The carriage wheels struck a rut, jolting her back into the present, but the ache remained—steady, familiar.
Mary wondered if Isabelle felt it too.
If somewhere, in that vast house with its polished floors and suffocating expectations, Isabelle paused mid-step for no reason at all. If her breath caught the same way Mary's did now, as if something essential had just been taken from her without ceremony.
They had never said goodbye properly.
Goodbyes invited questions. Goodbyes demanded explanations neither of them could give.
So Isabelle had only pressed a folded note into Mary's palm that morning, her gloves still on, her expression carefully arranged.
Be safe, it had said. Nothing more.
But Isabelle's eyes had betrayed her—too bright, too full. And when their fingers brushed in that final, accidental touch, Mary had felt the unspoken words rush between them like a tide.
Stay.
Don't forget me.
I loved you the only way I was allowed to.
Now the countryside slid past the carriage window, indifferent and endless. Mary traced the seam of her coat, imagining Isabelle's hands there—always warm, always hesitant, as though touching Mary was both refuge and risk.
What hurt most was not the secrecy.
It was the tenderness.
The way Isabelle had loved her as if love itself were fragile, something that could shatter if handled too boldly. The way she had chosen restraint not because her heart was small, but because it was too large for the world they lived in.
Mary closed her eyes.
Perhaps, in another life—another time—they would not have needed shadows. They would have danced openly, laughed loudly, kissed without counting seconds or listening for footsteps.
But this was the life they were given.
And still, they had found each other.
That, Mary decided, was not nothing.
As the carriage carried her onward, she held the memory close—not as a wound, but as proof. Proof that even in silence, even in fear, love had existed.
Quiet.
Careful.
Unforgettable.
And though the road stretched on, and Isabelle was now behind her, Mary knew one truth with aching certainty:
Some loves do not end.
They simply learn how to live inside you.