think of me
For all of her flaws, never let it be said that Dani is messy. In fact, she’s almost too clean. All shoes lined up by the door or in the back of their closet. Shirts folded the exact same way, lined up to save space in each drawer. Socks folded together neatly and sorted by length. Every night before bed, she goes around their living space methodically, straightening up the pillows on the couch, returning empty glasses to the sink to be washed, making sure any and all blankets are folded and put away.
It’s cute, if a little anal. It isn’t that Jamie is a slob or anything, but she’d had a few of her own quirks when she lived on her own. Most of them involved leaving unused tissues in the pockets of all her jackets and pants, or leaving empty cups around on various surfaces. And, yeah, okay, sometimes she let dishes pile up or dumped clean laundry on the nearest flat surface and just pulled from that.
But she’d like to say she’s gotten better in the five years her and Dani have lived together. Her wife is a good influence.
Wife .
She’s still getting used to thinking of Dani as that. Wonders if the novelty will ever wear off. Doesn’t think it possibly could.
There is one thing though—when Dani cleans up, she usually ends up putting Jamie’s things away. Which is good, of course, but Jamie has never considered herself a very good finder, and she’s left to rifle through drawers trying to find whatever it is she’s lost.
Take now for instance. Her bookmark is missing. It’s not a big deal, really, and she knows she could just use a scrap of paper, but once it’s not where she left it, it turns into a bit of a thing. It’s the bookmark she always uses—the braided purple ribbons Dani made for her one day at the shop when things were slow—so it feels strange to not want to find it. As far she knows, she’d left it on the desk in the living room, but it’s not there.
Dani is at the store, picking up a few things for dinner, which means that Jamie is on her own. At least for now.
She starts in the desk drawers, rifling through pens and index cards, miscellaneous holiday cards from Owen and Dani’s family. No luck.
It’s not on the bookshelf either, or in the last book she read. Not in the remote basket under the coffee table or on the kitchen island, so she goes to the bedroom, though she can’t quite fathom why Dani would have taken it in there.
But it’s not on her bedside table or in the drawer, nor is it on the dresser or anywhere else.
“Oh, Dani,” Jamie sighs, still fond even when she’s a little frustrated. She sits down on Dani’s side of the bed, looking around the bedroom and trying to figure out where else she should look. Her fingers play idly with the ring on her left hand, still getting used to the way it feels, when her eyes land on Dani’s bedside table.
One last Hail Mary. She tugs open the drawer and looks inside.
Her bookmark isn’t in there. But there’s something else.
A folded piece of paper at the back of the drawer.
A folded piece of paper with her name written on it.
And maybe she shouldn’t, but Jamie can’t fight the curiosity buzzing in her veins. She pulls the paper out and unfolds it to find a letter, Dani’s small, clean writing covering almost the full side of it.
Jay, reads the first line, if you’re reading this, then it must be over…
On and on. Things Jamie can hardly bring herself to fathom.
Things like: I’m so sorry .
And: Loving you is the single best thing I ever did in my life.
And: I hope, one day, you’ll be able to move on from this. From me. Find someone who —
Jamie feels sick all of a sudden. Nauseated. Spinning. She falls to the side because she can’t hold herself up any longer, head landing softly in Dani’s pillow, one hand still holding the letter.
The pillow smells like Dani. Like her hair. Jamie’s trying to breathe, curled into herself to keep from falling apart entirely. Turns her face into it, taking a deep breath. It’s a light, slightly floral scent. Her shampoo. Something else—something inherently Dani . She curls her fingers into the blankets and wills herself not to cry.
There’s a noise from the living room. The door unlocking, then opening, being pushed open. Jamie closes her eyes and listens to the familiar sounds of Dani coming home. Moving around the kitchen, putting away the things she bought.
It takes everything inside herself to get up, but Jamie manages it somehow. She grips the letter tight and makes her way out of the bedroom slowly, achingly. Through the hall and into the living room.
Dani is in the kitchen, looking wind-flushed and peaceful. The pain in Jamie’s side aches and her heart is thumping hard against her ribs.
“Hey, Jay,” Dani greets and the fact that she smiles just makes it that much worse. “Got that pasta sauce you like for dinner. Actually, got a couple jars. They were three for two, so I—”
It’s around this point that Jamie comes to a standstill next to the couch, close enough that Dani’s eyes finally catch the letter in Jamie’s hand. Almost instantaneously, the slight smile on her lips drains away to something else. Something surprised and exhausted.
“Jamie—” she starts, but Jamie cuts her off.
“What’s this?” she asks, unable to keep the frustration out of the edges of the question.
Dani blinks, caught off guard. “It’s nothing. Just a...just a letter I wrote to—”
She’s flummoxed. Uncertain. Jamie knows the feeling.
“To say goodbye,” Jamie says.
Dani pales. “Jay, I—”
“When you leave me.”
“No, Jamie. It’s...That’s not what it is.”
Jamie sighs, irritation building up in the messy fog of a million other emotions. “You’re really going to stand there and lie to me like that?” she asks.
But instead of looking caught, that fixed expression slips away from Dani’s face and what’s left behind is something that reflects Jamie’s own emotions back at her.
“Fine,” she says. “Yes. That’s what it is. Happy?”
“Happy?” Jamie repeats. “Why the hell would I be happy about that?”
Why would I be anything but devastated at the thought of losing you . She refrains from adding that last part, even though it makes all the difference.
Something dark passes through Dani’s eyes. “That’s not what I meant,” Dani tells her. She holds eye contact for a few more seconds and then grabs a couple boxes of pasta from the paper bag on the counter and spins around, opening a cabinet and shoving them inside. “Look, I was just—”
“Giving up.” Jamie doesn’t look at her as she says it. Instead, she crosses her arms over her stomach and stares down at the floor. Tries not to completely break down.
She hears Dani as she turns around, coming a few steps closer. “I wasn’t trying to—”
Jamie whips her head up. “We have a life here. We made a commitment to one another. And you’re writing letters for when you slip out in the middle of the night. Like none of it matters . Like it’s not even worth trying , Dani. What should we call it then if not giving up?”
This isn’t a side of herself she’s ever met before. Certainly, it existed in some sense, but it’s never had cause to come out—so raw and uninhibited and frightened . Being caught in its heat now makes her feel weak, makes everything she had been lining up in her head start to fade away.
“I’m trying, Jamie,” Dani argues. “I’m trying so hard every day, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re running on borrowed time here. One day, we’re going to run out. What am I supposed to do? Pretend that that’s never going to happen?”
“You’re supposed to think about me!” Jamie yells, and it would sound angrier, perhaps, if she wasn’t on the verge of tears. If her voice didn’t waver. “You’re supposed to think about me and what it would be like for me to wake up one morning to you gone and this—” she shakes the letter for emphasis, “—waiting for me. Just this.”
Dani blinks, taking a tentative step forward. “Jamie, I—”
But: “About me in our home without you. About me not knowing where you went or what happened and living here without you and having to tell everyone—our friends and your family —what happened. How I failed you and I couldn’t—”
To say that Jamie feels sick to her stomach doesn’t begin to cover it. Ragged is more like it. Torn apart. Bereft. Dani is crying now and she looks so small, so young that Jamie doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do.
“I would come after you, Dani,” Jamie whispers, the words slipping out without her meaning them to—some confession beyond her control. “I couldn’t just stay here knowing that you...I couldn’t— Her words break off and lets go of the letter, lets it fall to the floor at her feet.
She feels almost like she’s sinking into the floor. Dani comes towards her, saying, “Hey,” and coming to a stop just in front of her, so close their chests brush together. She pulls one of Jamie’s hands from where it’s clutching her arm and brings it up to rest on her sternum, through the fabric of her undershirt, over her heavy, obstinate heart.
“I would come after you, too,” she whispers and Jamie looks up at her. Dani uses her other hand to cup her wife’s cheek and brush away some of her tears with her thumb. “If it were you, I’d...I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking and I—”
Jamie feels her jaw trembling as she says, “I can’t lose you.” She flattens her palm against Dani’s chest as all that tension, that resistance, falls away.
“I’m here,” Dani whispers. “I’m right here. You won’t lose—”
Jamie doesn’t wait for her to finish before she’s leaning up and in, tugging on Dani’s shirt to bring her into a kiss. There’s a moment where Dani stiffens in surprise, but then she’s kissing Jamie back, placing her hands gently on her waist and leaning into it, deepening it to make it into something more ; one of her hands cups the back of Jamie’s neck, drawing her closer, and the other frames Jamie’s jaw like she’s guiding the kiss. Maybe she is. Jamie certainly doesn’t feel like she’s in any position of control anymore. There’s a flick of Dani’s tongue against her bottom lip and she gasps, arches further into Dani’s body. Dani guides her to walk backwards and then sits down on the couch, pulling Jamie with her. After a little bit of maneuvering, Jamie is beneath her, Dani cradled beneath her thighs.
She presses her knees into either side of Dani’s hips, pushing her wife’s flannel from her shoulders. Dani shimmies a little to try and assist its removal, dotting kisses down Jamie’s pale neck and nipping the hinge of her jaw. Jamie hears herself make a noise and Dani shivers at the sound. She laces her fingers through blonde hair and guides her back up into another kiss, somehow deeper than the last. Dani’s fingers grip onto Jamie’s hips and then slide to the buckle of her belt curiously, achingly, asking for permission because, somehow, they’re not moving fast enough.
Jamie reaches with one of her own hands to fumble her belt open. It’s only a moment and then Dani bats her hands away and finishes, biting at Jamie’s bottom lip as she slides the zipper down. She tugs Jamie’s shirt up a little and brushes her fingers across her skin, making Jamie squirm against her.
“ Jay ,” Dani sighs, sounding distant—sounding like someone else. Lips press hotly against her cheek and forehead and hair, and then there’s a hand slipping into her jeans. Her mind just sort of goes dark , feeling like she might combust at any moment. Dani slips her fingers beneath the damp fabric of Jamie’s panties and groans into their next kiss. “God, Jay.”
It’s a wonder—a marvel, really—that every time Dani touches her like this, every time they do this with one another, it feels like it’s the first time Jamie’s ever touched. Ever been touched.
Her wife , she thinks as fingers dip down to her clit and linger there, the muscles of her abdomen twitching from the strain of holding back.
“Dani– Oh , Dani, please, fuck ,” Jamie babbles, clenching her eyes closed because the sight of Dani above her, her hand between her legs, is almost too much.
Dani shifts a little, shifting her weight until she can pull away and look down at Jamie without crushing her into the couch. Jamie’s head is at an odd angle, resting on the throw pillow against the armrest, but she can’t bring herself to care about anything when Dani presses back down in a hard kiss. Jamie gasps into her mouth, reaching out to grab Dani’s shoulders, pull her closer, hold on, anything —and she’s so distracted that she doesn’t notice when Dani’s fingers start moving again, more firmly. Little circles.
Her vision flashes white , swallowed by the sun, and she lingers in the quiet. She’s still babbling. She can hear herself, some of what she’s saying ( Poppins, yes , don’t stop, oh my god, fuck , Dani ) but she can’t make herself stop.
Dani shifts a little above her and then slides a finger inside, followed by another. She pumps and curls them and Jamie bucks her hips up, breath sharp and hot in her lungs.
She’s trembling like she’s about to shake right out of her skin, sliding her hands down to rest against the dip of Dani’s back and tug her closer. She can feel her muscles tightening around Dani’s fingers in the split second before she comes undone. Her head rolls back against the pillow, back arching into Dani’s body, and Dani is kissing her, holding her closer, kissing her again.
In the aftermath, Dani squeezes her body between the back of the couch and Jamie, sitting up a little higher to pull Jamie’s limp body against her own. Jamie presses her forehead to Dani’s sternum, listening to the sound above her heart. She taps her fingers to the same rhythm as they rest against Dani’s arm, draped over her rest. Dani leans down and pushes her mouth against Jamie’s hair.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Jamie whispers eventually, too afraid to open her eyes—to see Dani’s expression.
But Dani just pulls her closer. “I don’t want to,” she says. “I want to stay.”
And there are reasons to be afraid. Reasons to prepare for the worst. But the thing is, Jamie can’t think of any of them when they’re lying like this together—Dani holding her tight, Jamie lying against her, jeans still undone and skin still buzzing, the aching memory of Dani’s fingers lingering between her legs. The ring on her finger, catching the lamplight—the fading sunlight coming in through the window behind their heads.
“Then stay,” she says.
Dani is quiet for a while, maybe wondering if that’s all it takes. If it really could be that simple. Eventually, she moves a little closer, fingers running idly up and down Jamie’s arm, tucking her face into the side of Jamie’s head. “Always,” she murmurs, the word so different, so steady compared to the ones in that letter—long forgotten.
Jamie nods and closes her eyes. “Always,” she agrees.
..