Freed From Desire

Part 23

Katie

I'd beat her home, even with the late start, and was damn proud of it. We both shuffled inside my house, being mindful of sneaky Cooper once again. "It's cause these shoes aren't mine," Nora gave a lousy excuse, causing me to laugh.

"We wear the same size!" I argued, not buying into it. I was faster and she knew it. Honestly, with my training, I think it'd be bad news if I wasn't. We were just both quite competitive.

"No, it was the shoes," Nora was adamant, while taking said shoes off and setting them on the entryway floor. I watched as she fiddled with them for a bit before sighing and gaining her attention with that.

"Are we gonna talk about it or be idiots and forget what mature communication is?" I asked directly. I couldn't help but smile at the fake offended look she gave me as she smacked my arm.

"What ever could you be hinting at," Nora laughed and nodded towards the living room. 

I followed her there and we both sat down on the couch, getting comfortable with just enough distance between us to actually properly talk.

"I wanna do this right. But I guess I'm not really sure how or what that means," I said with a small shrug of my shoulders.

Nora fiddled with her ring and stared down at it. Both her ring fingers were bare, unlike mine. This morning when I'd washed my hands, I'd almost flipped my claddagh ring. It felt wrong to have it facing the way it did, but I also knew that this wasn't just my choice.

"So do I. But.." Nora started and then paused again, taking a few more moments to think. I let her have the time she needed, trying hard to practice patience, even when anxiety raised its head inside. 

"I feel like with every step I take forward, fear pushes me two steps back. And I don't want that to happen again," she finally said, her voice quiet. It made sense and pretty accurately described everything that had been going on so far.

"What are you afraid of?" Maybe it was a dumb question, but.. I knew for certain I didn't have cancer, with the consistent health checks we had. Although that didn't mean I could guarantee I wouldn't die. But no one could. That was the beauty of life. It was fragile.

"My heart broke when Eva.." her voice trailed off and she took a deep breath, letting go of her own fingers and lacing hers with mine instead. "I honestly thought I would die. I don't know how else to describe it. I thought that it wasn't physically possible to be in that much pain and survive it. And I did, but.. It's like with injuries. You heal, but that spot is sore and you'll always be careful with it."

That explanation actually made perfect sense to my sporty brain. I'd had a few of those instances where I develop protective behaviour around an injury. Which is also how I knew that it was the wrong thing to do. Instead you were supposed to gradually build back up to full strength.

"We don't need to make any big decisions, okay? However way we define it, I'm here and I'm yours and I'm not going anywhere. And I won't break your heart," I said, trying to put as much of my own heart into my words as possible. Nora had to see that I was in this for real.

"You can't promise that. No one can," she protested, but managed to smile a little when I stared her down in response.

"And neither can you," I reminded her. My heart might not have been as fragile, but it could still break painfully. Wouldn't be the first time. "But we can both promise to try our best every day. And just.. take baby steps."

Nora seemed to relax at that and nodded. So I offered my pinky finger to solidify the deal and even though she looked at me like I was insane and laughed at the motion, she still closed her own pinky around mine. 

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I was a much nicer human to be around this time in training. It was our last session before tomorrow's game and then it was onto the holiday break. And yet everyone kept teasing me. The best was when Beth put her hand around my shoulders and said that a good lay always fixes everything. I laughed as I pushed her off, but couldn't hide how my cheeks flushed when I snuck a look in Nora's direction.

She was helping Leah with some exercises, as she had lately. Everything was looking up and Leah could already take part in some easier parts of our team sessions. But it also meant more time spent apart and I didn't like that part as much.

At least we were already doing the final stretches so we could go home soon. Nora had agreed to spend the night at my place again and we were going to cook a nice dinner together. And by that I meant that she was gonna cook and I would distract her as much as I could.

"I think everyone knows so if you're trying to hide it for my sake or something.." Caitlin said, coming to stand next to me as we both stretched our legs. I got very confused for a moment and let go of my foot, eyeing her curiously.

We hadn't spoken much since everything went down. She'd apologized about ten times and once I'd said that it was water under the bridge, she mainly left me alone. The most we talked was out on the pitch to be fair.

"I'm not hiding anything?" I replied quizzically. Most of the team knew something was going on even before the party. And they definitely got the confirmation there. A few of them had commented on it, but mostly out of support. 

Caitlin just shrugged and nodded down towards my hand. More specifically, my ring finger.

"We haven't made anything that official yet. Just taking things slow," I said. Not that it was any of her business, but just the easiest way to get over with this weird conversation.

"Oh sure, cause you didn't fuck her two minutes after dumping me," she scoffed then and I think my jaw quite literally dropped as I stared her. Caitlin looked absolutely blameless and I could not believe the audacity.

"At least I didn't fucking cheat on you," I spit out the words and turned on my heel. I had stretched enough, training was done anyway. And maybe it wasn't just water under the bridge..

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Thank you for being so patient with me! No promises on consistent daily uploads forever from here on out but the next few days are sorted and I'll try to write more chapters today!