Chapter 4: Fractures

The next morning, the house was too quiet.

Amina sat at the edge of the bed, sorting her jewelry, her back stiff, turned against Chi.

Chi stirred awake, stretching, her body still aching from the night before. She reached for Amina, holding her gently by the waist while lying down and pressing soft kisses against her back.

“Good morning, baby, did you sleep well?” Chi whispered, her voice still laced with sleep.

But there was no answer.

Chi frowned, sitting up a little straighter. “Babe?”

Finally, Amina turned. Her face was blank, unreadable, her eyes dark and restless.

“Do you still love her?”

Chi’s breath seized. For a moment, she thought she’d misheard. “What?”

“You heard me.”

The room seemed to shrink around Chi. Her throat tightened, her pulse loud in her ears.

Chi shook her head, reaching for her. “Amina, I don’t. I haven’t in years. You’re the one I want, the one I chose. I’m not a child, I know what I want, and I am definitely not playing games with you.”

The words hung heavy in the air, but Amina’s expression didn’t shift. She stared at Chi like she was searching for cracks, like she wanted to peel her apart with her eyes.

“You didn’t tell her to leave,” Amina said quietly. “You let her sit here, in our space. Why?”

Chi’s chest ached. “Because I was shocked, because I didn’t want to make a scene, because—”

“Because a part of you still cares,” Amina cut in sharply.

Chi’s voice rose without meaning to. “That’s not true!”

Amina stood abruptly, pacing the room, her fingers trembling as they fiddled with a necklace. “You don’t understand. My family already suspects me, my life is hanging by a thread, and now I have to worry about your ghosts walking in and ruining everything? Am I not enough for you?”

Chi stood too, her eyes wet. “You are more than enough. She didn’t even call me to let me know she’d show up. Look—” she grabbed her phone, thrusting it toward Amina, “check my call history, my chats with her. The last one was years ago. I don’t want anything to do with her. I’m in this with you. I know I might not have said the words you want to hear yet, but I’m just taking my time. Mina, I really, really like you so much.”

Silence. Then Amina’s voice, small but sharp as glass: “It’s fine. I should go make breakfast.”

“Mina…”

But she was already walking out.

All through the day, Amina’s silence was louder than anything else. She stonewalled barely speaking, her face unreadable, her energy locked up like a vault. Chi tried to distract herself, burying her head in work, but even as she went through the new contract she had just secured, she found herself zoning out, staring at the page, counting the number of nails left on her hand, picking at her cuticles until they stung. She had never done that before.

She needed a distraction, something, anything to pull her out of the spiraling panic that Amina’s silence carved into her but there was nothing.

By nightfall, the tension in the house was suffocating.

When they lay in bed, Mina kept her body turned toward the wall, away from Chi, her breathing steady but cold, her warmth unreachable. Chi shifted closer, hesitating, then slid her arm around her waist.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her lips brushing Amina’s ear. “I didn’t mean to make you feel this way. I am deeply, deeply sorry.”

For a moment, there was only silence, broken by the hum of the ceiling fan. Then Amina’s voice came, small and cracked.

“I don’t want to lose you. I’m scared.”

Chi tightened her hold, pressing her forehead into the curve of Amina’s shoulder. “You’re not losing me. Not now, not ever. You’re it for me.”

Amina swallowed hard, blinking against the sting in her eyes. “Then show me. Don’t just say it. Show me you’ve let her go. Show me I’m not just filling someone else’s space.”

Chi’s chest throbbed. She wanted to argue, to insist again, but instead, she pressed a kiss to Amina’s neck, her voice low, steady.

“I’ll prove it to you every day if I have to. You’re not a replacement. You’re the reason I’ve been learning what love feels like again. You’re not just in my life, you are my life.”

Amina finally turned then, her eyes searching Chi’s face, vulnerable, and fragile. A storm of doubt and love and fear swirling in her gaze.

And in that moment, Chi realized words alone wouldn’t be enough, she’d have to fight for this, for them.

Because sometimes love isn’t just about choosing someone once. It is about choosing them every single day, even when the past claws its way back in, even when fear whispered doubts into the cracks.

Chi reached for her hand, intertwining their fingers. “Mina, you’re my home. Please, don’t doubt that.”

This time, Amina didn’t pull away.

Not completely.

But Chi could still feel the walls she’d have to keep breaking down, brick by brick, if she wanted this love to survive.