Emilia reached up to grasp Wishes’ hand, beyond grateful for someone, physically, holding her together. She knew he was right; open relationships were all she had ever known, and sure! She had dealt with jealousy before, but it had always come early on, and either it could be solved with openness, or it had been ended by mutual agreement. Tate, however. Tate was different. Tate had been there for more than a decade, and they had been through it all. They had gone through losing parents, even persistent ex’es. Things ending with him didn’t just mean the loss of a lover, but the loss of a friendship and a trust, of the first person she had considered an actual future with. He may have been intoxicated throughout their years together, but she hadn’t. For her, it had all been real. Very real. All of that, was only enhanced, by the grief of David’s death.
But now Wishes was here. Wishes who had been there for her when she had grown up, whom she had told her insecurities and who had taught her how to deal with them. Maybe not in traditional ways or even directly, but he had always instilled a feeling of security and not once, had he ever let her down. As he held her, she could feel the tension bleeding out of her, and she began to relax in his arms. As she calmed down, she recognized the feeling inside of her, not unlike a poison having been purged from her system and for a long while, she just sat there, wrapped in Wishes’ arms while she clung to his hand. “Your rings are gone,” she murmured, only now realising that he was going without accessories that he rarely, if ever, went without.