Forces of Nature

✦   ✦   ✦

“Dakota?”

Dakota looked up from her phone and realized that at some point she had arrived at work. She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there holding the door open for no one. Michaela was standing a few feet away, holding out a coffee.

“Are you coming to work or…?” Michaela asked.

That fucking book.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dakota said quickly. “I was just holding the door open for someone.”

Michaela looked around the empty sidewalk. “Who?”

“Never mind.” Dakota took the cup and went inside.

The world came flooding back all at once: the rich smell of ground coffee, the soft static of quiet conversation, the sharp hiss of the espresso machine beneath the lo-fi music coming from the speakers.

Michaela nudged her as they walked toward the counter. “I know that look. The book’s got its claws in you, doesn’t it? Where are you at?”

“It’s for work,” Dakota said a little too quickly. “I’m just trying to memorize my lines. Besides, I lost my paperback yesterday, so I had to buy the damn thing twice.”

Michaela raised her eyebrows. “Oh. Well, you can borrow mine. I finished it last night.”

That caught Dakota’s attention. “Already?”

“Yeah,” Michaela said. “I couldn’t put it down. It’s one of her best ever.” She looked a little wistful, almost sad. “I was really surprised at the lack of an HEA.”

Dakota frowned. “What’s an HEA?”

Michaela chuckled. “I keep forgetting you’re a newbie. HEA stands for happily ever after. Most of these books end on at least a proposal, usually a wedding, sometimes a pregnancy. But this one ended in divorce.”

She froze, then slowly turned to Dakota, visibly cringing. “Oops. Spoilers.”

Dakota waved it away. “I’m not worried about spoilers.”

But the thought stuck.

How the hell do they go from Everest to divorce?

There was a short pause. Michaela’s expression shifted, becoming more serious.

“How’s your eye?”

Dakota’s hand went to her face before she could stop herself. She winced. It had taken her an extra ten minutes that morning to cake on enough concealer to hide the darkening bruise.

“It’s fine,” she said.

She hesitated, then asked, “Have you seen Luna this morning?”

Michaela shook her head. “Nope. But I did see the video of the fight, if you can even call it that. Looked like it was over in a few hits. I think you broke her nose.”

✦   ✦   ✦

A little later, as Dakota was getting ready to put on her apron, something caught in her mind. She unlocked her phone. The book was already open. She started scrolling back, expecting the line to be only a page or two behind. Instead, she kept flipping. Page after page.

How long had she been holding that door open?

Finally she found it.

Don't make yourself small to fit the expectations of others.

She highlighted the passage, then put the phone away, tied on her apron, and got to work.

✦   ✦   ✦

A little over an hour later, Dakota looked up from the register and froze.

Lauren stood directly in front of her, eyes steady. Before Dakota could speak, Lauren raised both hands in surrender.

“I know. I know,” she said quickly. “You told me to stop coming here. I was on my way to the shop and I just… I needed to say I’m sorry for what I said last night. That was completely uncalled for.”

She hesitated, then pushed on. “I don’t know what came over me. No—that’s a lie. I do. I was jealous. Seeing another woman kiss you like that… it hit harder than I expected. But that’s no excuse.”

Dakota stared at her, still too stunned to fully process anything beyond the fact that Lauren was standing in front of her again. That familiar feeling of being trapped settled over her.

“So your usual?” she asked finally.

Lauren managed a small, tired smile. “Only if you’ll join me.”

Dakota glanced toward the counter. “You okay if I take my break?” she asked Michaela.

Michaela looked between them, then nodded. “Sure.”

Dakota made the coffee and carried both cups to a small table near the window. They sat. Only then, up close, did Dakota notice how red and puffy Lauren’s eyes were. In all the months they had been together, Lauren had seen her cry more than once. Dakota had never seen Lauren cry. The realization sat strangely with her, followed by an unexpected twinge of sympathy.

Lauren wrapped her hands around the cup. “I talked to Jess. Well… not really. She sent me a long text. Listed out every way I mistreated you while we were together.” Her voice roughened. “She hasn’t answered any of my messages since. Left on read. So I guess I lost my girlfriend and my best friend in the same night.”

Dakota shook her head. “You haven’t lost Jess. She’s angry, but she still called you her best friend. Just give her time.”

Lauren nodded, biting her lip. “Thank you for that.” She looked down at the table for a moment, then back up. Her eyes were shiny with fresh tears. She dabbed at them carefully with a napkin.

Dakota felt the sudden urge to reach across the table and touch Lauren’s hand. She stopped herself. That wouldn’t be good for either of them.

Lauren took a sip of coffee to steady herself.

“I want you to know something,” she said quietly. “When Jess told me all those things… I didn’t recognize myself in half of them. I did those things out of love. I thought I was taking care of you. I never once thought of it as abuse. I genuinely believed I was being good to you.” She looked down at the table again. “I’m so sorry that what I thought was care hurt you instead.”

Dakota didn’t answer right away. The honesty in Lauren’s voice made it harder to hold onto the old anger.

Lauren drew a breath and met her eyes. “I just want you to be happy. Honest to goddess, that’s all I ever wanted. And if this new girl makes you happy… then I’m genuinely glad for you.”

Well…

Lauren pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and slid it across the table. Dakota looked down. It took her a second to understand what she was seeing. Lauren’s period tracker — only Lauren’s cycle now.

“There,” Lauren said, attempting a weak smile. “I only know when I’m in my moons now, not you.”

Dakota let out a quiet breath. “You never really needed it anyway. We were always in sync.”

Lauren’s smile flickered, almost real this time. Then she sobered.

“Speaking of health… how’s your eye?” She started to reach across the table toward Dakota’s face.

Dakota flinched.

Lauren withdrew her hand immediately. The hurt flashed across her expression before she covered it.

“I saw Luna this morning,” she said quietly. “She says you broke her nose.”

Dakota’s posture stiffened. “She hit me first.”

Lauren chuckled under her breath. “Better her than me.”

She gathered her bag and stood. “I don’t want to take up your whole break. And I need to get to the shop.” She paused, looking back over her shoulder. “I meant what I said. I’ve only ever wanted the best for you. I hope she’s it.”

Then she left.

Dakota sat alone at the table for a long moment. Suddenly she could see the last twenty-four hours from Lauren’s side. A successful date. Sex. Waking up thinking they might be back together–hell, even she thought they were back together. Then radio silence. And the next time Lauren saw her, she was being kissed by a stranger.

It didn't erase what had happened between them.

But it made it harder for her to be angry.

Dakota sighed, stood up, and went back to work.

✦   ✦   ✦

Later that day, after her shift, Dakota made her way across town to the community theater for her acting class.

She pushed through the studio door still carrying a residual high from the morning. The shift had been fine. Lauren had left. Her black eye was well hidden under the concealer. And in a few hours she would be in the booth with Callie again. The thought sent a small, private current through her.

A couple of people looked up as she came in.

“Hey, Dakota. Missed you yesterday.”

“Good to see you back.”

She dropped her bag by the wall and gave a quick wave. “Missed you guys too.”

Mr. Harlan was already at the front, sorting pages. He glanced up and smiled.

“Ah. There she is. Welcome back, Dakota.” He held out a thin stack. “We’re pivoting. Finished with Shrew. Starting Much Ado About Nothing. Why don’t you lead us off?”

Dakota took the pages. The paper was still warm from his hands.

“You’ll be reading Claudio,” he said. Then he nodded toward the other side of the circle. “Maya, you’re on Hero today.”

Maya lifted her own pages in acknowledgment. She sat with her shoulders relaxed, the corners of her mouth already tilted up.

The room quieted. Chairs scraped once more and then went still. Someone near the back cleared their throat and stopped.

Dakota found her place and began.

“Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.”

Maya answered, soft and open.

“I am yours, my lord. And I give myself to you with the same joy.”

Something old and sharp shifted under her ribs. Her jaw tightened.

She drove the next lines through her teeth, her eyes starting to unfocus.

“There, Leonato, take her back again!
Give not this rotten orange to your friend.
She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.”

She looked at Maya and no longer saw her.

Lauren stood in her place.

The room had gone quiet.

Dakota blinked and Lauren was gone.

Now Maya was regarding her with wide-eyed admiration.

Dakota lowered the pages. Only then did she feel the deep creases her fingers had pressed into the paper, the fine tremor still running through her wrists. She had to tell her hands to open. She drew one deliberate breath and let it out slowly.

Mr. Harlan looked at them both.

“Well done, both of you.” He turned slightly toward Dakota. “You found something in that.”

She gave a small, noncommittal shrug.

“Just trying it on.”

Mr. Harlan was already calling the next pair as Dakota crossed the circle to her chair. She sat and set the crumpled pages on the floor beside her. The room’s attention shifted forward. She let it. For a moment she simply stayed still and felt the last of the heat leave her chest.

If she was being honest, she was more than a little impressed with herself. Usually the feeling had to be found and held. This time it had simply been there already waiting, and she had only to let it possess her.

She had believed she was finished with Lauren. She had said the words, closed the door, walked away.

Apparently not.

Something had still been living under her ribs. The speech had given it a shape and a way out. Now that it was gone, she felt empty—not hollow, but the way a finger feels after the shard of glass has finally been pulled free. The relief of knowing it can no longer cut. The quiet knowledge that healing can begin.

Dakota tried to watch the next pair.

The guy playing Claudio had a decent voice, a little too eager on the attacks. The woman opposite him was softer, careful with Hero’s lines. Dakota kept her eyes on them for almost a full page before her attention began to slide.

She looked down and found her bag already in her lap. She did not remember moving it there. Her phone was inside, one unlock away from Forces of Nature.

She should be paying attention. This was the work. On the other hand, the booth session came after class, and that was the job that actually paid her. The book was preparation for that. Would it really be so wrong to prepare while she was only sitting here, waiting to be called again? Wasn’t that why she had bought the damn thing twice?

Onstage the man stepped in closer.

“Give not this rotten orange to your friend.”

For a second the posture was wrong and then it wasn’t. Broad shoulders, careful stillness, the exact angle of the head Callie used when she was listening hard. The voice in Dakota’s ear shifted without permission, cooler, more precise. Callie’s cadence sat inside the line like it had always belonged there.

The woman answered.

“And seemed I ever otherwise to you?”

Dakota heard her own voice answer, quieter than she meant it to be.

She blinked hard and forced her focus outward again. Someone in the circle shifted. A chair leg scraped. The pair kept going. She watched their mouths move and still the overlay held: Callie’s face on the man, her own mouth shaping Hero’s answers.

“Is my lord well, that he doth—”

The actress stopped. “Fuck. Sorry. Let me start that over.”

The double image collapsed.

Dakota sat very still. The bag stayed heavy in her lap. The crumpled script remained on the floor beside her foot.

That fucking book.

✦   ✦   ✦

Dakota pushed through the studio door still carrying the residual charge from class. The anger had burned clean in the theater. Her body felt lighter for having let it out.

Callie was already in the booth.

She sat with her tablet open, shoulders set a fraction tighter than usual. When she looked up, the smile she offered was thin and brief.

“Hey.”

Dakota slowed. “Hey.”

Callie’s posture was pinched, her voice clipped, impatient. Spine locked, shoulders high, everything drawn carefully inward—the posture of someone trying to hold together something broken. The clipped syllables you used when you were afraid that if you opened your mouth whatever was loose in your chest would come spilling out.

Fuck off!

It seemed that whatever had been simmering between Callie and her boyfriend had finally boiled over.

Mike appeared from the control room, tablet in hand.

“Good, you’re both here. You two have been killing it. I think we can finish the main material tonight. Tomorrow we’ll do the last pickups and then we’re done.”

He said it lightly, like a reward.

Dakota nodded and stepped into the booth. Callie shifted to make room without looking at her. The usual easy orbit they had settled into over the sessions was gone. In its place was careful distance.

Dakota set her bag down, found her place on the tablet, and waited for the red light.

Dakota looked down at the tablet.

Kitchen. Late. Quiet. No raised voices. The end of it. Despite the fact that Michaela had spoiled the ending, or maybe because of it, she was surprised to feel a twinge of dread at what she was about to read.

Callie’s eyes were on the tablet instead of on Dakota the way they usually were. Dakota tried to convince herself it was no big deal, that it didn’t bother her at all. She made a mental note to talk to Callie on the break. It was clear Callie needed to get something off her chest. And wasn’t that what friends did for each other? The way Jess had done for her?

Mike’s voice came through the cans. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Dakota drew a breath and began.

“I don’t want this,” she said. “I didn’t mean it when I said I wanted a divorce. I was just angry.”

They were almost finished with the whole book. She had spent weeks claiming she couldn’t stand it. Why did she suddenly want to fill in the blanks—the words between the lines she had already spoken? Why did she want to know how it had all come to this?

Callie answered, Jane’s voice low and even.

“We were both angry. And yes. You meant it. We’ve been angry for a long time.”

“I thought we could still fix it. I thought if we just—”

Mary had said the word first. Mary was the one trying to take it back. And still the wanting stayed—the arguments, the slow failure, all of it.

“We tried. You know we did.”

There was a pause.

“We tried,” Callie repeated. “You know we did.”

Mike’s voice cut in, mild but pointed. “Dakota.”

“Sorry,” Dakota said quickly. She scanned the page, found her line.

As Mary: “I’m so sorry I did this to us. I don’t know how I’ll ever learn to stop loving you.”

Callie answered.

“That’s one lesson I won’t be able to teach you.”

The red light went off. Mike’s voice came through again.

“Let’s take a break.”

✦   ✦   ✦

Dakota pushed into the women’s room and let the door swing shut behind her.

Empty. Good.

She set her bag on the counter and waited.

A minute passed. She paced the short length of the room once, twice, reflexively checking the stalls, listening for the door. Callie would be here any second. They would talk. That was what friends did.

She stopped in front of the mirror.

Well. While she was waiting, she might as well touch up the concealer. She dug into her bag, found the tube, and began to work it in around the dull yellowish shadow under her eye, careful around the edges.

She paused, studying her reflection.

And if she was being honest, the eyeliner on the left side could use a little work. She reached into the bag again, rummaged, pulled out the pencil, and leaned closer to clean the line.

She looked again. Now the right eye didn’t look as fresh as the left. She evened it out so they matched.

Another pause.

And really, the lip color was fading. Might as well fix that while she was at it. She dug through the bag once more, found the tube, reapplied it, pressed her lips together, and checked the result.

I tried to get it as close to your natural style as possible.

Dakota stepped back and made another slow lap of the room, checking the stalls again, listening. Still nothing. The quiet had started to stretch.

She returned to the mirror and reached up to smooth her hair where it had gone flat on one side.

Callie had held her hair for her, too. Both hands gathering it back, steady and silent, while Dakota leaned over the toilet and shook.

She let her hands fall and looked at her own reflection a second longer.

For once she was in this bathroom without humiliating herself. No nausea. No damp underwear under the dryer. No confession she couldn’t take back. No quiet figure already listening from a stall. Just her, the mirror, and a few ordinary minutes.

She stepped back and looked at herself properly.

Well. Now she’d gone and accidentally made herself hot.

She turned her head, made a couple of experimental kissy faces at the mirror, then struck a short pose, one hand still resting near her hair. The second she registered what she was doing, the embarrassment hit. She dropped her hands and looked away.

Well. That was short-lived.

Still a little warm with it, she turned on the water and washed her hands longer than necessary, then waited.

Another minute passed. Then another.

Dakota checked the door again, then the stalls, even though she already knew they were empty. The quiet had stopped feeling neutral. It had started to feel like it was watching her.

She took out her phone, stared at the screen for a few seconds longer than necessary, then put it away. Paced once more. Stopped.

Do friends wait for each other in the bathroom?

The question arrived fully formed and immediately made everything worse. She had come in here with a clean intention. Check on Callie. Offer to listen. Be a good friend. Now the longer she stood here alone, the more the whole thing tilted.

She went into a stall and sat.

It was starting to feel less like an intervention and more like an ambush.

She finished, flushed, and came back out. Washed her hands. Looked in the mirror.

Still hot.

She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. The studio was still muffled beyond the door. No footsteps. No soft push of the door. Nothing.

Callie wasn’t coming.

The realization settled in with a dull, embarrassed weight. Of course she wasn’t. Dakota had built the entire conversation in her head and then waited here to deliver it.

After everything—after all the ways she had embarrassed herself in this bathroom—this was far and away the worst.

She needed to get back to the booth.

Dakota picked up her bag, took one last look at the empty room, and shook her head once.

Fuckin’ ninjas. Never around when you wanted them.

✦   ✦   ✦

Dakota stepped back into the booth.

Callie was already in her chair, headphones around her neck, eyes on the tablet. Dakota stopped for half a second. Had she been here the whole time? Had she never left at all? Or had she spent the break on the phone with her boyfriend, working through whatever had followed her in from the sidewalk?

Dakota set her bag down and tried for levity.

“Did you kick Mike out of the men’s room again?”

Callie looked up, pure confusion on her face.

“What?”

Heat climbed into Dakota’s cheeks.

“Never mind.”

Before things could get any worse, Mike’s voice came through the cans.

“Welcome back. Let’s take it one more time from the top, then we’ll call it a night.”

Dakota settled the headphones. Her body knew the scene. The lines were already in her mouth.

“I don’t want this. I didn’t mean it when I said I wanted a divorce. I was just angry.”

What she watched instead was Callie.

The same tight set of the shoulders.

“We were both angry. And yes. You meant it. We’ve been angry for a long time.”

The same careful distance. Dakota tried to read the hard line of Callie’s jaw, the way her fingers rested on the tablet. She found no resolution there.

“I thought we could still fix it. I thought if we just—”

Something in Callie’s posture had not eased at all. If anything it looked more locked. Maybe the fight had been worse than the others.

“We tried. You know we did.”

Dakota kept turning it over—the locked shoulders, the break, the question of how bad the fight had been.

“We tried. You know we did.”

She was still inside it when a sharp, hard smack against the plexiglass between the booths cracked through the headphones.

Dakota jumped. The tablet nearly slipped from her hands. Her head snapped up.

Callie was staring at her, face hardened in frustration. Anger?

Dakota swallowed hard.

“Sorry.” She found her place and finished the take.

“I’m so sorry I did this to us. I don’t know how I’ll ever learn to stop loving you.”

“That’s one lesson I won’t be able to teach you.”

The red light stayed on a beat longer than usual.

Mike’s voice came back, careful now, the easy warmth gone.

“Let’s take it from the top one more time. Just to be sure.”

Callie’s eyes were fixed on her across the glass, steady and unblinking, almost daring her to fuck up again.

Dakota did not fuck up. She stayed in the now, locked on the page and on the woman across from her, and ran it clean. She could feel Callie’s attention like a hand at the back of her neck the entire time.

“I don’t want this. I didn’t mean it when I said I wanted a divorce. I was just angry.”

“We were both angry. And yes. You meant it. We’ve been angry for a long time.”

“I thought we could still fix it. I thought if we just—”

“We tried. You know we did.”

“I’m so sorry I did this to us. I don’t know how I’ll ever learn to stop loving you.”

“That’s one lesson I won’t be able to teach you.”

The red light went off.

Mike’s voice returned, quieter.

“I’ve got everything I need. See you both tomorrow for the final pickups.”

They stepped out of the booth into the hallway. Mike had already disappeared down the hall with a short wave. The door clicked shut behind them.

Dakota caught up to Callie before she could reach the exit.

“Hey. Callie. I’m really sorry about tonight. I don’t know what happened in there.”

Callie stopped. She didn’t turn around.

“You’ve been very clear in your disdain for the material,” she said over her shoulder.

Dakota’s hands came up, open.

“Whoa. Okay. I know I fucked up in the booth, but—”

Callie turned. Her shoulders were already tight, weight shifted forward onto the balls of her feet.

“But I had no idea how deep the disgust went until I found this.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a paperback. Dakota recognized her lost copy of Forces of Nature immediately.

“Hey. That’s mine.”

“You left it in my car.”

“That doesn’t give you the right—”

Callie opened the book. Her jaw was set.

“You really let loose in here.” She read without looking up. “‘This would get an F from a sixth-grade English teacher.’” She flipped a page. “‘The prose is so purple it’s black.’” Another. “And my personal favorite: ‘Cringe as fuck.’”

Dakota stood there and took it. Each line landed hotter than the last. Her face burned. Her free hand had curled into a fist at her side without her noticing.

She snatched the book out of Callie’s hands.

Callie didn’t reach for it again. Her voice stayed level, but the edge underneath it had gone sharp.

“If you hate this as much as you clearly do, why are you here?”

Dakota’s volume jumped. Her shoulders came up.

“Because I need the fucking money. Not all of us are living as comfortably as you are, fangirl.”

The word hung between them like a rift opening in the floor of the hallway.

Callie’s posture changed. The heat went out of her all at once. What replaced it was cold and precise. Her hands, which had been open at her sides, closed once and then went still.

“If you need the money so bad,” she said, “then do a better fucking job!”

She turned on her heel and walked out. The exit door sighed shut behind her.

Dakota stood in the empty hallway with the book in her hand. Her mouth was open. Nothing came out. The paperback felt heavier than it should have. Somewhere down the corridor a vent kicked on, absurdly loud in the new quiet.

What the fuck just happened?

How the fuck did it come to this?