Page 117 of Touch of Class

“You’re not trusting something. You’re trusting someone.” Gillian felt a new kind of certainty building in her. “You have to trust people, and I haven’t done that enough. It’s hard. Hard and vulnerable because you want to protect them, you want to nurture them, you want every good thing in the world for them, and let’s be honest, people like us, we think we know how to do that. We’ve spent our lives finding solutions for the problems we see all around us, but we’ve chosen productivity over presence, and it’s not a fair trade. Sawyer didn’t need you to fix them. They just wanted you to be with them in the process.”

“But they don’t even know who they—”

Gillian held up a hand. She didn’t want to be interrupted. She wasn’t even talking to Maura anymore. “Sawyer and Robin figured things out on their own. They didn’t need me to protect them or warn them. They needed me to support them and remind them they are good, smart, capable people. Brooke and Tegan needed the same damn thing. I’ve been beating myself up for a year for not being there for them, but the whole point is that they were there with each other.”

Maura looked at her like maybe she was yet another thing in her life that made absolutely no sense, but for the first time in a long time, Gillian’s life made sense to her. “They all did fine on their own. Daphne said as much, but it hurt me to hear it because they scared the living shit out of me.”

Maura grimaced at the profanity, no doubt finding this entire outburst uncouth or unprofessional, but maybe that’s what she needed more of in her life. Maybe that’s what Daphne had provided her. “I’ve told people time and time again that I switched from finance to therapy because people were more complex with more compelling variables, and I love a challenge.”

Maura nodded. “I remember. I always admired your willingness to establish studies that controlled multiple and multifaceted variables.”

“I like that about me, too,” she admitted, “only I think I got too caught up in trying to control the variables in my life when I should’ve engaged them.”

“Engaged them?”

“Embraced them even.” Gillian laughed. “Maybe that’s why I’ve stayed in private practice longer than intended, or maybe that’s why I’ve lived with the chaos of it all, not because I’m a failure at controlling it, but because a part of me craves it.”

“You crave chaos?” Maura’s disbelief registered plainly on her face. “I find that incredibly hard to believe.”

“Me too. Which is why I don’t think it is chaos. What if it’s just humanity? What if you and I are both trying to wedge humanity into a containable model because we ache for it even when it terrifies us. What if the things we label as ‘variables’ in life actually are what defines life?”

“The variables are what make life messy and unreliable and impossible to solve for.”

“Only if you’re living in a lab.” Gillian pushed herself up to standing, not quite certain yet that this new foundation would hold her, but, surprisingly, she didn’t falter as she took her first step.

Maura seemed surprised, too. “Are we finished?”

Gillian shook her head. “Not unless you want to be. I care about you, and I think you’re going to hate this, but you are one of the messiest people I know.”

Maura looked so immediately offended, Gillian knew her assessment had been correct, but instead of backing down, she laughed. “It’s a compliment, Maura. You’re complex and strong and fierce and brilliant and brutal and insensitive, unintentionally or not. You’re as full of contradictions as the rest of us, and that’s a good thing, but don’t chalk it up solely to neuroplasticity in your datasets. Call your kid and talk to them about something other than your work. Ask them about Iceland or scuba diving. Talk to them like a person, not a problem.”

Maura sighed. “Rather prescriptive of you. Are you giving yourself the same homework?”

“No,” she said. “You were right earlier. I’m past that. I just forgot for a while.”

“Forgot what?”

“Life’s supposed to be messy, and while I’ve been running around trying to clean it all up or control for every possible outcome, I’ve missed too much of the good stuff.”

Twenty-Five

Daphne pulled up the comforter on her freshly made work bed, then moved over to the futon and rearranged the pillows for a second time. Pausing to listen to the silence for a moment, she shook her head.

It was late, there was no one left in the building, and no amount of folding blankets or adjusting the lights would change the fact that Gillian hadn’t been in all day.

She’d apparently called off all her clients earlier in the day, which was unlike her, a fact every one of her colleagues mentioned every time they’d stopped by, subtly suggesting maybe Daphne might know where she was, but she didn’t.

Which wasn’t the same thing as not knowing what might be on Gillian’s mind, or why. Still, she wasn’t ready to tell anyone else about the conversation she’d started to regret having this morning.

She still trusted Gillian to do the right thing, but had she left too much to chance? She’d spent all afternoon thinking about what Tegan had said, and she’d come to the conclusion that, even while it was a legitimately big step for her to trust Gillian, if she wanted a relationship between them to work, she’d also have to learn to trust herself again, too.

And she did want this to work. She’d been afraid to admit that in the harsh light of dawn, but here in the quiet, dimly lit comfort of a sanctuary she’d built with intention and deliberation, it was impossible to deny that she did want a relationship with Gillian.

It didn’t make sense, but she wanted Gillian more than she’d let herself want anything in a long time.

A faint noise in the distance caught her ear, and she turned toward it, straining to hear better; a key in a lock, the swing of the door, cold wind howling outside until it fell shut again.

She bit her lower lip to keep from calling out. It could be one of the others, back to check again if Daphne had seen the woman they were all waiting for, but the purposeful click of heels on the hard floor caused her heart to soar.