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“Browning, can you take these two in for questioning?” Lisa asked as she gestured to the two cuffed drug dealers that had been apprehended. A larger police officer to their left keeping hold of the arm of the male beside him as he waited for further instruction.
Browning glanced up from behind the reception window, a case file in his hand.
“You bouncing out of your duties DS Connor-Swain?” He joked, flipping the file shut as he tucked it under his arm and stepped out from behind the reception desk.
“Trust me, I would love nothing more than to make them sweat, but I’m late for an early dinner with my darling wife already and you know how Carla gets when I haven’t had a chance to ring to say I’m running late,” she rattled on, just as a pair of squeaky leather boots sounded from the main entrance.
“Speak of the devil,” Browning grinned, his eyeline glancing over Lisa’s head toward the brunette strutting in the door, her kimono billowing behind her.
“Uh, what time do you call this? The tables booked for 5,” Came the voice of the love of Lisa’s life. The blonde turned and sighed.
“I know love, I’m sorry. I got called out on a drug bust and I haven’t had a chance to look at my phone,” Lisa explained.
Meeting Carla half way she leaned in and pressed a sweet kiss to her lips, Carla smiling as she met her with gleeful acceptance.
Then, out of the corner of Carla’s eye, she noticed the two figures standing off to the side behind her wife, her world tilting on its axis as her head began to spin. The room seemed to come to a halt, her breath becoming shallow and static.
Lisa noticed instantly, her hand coming up to rest against the side of Carla’s neck, her thumb brushing against the racing pulse point.
“Carla? Darling, what’s wrong?” She asked, thrown by her wife’s sudden change in demeanour and the spiralling look in her eyes, her gaze turning towards where Carla’s focus seemed to be locked in a trance like state.
The two detainees behind Lisa then noticed the commotion behind them, the man’s eyes boring menacing holes through Carla’s fragile bubble as the woman next to him glared at her with the same vicious look.
Lisa turned from the two criminals to her wife who suddenly bolted from the police station.
“CARLA!”
Before Lisa could move the male let a shout after her wife’s retreating figure, making every hair on the back of her neck stand on end with anger.
“Yeah run you little bitch! That all you’re good at innnit!”
Browning flinched instinctively, knowing full well that a beehive had been poked. Lisa swivelled on the spot.
“Oi! One more word out of you and I’ll slap you with a rap sheet so long your great grandkids will be visiting you in prison.”
Lisa glared the man down, watching as his jaw muscles flexed as he debated internally whether or not it was wise to continue. Eventually he caved, turning his head away from the Detective Sergeant as Lisa fixed her focus on Browning.
“Get these two in an interview room a.s.a.p and don’t let them leave until I’ve had my time with them.”
Browning nodded as he gestured for the officers to lead the detainees towards the hallway for interview.
Once they were out of sight, Lisa made a hasty exit, her eyes scanning the car park for any sign of her wife’s car before pulling her own keys from her coat pocket.
Jumping into the unmarked squad car, she turned on the ignition and headed for Coronation Street, checking multiple spots along her drive to make sure she didn’t inadvertently drive past her wife.
A phonecall to Sarah let her know that her wife hadn’t turned up at her factory, and Roy hadn’t seen his surrogate daughter since she had stopped in for her morning coffee, which left only one place Carla could’ve gone.
Home.
Pulling up outside No. 6, Lisa turned off the car and climbed out, jogging up the pathway as she rummaged for her house key. Slotting it into the lock she was greeted by the sound of silence.
No Betsy. No Ryan. Just silence.
Stepping into the living room, her heart literally skipped a beat with the feeling of relief at the sight of Carla sitting on their living room couch. The very one they had spent hours and hours debating over before Carla ultimately won the debate.
“Can’t have Sally the Ally knocking round judging our aesthetic. We’d never hear the end of it. Besides you love my chic taste,” Carla had argued.
“Yeah, your chic taste just so happens to come with a flaming price tag that would make the Royal Family blush,” Lisa had replied.
“There you are,” Lisa sighed as she shoved her keys back in her pocket and shrugged it off, hanging it on the bannister.
Carla didn’t so much as hum a response, her arms braced around the cushion in her lap as she stared off into space.
“Carla,” Lisa called again when no response came, not even a whisper of hair moved.
Rounding the couch, she finally caught a glimpse of her wife’s side profile and noticed the telltale tracks of tears on Carla’s cheekbones, the shimmering of more dangling precariously on the edge of her lid waiting to make their presence known.
“Hey,” Lisa sighed, worry etched in her tone as she took a seat next to her wife, her hand reaching out to offer comfort. But the sudden movement startled her wife out of her daze as Carla snapped back on instinct, her arm coming up to shield herself as fear took over.
As if a light had suddenly been switched on, Carla glanced to her side to see her wife sitting next to her, her mouth bobbing up and down as reality began to creep back in.
“I-I’m sorry,” Carla cried, the concern written all over Lisa’s face washing over her as she began to reach for her wife, clawing at her jumper like a lifeline as Lisa instantly wrapped her up in her arms.
Lisa didn’t know what to do except hold Carla through her anguish. Something had snapped inside of her, something Lisa couldn’t put her finger on. She wanted to help, to be able to offer support.
But she needed to be patient. She needed Carla to work through this so they could talk.
“It’s okay,” Lisa whispered as she peppered Carla’s head with kisses “It’s alright darling, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”
Carla shook her head, her hand coming up to rub at the tears on cheeks.
“No it’s not alright, I should be over this,” Carla argued, pulling back from Lisa and sitting herself upright, the bracelets on her wrist jiggling with the movement of her hand as she continued wiping at her tears.
Lisa looked at her, brow furrowed in concern as she continued to stroke her wife’s back with a comforting hand, her other one gripping Carla’s, feeling the indent of her wife’s engagement and wedding rings pressing into her palm.
“The guy, the one at the station, the one you were arresting,” Carla said, gaze focused straight ahead as if she could still see him standing in front of her. Lisa looked confused for a second.
Carla swallowed thickly, the only sound that penetrated the deafening silence.
“He raped me,” she whispered, choking on the word that brought all the memories of the aftermath floating back.
Lisa’s breath hitched, a painful lump forming in her throat.
“What?” She replied, her tone solid and even as her hand stilled on Carla’s back.
The brunette finally turned her head to face her wife, teary eyes gazing mournfully at the grey green of Lisa’s.
“He raped me,” Carla cried, finally losing whatever control she had of holding back the overwhelming tied of emotions.
The wind was knocked completely out of Lisa’s sails at the admission. She literally felt the moment her heart broke for her wife, for the women she was back then.
Her body moved on instinct, she arms coming up to wrap protectively around the woman she loved, Carla’s head tucked beneath her chin pressed close to her chest.
Carla couldn’t see it, but as Lisa weeped for her, for the pain she had been through, her knuckles were turning white, both from the force of her grip on Carla, and the rising urge to inflict pain on the man who had hurt her.
But she couldn’t. Not right now. Not when her wife was falling apart in her arms. Carla needed her and Lisa knew that needed to be the priority.
****Ghost Of The Past****
Stirring the tea she had just brewed, Lisa placed the spoon down on the counter top, her mind swirling a mile a minute. She braced her hands on the edge and gripped it tightly, her eyes closing as she willed back the remaining tears that threatened to fall.
She had held her wife for a solid hour, no words exchanged between them as Carla cried for a past she had never truly healed from. From trauma she had never fully worked through.
Ryan was working late and Betsy had texted to say she was heading into town with Lauren and wouldn’t be back until all hours. The house was silent except for the ghost of Carla’s past that echoed in the background.
Pulling herself together, Lisa picked up the two mugs and walked into the living room, her wife still sat in the same spot, legs tucked up beside her on the couch, hand fidgeting with the cushion on her lap.
Lisa had called the Bistro to cancel their table, giving Toyah same lame excuse about Carla not feeling well.
Being honest Lisa didn’t feel well herself. Ever since her wife’s admission she’d had this sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Being a detective, Lisa was used to dealing with sensitive cases, encountering far too many sexual assault and domestic abuse cases than she would care to admit.
But this wasn’t just a case. Not another file number that would be logged into the system for investigation. This was her wife. Her Carla.
The woman whose face she saw first thing every morning and the last face she saw every night. The one who had fought through hell for her, and for Betsy. The one who had shown Lisa more love and kindness than she could’ve ever imagined
The centre of her world. The steadying axis that kept everything around her from spinning out of control. Including Lisa herself at times.
Lisa had always been sympathetic and caring towards victims of abuse and rape. She treated every case with all the care in the world.
But this, this was too close to home. Her home. The place that housed her family. Her whole world. It splintered the frame work in ways Lisa wasn’t sure she could fix.
And that caused an ache in her chest she didn’t know how to suppress.
Taking up the seat she had vacated, she placed the mugs down on the coffee table and sat back, her hand coming up to stroke Carla’s long brown hair as her arm rested along the back of the couch, feeling the woman shift closer to her and settle into her side.
Seeing the woman she loved, the woman who usually strut around with a steel coat of armour ready to take on the world so silent and clingy, just made Lisa’s protective instincts stand on end as she stopped stroking her wife’s hair and wrapped her arm around her shoulder.
Carla was always so fierce, so brave, even in the face of adversity she stood tall. But here, in their living room, all she saw was the woman who had spent decades getting knocked down and having to pick herself back up.
The woman whose cold exterior shielded a soft warm heart that would do anything for the people she loved, even putting herself in the firing line.
A woman who always chose to carry her burdens, her scars, her traumas, like a heavy suitcase she never asked anyone for help with.
Carla Connor-Swain for all intents and purposes was a warrior, but even warriors had chinks in their armour, and Lisa was slowly starting to see just how many, one by one, until Lisa was left raw by what her wife had been through before they met.
She knew about her upbringing, a mother who sold drugs from her pram, a deadbeat dad who left her there to avoid having to own responsibility only to come back into her life years later with a whole new family.
A step father who abused her. Having to raise Rob and shield him from the mess that was their home life.
Dodging social services so she didn’t end up in yet another shoddy placement that was only in it for the welfare payments.
And that was just her childhood.
Lisa was aware that Carla hadn’t been an angel over the years. She had briefly scanned her rap sheet. But she never sought out the details. She trusted Carla to tell her the truth in time. If there was one thing she knew to be true of her wife, it was that Carla didn’t shy away from her past.
So she had waited, patiently. Listened when it counted. She didn’t prod for details, she just accepted what was offered to her because Carla rarely sugar coated the truth. But that didn’t mean there weren’t gaps in the history book that were still a mystery to Lisa.
And she was becoming painfully aware that her wife had been through more than a lifetimes worth of trauma and heartache.
She knew about Paul and Liam and Peter. Even knew about some of the locals who she had once shared a bed with. Lisa even joked that she felt like they needed a weekend to carve out time to go through Carla’s extensive romantic history.
She knew of the losses she had suffered, her father Johnny, her brother Aidan, Hayley who had been like a mother to her. Even her unborn daughter.
But there were little inbetween bits that she was realising Carla had been withholding. Not out of a want to deceive, but out of the need to self preserve.
It made sense to her now, why Carla had been able to see through Becky. All the lies, all the deceit. Why she had fought so hard for Lisa and Betsy. To this day she still felt ashamed at the mess that time had been.
If she had just listened and not allowed Becky to manipulate her. But that was Lisa’s trauma. Everyone had their baggage right? Lisa’s just happened to be two parents who disowned their lesbian daughter and an ex wife who was nothing more than a crooked copper with more faces than Big Ben.
But when she looked at Carla, god she was struck by the woman. At her resilience, her ability to keep getting back up no matter how many times life knocked her down. And down it did.
She didn’t just take pot shots to the gut, she had taken shots that had broken flesh and bone and made her bleed.
When Carla had told her about her miscarriage her heart broke for her, because Lisa truly believed that little girl would’ve been the luckiest girl in the world to have Carla Connor as her mother. Carla Connor-Swain as she now was. Something Lisa took enormous pride in.
Carla shifted beside her, her hand coming down to tangle with Lisa’s that rested on the DS’s knee.
“I’m sorry,” Carla croaked, her voice hoarse from all the crying.
Lisa’s hand stopped stroking her hair and instead wrapped around it to cradled it as she pressed her lips to her temple, nuzzling her nose there as she breathed in the scent of her wife’s shampoo.
“Don’t,” Lisa said, “don’t ever apologise. Especially not over something like this.”
Carla reached up a hand to wipe away the residue left behind by her tears.
“It was years ago now, back when I was going through psychosis,” Carla explained.
Lisa inhaled deeply as she rested her chin atop Carla’s head, listening intently. Rape was always a difficult thing to hear about, but knowing it happened when Carla was especially vulnerable and detached from reality, made it all the worse.
She’d seen her fair share of mental health emergencies, first when she was on the beat and later as a detective. It was never an easy thing to watch, let alone handle.
Knowing Carla had been out there on her own, God it made Lisa ache. Ache for the woman she loved that she’d had to go through that to begin with, and also that Lisa hadn’t been around to protect her from it.
If she could go back in time and meet her wife back then, she was sure she would’ve done everything in her power to make sure she was safe, that she was taken care of and not taken advantage of.
But she wasn’t there and she couldn’t go back in time no matter how much that reality pained her.
All she could do now was somehow help lessen the burden and carry the load. Be the support Carla had often times been deprived of in the past when she had been forced time and again to pull herself back up when the world tried to keep her down.
She physically felt Carla swallow down the pain the memories were dredging up, memories she’d had to piece together over time as her brain healed from the psychosis and the trauma.
“I didn’t know it at the time. It was Peter who forced me to see it,” Carla explained, “I told him it was my fault. That I’d let it happen to keep a roof over my head. That I…. That I’d been a willing participant.”
Lisa choked back a sob, twisting her face away so that her wife couldn’t see her trying to hold back tears.
She’d heard this narrative so many times before from survivors. The trauma overruling the logic as if trying to prevent themselves from having to face reality.
Participation wasn’t consent.
Not when it was used as a weapon for someone else’s gain. Most times it was out of survival, safety. That if they just did what the perpetrator wanted they wouldn’t get hurt.
“But I wasn’t. How could I have been?!” Carla cried as she recalled the conversations with her counsellor when she was away.
How could she have possibly consented to something when she didn’t even know what reality was?
Her body had been used for someone’s else’s gratification when her mind wasn’t even her own.
“They came back later, when I’d finally found my feet again. Tried to blackmail me for money, told me that I’d cost them thousands in lost drugs. That I owed them.”
A white hot rage suddenly flooded through Lisa’s body from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. The type of rage that would’ve made her toss all logic out the window.
“I thought I was over it. I thought it was in the past, that I’d moved on. But, seeing them at the station, it was like seeing a ghost I thought I’d buried.”
That was all Lisa could take.
She leaned back and grabbed her wife gently by the face resting it in the palm of hands, thumbs stroking defined cheekbones as she stared her straight in the eyes.
“Listen to me, what happened to you should never have happened. He took advantage of you, he violated you. None of this, none of it is your fault,” Lisa said, her voice steady yet somehow gentle.
“I hate that this happened to you, that I wasn’t there to protect you or fight for you,” Lisa cried, “and I know that sounds ridiculous because we didn’t know each other then but I promise you, I promise, no one will ever hurt you like that again.”
Carla reached up a hand, wrapping it around Lisa’s wrist as she pressed their foreheads together.
“How can you even look at me after that? After what I’ve just told ye,” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper as it wavered.
Lisa’s heart broke at the question. How could her wife think she would ever think of her differently? Look at her differently?
“Because when I look at you I see the woman I love. I see the heart that reached out to me and our daughter when we had no one. The arms that held us up when we were breaking down.”
Lisa referring to Betsy as theirs wasn’t lost on Carla. She’d long retired the roles of mentor and step mother, but still, it meant the world to her to hear. To have Lisa acknowledge her in such a pivotal role and to give her that ownership over the most precious thing she had in her life.
That was why Carla knew, she had to be honest. She had to give Lisa the full picture so she could understand.
Her hand twisted at Lisa’s wrist as she fought against every urge to keep the little compartmentalised box in her head closed. To keep the darkness at bay. But she knew had to do it, needed to do it. For her own sake if nothing else.
“It wasn’t the first time,” Carla whispered, her eyes locked on Lisa’s lips because she couldn’t bear to look her in the eye.
Lisa frowned at this as she leaned back a little, hands still cradling her wife’s face.
“What?” She asked, the crack betraying the sense of calm she had tried to instil in the room.
Carla licked her drying lips.
“I was raped before by a man I was supposed to marry,” Carla admitted, finally finding the strength to lock eyes with Lisa once more.
“Frank Foster. He uh, he was my fiancée at the time. I’d decided I was going to call off the wedding,” she remembered, her minds eye taking her back to that room on that night.
“He didn’t take too kindly to it. He needed to be in control of everything. That night, he decided to put me in my place and remind me who was in control.”
Lisa’s eyes clamped shut as she inhaled deeply through her nose. She leaned up pressing her lips to Carla’s forehead before resting there trying desperately to claw back her own control.
“Please tell me he’s locked up,” she pleaded, for Carla’s sake but also her own. Because she didn’t know what she would do if she found out he was still walking the streets. Probably hunt him down and kill him with her bare hands.
Carla shook her head and for a moment Lisa almost lost all sense of control.
“I reported it at the time. Even went to court and stood in that bloody box,” Carla growled, remembering the humiliation she felt at the hands of the law.
“They painted me as some cheap slag with a history of bedding men. He walked that day,” Carla recalled.
She stopped for a moment, taking a few steadying breaths before continuing.
“Eventually he turned up dead. Murdered. I was the number one suspect for obvious reason. Turned out his own mother had done him in. Ironic really,” Carla’s sarcastic laugh splintered through the silence.
Her face turned serious as she gazed into Lisa’s eyes again.
“I’m not telling you all this cause I want you to feel sorry for me. I just, I don’t want ghosts from my past popping up and causing all this. Catching you off guard.
Lisa shook her head.
“Darling listen to me. I love you. More than anything and, God it breaks my heart that you went through all this.”
A tear escaped Lisa’s eye and tracked down her cheek, a physical representation of the pain she felt for her wife.
“But I need you to hear me when I say this. Nothing about this changes how I feel about you, if anything it makes me love you even more because I realise how lucky I am that it made you into the woman you are. The woman I fell in love with.”
Her thumbs eagerly stroked at Carla’s cheeks trying desperately to convey every word.
“I hate that the system failed you. I hate that anyone could hurt you like that. Carla, what you must’ve gone through, I can’t even imagine it. Part of me doesn’t want to cause if I think about it too much I won’t be able to control what I do.”
Lisa exhaled a deep breath, gazing back and forth at her wife’s eyes, her expression soft though still conveying the turmoil she felt in that moment.
“I don’t care about your past. It doesn’t change how I feel about you or how I see you. The only thing it makes me feel is incredibly proud that I get to call you my wife. My beautifully stubborn, hard headed, aggy….” She’s suddenly cut off by Carla swatting at her arm.
For the first time since the revelation, Carla actually let out a laugh, a real one. And Lisa smiled warmly back at her.
“There she is,” Lisa beamed. “The strong, feisty, courageous woman I fell in love with. That’s all that matters to me.”
She reached up a hand and stroked Carla’s hair, fingers threading through long raven locks.
“The only thing I care about is that you feel safe. Safe to be you, safe to feel vulnerable and know I’ll never take advantage of it. That’s all that matters to me. That’s all that will ever matter to me. Not what happened before. Not how you think it makes me see you. Just safe.”
Carla’s bottom lip trembled as she wrapped her arms around Lisa’s neck and clung tight, burying her face in the warmth of her neck. Lisa’s arms wrapped tightly around her torso, holding her so strong and secure as if they were a physical force field keeping the world at bay.
“I love you,” Carla croaked, causing Lisa’s heart to stutter as it always did whenever she heard those words from her wife and then she felt lips press against the side of her neck, right over her pulse point.
“I love you too, so much,” she whispered back, pressing her lips to her wife’s head and peppering it with kisses.
****Ghosts Of The Past****
Browning glanced up just in time to see DS Connor-Swain waltzing back into the station, pulling her police pass on over her head as she moved.
“Back to interview your latest haul?” He asked, head gesturing toward the hallway that lead to the interview rooms.
Lisa pulled her ponytail out from the lanyard around her neck from where it had caught as she accepted the file into her hand.
“Interview? By the time I’m done with them they’ll be wishing to see the inside of a jail cell if they’re lucky,” she said.
Browning frowned as he regarded her comments, the threatening tone not something he was used to hearing from his Sergeant.
Before he could ask any questions, Lisa had marched herself down to her office to dispose of her jacket. She breezed past the other occupants and glided over to her desk, hanging it off the back of the swivel chair.
As she adjusted her shirt, her eyes landed on the framed picture on her desk, her wedding photo. The love and happiness it radiated a far cry from the pain she had experienced over the last few hours.
A steely determination settled in her core as she regarded her wife’s image. Carla had been hurt before, but over Lisa’s dead body would she be hurt again. Even if it was a ghost.
Gathering the file into her hand, Lisa made her way to Interview Room One and pressed on the handle, stepping in with an overwhelming air of authority that she reserved solely for criminals that particularly grinded her gears.
“Jordan Peterson,” she announced as she strode to the seat opposite the man sitting agitated at the table between them. He looked her up and down with a look of pure disdain. Lisa didn’t even flinch.
“DS Connor-Swain,” she said, taking a seat as she flipped open the file with the pre typed notes from the interview earlier today before clenching her hands in front of herself on the table.
The name suddenly resonated with Jordan as he put the puzzle pieces together from earlier in the day. His face suddenly losing its smugness as the detective stared him down.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
****Ghosts Of The Past****
The living room door shut with a soft click behind Lisa as she regarded the dimly lit household. Evidence of her late night at the office.
A text earlier had notified her that Betsy was staying with Lauren for the night while Ryan was sleeping on a mates couch after his DJ set at a club in town.
Taking her coat off, she hung it on the bannister, just like she had done earlier and pulled off her boots, tossing her keys on the table next to the couch.
Slipping her phone into her back pocket, she climbed the stairs one at a time, careful not to wake Carla should she be asleep.
Instead what greeted her as she entered the bedroom, was the sight of her wife, freshly showered, wrapped in only a towel as she fished for a pair of pyjamas in one of the dresser drawers.
“Hi love,” Carla smiled as she gestured with her thumb over her shoulder, “water is still warm if you wanna jump in the shower. I’m just gonna put these on and moisturise.”
Before Carla could begin dressing, Lisa approached her wife and gently pulled the pyjama top from her hands.
“Don’t,” Lisa said, gazing lovely into Carla’s eyes, the brunette glancing back questioningly.
“Don’t what?” She asked as Lisa stepped into her personal space.
“Don’t get dressed.”
Before Carla could react Lisa had cupped her face in her hands and kissed her with everything she had. Their tongues battling for dominance.
It was in that moment Carla could hear the echo of her past self saying those exact words to Lisa in her old flat. A reminder of when everything had changed between them. Of when possibility became reality.
In that moment Carla knew exactly what Lisa was doing. Healing the wounds of the past with reminders of how bright their future was.
Lisa reached down and gently tugged on the towel until it dropped to the floor in a pool at their feet. Her hands roaming hungrily, caressing every curve, every scar, every inch of her wife she could touch. Wanting but not stealing or demanding.
“This,” Lisa said pressing her forehead to Carla’s, “this is mine. Mine to love, mine to cherish, mine to protect. No one will ever take advantage of it again. Ever!”
Carla’s breath hitched at the softness of Lisa’s words. They weren’t born out of possession, but rather a recognition of the fact that Carla had promised herself completely to her wife and in return, Lisa was promising to guard her with her life in the way Carla rarely believed she deserved.
Placing her hands against Lisa’s chest, Carla felt the steady thrum of her heartbeat beneath her palms. Her own wedding and engagement rings sparking in the soft glow of the dimmed mood lighting.
“It’s yours, all yours. Forever please?” Carla pleaded, her voice cracking on the last word.
Lisa reached up a hand and stroked her cheek.
“Forever. I promise.”
That night Lisa made love to her wife over and over again, until the ghosts of the past were well and truly buried. She couldn’t rewrite history, couldn’t change what had already been done.
But the one thing she could do was heal every bad memory with a touch that came from love, a caress that spoke of how much she cared, with a kiss that conveyed her intention to always cherish her wife’s body the way it deserved. With gentleness, respect and a mutual understanding that every touch was consensual and wanted. By both of them.
As they lay in bed wrapped up in one another’s arms, Carla snuggled tight as she rested her head on Lisa’s bare chest. Thankful for this woman she had found who loved her so completely. Who made every touch, every kiss, feel how it should be. Warm, and safe, and everything Carla had craved for so many years.
“I love you Lis,” Carla mumbled against her wife’s chest, her voice thick with tiredness after an emotional day.
Lisa wrapped her arms tightly around her, stroking Carla’s bare back with feather light fingertips.
“I love you darling,” she replied kissing the top of her wife’s head before resting her chin there, “so much.”
Lisa lay awake in the darkness, softly stroking Carla’s arm as her wife fell deeper and deeper into a peaceful slumber, Lisa’s lips pressing against the crown of her head.
“No more ghosts darling. Just us.”