They’re mirror shards, shattered and gleaming, trying to press themselves back together into something whole.

The pieces don’t fit together as seamlessly as before–not really. Emilie is gone and the void she left behind is jagged and aching, an open wound that will not heal.

Nathalie doesn’t know how she ends up in Amelie’s arms–doesn’t know who reaches first, whose hands grasp desperately at cloth, at skin, at the trembling edges of something unspeakable. She only knows that they’re here, that the night presses thick around them.

That grief makes them fevered, unsteady.

“She would hate this,’ Amelie whispers, breathless, into the night, her hands pressing into Nathalie’s ribs like she wants to count them, like she wants to carve her way into something that belongs– belonged? –to Emilie.

“I know,” Nathalie says, and yet she pulls her closer anyway.

It’s not about love. It’s not even about want. It’s something deeper, something raw and terrible. It’s in the way Amelie tilts her head back and gasps like she’s drowning, with the way Nathalie’s fingers press hard enough to bruise skin, to puncture, to claw into. It’s in the way they take take take, like if they could just devour enough of each other, then they could feel whole again.

Emilie is a ghost shoehorned between them, lingering in every touch. in every breath. She’s in the way Amelie’s fingers knot in Nathalie’s hair, in the way Nathalie’s lips trace along Amelie’s throat like an apology, a prayer. They’re both reaching for something that doesn’t exist (anymore), hands outstretched to the empty air, trying to mold themselves into the shape of the absence that Emilie left behind.

“She was always selfish,” Amelie says, voice breaking, and it’s a horrible thing because she sounds so much like Emilie in that moment that Nathalie wants to press a hand over her mouth and pretend pretend pretend.

The night swallows them whole, their bodies tangled and twisted; heat and grief and everything unsaid bleeding together until there’s nothing left but ruin, until their names are just echoes of something lost.

Emilie would hate this.

But Emilie’s not here and only the broken pieces remain.

And they’re trying—god, they are trying—to make themselves whole again.

—

Morning comes like an intruder.

Nathalie wakes first, disoriented by the cold. The space beside her is empty, the sheets still warm, still holding the shape of Amelie’s body. But the warmth is fading, and she knows—she knows—Amelie will be gone when she opens her eyes.

She’s right.

The room is quiet, save for the muffled sounds of Paris beyond the window. The curtains shift with the wind. Amelie’s perfume lingers, heady and floral, but already thinning, already slipping away.

Nathalie presses a hand to her temple, to her lips, as if she can hold something of last night in place before it disappears entirely.

She finds Amelie in the kitchen, staring into a cup of coffee she hasn’t touched. Her hands are wrapped around it like an anchor, like if she lets go, she will drift away.

“I should go,” Amelie says without looking up. Her voice is raw, splintered.

Nathalie exhales, a slow, measured thing. “I know.”

And yet neither of them move.

The weight of last night sits heavy between them, stitched into the bruises on Nathalie’s ribs, into the crescent-moon imprints of Amelie’s nails against her wrist. There are no words for it—no way to explain the way they tore each other apart in the name of something already dead.

Emilie is still gone. Nothing has changed.

Amelie’s fingers tighten around the mug. “Did she ever—” she stops, swallows hard. Her grip tightens. “Did she ever talk about me?”

Nathalie doesn’t answer.

Because yes, Emilie talked about Amelie. Both with fondness and frustration, with the sharp edge of sibling rivalry that never quite dulled, even after the years. Emilie talked about Amelie like she was a mirror she didn’t always like to look into.

Amelie exhales, almost a laugh, but it sounds more like a sob. “Forget it,” she mutters, tired, impatient. “I already know the answer.”

She moves like she means to leave, like this moment is already slipping through her fingers, like she never meant for it to last longer than the night, but Nathalie catches her wrist before she can.

Not a plea. Not an apology.

It’s just contact. Just something to hold onto for one second longer.