Chapter Text
Gale is panting slightly as he turns to face Mia. Looking at her - if only to confirm that she’s truly here, even if he knows there’s more behind it than that - she looks paler than she did before. Dark circles under her eyes. Hair piled on top of her head, which gives her the appearance of an incredibly attractive dandelion, or maybe a dahlia. Not the time to wax poetic, Dekarios.
He’s nakedly staring and he knows it, cataloging as many differences from between the parking lot and now to examine later. The look on Mia’s face suggests she’s aware that he can’t school his into something neutral, something less like he’s viewing an impossibility. She’s wearing jeans and an oversized t-shirt, and perhaps not seeing her for so long is amplifying the effect it has on him. Perhaps seeing her in this at any moment before would have rendered him speechless. Who could say? Not him, certainly.
He tries quite hard to fill the air with something productive. Makes a decent attempt to figure out what he should say to her, if he should apologize, when-
“I think you’re, uh, using the bookcase I need but- well, it doesn’t matter.” Mia avoids his eyes, face, even the direction he’s standing in. “Sorry for disturbing you.”
Then she’s gone. Walking away at a speed that suggests pursuit - although of course, there is none.
“What was that about?” Izzy asks, making Gale jump. He’d almost forgotten she was there, honestly. A witness to everything that happened after he pulled his lips away from hers. “Don’t tell me that’s your girlfriend or something.”
“What? No, not- no. Someone that used to be, I suppose you’d call it.”
“I can’t really blame her for running out of here, then. If I bumped into my ex getting to third base with someone new, I’d get the hell out too.”
“Izzy-”
“And why did she want world cooking, of all things? Just Google a recipe, like the rest of us.”
At this, Gale finally takes in where he is properly. The shelf Izzy had been draped over a few minutes ago does indeed hold cookbooks. Glancing over it, he can see Italian food, sushi, and then, there, like the smoking gun he hopes it is - Greek cooking.
She misses you. Even now.
“I guess that encounter killed the mood decisively.” Izzy straightens out her shirt, smooths her hair down. “I’m gonna head out. I hope you call me.” She winks at him, before turning to leave.
Gale nods absentmindedly in response. He barely registers what Izzy is saying, truth be told. His brain is looping, stuck solidly in one train of thought, even as he walks back to his car.
She misses you.
The high of the idea carries him through the evening. It feels like the first deep breath he’s taken in the last six months, to have seen her again. The Mia he’s been resurrecting in his mind throughout that time is a pale imitation of the real thing, worn down and panicked though she may have seemed. Until today, there was one small part of him that held onto the idea that he could see her at some nebulous point in the future and be, somehow, unaffected. Idiot.
Dinner, reading, exchanging a few texts with the group chat - all of it feels as though he’s going through the motions, delaying something inevitable that he knew he would do as soon as he made eye contact with Mia again. Something that feels cheap, ill-advised. But he is going to do it all the same.
He goes back to where he last felt truly content, naturally. Takes himself in hand, and lets his mind drift to being woken up by Mia pressing herself firmly against him. He’s avoided making too many return trips to this particular memory - the pain of it for one, and the fear of wearing it out for another - and as such, it takes a moment to unfurl for him.
The smell of her hair, as he buries his face in her neck. The heat radiating from her back. His hand moves fast enough that he’ll get there soon, especially if he lingers on the way she takes him, the way she clenches around him, how all of it feels familiar but so far removed from what he’s ever experienced. And the noises - Christ, the noises. The way she makes his name sound is effective all by itself, and that’s nowhere near the whole of it.
Gale knows he won’t last if he follows this idea, if he lets himself remember the moans. The variations in pitch, length, provenance. He feels his hips stutter into his palm as he half-heartedly diverts his thoughts back to Mia as she was in the bookstore. Sliding his hands up under her shirt as he holds her against the shelves, tongue helping him leave a trail of open kisses along her neck, hoping she’ll keep quiet but equally hoping she can’t.
And she can’t, because it’s his imagination - he’s calling the shots, unrealistic as they may be. Mia tips her head back against the bookcase, and fucking wails. It’s the last push he needs; jerking into his hand and feeling warmth splatter against his stomach.
Despite what he’s done, only the slightest hint of guilt bleeds in. Not for replaying events, not for inventing new ones, not even really for how fast the idea of Mia enjoying his efforts again made him come, which likely deserves some amount of shame, if he’s honest. No - what eats at him is how willingly he’s back here again. Embracing that which almost broke him as if they’re old friends.
Maybe they are; maybe that’s why it was so easy.
The next few days pass uneventfully. Deliberately so, as he’s very carefully not calling Izzy, and not reaching out to Mia. Avoiding his phone as far as he possibly can, to avoid temptation and the lack thereof.
There’s too much he doesn’t know, and he’s hardly in a position to ask. A solid half a year of trying his damned hardest to avoid this topic, and he’s back at the beginning again. There are a few tells - his runs get longer, he eats less of the outsized spreads his mother puts on for him when he visits - but then there’s the main one, the unavoidable one. The one that’s steadily eroding his sanity and his progress the longer it goes on for.
He can’t sleep.
—
Two nights of poor-to-nonexistent rest is about the limit of what he can tolerate. Coffee is losing its efficacy, Tara is glaring at him for increasingly less severe infractions. Both of these things help make his decision this evening feel legitimate - even if the strip lighting in the diner is doing its very best to make him reconsider. He’s not sure he won partial custody of this place after Mia left him.
Pushing eggs around his plate is not the secret to restful slumber, as it turns out. The first night, he had hoped it would be. Tonight he knows better. Sitting in the booth that’s haunted his dreams gives him no new mastery over his inability to get a good eight hours.
Slave to faithful recreation that he is, sat in the same seat as always, back to the door - well, it gives people a chance to surprise him.
“Are you on some kind of stake-out? Facing the entrance might be more useful.”
Gale chokes inelegantly on his coffee at the sound of her. Excellent start.
“Twice in one week - is nowhere in this town safe from you, Dekarios?” Mia takes a seat opposite him, and if nostalgia has her in the same tight hold as it does him, her face is excellent at hiding it.
“Of all the bookstores in all the world,” he says, once his coughing subsides.
“You picked the one closest to my house. Kind of skews the odds a little.”
Gale opens his mouth to tell her that Izzy chose the location, and promptly closes it again. Pick a more enjoyable hill to die on, I beg you.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. In the bookstore, I mean.”
“Believe it or not, so am I.” Mia reaches over and helps herself to his cup, like it's the most natural thing in the world. “I left town for like, six months to avoid you. I’ve barely unpacked and now you’re everywhere. Not even my weird diner is off-limits.”
“That explains where your car disappeared to,” he says, without thinking. Internal thoughts winding their way out of his mouth and leaving him to handle the aftermath - that at least feels familiar.
Mia looks at him with surprise. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”
“Hard to keep tabs on what isn’t there, but yes, at the beginning. It became too painful to drive past your house and see the driveway empty. I imagined all kinds of possibilities.”
“But never that I’d run away like a coward, huh.”
This used to be easy. And in a way, it remains so - there’s no shortage of things he wants to say, rattling around in his head. Maybe it’s the will that's lacking. Or the spine.
"Why did you leave?"
"It felt like the best way to avoid temptation. Get some perspective."
"What made you come back?"
"Six months felt like enough time being avoidant. Think I was a day or two off, given... everything."
Gale waits for her to elaborate, but she doesn't. What can he add to that, except that he's sorry?
The silence stretches until the waitress comes over to the table. One that recognizes Mia, evidently. "You're joining your husband tonight? He's been coming in by himself the last few times. Looked lonely."
Mia, to her immense credit, simply smiles and nods, before asking for a coffee of her own. Once they're alone again, she returns his cup back into his care.
“What are you doing here so frequently, then? If it’s not a badly planned surveillance effort, I mean.”
“I uh, couldn’t sleep. Not even a slab of Morena Dekarios' famous pastitsio did the trick. Grew tired of staring at the ceiling, and thought the diner’s back wall would make for a good change of scenery.” He smiles, sort of. “And besides, that side of the table was always yours.”
Mia’s face moves in a way that makes him wonder why she sat down. “So you came here to be bored and drink coffee?”
“It seemed like a decent enough plan at the time, but perhaps that in itself should have been a sign.” He sighs, before- “Do your plans deviate wildly from mine?”
“I guess not.” When her eyes meet his, the sadness within them jolts him awake far more efficiently than any amount of sludge-like diner coffee. “You had dinner with your mom?”
“I did. We've been doing it somewhat regularly, since I darkened her doorstep again.”
Mia's neutral expression falters, slips a little. Underneath, he gets a glimpse of something he can't place fast enough. The mask snaps back into place.
"I'm sure she doesn't see it like that. She must have been thrilled to see you," she says, and if he'd never seen the veil, he wouldn't know anything is amiss.
Maybe she thinks that all this change is the result of Izzy, and that's what's wrong. He can fix that. "My therapist suggested it."
"Seems like you've made some real strides." Her smile doesn't find her eyes. "I need to go to the bathroom," she says abruptly.
She all but flings herself out of the booth, such is her rush to get away. Gale's not sure what happened. Tries to puzzle it out, because Christ knows she's gone long enough that he ought to be able to, but he's no clearer.
"I'll bring her coffee out when she's back," the waitress tells him, interrupting his attempt at problem solving. "You shouldn't worry about a rough patch, you two will figure things out."
Unsolicited as the advice is, it's also plain wrong. Mia can't sit through a conversation with him. Cooking food for herself that she tried once with him is hardly a declaration of love. She may miss him, may feel as though his progress only began once she left him, may think any number of things that she's not willing to share and he's not brave enough to dig for.
When Mia returns, it's clear that she's not her normal self. The smile seems more manufactured, the set of her shoulders too high to be casual. Picking up the conversation as if there was no enforced break in it, as if he hasn't sat here wondering for maybe the millionth time what combination of words he needs to say to set them back on the right path. One that ends with the two of them leaving here together.
“I'm happy for you. You look good,” Mia says after a moment, eyes moving over a beard that’s trimmed, clothes that were deliberately chosen - rather than fished from the floor - and ironed, newly developed muscle.
“You look tired,” he responds, immediately kicking himself for it. Stupid thing to say, regardless of how true it is.
When he looks her over properly, hoping that it’s unlikely she’ll run out again, he can see the hollowness of her cheekbones, the way her arms are crossed to put more space between them. The faint redness to her eyes. She looks washed out by the lighting; a ghost of diner trips past.
“You can tell me I look like shit, I can take it.” Her knuckles tighten their grip on her elbows. “I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of rule that says you’ll only run into someone you used to sleep with while you look as awful as possible.”
“You don’t-”
“You’re still a bad liar, Gale.”
That stings. Continues to sting while Mia’s steaming coffee is placed on the table, and while she dumps sugar into it.
“You’re wearing my sweater.” And she is, he noticed it alongside the hollowness but would never have brought it up without the need to regain his footing. “To claim you look bad in it feels like an inadvertent insult to my tastes.” He assumed he’d misplaced it, and he’s right. He left it with her when he went to empty his office, and she left with it when she told him to call a cab.
Mia looks down at herself. “Of course I’m fucking wearing this today,” she mutters. Her cheeks flush, but she does still meet his eyes again. Not for the first time, Gale considers how much braver than him she is. Running away notwithstanding.
“I thought about you quite a bit, before you got here,” he says, offering up his own small piece of bravery in return.
“Maybe it’s like Beetlejuice,” she replies. “You thought about me three times and I appeared.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
Mia raises an eyebrow at him.
“If that’s how things work, you’d have been back in that parking lot before I lost sight of your tail lights.”
Her blush deepens, and Gale has to avert his gaze, certain that the raw need her new coloration inspires will be writ large across his face. When he looks back, she's spinning the ring on her middle finger round and round, a ball of nervous energy.
“Mia,” he starts, after a moment to cool down. Aware of exactly how much of him is being exposed by asking this, he asks anyway. “Do you think we could clear the air, while we’re both here?”
“Clear the air,” she considers. “Will it help you sleep, do you think?”
When Gale nods, she leans back against the booth, takes a deep breath. “Alright.”
His poor cuticles take the brunt of his agitation. Weighing up his words carefully, all previously rehearsed versions of this conversation have left him.
"I should never have hidden it from you. It just- it felt, feels, so shameful that I had everything I wanted and I still reacted to her in that way. I didn't want to risk losing you, and in my head, it made sense to bury it. Even though you deserved the truth, and I deserved your support."
Practice hasn’t made this easier. He's gone over it a lot - in his head, with his therapist, even with Tara on the nights he truly wants to let the shame eat at him - and yet the words come no easier. God knows he's had enough dreams where he's sat here opposite her, saying largely these same words.
"You don't have to do this," Mia says gently. "Only if it's actually helpful. I already forgave you."
Bewildering, the idea that she's forgiven him. He's done very little to deserve it, from where he's sitting. Hearing it is what confirms that he's also forgiven her, likely did months ago but repressed it to preserve his sanity. He should still say the things he's told the walls, let all the ghosts out. Tell her how he feels, even if it means hearing the disparity between her feelings and his own.
He can see it unfold, in that projectionist booth he has behind his eyes. He tells Mia how sorry he is, reaches across the table and offers his hand to her. Tells her that he's never stopped wishing that he sat her down and explained himself when he had the chance. That he loves her.
Mia's voice, ad-libbing wildly compared to the scene he's picturing, breaks through.
"I wasn't completely honest with you, earlier. I did leave to avoid temptation, but also… God, I just couldn't run into you, knowing I didn't listen to what you were telling me. I was so angry that you set me up, so humiliated, and I reacted like you'd cheated on me or something."
Her hand reaches across the table towards him, palm open and inviting, and all he can do is stare at it for a moment. When he doesn't immediately release his coffee cup and take it - because how can he, how could he possibly get the rest of what he wants to say out of his mouth if he does - Mia leaves it where it is. Waiting for him, inviting as she's ever been.
Before he knows it, his hand is in hers, despite all that worrying about it. Truly cannot help himself, it seems. Not when it comes to her. Mia glances down in surprise, as if the offer was made with the expectation of it not being taken up. His thumb starts to trace a path back and forth along the side of her palm.
“I liked the idea that I could help you. That all the shit I went through Allie could be turned into something useful, give the whole thing some kind of meaning. I'm sorry I didn't understand what you were trying to say. And I'm really sorry that I reacted the way you were afraid I would.”
He finds himself leaning on his elbow, far further across the table than he started. It looks like a very earnest attempt to sit on her lap, table be damned, leaning into her as far as he can. The noise of the diner fades out.
"I could never bring myself to hurt you. And my rigid adherence to that idea hurt you more than anything. Convincing myself that it was a sin that had to live with me alone was… beyond foolish."
His hand lets go, just for a moment. He doesn't want her to know that it's shaking a little, and he doesn't want to find out if she'd let go of him, once his confession is hanging in the air.
"I actually, well- I need to tell you that-" and here is the moment, he thinks. Saying what needed to be said, and now he can move on to what he wants to say.
Her other hand has left her cup, and he realizes far too late that she meant to hold his with both of hers, meant to comfort him, wanted to help him feel comfortable in the only way she could think of. And he let go.
Mia's hands meet, clasping together, somehow looking intentional despite what he observed and suspects. No room for him now.
"I think you should see that woman again," Mia says, overlapping his attempt at a confession.
It takes a second or two to parse what she's said. Her eyes are so big and tired as she watches for his reaction, and it strikes him that this is instead the part of the conversation where Mia says what she needs to. Inadvertently saving him from his incredibly stupid romantic notions.
This must be what driving into the ditch all those years ago would have felt like; a steering wheel to the sternum has to be comparable to how winded he feels at this moment. His instinct is to argue with her, to try and decipher how she came to that conclusion, but the words won't cooperate with him.
"You do?" And he does manage to translate some of the incredulity he feels into his tone, but not nearly enough. Volume lacking. "Why is that, exactly?"
For the first time in six months, he feels like he needs to throw up.
"You seemed to be having a good time, and that's kind of what you need, honestly. Lower stakes, more fun. See who you are without Mystra hanging over you."
Of course. This is the missing part that wouldn't reveal itself earlier - Mia doesn't want to renew anything. The facts drop into his lap like they're weighted, one after another. She ran. She hasn't brought up the phone call. She's actively encouraging him to pursue someone else.
As enlightened as he tells himself he is, he knows damn well that if the roles were reversed, he could never suggest Mia move on with someone else. That's not even a shameful thought, just common sense, surely. He wants to shake her by the shoulders and ask if she truly can't tell where he longs to be, to determine if she's being wilfully ignorant or blind or if it can be that his intentions are too well-guarded.
Is this why she really came back? She's already admitted she wasn't completely honest with him before. Maybe the whole truth is simply more pain than she's willing to serve him openly, so she's hidden it for him, like a child being tricked into eating their vegetables. Has she already found someone else, and wants to make sure he’s in a fine enough place that she could continue it without guilt?
Mia again breaks him out of his reverie. No words this time, just throwing down some cash as she stands up. On autopilot, Gale follows. Gets to the front door before realizing that they aren't leaving together. Far too awkward now to do anything except carry on following her.
“I’m glad we got it all out in the open.” The grains of sand passing through the hourglass feel palpable, tangible, and for the life of him he can’t figure out how to flip the damn thing back over. He doesn’t want to leave. Not now, in another parking lot. “Is it too much to suggest that we could be friends, after all this?”
“Were we ever really friends, Gale?”
“Well, no, but that doesn’t rule it out, does it?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Her face softens when she sees the expression that must be on his. “I’m not saying you can’t ever reach out. If you really needed help, like if you were in trouble, I would try my best for you. But I don’t think we could be the kind of friends that hike every weekend, or get a beer together.”
It’s like trying to close his hands around smoke, doing this with her.
“I thought that we were in something of a better place, after talking things through.”
“Spoken like a man who hasn’t realized the night could have ended with me insisting he leave me alone permanently.”
“I imagine that’s true.”
“For what it’s worth, I really do think it’s a smart idea to keep pursuing things with your date. I think it could be good for you.”
“Careful, Mia. That sounds dangerously like friendly advice.”
“I know, I know. Take it or leave it,”
“Are you saying that you-”
“I’m not saying anything beyond that it would be good for you. Don’t tie yourself in knots trying to find a hidden meaning or you’ll never sleep again.”
Maybe he's right, and she really is unaffected. He’s not seen a version of her that’s uninterested in him, and this could be what that looks like. A friend that isn’t really a friend, the lover he longs for encouraging him to take up a new one.
A lull in the conversation now. Mia’s knuckle is in her mouth, reminding him handily that he never did tell her how attractive he finds that, and it never has been quite the time to mention it.
“I should go, but, uh, remember what I said. About how you can reach out in an emergency, and how you should follow up with the woman from the bookstore.” That occasional rush of words that she does, the one that he’ll never get an explanation to now, that only seems to appear when she thinks she’s said something that could get her in trouble.
“I’ll take it under advisement, I promise.”
Mia takes a step towards him, and his brain stutters. She wraps her arms around him, and it takes far too long for the realization that this is a hug - of goodbye, at that - to hit him, and that he should probably reciprocate. Hands on her waist, remembering how good that felt, how natural, like his hands were made for it, crafted to exact specifications for holding her and pleasing her, and now he would have to find some kind of alternative consolation task for them. His chin rests on her head. She doesn’t smell of peaches tonight; a hint of oranges and some kind of floral he isn’t familiar with envelop her instead.
His heart has no poker face, thumps so hard she must hear it.
The hug continues. For so long, actually, that Gale wonders if she’s memorizing the feel of him against her, like he is her. Eventually, the limbs disentangle - Mia seems to remember that this isn’t a routine activity anymore - and she steps back.
“I’ll see you around, Gale. Look after yourself, please.” She smiles tightly, and it doesn’t reach her eyes. None of them have tonight, except the one she gave after saying she’d already forgiven him.
She’s already halfway across the parking lot when he thinks to ask her what he’s been wondering all night. To settle things, one way or the other. “Mia,” he calls after her.
“Yeah?” She doesn’t turn around, but she doesn’t walk any further away from him either. A kindness, if she knows what he’s gearing up to ask. He could do without seeing her reaction to it, if it’s an unwelcome question for her.
“Do you ever think about me?”
A pause, before she answers him. “Same answer as last time, Gale.”
—
Gale’s therapist told him not to go looking for problems, and so he’s trying his best not to - even though Izzy doesn’t believe in coasters, and laughs when he tells her that he’s never lived with a partner before.
The problems seem to seek him out nonetheless. For one thing, Izzy doesn’t fit properly. All attempts at holding her at night have failed. Even the ones he makes in his sleep are exercises in frustration; more often than not, he wakes up to find his arm trapped and his patience fraying. Too tall to tuck under his chin, runs too hot to pull close. At first, he resists the urge to compare, to mourn the way that Mia felt molded to fit against him. A certain air of making do with what you have attempts to dig its heels in, and it feels decidedly in contradiction of what Mia meant by ‘seeing where things go’.
Comparison continues to creep in, regardless of his wishes. Tara seems averse to spending any amount of time around Izzy - something he tries to attribute to too much change in a short period of time. Izzy, for her part, is unbothered. Says she’s not a huge cat person anyway, and that Tara might warm to her eventually. In the spirit of not looking for problems, he doesn’t point out that Tara is in fact, legendarily stubborn, and has never been known to reverse her opinion. But he does privately wonder if Mia would be avoided in the same fashion.
He tells Tara that he thinks she’d feel differently about Mia, if it had ever come to it. That she would have liked her. Some kind of strange coping mechanism, he’s sure of it. The woman that outright said she doesn’t want him, well, of course Tara would be a fan. This is a perverse kind of torture to be indulging in. He needs to move on.
A week or so in, he has her stay over again. After dinner and wine and watching a movie he remembers the whole plot of, Izzy gently backs him in the kitchen counter and starts to explore his mouth with her own. They’ve done this kind of thing before - the bookstore, obviously, but they’ve branched out into things with less exhibitionism - and while Gale very much likes the no pressure, mechanical task she puts before him, he can’t help but wonder if perhaps he should be enjoying it more. Seeking it out of his own accord, missing it when it ends.
Izzy kisses like it’s something you can win at, and she frequently does. They talk easily enough, in between rounds, and his ego certainly enjoys the constant reminder that he is still desirable, but this, tonight, feels like it’s in service of something.
Her hands move with confidence, and his shirt buttons slide open with corresponding ease. Waiting there, letting it happen to him, he wonders when he’ll start doing this properly. When he’ll want to. Wonders so long that they’re in his bedroom now, and he knows he walked here with her but doesn’t remember it. Just forever following along.
Izzy breaks apart from him just long enough to suggest they get ready for bed. Once they’re comfortably arranged - a miracle, considering whatever change falls over them when it’s time to sleep - the kissing picks up again. The kind of kiss that feels like the opening act. When her hands reach his hips, fingertips grazing under the waistband of his boxers, an internal brake gets thrown. Life stirs, biological responses continue as expected; some things are beyond his control. No urge to fuck her through the mattress though, or to let her cartography attempt continue.
“I’m not-” he starts, and realizes he doesn’t know how to end the sentence. Comfortable? Aroused? His hands are on her shoulders before he knows what he’s doing, prepared to manually intervene if necessary.
Izzy’s hand stops moving immediately. She looks mortified, and the urge to go along with what she wants is as natural as breathing. That's just what he does. He holds his breath instead.
“That’s okay! That’s- it’s, it’s fine, shit, I should have asked.”
What an interesting turn of events that is. One that he looks for cracks in, once Izzy is soothed and asleep, only there don’t appear to be any. That he said no, and she backed off immediately - it should not be as revelatory or as soothing as it is, but he drifts off feeling fairly content all the same. Even his trapped arm can’t keep him awake.
The contentment carries over, which is something else that surprises him. When it comes to meeting Izzy’s friends - a few at a time, she’s very careful to not overwhelm him; lingering guilt from pushing too hard before, maybe - the feeling insulates him against his anxiety. He’s met Mystra’s friends, such as they are, but they largely all worked in the same building as he did. And of course, didn’t know what she was to him. This is new.
They’re at a dinner party with two other couples, and the high ceilings and loft windows could conspire to make him feel small, or isolated, but it hasn’t happened yet. A wine glass is pressed into his hand, and the conversation draws him in. Has he been a boyfriend before? It’s how he gets introduced, but the title sits oddly. Nobody else seems to notice his unease.
Izzy’s friends make him wonder, though. About a lot of things, but most pressingly - is this how things are supposed to be? Uncomplicated, as if warmth is a default setting? Every so often he catches Izzy’s eye as she looks over at him, and she looks happy, and she’s glowing, but not the molten, coppery way that Mia did - more of a stark white, and he can never look for too long.
There’s something to be said for complete acceptance in the form of switching to whiskey after dinner without fanfare, in the form of being gently nudged out of the kitchen after offering to help clean up. It’s like he’s been here the whole time, one of the group for as long as anyone can remember. If nobody else is going to act like he’s an obvious interloper, neither will he.
The drive back to his place is filled with Izzy telling him what a great impression he made, how much her friends like him. He’s so grateful to her in this moment, for giving him something normal and telling him what a good job he’s done with it. Absurdly grateful. She has such clear fondness in her voice, and it makes him long to match her excitement - or better yet, let someone more suited to the task do it in his stead.
When they make it to his room, he does the one thing he knows he’s best at, to thank her. It’s not everything she’d like from him, he knows, but it’s what he feels comfortable parting with, and she doesn’t push for more. Hearing Izzy come apart for him is a double edged blade. He is good at this, and the confirmation is a heady thing. But she doesn’t sound like Mia, and he’s already so very tired of noticing.
When his mother calls the next day, he’s cooking breakfast, and so the call moves to loudspeaker. Izzy wanders in, half-asleep, and her saying ‘good morning’ is enough to have his mother asking questions. Unfortunately for him, the one she chooses to ask is whether or not that voice belongs to Mia, in a tone that suggests she’d quite like it to.
Izzy goes for a run, forgoing breakfast. It doesn’t sit well with him, to know that she’s hurting, and he assumes that when his feelings grow, he’ll spend a lot of time making it up to her. Extirpate all the times his carelessness collided with her. His mother suggests, in a voice so gentle it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, that Gale might be better off processing his feelings whilst single. He can’t tell her that he’s following the advice of a friend that he can never speak to, so instead, he says he’ll make an extra appointment with his therapist.
Which is why he’s here, on a Saturday, feeling faintly ridiculous. Unburdening himself again, conversation going right back where it always does, again. God, it’s relentless.
“Why do you think Mia suggested that you continue things with Izzy?”
Because she wants to make sure I have someone keeping me occupied, now that she’s lost the desire to fill the role. She wants me to forget. She wants to stop feeling guilty for having moved on.
Any number of reasons that he won’t get a conclusive answer to, so he can spend far too much time trying to untangle it.
“Haven’t we been over this?” They have, at considerable length. Asking him again means he hasn’t fully absorbed what she’s trying to have him focus on. “Are you implying I’ve missed something?”
“You’ve spent quite a lot of time insisting that it meant something significant. Let me put it another way - how many relationships have you had?”
“Two. You know that.” His therapist is immune to the glare he gives her, somehow.
“And why did your last one end?”
He feels like he’s being herded somewhere distinct. “You know that, too.”
“Humor me.”
“Have I not been doing that?”
“Forgive me, but people normally book emergency appointments with their therapist because they want to actually talk to them.” His therapist watches him run his hand through his hair at this. She probably has it noted in his file that this is what he does when he’s trying to calm down, he thinks bitterly.
He sighs. “She left me because I lied to her.”
“And what if the idea is that you get some further experience in the field? What if this is an act of care, not a slight?” There’s a certain tone she uses, when she’s trying to point out he’s being particularly stupid, or obstinate. She’s using it now.
“What if it is? Does it change that I can’t experience intimacy without thinking about her? That I don’t even want to stop thinking about her when I do it, because if I do if she’s gone?”
“Have you made it as far as sleeping with Izzy?” Her tone is careful now. Pointed. He must be getting close to what she wants him to realize.
“No. I can’t. Not if I’m going to think about someone else.”
“You feel as if that would be dishonest?”
“It certainly doesn’t feel fair on her,” Gale says, working hard to keep his frustration out of his tone. He came here for an answer, not an exercise in moderating his blood pressure.
“What makes it different from sleeping with Mystra and thinking about Mia while you do it?”
The mention of Mystra is jarring. An effective conversational jump scare. “Well- Izzy is a good person, for one.”
“Do you think it’s possible that Mia thought getting to experience a relationship without legacy, pressure, escapism, might be good for you? A necessary horizon broadening?”
“Can we not talk about something easier? My fatherless childhood, perhaps?” He fidgets in his seat, wrestling with the urge to cut this session short.
An eyebrow is arched in his direction. “Are you absolutely certain you’ve not traded one unhappiness for another?”
“One is far more tolerable than the other.”
“And you’re committed to this path, because Mia put you on it? You’ve already mentioned hurting Izzy; do you honestly believe that one day you’ll wake up and feel for her the way she wants you to?”
“I might. If the pressure lessens. If I can figure out how to do that.”
No more sleeping next to each other, is the best answer he can think of. Blames needing to prepare for an upcoming trip, even though it’s still over a month away, and she doesn’t push - she never does - but her reaction indicates that this isn’t something she’s thrilled by. His private compromise is to go down on Izzy as often as he can. He’s trying to buy time until he feels comfortable going further, holding her at arm’s length by kneeling. It’s been about a month, at this point, and the holding pattern remains functional. It’s meditative, at this point. A task you don’t need to concentrate on.
When he finishes up, Izzy looks down at him from where she’s propped herself up on her elbows. “You can do that, and she let you go?”
Gale stills. Tries to make it look intentional, but Izzy knows better. When he sits back on his heels, makes eye contact, she raises her eyebrows at him. “What aren’t you telling me about Mia?”
Almost all of it, is the answer. Most pertinently: if he had the choice he’d be with her, but he doesn’t, so he’s here instead. There’s nothing wrong with Izzy, and he does like her well enough, but it’s never going to be what he wakes up wanting. No reason to be cruel, however.
“Nothing concerning. It’s just a painful topic.” He watches her chew on his answer. Something flits over her face; it looks as if it tastes terrible. Gale has the distinct impression that she doesn’t believe him - a feeling that only strengthens when she begins getting dressed as quickly as possible.
“Are you sure you’re over her?” Izzy asks, quite reasonably.
“Yes. Of course I am,” because he has to be. He almost wants to be. It’s got to be easier than whatever he’s doing now.
“I’m wiped. I should go, sleep well.” A fleeting kiss, and she’s gone. But he knows it isn’t finished yet.
—
He has a plan. It’s a pretty good one too, as far as his plans normally go. Good enough that his therapist didn’t listen to it with her hands folded in her lap, which has to count for something. It’s simple: stop thinking about Mia. Redirect his thoughts. Lean into the relationship he’s agreed to participate in. Not even having it gently pointed out that he’s describing cognitive behavioral therapy takes the wind out his sails.
Helping Izzy train for her marathon helps keep him busy, even if he does lag behind and use the time to imagine what would have to change for him to feel like he was doing a good enough job. Some changes have immediate effects - kissing Izzy more, that one is instantly popular. Continuing to compromise in the way he’s chosen to also proves to be effective.
Then, of course. Mile 12 and his knees feel like they’re pudding held up by slightly more substantial pudding, his chest burns, and as he’s bent double trying to make his breathing slow, the idea hits him. A date. Something he never actually did get practice with, but he could do it. Food, activity, parting ways at the end. How hard can it be? Izzy’s planned several already - wandering round libraries and museums, eating ceviche and mango salad.
Which is why, one bright and sunny Saturday afternoon, they’re stood outside one of the nicest restaurants in the immediate area. Izzy is wearing a sundress, tanned arms out and looking quite lovely. She smells like fresh laundry and warm vanilla, and he finds that he wouldn’t mind being a little closer. The plan is working.
“This restaurant is renowned for their tiramisu,” Gale says, expectantly.
“Oh! How did you know I like that?”
“I thought-” And he has to think about it, because he’s not sure how he knew once she asks. They were in bed talking, him idly playing with her hair as she listed desserts he could make her, if he was so inclined. She had tilted her head back, kissed him deeply, and said that tiramisu was the best thing he could do for her, short of getting back underneath her-
Well. That explains that. Not Izzy. “Lucky guess, I suppose.”
Just for a moment, he basks in the memory. Remembers deciding he’d make as many as it took to get it perfected. Then he’s confirming his reservation and being guided over to their table, and it’s back to not living in the past.
Their late lunch stretches out, the two of them sat at the same side of the table, eating their way through all of the breadsticks and pasta that gets put before them. Izzy tucks her head on his shoulder at one point, and he privately congratulates himself for training his body out of freezing up like it used to.
Tiramisu arrives, even though Gale is fairly full and feeling guilty. Izzy really does like it, which is reassuring, but he knows that Mia would have loved it. That’s a thought he’s not allowed to have now, so he suffocates it by whispering to Izzy about how slowly he’ll take her apart when they’re next alone - exactly the kind of thing he would love to say to the person he can’t think about, how’s that for some unwelcome irony. Izzy’s legs shift under the table, thighs pressing together in their search for friction.
“Where to next?” Izzy asks, anticipation on her face. He knows what she’d like the answer to be.
Gale taps the side of his nose in what he imagines is an infuriatingly furtive gesture. It strikes him then that if their meal was based on Mia’s preferences, the second part of the date was at best an homage to her tastes, and at worst, planned solely with her in mind.
The room is light and airy, with bench tables set up with paints, aprons, brushes. Izzy does something of a double take; whatever activity she was expecting, it was not this one.
“Is this an art class?”
“It is,” he responds, hesitantly. “Something with relatively low-stakes, though.”
Izzy nods, taking her seat next to him. A certain amount of frostiness ripples from her, and he feels like he’s misstepped. “Is this not something you enjoy?”
“I’m bad at it,” Izzy says, like it’s a source of shame. “So I avoid it.”
The class starts, and it’s as casual as he hoped for - nobody is taking it particularly seriously, just daubing canvas as they see fit while they sip their wine. Izzy’s shoulders drop, and she starts to relax, as far as he can see. She uses warm colors and looks reasonably happy doing it, and it eases his heart a little that he can enjoy this, she can enjoy this, that he might have done the right thing.
Izzy leans into him, voice finding his ear. “This is fun, for a soft skill,” she whispers, conspiratorially.
“Soft skill?”
“Well, yeah, it’s not exactly your old day job is it? Or my current one.”
Izzy works in software, and it’s a world he’s listened to at length. “Was this a bad idea, then?”
“No! No, it’s just- not what I expected? I thought it would be a jazz bar, or some kind of cooking class. More you.”
“Something to consider for next time.”
The silence is loud, even with the sound of other participants talking and laughing overlaying it.
As class wraps up, Izzy finds her voice again. “We could swap, have each other’s paintings? And that isn’t a ploy to get the good one.”
The idea that he could have art that Izzy made hanging on his wall but nothing from-
He hands his painting over with what he hopes is an easy smile. “Keep them both. Have the full set.”
As he’s letting them into his apartment, Izzy puts her hand on his arm. “It’s not completely what I’d have picked, but I did have fun with you today.”
“I’m glad.” He means it. “I had fun with you, too.”
They’re in his hallway, and Izzy’s eyes are wide and hopeful, fingers light on his belt.
“Do you have something in mind?” is what he asks, knowing the answer, afraid of it but needing to atone after an evening dedicated to the wrong woman.
“Come with me,” she instructs, leading him into his bedroom.
Izzy sits on the bed in front of him, waiting for him to consent. More than likely waiting for him to say no, actually, based on their history. When he nods, her look of surprise is almost immediately overridden with one of excitement. His belt is undone, everything is pulled down to his knees, and she leans forward, opens her mouth, and begins her task.
Every slide of her mouth along him feels… off, as if he’s watching it happen to someone else. He makes the right noises. He puts his hands in her hair to keep her in place, and it feels fine enough. Izzy enjoys herself, and that’s largely what this course of action is about, but around ten minutes in, he realizes he won’t be able to come. How does one communicate that?
“Izzy,” he starts. “Iz, can you stop for a moment?”
She pulls away, hands staying on his hips as she looks up at him. There’s concern weighing on her features. They stare at each other for a moment, before he realizes she’s waiting for him to elaborate.
“This is great - more than great, great is insufficient, I think, but uh, I’m not going to be able to…” He gestures between them, hoping his meaning is clear.
“Oh. Oh, okay. That’s- well, it’s okay. We could try something else? I could, I don’t know, move my hand more?”
“It isn’t likely to change anything. I’m sorry.”
The night feels frosty from there, and it takes him far too long to fall asleep. When he does - to an empty bed, Izzy had abided by the no sleepover rules with no hesitation; likely wanted to be away from him, not that he blames her - he feels hollow. Recalls the last session he had, after announcing his plan.
“I never wanted you to be miserable, Gale. That seems antithetical to our goals here. I just wanted you to give things a fair shake.”
It may, at last, be time to start listening.
—
“We should go away for the weekend,” Izzy says, as Gale loads the dishwasher. He nearly drops the plate he’s holding in surprise.
“We should?”
“It would be nice, wouldn’t it? Somewhere with some good trails, privacy…” Izzy’s arms wrap round him from behind, turning him to face her.
“I need to think about it,” he says, far too quickly. He has no desire to hurt her feelings, it’s not her fault she’s not Mia, it’s not anyone’s fault that he’s not past that.
Her face falls. “It just seems like a fun thing to do, but there’s no pressure. There’s never any pressure,” and Gale can tell that she thinks her mistake has been to imply that they’d finally have sex on this hypothetical weekend getaway.
“I’ve only really been on one kind of weekend trip, and I don’t think I’m ready-”
“I know,” Izzy sighs. “I remember what you said.”
She’s referring to the light-touch history Gale had given her when they’d made it to the topic of previous partners. Izzy’s past was thankfully as blemish free as one could hope for, which had in turn led him to minimize his own, not wanting to be the broken one in the eyes of yet another person in his life.
He tugs her into the bedroom, knowing he can’t give her everything she wants, not even close. It’s not conflict resolution, and it’s not for hearing her pleasure, but a new, third thing.
He never thinks about her when he’s doing this, he realizes. Gives it his all every time, wants her to enjoy herself, but his mind wanders in a way it never did with Mia, who is someone he shouldn’t consider at all in these moments, and yet.
Leg over his shoulder, Izzy’s fingertips graze his cheeks. There’s nothing wrong with her but there must be something wrong with him; why else can he not give back to someone so willing to let him in? Running his tongue along her, thinking about all the ways he’s not being fair to either of them, letting the taste fill his mouth. Just verbs and longing.
When Izzy comes hard, so hard his ears ring a little in the aftermath, he declines her offer of a favor returned. The feeling of a job well done washes over him, as if he’s completed a project that’s been weighing on him. This must be how it feels, to finish a work of art. He should ask Mia-
“I’m going to shower, if you want to come?” Izzy’s voice knocks him out of a truly idiot line of thinking.
A compromise, he thinks. After the shower he’ll have to tell her he has no desire to take a trip with her, and have whatever conversation comes after that, so why not give her this?
When he’s in there, this accommodation quickly seems foolish. This is such an unwelcome reminder of what he has to do, what he should have already done. He’s only been in this situation once. The desire to repeat the full experience is firmly absent, and not for the first time he thinks things would be far easier if he could still fake it. If he was still of the mindset that his own feelings were ignorable. He knows too much now.
He starts washing his hair, to Izzy’s obvious surprise. No attempt to reach out and touch, and she makes none in return, but the wish that he would radiates from her. In the morning, he has to tell her. Explain that he can’t be what she’d like him to be. That she’s been patient and understanding, but this relationship can’t continue.
Quartering Mia off in a corner of his heart he tries not to visit hasn’t worked. No matter what kind of lock he puts on the box, she spills out, unbidden but never unwelcome - which is exactly the problem. Making room for Izzy in his life felt achievable until he was here, reading his lines.
Then she presses herself against the tile, back to him, expectant and hopeful and destined to not get what she wants. A small taste of cruelty to avoid the full dose. Gale, with the lurid and heartbreaking past overlaying his present shower, does the only thing he can think of: he starts washing Izzy’s back. Slowly enough to be considered an intimate experience, yes, but as his hands work her shoulders he can feel the tension in them. This isn’t what she wants.
And she’s so patient with him. Has been for months. Maybe if he’d met Izzy first, in a world without his past weighing on him, he could be what she needs. He needs to let her go, let her find the person he’s keeping her from. Have the difficult conversation.
Those thoughts loop from rinse off to towel dry. The resolve is there. The intent. But then he looks up, and sees that Izzy has put on his sleep shirt.
He chose it because it reminds him of Mia; it’s the shirt he’d idly designated as ‘hers’ back when it still seemed like she might have occasion to wear it. Now he sleeps in it, some kind of tribute to a path that he lost access to, and to see it on Izzy, unaware as she is of its significance, well. Something integral cracks within him.
It must be apparent on his face, readable as he remains, because Izzy’s smile falters. “Do you not want me to wear this?”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” he responds, voice almost perfectly neutral.
“Can I ask why?” Izzy asks, and when Gale says nothing, she asks something irreversible. “Was this hers?”
He says no, which isn’t a lie, but it isn’t entirely the truth, because of course, he intended it to be. Something of that must be evident.
“You’re not really over her, are you?”
When Gale just gapes at her, she continues. “Sometimes you’re not here, did you know that? I’ll look over and you’re lost somewhere. You get distracted when we’re talking, like you’re remembering something. Earlier, when you were going down on me, you just drifted away.”
He can believe it. How many times has his mind switched tracks to Mia - when he sees something that reminds him of her, when he thinks of something he wants to tell her, which is nearly everything - when they’ve been together?
“This has been fun and all, but I deserve someone that isn’t in love with someone else, don’t you think?”
His instinct is to deny it, to try and spare her feelings and eat his own, to hell with the effect it has on him. But hasn’t all of the therapy, all of the difficult growing and changing and figuring out who he really is led somewhere healthier than that?
“You’re absolutely right, and I apologize. I can’t be who you want me to be, and that’s no fault of yours.”
Izzy seems taken aback. “I thought it would take longer to get that out of you.”
“It does both of us a disservice to fight the truth, I think,” Gale sighs. “I’ve been desperately unfair to you, these last few months. I thought I was moving on, to take you up on coffee and then seeing where things went. Instead, I’ve been stuck right where I was, emotionally. It truly is no reflection on you.”
“This feels far too grown up for the topic. Aren’t we supposed to yell at each other, hurl insults?”
“It’s not quite what I’m used to either.”
They look at each other for a stretched out minute, as if waiting for the reverse course into anger. The whole scene instead remains obstinately unfortunate. Tara’s insistence on dinner, despite the upheaval, breaks the spell. Izzy turns towards the bathroom, gathering up her clothes.
By the time Gale is done feeding the hungry creature, Izzy has reappeared. Fully dressed, overnight bag swollen with everything she’s ever left behind at the apartment, if he had to guess. Things ending with a whimper and not immolation is novel; he’s not completely sure what needs to happen next.
They’re on the doorstep when Izzy speaks next. “I think you’re a good person, for what it’s worth. And I really have had fun with you.” She touches his arm lightly before speaking again. “Just, do me a favor? Please don’t date anyone else until you’ve figured your shit out.”
“I think that’s for the best.”
After the door is closed, there’s no urge to unwind with a drink, no strong feeling of oblivion being required. Instead, only clarity. Gale finally knows what he needs to do, and does it immediately. Phone in hand, he makes a call.
Not even getting voicemail takes the wind out of his sails. “Mia, I need to talk to you as soon as possible.”