Page 71 of Tell Me Your Desires

“You just thought I’d react the way Taylor did?”

“Goddammit, Max has been telling you stories!” Jaime leaned back dramatically, trying to hide the grimace from the pain that caused. “I’m going to have a long talk with that man.”

Anya patted Jaime’s leg. “He had good reason for telling me a few things. All the other stuff, I hope to hear directly from you.”

“Yeah, okay. So, do you want to go? With me, I mean. As my date?” Jesus. Why did it feel like she had never asked a woman out in her life? They had spoken about love and even Jaime practically moving in. Why on earth was this so nerve-wracking?

“Hmm.” Anya could tell Jaime was still nervous about asking her to this ceremony. What better way to get Jaime over that than making light of the situation? “Will you be wearing your Class A uniform?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda required.”

“Then, yes. I accept your invitation.” Anya leaned in again, this time letting the kiss linger. “I can’t wait to see you in that uniform,” she whispered against Jaime’s lips. “And then I can’t wait to get you out of it when we get home.”

“Holy shit.” Jaime closed her eyes, but that only led to imagining Anya ripping off her uniform and doing all kinds of beautiful things to her body. Jaime squirmed and cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

“For saying yes?”

“For that and for bringing me back to life.”

Anya smiled and lay down next to Jaime, carefully snuggling up to her side. “Right back at you, Detective.”

As Jaime stared out at the rows of gravestones, blurring together until her eyes found the one she was here for, a familiar dull ache settled in her chest. She hadn’t been here in a long time, always telling herself she couldn’t because she was too busy or too raw or too afraid of what it could dredge up, but as she stood here today with Anya by her side, she no longer felt the need to find an excuse for her avoidance.

Because Anya understood her more than any other woman ever had.

Taylor Chamberlain

The name leapt out at her, crisp and unyielding against the granite as she walked slowly towards Taylor’s grave, her boots crunching on the gravel path, her stomach churning. No matter how many crime scenes she’d walked into, nothing compared to this stone with Taylor’s name on it.

She stopped for a moment. The urge to turn around and walk back towards the iron gates that looked out on Reno’s low skyline—the casinos’ neon just faintly visible in the daylight—was strong today.

But then she felt Anya’s quiet presence behind her, not pushing, not pulling, just simply there.

It anchored Jaime in a way she couldn’t explain.

It’s time to close this chapter.

Jaime drew in a deep breath, stepped closer, and crouched down in front of the gravestone.

“Hey, Tay. It’s…been a while.” Jaime’s voice sounded smaller than she’d expected, but at least it didn’t break.

She cast her gaze over the name again, over the dates that seemed impossible to comprehend, even to this day.

“I should have come sooner. I know that. I just…I kept telling myself that I wasn’t ready, but the truth is that I didn’t want to face it all. Not like this.”

The silence stretched, only broken by the faint hum of traffic in the distance.

If Jaime tried hard enough, she could still hear Taylor’s laugh, that low, warm sound that cut through the worst of Jaime’s moods.

For a second, she allowed herself to believe it was real.

That maybe Taylor would step out from behind one of the cedar trees, alive and whole.

But the illusion slipped away as quickly as it formed in her mind, leaving only the carved stone and the brittle desert grass at its base.

Jaime swallowed back the emotion in her throat.

“I’ve carried you with me this whole time.

Every choice, every mistake, every damn time I second-guessed myself…

I kept wondering what you’d think or what you’d say.

And the truth is, I don’t know. I’ll never know.

” Jaime ran a hand down her face and sighed.

“And I’ve been lying to myself about us by pretending we were perfect.

Like if I kept replaying only the good stuff, then somehow, it would make up for losing you.

You know, the cookies in the oven or the movies on the couch…

you smiling when I walked through the door.

I thought that if I held onto those moments hard enough, I’d be forgiven for that night.

” Jaime’s jaw tightened. She closed her eyes and exhaled a deep breath through her nose.

“But that wasn’t the whole story, was it?

We fought. We disappointed one another. Fuck, I let you down more times than I can count.

But you weren’t perfect, and neither was I… and I see that now.”

Jaime drew her thumb over Taylor’s name.

“I think I needed to believe we had it perfect because the alternative was unbearable. Because if I admitted we had cracks, then I had to admit that the guilt I’ve been drowning in wasn’t about fixing you or us.

It was about me not being able to forgive myself.

” She dragged a hand through her hair, her gaze sweeping across the Sierra Nevada in the distance.

“But I can’t keep doing that anymore. You’re gone and I’m still here.

I can’t spend the rest of my life punishing myself for not being enough, or for not saving you. ”

Jaime glanced back over her shoulder to where Anya stood a few feet away, her coat pulled tight around her. Anya regarded her with a faint smile and nodded. That quiet support and encouragement loosened the knot in Jaime’s chest. A knot she’d carried for so long.

“I’ve…met someone.” Jaime’s hand tightened against her knee.

“You probably wouldn’t have liked her. You probably would have thought she was too much, or not enough, or just not you…

but that’s okay. Because I love her and she’s good for me.

She’s certainly more than I ever thought I deserved after losing you. ”

Those words hung in the air, stark and honest. For the first time in years, Jaime didn’t feel like she was betraying Taylor by saying them out loud. No, she felt…free.

“I’ll never stop being grateful for you or what we had, but I need to stop rewriting it in my head as something that it wasn’t. We weren’t perfect. We were just us. And that was enough. But now, I have to let you go.”

Jaime’s throat burned, and for once, she didn’t fight it.

A tear slid down her cheek, her hands shaking against her knees, but then Anya stepped forward and laid a supportive hand on Jaime’s shoulder and squeezed.

Jaime settled her own hand over it and closed her eyes.

Anya’s gentle touch felt like permission.

Permission to finally release everything she’d been holding in.

Jaime bowed her head and exhaled. When she opened her eyes again, the stone was the same, the ground beneath her feet remained unchanged, but something inside her had shifted.

Taylor hadn’t been erased, and Jaime wasn’t fully healed, but she felt lighter.

She reached out and traced the edge of the stone with her fingertips, then rose to her feet and stepped back. “Goodbye, Taylor.”

When she turned to Anya, her face soft with a mixture of patience and love, Jaime hesitated.

Because moving towards Anya meant moving forward, and moving forward meant leaving this behind.

But then Jaime felt the weight on her shoulders ease again, urging her to take the step.

She reached for Anya’s hand. “Let’s go.”

Anya laced their fingers together. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. For the first time in a long time, I am.”

“I told Rosanna I’d text when we were on our way over for dinner. So, if you want to spend more time here, that’s okay.”

“I’m ready.” Jaime leaned in and kissed Anya, lingering as she closed her eyes. “So ready.”

They walked back down the gravel path side by side, and Jaime didn’t look back. The past was still a part of her, but it no longer held her in place.

As they reached the iron gates that opened onto Reno’s streets, Anya gave her hand a gentle squeeze. Jaime glanced at her, meeting her eyes, and found herself smiling.

The future was waiting, and Jaime was ready to walk into it.