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The storm starts small. It always does. Just a flicker behind her eyes. A pressure in her ribs, like her lungs forgot how to stretch. It’s 3:14 p.m. on a Wednesday, and the air in the kitchen is too quiet. Lottie’s left the window open, and the breeze smells like dust and lilacs. Nat's hands shake as she rinses out her coffee mug. She tells herself it’s nothing. She always does. The truth is, her body remembers before her brain does. Anxiety is a thief like that, silent until it’s screaming. Her skin itches. Her heart’s somewhere in her throat. The sun outside makes long shadows on the floor like teeth. And Lottie isn’t home yet.
They live in a small house with too many windows. It’s quiet most of the time, the kind of quiet Nat used to hate. But now, sometimes she doesn’t. Lottie buys lavender soap and folds the towels just so. She leaves notes in the fruit bowl. Nat finds them when she isn’t looking for them. Drink water. You exist. That’s enough. Aren’t you proud of how far you’ve come? Nat doesn’t always believe them. But she keeps them. They’re in a shoe box under her bed. She doesn't know how they got here. not just the notes, but all of it. This life. This small safety. She’s scared to touch it too hard, like it’ll vanish.
At 3:29 p.m., she drops the mug. It doesn’t shatter, but it thuds on the tile loud enough to make her flinch. She breathes like she’s forgotten how. Lavender. She thinks it like a prayer. Lavender is always running through my blood. She doesn’t know where the thought comes from. maybe from a dream, maybe from Lottie’s perfume, maybe from something she read once in the corner of a song lyric. But it feels true. Lottie is lavender. Soft and strange and blooming in all the places Nat thought were barren. She sits down on the kitchen floor. Presses her forehead to her knees. The world tilts, but she stays still.
Lottie comes home at 3:41. She knows something’s wrong before she even opens the door. Lottie’s good at that—reading the weather inside her. She moves quiet through the house, sets her keys down with a gentleness that Nat feels even from the other room. She finds her on the floor. Doesn’t speak at first. Just crouches beside her and rests a hand on her back. And it’s like...it’s like the shaking gets permission to stop. Nat exhales. It sounds like breaking.
"You’re okay," Lottie murmurs, brushing her fingers through Nat’s hair. "You’re okay. You’re okay." "I’m not," Nat croaks, because she isn’t. "I know," Lottie says. "But you will be."
There are things Nat doesn’t know how to say. Like how the world feels too loud sometimes, even when it’s silent. Like how she wakes up with her jaw clenched and her fists curled. Like how her brain chews on itself until it spits out blood. Lottie never asks her to explain it. She just stays. Lavender in the veins. Softness in the marrow.
They lay on the couch later, tangled and quiet. The rain’s started up, soft against the windows. "You ever feel like you’re gonna just—" Nat starts, then stops. Lottie waits. "Like you’re gonna disappear," she says finally. "Like... dust or something. Just poof. Gone." Lottie presses a kiss to her shoulder. "I used to," she says. "But then I realized I leave things behind. Even if I do disappear. I leave fingerprints. Hairs on the pillow. Notes in the fruit bowl." Nat turns her face, breath catching. "You’re not dust," Lottie whispers. "You’re dirt. You stay. You grow things."
That breaks something in Nat. She doesn't cry. Not yet. But she wants to.
At midnight, Nat sits on the floor of their shared bathroom, back pressed to the cabinet door, knees to her chest. Lottie sits with her. No words. Just a hand in hers. "I’m not good at this," Nat says. "At what?" "This. Being a person. Loving someone. Not falling apart." Lottie hums. "So let’s be bad at it together." Nat laughs. It sounds like it hurts.
Lavender is always running through my blood. It slips into her thoughts like water through a crack. She doesn’t say it out loud. But she feels it. Lottie’s warmth in the bed beside her. Lottie’s voice saying stay, stay, stay even when Nat doesn’t believe she deserves to. Lavender in her lungs. In her skin. In the way her hands stop shaking. She thinks: This is enough. But the thought is a lie. Because the truth is: it’s never enough. And maybe that’s okay.
Some nights, Nat wakes up choking on air. Like there’s too much of it, or not enough. Lottie wakes too. Always. Wraps her arms around her. Breathes slow so Nat can follow. Whispered mantras in the dark. "You’re here. You’re real. You’re safe." Lavender. Blood. Dusk.
"I had a dream last night," Nat says one morning, half-asleep in the glow of sunrise. Lottie blinks at her, curls messy on the pillow. "Yeah?" "You were... glowing. But not in like a weird angel way. Just softly. You had paint on your hands and you were laughing and everything smelled like rain." Lottie smiles. "Sounds like a nice dream." "It was." She doesn’t say: I didn’t wanna wake up. She doesn’t have to.
There are good days, too. Days when Nat makes pancakes and Lottie hums old records and the house smells like syrup and sage. They plant herbs in chipped mugs on the windowsill. They lie on the living room rug and trace shapes into each other’s arms. Nat writes little notes back now. Leaves them under Lottie’s pillow. You make the noise in my head quieter. If I could bottle your voice, I’d drink it like water. You’re the softest thing I’ve ever survived.
One night, Nat looks at her and says, "You’re the reason I haven’t disappeared." Lottie just holds her tighter. "Then don’t disappear." "I’ll try." "That’s all I want."
Lavender is always running through my blood. Even when she’s anxious. Even when she’s scared. Even when she thinks she doesn’t deserve this love, this softness, this home they’ve built out of ashes. It’s there. Running through her. Steady. Quiet. Real. Like Lottie. Like hope.