Page 98 of Igniting Her

Ellie tore the transfer request across the empty date line.

The paper gave less resistance than it deserved. She tore it again, then once more, and let the pieces fall into the recycling bin beside the kitchen counter.

Cassie stood across the apartment with her coat folded over one arm. She had come straight from the Alder fire after both of them cleared duty, and smoke still lived faintly in the ends of her hair.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

The question mattered. Cassie had not said finally. She had not treated Ellie’s decision as the last step in a plan already made for her.

“Yes.” Ellie nudged one white strip fully into the bin. “I’m staying in Santa Vera.”

Cassie’s breath left her slowly.

“Also,” Ellie said, “this apartment is trying to kill me through cabinet failure and rent increases.”

“The upper hinge has been loose for eight months.”

“I’ve been preserving your sense of purpose.”

Cassie sold her old house. Its rooms had been arranged around solitude too precisely to become neutral ground, and neither woman wanted Ellie moving into a life already built for one.

Six weeks later, they found a small rental on a narrow rise above the harbor. The kitchen floor sloped toward the back door, the second bedroom could hold a desk or a guest but not both, and the deck overlooked the cranes and dark canyon hills. After rejecting white carpet, a cracked retaining wall, and an electrical panel that silenced Cassie on sight, they signed the lease together.

On moving day, Cassie stood just inside the front door with two identical brass keys in her palm. Most of the boxes waited in the living room. Ellie’s old duffel lay empty on top of one marked CAMPING / THINGS CASSIE WILL RELABEL.

“We each need one,” Cassie said.

“Strong opening.” Ellie held out a hand. “You proposed the exchange.”

“Symbolism is vulnerable. Don’t punish it.”

Cassie separated the keys. They crossed wrists between them, asked “Ready?” and answered together. Then they took each other’s keys.

By sunset, the boxes had multiplied instead of emptied. Cassie organized the kitchen and discovered Ellie had hidden the coffee in the tea cabinet to test her; it took four minutes. Their station jackets shared the reinforced center hook beside the door.

The hook held.

Their bed was the only furniture fully assembled. Cassie had leveled the frame. Ellie had tightened the headboard and ended with one unexplained screw in her palm. They agreed to treat it as surplus until evidence suggested otherwise.

The evidence arrived at eleven fourteen that night.

The headboard struck the wall once as Cassie pushed Ellie backward onto the new mattress.

Both women stopped.

Ellie looked toward the noise. “Surplus?”

“Do not begin.”

The order lasted until Ellie started laughing. Cassie held out for two seconds before her mouth gave way against Ellie’s neck.

“You signed off on the assembly,” Ellie said.

“Under protest.” Cassie kissed the pulse beneath her jaw. “And with inaccurate information.”

“You love my information.”

“Some of it.”