Page 82 of Windlass

“But I did get back to you.” Lana crossed her arms over her chest, which was not a gesture Angie was familiar with seeing on her frame. It made her look nearly vulnerable.

“Like you even care,” she shot back, her mouth full of sudden acrid guilt.

“That’s a fucked-up thing to say.” Lana’s tone was as harsh as the words, but it wavered. Angie shut her mouth on another snide reply and searched Lana’s face in surprise. Was that, hurt?

“Just go back to whoever else you’re fucking,” Angie said more gently. WhyhadLana gone to the effort of tracking her down not once, but twice?

Lana looked away over the harbor, presenting Angie with her clean profile and her tense jaw. Wind stirred hair Angie had felt sweep over her body, fine and soft—unlike Lana.

“Lana,” she added, hesitantly resting a hand on Lana’s arm and expecting her to jerk away in anger. Lana didn’t. Instead her eyes cut back to Angie, angry, yes, but also bruised.

Her skin did not feel like Stevie’s.

“Fuck off,” said Lana.

“Hey—” Angie started.

Lana reached for her face, eyes on her mouth, ready to try to break Angie’s rule like usual.

“Stop.” Angie pulled away.

Lana stopped. That was always a coin toss. Her hand hovered by Angie’s neck, and Angie took it, enclosing it with her own.

Then she asked Lana something she’d never asked before. “Are you okay?”

Lana grimaced but didn’t answer. She might as well have shouted “No” across the water. She knew Lana wouldn’t talk about whatever was bothering her. That wasn’t what they were to each other. You didn’t tell your punching bag your problems, and Lana was Angie’s bag just as much as she was Lana’s. Angie just hadn’t thought Lana viewed her as anything more than a quick fuck and a pressure release: the valve that allowed her to date other women without hurting them the way she hurt Angie.

Angie wanted to be hurt. Lana’s girlfriends usually didn’t. She had never once considered that Lana might need her in any way beyond that.

“Hey.” Angie ignored Lana’s flinch at the gentleness in her voice. Not waiting to see how Lana would react, she hugged her, feeling that lean, hard body stiffen almost painfully as Lana held herself together before she at last melted around Angie. Lana allowed herself one shuddering breath.

“Angie.”

The way Lana said her name told Angie everything she’d failed to see in the years they’d been using each other. Lana was cold and often disrespectful and sometimes undeniably cruel, but she had shown Angie unwavering loyalty in her own way. She’d been there almost every time Angie had needed her. She’d hurt her during a scene, sometimes badly, but was her brusque aftercare the closest Lana ever came to sweetness? Did Lana actuallycareabout her?

“I—” Angie didn’t know what to say.

“You can’t just fucking ghost people.” Lana regained her composure. “Not after four years. You owe me more than that.”

“I—” Again, she could not find a single word to follow.

“You what? Spit it out, Ange.”

“I—I didn’tknow.”

“Didn’t knowwhat?” The anger in Lana’s voice offset the pain her eyes could not hide. Angie’s gaze couldn’t settle, staring at one of Lana’s eyes, then the other, then her mouth, hands, hair. She couldn’t breathe.

“I thought—” Her lungs were on fire. Lana waited for her to finish her sentence, impatience showing in the whiteness of her knuckles. What did Lana want? What would make this moment end so that she could be alone and far away from here? Haltingly, she managed, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry—Jesus Christ. Whatever, Angela. Go fuck your new toy. Maybeshe’lllike feeling used.” With that, Lana stormed off, leaving Angie hyperventilating by the ocean.

The world was strange, overbright and loud, and at the same time miles and miles away.

A gust of the cool sea air hit her face once more like a welcome slap. She dug her fingernails into the meat of her palms until she could duck into the shadow of a closed boutique’s alley and bite down on her arm until pain sparkled behind her unseeing eyes and the crushing pressure of her skin eased enough for her to breathe without screaming.

Most of the time she was able to keep these things locked in her chest. Nothing from that part of her past deserved to be examined. It was one of the many reasons she had no interest in therapy. Now, though, the lid wouldn’t shut. Whispers streamed out of the crack.

Was she as bad as—

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