😌💖✨😊

The bed was empty next to her. She ran her hand over the vacant spot. Still warm, just about. The room was dark, that ink black that meant it was late enough to be technically AM hours.

She slipped out of bed. The bedroom door was ajar. Yolanda recognised the meaning behind it; pulled as close to shut as Trinity could get without risking the noise it would have made if she had let it click closed.

A weight settled in her stomach, heavy and unpleasant. She opened the door.

She found Trinity at the dining table. She sat with both knees drawn up to her chest, bare feet curled against the chair seat. One of Yolanda's old hoodies covered her frame, spine curled inwards under the fabric. She didn't look up as Yolanda entered. Her gaze was fixed on the cinnamon bun on the table.

Yolanda pulled a chair up and settled next to her, but didn't reach out. Two years together had given her an encyclopedia of knowledge about Trinity. Like the way she took her coffee. The way she lit up whenever she held a scalpel. The way she sang quietly when she thought no one could hear her.

The way she flinched at soft touches when she was hurting.

The cinnamon bun sat on a small plate. They'd bought it yesterday. They both knew what today's date was.

Trinity had told her last year about Allie. She'd cried and Yolanda had listened, and over time Trinity had allowed herself to say her best friend's name again. Not often, but enough that her voice didn't always waver over the syllables anymore. Could get through a story and smile at the end, telling Yolanda how Allie had a sweet tooth, how she brought cinnamon buns to every practice and laughed whenever the icing smeared on Trinity's nose.

They sat together in silence. The tears hadn't fallen yet, sitting in Trinity's eyes like a pool. The moonlight breaking through the curtains caught on them, glinting.

Yolanda wasn't going to move. She would stay here until sunrise, past her morning alarm and into the next night if she needed to.

Trinity tried to speak, and her voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again. "I realised... This year marks the point that I've lived for more years without her than I had with her."

Yolanda ached. She wanted to wrap her in her arms, hold her tight enough to take some of the pain from her. She wanted to speak, tell her it would all be okay. But that's not what Trinity needed, not yet.

"I keep thinking it will get easier. That's what everyone says right? 'Time doesn't fix it but it does make it easier to carry'." She laughed and there wasn't an ounce of humor in it. "People are fucking liars."

And finally the tears began to fall, noiselessly tracking down her cheeks. Not a sob or a wail, but a deep and unrelenting stream of grief. No longer held back, just arriving like it had never left.

"Hold me. Please, Yola."

Now. When she'd asked, when she was ready. Yolanda's arms slid around Trinity's shoulders, pulling her tight into her chest. She ran her hand along Trinity's spine, a firm pressure through the soft fabric of her stolen sweatshirt. The other hand cradled Trinity's head, tucked into her neck.

Trinity trembled in her arms. She clutched onto Yolanda, gripping the back of her shirt, knuckles pressed hard enough to bruise. Yolanda did not care about bruises.

"I've got you. I've got you, mi amor."

Yolanda could feel the front of her shirt getting wet, tears soaking through the fabric. She continued murmuring into her hair, soft and gentle and sure, both of them clutching hard onto the other.

Yolanda had once been terrified of her feelings for Trinity. Old trauma and fears had almost kept her from the greatest thing that had ever happened to her. When she realised that she loved her it hadn't been some big revelation. There were no fireworks or musical numbers. She'd just looked inwards, for once, and seen Trinity's name etched on her heart like it had always been there.

She held her tighter.