Chapter 3

THREE

M oriah wakes up with crust in her eyes and a cat curled up beside her head. She blinks blearily at the sunlight streaming through the curtains of her bedroom.

She could've sworn she only fell asleep mere seconds ago, close to two in the morning, with her Kindle balanced between her fingers on the other side of the bed. It's still lying there, in its case with carefully curated stickers adorning it, where it fell when she finally sank into slumber.

"Good morning, Woolf," she murmurs. It's a little bit later than the time she wakes up to get ready for work every morning during the week, almost eight, and she already hears music and smells coffee.

( a man, faceless and dressed in black, knife in hand, picking the old, old, old lock on Moriah's second-floor apartment, her balcony left unlocked overnight, one final scream — )

Cricket's laugh fills the air. Moriah taps out her rhythm on her sternum— one, two, three. One, two, three.

Her bed is her safe space. It's dressed in similar sheets to the ones she used on the couch bed in the living room— white with orange accents, instead of yellow— and then on top of that she has a worn comforter, a vermillion quilt, and six pillows, all in mismatched cases. The one that she and Woolf are currently sharing is peach silk, to protect the loose curls of her hair.

Moriah gently pushes the layers of blankets away and sits up. Woolf lets out a little noise of dissatisfaction and begins her morning routine— stretch up onto her very tip toes, arching her spine, and yawn so violently her jaw snaps shut with an audible clack.

Once out of bed, Moriah checks her phone— nothing much; a few Instagram reels from Simon, most of which captioned with ‘us'— and pads over to the door, left slightly ajar overnight. She's in loose pajama pants and a tank top, hugging her small breasts and slender form more than she'd prefer with a guest in the house, but not to an egregious level, so she crosses her arms over her chest and pokes out into the kitchen.

Cricket has headphones in, and her phone is propped up against the wall beside the stove, where she's currently cooking something that smells delicious in Moriah's small stainless steel pan. Moriah can just barely make out Bruce's face on the screen, round and covered in dark hair and scars. Moriah sucks her lower lip between her teeth and chews on a bit of raw skin lining the inside of her mouth.

Cricket moves fluidly as she cooks, dancing through the dim kitchen on her heels to an inaudible but pervasive tune. Something sizzles in the pan—

( the smell of smoke and too dark toast, the acrid burn in the back of her throat as smoke swirls above her head, fire, fire, fire —)

One, two, three.

Cricket flips an egg just as the toaster pops out two slices of bread.

Moriah takes a deep breath and steps forward into the entryway, moving toward the breakfast counter. Hopefully she won't startle Cricket— that is the last thing Moriah wants. Only one of them can be on the edge of panic at any given time.

"So let me get this straight, Bruce— Oh, Moriah! Good morning," Cricket says and pulls out one headphone, which she slips into a sleek plastic case that she tucks into her pocket. "I hope I didn't wake you up."

"You didn't," Moriah replies and sinks carefully onto one of the raised barstools at the high counter. She doesn't sit here very often; more often than not, she eats at her desk, or while sitting on the couch with her Kindle or watching TV. Still, the furniture she picked out over three years ago when Simon took her to IKEA is comfortable and fits right in with the rest of the muted color palette she prefers: dark wood with deep burgundy cushions.

"The, uh, cat feeder thingie," Cricket says and points at a small upright plastic device sitting on the ground against the cupboard. "It went off like half an hour ago."

Moriah smiles. That explains why Woolf was so happy and sated when she woke up.

Usually, she's up before the cat feeder, but she managed to sleep in. Odd, considering there was an unfamiliar presence in the apartment— virulent thoughts kept her up for hours past her usual resting time. But still, she slept in.

"Yeah, yeah," she says as Woolf comes in and begins to wind around her ankles and the legs of the stool. "I got the automatic feeder a few years ago," she says. It helps me avoid obsessing over the possibility that I forgot , she doesn't say.

"You should send the link to Bruce," Cricket says and turns back to her phone, raising an eyebrow at the man's face still visible on the screen. "He keeps complaining about him and Simon not delegating who's feeding Davey Jones, and realizing hours later they've forgotten. It could be good for him."

The teasing passive aggression brings a smile to Moriah's lips, but then her eyes land on something sitting on the counter behind Cricket.

A yellow, stainless steel french press, plunger still raised, incubating an aromatic coffee.

Then, Cricket's phone buzzes with a timer. She holds up a finger to Bruce and moves to the press, curling two soft, pale fingers over the curved end of the plunger. She grips it firmly and begins to press down, slowly, slowly, slowly straining the coarse grounds from the brew itself, until the plunger sits flush against the smooth top. Her fingers dance over the pale surface of it, drag across the warm metal, and then curl around the shiny yellow handle.

"I made coffee," she says softly.

Moriah's thighs twitch. Her mouth waters.

"Which beans did you use?" she asks. Her voice is still low and husky from sleep, thick in her throat. It feels syrupy, and Cricket seems to notice— her gaze flicks to Moriah's mouth, where it lingers as she speaks.

"The...the buttercream light roast that was in the cabinet with the press," she says, and Moriah can't bite back the impressed, anticipatory hum that emerges from her chest.

"That's one of my favorites," she says softly. Cricket's eyes return to hers, and the green looks more gold than ever in the dim morning light.

Bruce waves his hand in front of the camera on Cricket's phone, eyebrow raised, trying to get her attention, and Moriah nods her head in his direction. Cricket spins around, swears under her breath, and starts chipping at the pan with her spatula.

"Sorry, got distracted," she says. Bruce's mouth moves. "Yeah, okay. Stay warm out there. Yeah, yeah, you too. Bye, Bruce."

The screen goes dark, and Cricket pulls her other headphone out as she flips a slightly crispy egg.

"Sorry, I can take this one," Cricket says and waves her hand apologetically, scooping the egg out onto a plate. "The yolk is probably solid."

"No," Moriah says, "I'll take it. I don't love a runny yolk anyways."

( salmonella, bird flu, E. coli, food poisoning, bacillus cereus —)

"Are you sure? I got out your toaster— sorry for digging through your stuff, but I figured breakfast was the least I could do, with you offering to host me for the whole weekend. You had eggs and bread, so I thought—"

"Cricket," Moriah says softly, and the ginger woman stops her tirade, another egg held still over the pan, and looks at Moriah. "I prefer a cooked yolk actually, thank you. You didn't have to do this, though."

Cricket rolls her eyes and turns her back on Moriah again, cracking one egg, and then another into the pan. She seasons them both with a few small spice bottles she took off of the side of the fridge— Moriah succumbed to the TikTok spice jars with magnetic caps a few months back— and then spins around again, resting her hips and the palms of her hands against the countertop.

"I did, because you're graciously housing me for four days longer than you thought you were going to have to, so I will feed you if it's the last thing I do. Oh!" She spins around again and opens a cabinet, then closes it and promptly opens another one. From there, she pulls out two mugs. One is a stout, round mug shaped like a cat and colored in similar shades to Woolf— orange, brown, white, and black, with bright golden eyes— and the other one is white with the blue, clumsily printed logo of a local pastry shop topped with a clip art crown. Then, she picks up a third one, frowning at it, and then raises an eyebrow and offers it to Moriah.

Oh.

"My ex— well, we weren't really exes, we just kind of hooked up a few times, I guess, but, uh. She gave me that as a joke," Moriah stammers. The mug is white with red text: "YOU CLIMB HERE OFTEN?" The handle of the mug is one of those plastic nubs that stick out of the wall at rock climbing gyms.

"Saucy," Cricket teases. Moriah bites down hard on her lower lip to stop the smile from breaking out across her face.

"You don't know the half of it," she says before she can stop herself, and Cricket's smile grows wider. In the warming light of the sunrise, she's ambrosia— a gift from something holy, from Hashem Themself. Her hair glows gold, and Moriah feels like Midas.

After breakfast, Cricket changes into a dark green sweater and cropped black overalls, her same clunky boots over cream knit socks, and declares that she's going downtown.

She invites Moriah, but the other woman finds it easy to wave off the offer.

"I have a telehealth appointment in a bit, actually," she says, and it's the truth. She usually has therapy on Tuesdays, but she scheduled an extra appointment with Frank for today, thinking Cricket would have left already, and she'd have some things to dissect afterwards. Now, she's just glad she still has the appointment, so Frank can help her put together some coping strategies for the rest of the weekend.

Cricket nods and runs a hand through her shiny red hair— down, today, as opposed to the braids Moriah has seen it in almost every other time they've met.

She changed when Cricket did, into another loose maxi skirt— this time, in a deep red— with a tank top tucked in and a flowy button-up shirt pulled on over that. It's comfortable, and she knows she looks good; she even put on gold, dangling earrings with pearls at the end, and stacked two golden necklaces. With her long brown hair tugged up into a simple, braided updo, she looks beautiful, and she knows it. One of the small pleasures in life is finding clothes that make a person feel confident.

The thing is, nobody ever sees her outfits, not anymore. Her coworkers, sure, and those who also attend her temple virtually, but that's mostly older women (temple) and contractors in their mid-twenties who never even turn their cameras on (work).

So, right as she looks Cricket up and down, the ginger woman does the same to her, a glimmer in those green eyes, and Moriah lets herself relish it. It's nice to feel desired, regardless of her big embarrassing crush on the woman.

When Cricket leaves a few minutes later, a corduroy crossbody bag slung over one shoulder, Moriah takes a moment to sit on the couch. It's folded up again, with a thrifted quilt and a pillow she crocheted during lockdown decorating its yellow surface. Woolf jumps up beside her and presses her head against Moriah's forearm.

She finishes the last sip of her coffee right as the vintage gold clock on her wall ticks over another minute, and then she stands. Woolf leaps off the couch beside her, but she doesn't follow Moriah into the kitchen, instead climbing the cat tree in the corner of the room to the topmost terracotta pot-shaped cushion and curling up in a beam of sunlight. Moriah dumps the very dregs of her coffee down the drain, rinses the cat-shaped mug, and tucks it into the dishwasher before returning to her desk. She opens her laptop and clicks through to Zoom.

Frank is already in the call when she connects.

"Good morning, Moriah," he says with a wide smile. Frank is a man in his mid-fifties. He has salt and pepper hair, cut short, and always wears a button-up shirt with a tie in a whimsical print. Today, it's salmon, leaping up in an infinite, repeating pattern. Behind his desk is a wall of massive built-in bookshelves stuffed to bursting with literature. When Moriah asked about them once, a year or so ago now, he told her that his husband built them when they bought their house, and she felt more confident that she chose the right therapist than ever before.

"Good morning," she says in return and settles in her seat.

They exchange brief pleasantries, as they usually do, and then Frank asks the question Moriah has been dreading in the back of her mind since she woke up this morning.

"So, how did Cricket staying over go?"

Moriah's fingers tighten around the fabric of her skirt. "Well," she says and glances over at where Cricket's suitcase is sitting next to her bookshelf. "There was some kind of issue with the venue for the ceremony for the award she was nominated for, so she's staying…until Sunday."

Frank's eyebrows shoot up into his receding hairline.

"And how do you feel about that?"

Moriah takes a long breath, opening herself up to truly feeling everything she's been pushing back for the last day or so. Usually, when she busts down the dam of her repression, she finds herself overwhelmed: she sinks into obsessive compulsions, repetitions she can't get herself out of without Frank's help. Hence, doing it during therapy, when he can talk her through it. Pull her out, if needed.

Though, this time, she just sees shining ginger hair, feels the brush of fingertips on hers, and tastes warm coffee brewed in gratitude.

"I…It's been good, actually," Moriah says, and finds that she means it. "Cricket is…She's a lot, but not in an overwhelming way. Like when Woolf is all warm after a nap, and wants to snuggle."

Frank's smile widens. "Have you had any issues with your compulsions?"

"Nothing more than usual," Moriah replies. "Counting, checking, timers. I haven't gotten caught in anything."

"That's really good to hear, Moriah," he says, and he sounds like he means it. "I'm so glad it's going well."

"I am too," Moriah says.

"And, if I might ask, what of…your feelings for her?"

Moriah's face must do something, because Frank chuckles softly. One thing Moriah likes about working with Frank is that he never seems like he's laughing at her, or judging her. Even when she confesses to some of her most brutal intrusive thoughts, when she has to repeat a word in triplicate again, and again, and again, until her mouth feels correct, he never judges. He just talks her through it, and hopes for the next time to be better.

Now, Moriah's cheeks go warm, and Frank just keeps smiling.

"It's not really feelings," Moriah argues, "it's just a silly crush. But…she's incredible. When I woke up this morning, she had already started a french press, and I—" I could've kissed her right there. I could've pressed her into the counter and tangled my fingers in her hair. I could've nuzzled into her neck and never left .

"Would you say you feel safe with her?" he asks.

Moriah nods without even thinking about it. "I do, and I don't know why."

"Maybe it doesn't matter why," Frank suggests. "Maybe it's just something worth holding on to."

Moriah swallows hard. "Maybe it is."