Waiting.

Hoping.

Wondering if the boundary she’d just crossed had built a bridge or drawn a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

Bette froze.

For a second, her body forgot how to move. She didn’t return it, but she didn’t flinch away either. The moment stretched, suspended in uncertainty, and then gently, firmly, she pulled back.

“Nyah,” she said softly. Her voice didn’t shake, but it was layered with exhaustion and restraint. “No.”

Nyah exhaled, drawing back slowly, her eyes searching Bette’s. “I thought maybe…”

“I know,” Bette said, her hand still resting where Nyah had touched it. “I felt it too. But that’s not who I am. Not even now.”

Nyah ran a hand through her curls, laughing once, humourless. “You’re loyal to a fault.”

“Not to a fault,” Bette replied. “To what matters.”

Nyah didn’t speak for a long beat. Then she rose, quietly collecting the dishes and walking them to the sink. Her back was straight, but her movements had lost their ease. Bette stood too, slowly.

“I’m sorry,” Nyah said finally, not turning around. “I wasn’t trying to disrespect you. Or Tina. I just… I’ve seen you fight for everything else. I guess I wondered if anyone ever fought for you.”

Bette stepped behind her, not too close, but close enough to soften the silence. “Tina does. In her way. Every day.”

Nyah nodded once, then turned, her face composed again. “Then I envy her.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, not as equal fighting the same fight, not even as friends, but as two women who had seen too much, carried too much, and briefly, in that flicker of candlelight, tried to reach for something soft in the middle of the storm.

Nyah turned from the sink, drying her hands on a tea towel with deliberate slowness. “I should go,” she said, her voice low but calm, tinged with something unreadable. She reached down to retrieve her sandals from beneath the table, slipping them on one by one with a quiet grace, the leather soft from years of wear. The moment stretched, neither of them rushing to break it.

Bette stood, walking with her to the door in a silence thick with unspoken things. Outside, the air had cooled, and a restless wind threaded through the trees, tossing dry leaves across the path. The night carried the familiar, low rumbles of the elephants from the pens, those strange, dreamy sounds like thunder far away, full of longing and memory.