms.
Everyone swarms around them immediately.
“Oh my God, look at her!” Manny says, hands outstretched. Gary grins and holds his arms up like he’s begging for a turn to hold her.
They all take their turns, bouncing Celia, cooing at her in soft-pitchy voices, like she’s magic—she’s magic.
Carmy steps forward, and Pete passes Celia to him while Nat goes to the office to get ready for the day ahead.
Sydney watches as he takes her, those big hands of his cradling her so carefully. His face softens, shoulders relaxing, his usual lines of tension fading into his skin. He looks down at his niece, who babbles up at him happily, and Sydney holds herself back from recoiling.
How gentle he looks—how good.
She stops herself from imagining and her hands clench.
—
Sydney doesn’t really remember much about her mom.
Not really.
She was only three when she got sick—four when she died. Too young to hold onto any concrete but sometimes—
Sometimes she likes to pretend.
She closes her eyes and tries to think of what her perfume must’ve smelled like, or how her hands felt on her skin, the warmth of her presence.
But she will never know what her mother was like and she will never know what it’s like to be a mother.
What the fuck does she know about motherhood?
What would she know?
—
They stand at the doorway of her Dad’s brownstone, the evening chill outside wisping around them as their long dinner together comes to an end.
Her Dad hugs her tightly, kissing the top of her head. He then reaches over and does the same to Carmy, who still gets bashfully flustered at the physicality.
“Take care of our girl,” Emmanuel says, half-joking, half-serious.
Sydney rolls her eyes.
“Always,” Carmy promises, a small smile on his lips as Sydney goes to hug him one more time.
“Love you,” she says, kissing him back on the cheek before he goes inside and shuts the door behind him with a soft click.
Carmy circles an arm around her waist, pulls her close, their bodies naturally fitting into each other like it’s second nature. “Wanna walk?” he asks, his voice quiet, a low hum against the fading evening.
“Yeah—let’s walk,” she nods.
They start down the sidewalk, Chicago’s miscellaneous city rumblings acting as a familiar soundtrack. The air is cool, and the sky is clear, just the faintest traces of stars overhead in a sea of light pollution. They walk in easy silence for a few blocks.
“Carm,” Sydney prompts.
He looks down at her. “Hm?”
She gulps. “Do you think I’ve accomplished a whole lot?”
Immediately, he frowns. “What? Of course you have. Why would you even ask that?”
Shrugging, she stares at the cracks in the sidewalk as they walk. “I don’t know. I guess sometimes I feel like there’s so much I haven’t done yet. So much I wanna do, but the clock’s ticking and I’m running out of time.”
Carmy’s quiet for a second, processing her words. “Sydney—you’re, like. Twenty-six. You’ve already done so much, you’re running a restaurant—”
“Barely,” she cuts in, a small frustrated laugh escaping her. “I mean—it’s like. Our thing. Everyone’s thing. And it’s great and I really love that we’re doing it but…I don’t know, Carm. I have so much more I expect for myself and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and it just seems so, gosh—I don’t know. Hopeless? Like I’ve got this window to make everything happen but the window’s about to close and everything’s still scattered,”
He looks at her solemnly.
“And if I don’t get my shit together—if I don’t, then what? What was the point?”
At a crosswalk, he brings them to a halt, gently turning her to face him. His eyes bore into hers. “Sydney. Listen to me,” he says. “You’re not running out of time. You’ve done so much already and you will continue to do more—there’s no doubt about that. But you don’t have to have everything figured out right now. It’s okay that you don’t.”
If she weren’t so suddenly distressed, she would have bristled at his response. “I’m just—what if I don’t get to do everything? What if things change and—”
Carmy watches her carefully. “Things will change, Syd. But that doesn’t mean that change is inherently bad.”
“I know that,” she snips.
They cross the street and she presses herself closer to him. The night air nips at her skin but she feels safe being under his arm.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about my future,” she admits, voice quieter, shier, now. “I don’t know why—it just keeps coming back to me and it’s making me panic so much. I fucking hate it. Like, everything’s so hazy. I have these dreams and ideas and all these things I want to do but it kills me how uncertain it is,”
He nods, letting her speak. His thumb traces small, reassuring circles on her arm. “Yeah. I get it. The future’s a lot.”
“I’m just worried I won’t be able to handle everything.”
Carmy’s brow furrows as he pulls her a little closer, wrapping his other arm around her now, holding her tightly. He noses into her braids, sniffing lightly.
She clings to him, her cheek resting against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing. It calms her a lot—the sound of his body functioning, like she’s tethered to something solid, something constant.
“What if things don’t go the way I want?” she whispers, dreadfully.
“They won’t. Not always. But that’s okay.” He presses a kiss to the top of her head, his lips lingering there for a second. “You adjust. You figure it out—like you always do. And, y’know, remember that you’re not alone.”
She pulls back just enough to look up at him, swiping moisture away from her eyes with the back of her hand.
He tells her that he’ll support her through anything, be by her side for as long as she lets him—and that hits too close to home.
Truly—she hates crying in front of him.
These hormones have got her fucked up.
—
Skin on skin, warm from the heat of each other, Carmy lips trail fervently along her neck, his hand clutching her breast, thumb brushing over her pebbled nipple in slow, languid circles.
Sydney arches into him, their bodies slotting together in that familiar way, mouths meeting in a deep kiss that makes her feel like she is on fire. She’s perched in his lap, wetter than she thinks she’s ever been, slick and aching. The wet squelch of his fingers curling in and out of her fills the room, and she can barely think straight.
It’s been a rough week and she needs this.
Needs him .
She can grind into his hand all she wants to.
Carmy’s breath falters as he pulls his fingers free, holding his hand up between them like he’s admiring the slick coating she’s left behind. There’s something primal—a little animalistic, quite frankly—in his eyes before he jams his fingers into his mouth, licking them clean. Sydney gasps, body tensing so sweetly, and she reaches down to slip a shaking hand between her things, rubbing herself with desperate urgency.
His dick twitches against her thigh, smearing pre into her skin.
Without really thinking about it, Sydney presses their noses together, then their foreheads, grinding into him.
Her voice is breathy, fingers slow. “Can we use a condom?”
Carmy’s hands come to a pause on the angle of her hip, face pinching in confusion. He leans back to look at her. “Everything okay?” he asks. “We haven’t used one in, like, two months.”
Which is completely true—this is a conversation they’d had. It was kind of a big deal and the whole point of them taking an afternoon off to get tested together, of her getting back on birth control.
Sydney sees the slight worry already forming in his eyes.
She doesn’t want him to spiral—doesn’t want him to feel like he messed up.
“Yeah, everything’s good,” Sydney tells him, fingers brushing lightly against his jaw. “Just. I’d feel better tonight. That’s all.”
Carmy holds her gaze for a moment longer, trying to read her like he always does. The small frown on his face doesn’t fade completely as he nods and gently shifts her off his lap.
“I’ll go see if we have some left,” he says as he heads to the bathroom.
Her eyes fall to the ceiling again, watching the soft, golden light of his lamp dance across the walls, breathing deeply in a frantic attempt to ground herself.
A minute later, Carmy returns, condom in hand.
He climbs back into the bed beside her and nuzzles into her arms. “Hi,” he says.
“Hello,” she says back.
“You sure you’re okay? We can—we can talk about it, if you want.”
Sydney offers him a small smile, brushing her thumb over the little scar on his cheek. “Mhm.” she hums. “I’m okay. I promise. I think I’m just in my head about some shit—but, um, nothing you did. I promise.”
His gaze softens, though the crease in his brow remains. He reaches up, tucks a braid behind her ear. “Okay. Just making sure. I love you.” he kisses her softly then, and it feels like the air finally settles between them. “I just want you to know you can talk to me about anything.”
“I know,” she says.
Sydney takes the condom from him, tearing open the wrapper slowly while he watches her. His fingers trail up and down her thigh and she leans forward to kiss him, never getting enough of him.
—
During service, they fight over something—Sydney doesn’t really know what because she’s too angry out of her mind.
Carmy yells and then she yells and then they go back and forth yelling.
“Why are you always on me like this?” Sydney’s voice cracks. Expo forgotten, she steps closer, her eyes locked on him now. “It’s like you’re just waiting for me to screw up, just so you can jump down my throat about it.”
Carmy’s hands go up in exasperation. “I’m not waiting for anything, Sydney! I’m just trying to make sure—”
“Bullshit. You’re not just making sure of anything ,” she cuts him off, her voice sharp. “You never give me space to breathe! You’re always hovering, always micromanaging. It’s like you don’t trust me, like I’m just some dumb sidekick instead of your equal.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but Sydney doesn’t let him. She’s trembling now, all the pressure and exhaustion of her life recently coming to a final peak. “I’m busting my ass every day, just like you, and it’s never enough for you! What more do you want from me, Carmy?”
His face hardens, his frustration meeting hers. “I just want us to be better than this, Sydney.”
And that hurts so much to hear. So much. “ Us ? Better than what? You mean—you want to be better than me? Is that it?”
“I never said that—”
The tension is thick, choking, and just as Carmy steps forward again, Richie comes between them, his arms out like a barrier.
“Hey, hey! What the hell’s going on?” Richie barks, looking between them with wide eyes. “You two are gonna scare off the customers with all this yelling. Back it the fuck up.”
Sydney’s breathing hard, her chest heaving as she stares at Carmy, her vision blurred with tears she refuses to let fall because she is not crying in the middle of service while there are a handful of pimple-faced line cooks looking at her. God, she’s a mess.
Carmy’s face is tight, his jaw clenched, but he doesn’t say anything more.
Richie’s hand lands on her shoulder, gentle but firm. “Go cool off, Syd. Take a minute while I deal with Chef Asshole, yeah?”
She hears Carmy roll his eyes but she doesn’t say a word as she pushes past them. As soon as she’s outside, the tears spill and she leans against the brick wall, her hands covering her face as a sob racks through her chest.
It sucks feeling small, so small.
It sucks so bad.
—
She is only twenty six, still full to be brim with ambitions and dreams she’s been carefully mapping out since she could properly hold a ladle.
Her own place, traveling the world, meeting new people—so many things she wants for herself by thirty.
And she also wants Carmy, in any way he’ll let her have him.
She wants everything with him, wants all the little bits and bobs of their lives to be intertwined forever—but it’s all scattering to the wind and it feels like there are walls closing in on her.
There is never enough time.
—
Sydney’s sinking into the corner of the couch.
Carmy is on the other end, miles away, or maybe just a few inches.
There’s still this gap between them—the chasm of things unspoken. He came here to apologize, and he did—she did, too. They were both between stupid. Things have not yet settled.
Neither of them is particularly good at this.
She wonders if their kid would be.
Sydney huffs and slumps back into the cushions. God, it hurts everywhere. She’s so tired, body tight and nerves strung out.
Carmy shifts a little bit and for a second she thinks he’s going to say something. His lips twitch but nothing comes. The silence presses in again, thich, unbearable.
She can’t do it anymore.
The weight of everything is too much.
Her throat tightens, and then it just happens. The tears. She can't stop them—she’s been crying so much lately. They flood her eyes, spill down her cheeks, and she wails, broken and deep, without warning.
Carmy’s on her in an instant, like he’s been waiting for this.
He slides over, erasing the distance between them, and pulls her into his chest, wrapping her up in his arms, his sweater soft against her face. She clutches him, fingers digging into the fabric, her sobs shaking her whole body. He doesn’t say a word, just holds her tight, like he’s the only thing keeping her from shattering completely.
She cries for what feels like hours, or years.
She cries for the exhaustion, the confusion, the fear that’s been gnawing at her insides for weeks—for the positive test sitting at the very bottom of the bin in her bathroom.
He just lets her.
Finally, when her sobs slow, when her breathing starts to even out, she pulls back just a little. Enough to look at him. His eyes are wide, concerned, that deep, steely blue searching her face like he’s trying to figure out how to fix this for her—how to take all her pain away and dissolve it into nothing.
So, she tells him— “I’m pregnant.”
Carmy doesn’t flinch.
He just stares at her, blinks slowly. His arms are still around her and his grip tightens just slightly, like he’s grounding himself, and her simultaneously.
Sydney can’t meet his eyes now. “I—Carmy, I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispers, her voice trembling. “I’m not ready. I’m still so young, there’s so much I haven’t done. There’s so much I still want to do, and a baby…a baby changes so much. Everything.” Her voice cracks again, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing. I don’t know if it’s right for me. And I feel—God, I feel horrible for even thinking that but I can’t be a fucking mother right now.”
Carmy’s hand moves up, cradling the back of her head, fingers threading through her braids. He presses his lips against her forehead, soft and reassuring, and then pulls back just enough to look at her. His eyes are softer now, the edges of his worry smoothing out. “Hey, hey,” his voice is barely above a whisper, low and warm. “It’s okay. Whatever you want to do, I’m with you. Whatever you decide.”
“I’m so sorry, Carmy. I—I feel like I’m letting you down.”
He cups her face gently, tilting her chin up so she has to look at him. “What? No, Syd—you’re not letting me down,” he says, firm, like he’s trying to repeatedly carve the words into her soul. “Or anyone else, for that matter. Not even yourself. It’s your life—your body, your choice. I’m here. No matter what, I’m here. I don’t have any expectations. The only thing I want from you is you .”
They fit around her like a warm blanket—his words.
Sydney leans into him again, pressing her face into his sweater, inhaling the scent of him—all lavender laundry detergent and his woody cologne. He strokes her braids, slow, rhythmic, as she lets herself cry a little more.
In the end, she feels…not better, but significantly lighter.
Her tears dry up and her breathing evens out.
Carmy hugs her tighter, his arms strong and steady, holding her close. “You’re so incredible, Syd,” he murmurs into her hair. “You’re talented. You’re brilliant. You’re so beautiful. You’ve got so much ahead of you, so much left to experience and accomplish. You’re gonna conquer the world. And whatever you choose, I’m with you. I love you.”
She pulls back just enough to look at him, her eyes red and puffy. She must look so silly. “I love you too, Carm,” she says, her voice barely a breath, like the words are delicate, precious. “So much. And maybe one day,” her hand rests on his shoulders, her voice catching on the unsaid words, “maybe one day, I’d want that. With you.” she trails off, her eyes pleading with him to understand.
Carmy nods, his thumb brushing gently across her cheeks. “Yeah. I get it. Whenever you’re ready. Whenever you want. But not until then.”
She leans in, closing the small space between them, and presses her lips to his, slow and soft. It’s not desperate, not rushed—just a kiss that feels more like a promise of later . He kisses her back, his hand cradling the side of her face, his touch gentle and grounding.
When they pull apart, they sit there in the quiet, still wrapped in each other.
She leans her head against his shoulder, and he rests his cheek on top of her head, their breath syncing up, slow and steady.
One day—maybe with his hair and her nose, a bit of his eyes and a little of her skin.
Maybe one day.
But not now.
—
The sky is barely awake, a soft gray-purple, the streets still sleepy.
Her appointment is at seven-thirty in the morning and she barely got any sleep the night before.
She’s taken the week off from work—Carmy, just the day.
They don’t talk much as he drives her. He’s playing all her favorite songs on AUX, glancing at her every so often to check in.
Sydney stares out the window, her hands in her lap, fingers picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of her sweater. She’s calm, or at least she’s trying to be calm. She doesn’t feel much of anything besides slight anxiety.
Inside the clinic, the waiting feels endless. They fill out the necessary paperwork. Everything is soft—the lights, the voices, the chairs. Carmy’s hand rests on her knee, warm and steady, and when her name is finally called, he brushes a thumb across her knuckles.
The procedure is over faster than she expects. Straightforward, the nurse had said. And it is. She’s out within the hour, a little numb, but still the same.
Back at her apartment, Carmy runs her a bath, the sound of water filling her tub grounding her as Sydney sits on the edge of her bed, staring down at her hands. They feel foreign now, like they belong to someone else entirely.
She can hear Carmy moving and shuffling about in her kitchen, the clatter of pans following every movement. He’s making her favorite—truffle lasagna. He cooked it for her on their third date, the first night they ever slept together, and it’s a dish so decadent and rich it feels like a love letter on a plate.
“Sydney,” he calls softly from the bathroom doorway. “your bath’s ready.”
The water is warm, fragrant with the rosemary bath salts he must’ve found tucked away in her cabinets. She sinks into it, the heat swirling around her, and for a moment—she just breathes.
Carmy sits on the floor next to her, his back against the wall, one hand flicking into the water. Close but not crowding. He watches her with quiet care.
“You okay?” he asks.
Sydney closes her eyes and draws her knees up to her chest. “I think so.” she says after a long pause. “I don’t know. I just feel…empty. Like my body isn’t mine right now.”
Carmy doesn’t respond, but scotts closer so he can rub a palm up and down her wet arm.
She swallows hard, blinking back tears.
When she’s ready, he helps her out, wrapping her up in a towel.
That night, they lie greedily in bed together, her head on his bare chest. His fingers trace slow circles on her back. Sydney is curled into him, her body still tender, still feeling the aftershocks of the day.
Carmy’s telling her stories from high school, little anecdotes she’s never heard before, about his awkward teenage years, the jobs he worked, the friends he barely had. He’s twirling the ends of her braids around his fingers, absentmindedly, soothingly, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
She listens, not really saying much, just letting the sound of his voice fill the space around them. It’s comforting, the way he talks, the way he’s always been able to make her feel safe even when everything else feels like it’s falling apart.
After a while, he gets up to make her some tea, rummaging through her disaster of a hallway closet to find the heating pad she swore was in there somewhere. She can hear him muttering to himself, cursing at the mess, and it makes her smile for the first time that day.
When he comes back, tea in hand and heating pad clutched triumphantly, he crawls back into bed beside her, wrapping her in his steady warmth.
“I love you,” he says, his voice quiet but sure. He kisses her shoulder, bites it playfully, and whispers, “I’d live in you if I could.”
Sydney lets out a soft laugh, the tension in her chest easing just a little.
She leans into him, feeling the weight of the day lift, if only slightly.
“I think I’m okay,” she murmurs after a long silence, her voice tentative but honest. “I think I’ll be okay.”
Carmy holds her tighter, his hand brushing over her cheek. "You’re everything."
Sydney closes her eyes, letting his words settle into her. She feels the warmth of him, the steady rhythm of his breathing, and for the first time in days, she feels like she might be able to believe him.