The Shape of Wanting

******** TRIGGER WARNING: THIS STORY INCLUDES THEMES RELATED TO ALCOHOLISM AND ABORTION ********

Chapter One: Bonds

The crisp autumn air carried the scent of cinnamon and roasted coffee as golden leaves pirouetted across the café patio. Julie traced the rim of her mug, her fingers smudged with charcoal from the morning’s sketches. Across the table, Tori laughed—a sound too loud, too bright, like sunlight glaring off ice.

“Remember when you set the dorm microwave on fire trying to make popcorn?” Tori grinned, her scarlet nails tapping the table.

Julie smirked. “You dared me to ‘engineer it like a true artist.’”

“And look at you now!” Tori gestured broadly, her bracelets clattering. “A genius with a gallery show. Meanwhile, I’m just a glorified event planner who can’t even keep a lemon tree alive.”

The words hung between them. Tori’s gaze flickered to her phone, its wallpaper a faded photo of her, Jeremy, and their rescue dog, Baxter, his tongue lolling mid-leap. Julie said nothing. She’d long memorized the cracks in Tori’s smiles.

They walked home through the park where they’d once skipped classes, under oaks now skeletal against the dusk. Tori looped her arm through Julie’s, their shadows merging on the path.

Twenty years of this, Julie thought. Tori’s warmth, her chaos, her need to fill every silence. But the spaces between Tori’s words felt heavier now, taut as overstrung canvas.

“Jeremy thinks we’re in a rut. Marriage-wise,” Tori blurted, kicking a pinecone.

Julie chose her words like brushstrokes. “He’s always chasing the next project. Literally and figuratively.”

A child sprinted past, giggling, a balloon bobbing behind him. Tori flinched, her grip tightening on Julie’s arm.

Tori’s home stood bathed in honeyed twilight, its porch swing groaning in the wind. The lemon tree in the corner hunched like an old man, its branches clawing at shriveled fruit.

Inside, Jeremy knelt amidst blueprints, his hair a tempest of ink-black waves. He looked up, and Julie felt it again—that dangerous magnetism, the thrill of a storm rolling in.

“Tori says your new series is ‘Georgia O’Keeffe meets a tornado,’” he said, rising. Ink blotched his fingers, his collar askew.

Julie’s cheeks warmed. “She’s biased.”

“Nonsense!” Tori brandished a wine bottle, her voice buoyant as a carnival barker’s. “Rosé? It’s that apricot one you—”

“Tori.” Jeremy caught her wrist, gentle. “Let’s just… breathe.”

The silence pooled like spilled ink.

Sunset bled through the windows as Tori refilled Julie’s glass, her gaze steady. “We’ve been talking. About expanding things. Emotionally. Romantically.”

Julie’s throat tightened.

Jeremy leaned forward, blueprints forgotten. “We want you in our lives. All of you.”

Twenty years of friendship, Julie thought, and now this—an invitation to step into the hurricane.

At the door, twilight painted the street in molten gold and graveyard gray. Tori hugged her too tightly.

“Just think about it,” she whispered, her lilac perfume cloying.

Alone, Julie watched her breath curl into the cold. Somewhere, a dog barked—sharp, insistent. She thought of roots clinging to barren soil, of fruit rotting sweetly on branches.

What does it cost, she wondered, to survive a thing you love?

The wind lifted the fallen leaves, carrying them like burnt pages into the dark.

Chapter Two: New Dynamics

The cabin nestled in the mountains like a secret, its cedar walls glowing amber in the late October sun. Jeremy had found it—of course he had—a “quirky gem” with sloping ceilings and a stone fireplace large enough to fit all their tangled histories. Tori called it an adventure. Julie called it a collision.

Arrival

Tori spilled out of the car, arms wide, her laughter echoing off the pines. “Paradise!” she declared, twirling until her scarf snagged on a branch. Jeremy untangled her, his hands lingering at her waist. When he turned to unload the trunk, Julie caught the flicker of his gaze—a question, a spark—before he tossed her the keys.

“You’re the artist,” he said. “You pick the rooms.”

The attic bedroom became hers, its slanted window framing the peaks like a charcoal sketch. Below, Tori hummed ABBA as she unpacked groceries, wine bottles clinking like wind chimes.

The First Night

They cooked together, hips bumping in the narrow kitchen. Jeremy chopped onions with surgical precision; Tori danced barefoot, her toes brushing Julie’s under the table.

“To us!” Tori clinked her glass too hard, rosé sloshing onto her wrist. “The world’s most perfect triangle.”

Julie smiled, but the word triangle pricked like a thorn.

Later, curled by the fire, Jeremy sketched the flames’ dance in his notebook. Julie leaned in, recognizing the restless lines—a mirror of her own sketches.

“You’re good,” she murmured.

He tore out the page. “Keep it.”

Tori watched from the doorway, her smile brittle as sugar glass.

The Storm

Rain lashed the cabin on the third night, trapping them in a drumbeat of water and woodsmoke. Jeremy unearthed a dusty guitar, fingers stumbling through a Dylan ballad. Julie harmonized, her voice low and sure.

Tori drained her wine. “Since when do you sing?”

“Since always,” Julie said, but Jeremy’s eyes stayed closed, lost in the chords.

When Tori stood, the room swayed. “Bedtime for me.”

They didn’t hear her pause on the stairs.

The Sketch

Morning brought fragile sunlight. Julie found Jeremy on the porch, sketching the mist-wrapped valley.

“It’s missing something,” he said.

She took the pencil, adding a single pine, bent but unbroken. Their fingers brushed.

Behind them, a shutter clicked. Tori lowered her camera. “Perfect,” she said, too brightly.

The photo, developed weeks later, would show Julie’s shoulder leaning into Jeremy’s, her hair a curtain between them.

The Garden

Back home, Tori planted hydrangeas. “New life!” she declared, though her gloves trembled.

Julie knelt beside her, dirt under her nails. “They need acidic soil.”

“I know what they need,” Tori snapped.

That night, Julie found her digging barehanded in the dark, roots torn up like broken promises.

The Turning

The nausea hit Julie mid-gallery setup. She blamed bad sushi.

Jeremy brought ginger tea, his palm steady on her back. “You’re burning up.”

Tori arrived with champagne. “To Julie’s sold-out show!” Her hug reeked of gin.

When Julie doubled over, Tori froze. “You’re not…”

The unspoken word hung like a blade.

The Drive

Rain blurred the highway as Julie sped home. Tori’s voicemail played on loop: “We’re fine. We’re all fine.”

In her rearview mirror, the mountain storm receded. Ahead, streetlights pooled like spilled wine.

Some triangles, she thought, are just angles waiting to cut.

Chapter Three: Shifting Loyalties

The Confirmation

The bathroom light buzzed like a trapped wasp as Julie stared at the pregnancy test, its double lines glaring under the flicker. She pressed a hand to her stomach, nausea clawing up her throat—not from morning sickness, but from the weight of the secret already curdling inside her.

Jeremy found her on the porch steps hours later, her breath fogging in the predawn chill. He sat beside her, shoulder brushing hers, and she didn’t need to speak. His sharp inhale said it all.

“We’ll figure this out,” he whispered, squeezing her knee. His thumb traced circles—reassuring, possessive.

Julie’s laugh cracked. “Tori—”

“Let me tell her.” His voice softened, the architect in him already drafting a plan. “She’ll understand.”

But Julie remembered the hydrangeas Tori had ripped from the earth, roots and all. Understand wasn’t a word that lived in that memory.

The Cracks

Tori took up residency at the kitchen island, her mornings now punctuated by the clink of ice in vodka-tonic glasses. Jeremy’s blueprints gathered dust as she curated a museum of absence: unwashed wine glasses, takeout containers, a single child’s mitten found under the couch (Baxter’s toy, she told herself).

One night, Julie found her staring at the lemon tree, pruning shears in hand.

“It’s dead,” Tori said, hacking at a brittle branch. “Why do we keep dead things?”

Julie reached for the shears. “Let me—”

“No.” Tori jerked away, the blade nicking her palm. She laughed as blood bloomed. “See? Even the tree fights back.”

The Storm

The fight erupted over burnt lasagna.

“You’ve been sick,” Tori accused, sloshing vodka into her glass. “Or is it morning sickness?”

Jeremy froze. Julie’s fork clattered.

“You knew?” Jeremy’s chair screeched as he stood.

Tori’s smile was a wound. “You both suck at lying.”

The air thickened. Julie’s pulse roared in her ears as Tori advanced, her perfume sharp with alcohol and rage.

“You took everything,” Tori hissed. “My best friend. My husband. Now a baby—”

“Tori, stop!” Jeremy stepped between them, his hands raised like a referee.

Tori stumbled back, her laugh jagged. “Of course you pick her. The artist. The mother.”

The Escape

Julie packed in the dark, her hands steady but her breath coming in shallow gasps. Jeremy leaned in the doorway, shadows hollowing his face.

“Stay,” he pleaded. “We can fix this.”

She zipped the duffel, her voice raw. “Some things break forever.”

The driveway gravel crunched under her tires. In the rearview mirror, Tori’s silhouette filled the front door, a bottle glinting in her hand.

The Aftermath

Tori smashed the hydrangea pots at 3 a.m., ceramic shards mixing with soil and vodka. Jeremy watched from the window, his reflection fractured in the glass.

When the police came (neighbors had heard the screaming), he said all the right things: “Stress.” “Temporary.” “She’ll get help.”

The officer nodded, but his pen hovered over the word victim.

Julie drove until the highway signs blurred. The radio crooned about love and loss. She wondered if Tori was right—if she’d stolen the life she’d never dared paint.

In the passenger seat, Jeremy’s sketch of the mountain pine fluttered. She let it fly out the window, watching it vanish like ash in the storm.

Chapter Four: Collapse

The Stain

Tori’s third vodka tonic left a ring on the piano lid, a watermark blooming like a bruise. She traced it, her chipped nail polish catching the light, while Jeremy hovered in the doorway.

“You missed the hearing,” he said quietly.

She didn’t look up. The DUI arrest photos sat between them—her smeared mascara, the shattered tail light glass glittering like confetti.

“Did they show the part where I called the cop ‘Daddy’? Classic, right?”

“Rehab starts Monday.”

Her laugh was a serrated edge. “Or what? You’ll leave me for her faster?”

The air curdled. And the lemon tree shed another leaf.

The Ultimatum

Julie found Jeremy on their bench in the overgrown community garden, his head in his hands. The hydrangeas they’d planted with Tori were skeletal, petals browned by frost.

“I can’t do this,” he said. “She’s burning down everything.”

Julie’s hand drifted to her stomach, still flat but heavy with ghosts. “And the baby?”

His silence was a verdict.

That night, she booked the clinic appointment. The cursor blinked, a tiny lighthouse in the dark.

The Party

Tori wore sequins to the gallery opening, her dress swallowing champagne spills as she slithered through the crowd. Julie’s paintings loomed above them—swirls of red and black titled Fracture, Erosion, Silent Rooms.

“Brilliant, isn’t she?” Tori drawled to a collector, sloshing merlot onto his shoes. “Pity her masterpiece won’t survive the first trimester.”

Gasps rippled. Jeremy lunged, but Julie was already retreating, her heels echoing like gunshots in the stairwell.

The Hollow

The house reeked of burnt toast and regret. Jeremy packed Tori’s suitcase while she hurled perfume bottles at the wall, glass shattering like ice.

“You’re choosing a clump of cells over us?” she screamed.

He zipped the bag. “It’s not about the baby. It’s about you trying to drown us all.”

She collapsed, clutching his shirt. “I lost everything.”

“So did I,” he said, peeling her fingers loose.

The Crossing

Rain needled Julie’s windshield as she idled outside the clinic. The radio murmured a folk song about bridges and ashes.

Tori’s voicemail: “Don’t do it. Please. I’ll stop. I’ll be better.”

Jeremy’s text: “Whatever you decide.”

She walked inside.

The After

The movers stripped the attic room, revealing cracks in the walls Jeremy had never fixed. Tori watched from the lawn, Baxter’s leash tangled around her ankles.

“Keep the lemon tree,” Julie said, handing Jeremy the keys.

He reached for her, but she was already walking, her shadow dissolving in the noon sun.

That night, Tori drunkenly uprooted the lemon tree, its roots dangling like unspoken apologies. Jeremy boxed up his blueprints.

And Julie, driving west, rolled down the window to let the wind scour her clean.

Some ruins, she thought, are kinder when you don’t look back.

Chapter Five: Solitude

The Cottage

The sea gnawed at the cliffs below Julie’s rented cottage, its waves a relentless whisper. She’d chosen this place for its silence—no art galleries, no hydrangeas, no lemon trees. Just salt-scabbed windows and a frayed armchair facing the void. Against the wall, her unfinished canvas glared back: swirls of storm-gray and placental red. She’d titled it Fragile Triangles in her mind but left it unsigned. Some truths didn’t deserve permanence.

The Clinic

Julie remembered how the rain slicked the clinic parking lot as Julie sat in her car, engine off. A teenager exited ahead of her, cheeks flushed, clinging to her boyfriend’s hand. Julie’s fingers drifted to her abdomen, where a phantom flutter had haunted her for weeks.

The nurse had called it tissue.

Jeremy had called it ours.

Tori had called it theft.

In the procedure room, Julie focused on a water stain above the ceiling light. It resembled a leafless tree. She counted its branches until the world blurred.

The Letter

Back at the cottage, a letter waited. Jeremy’s handwriting—architect-neat, yet smudged.

Julie—

Tori’s in rehab. Says she’s sorry. I’m not sure I am.

The house sold. I kept the lemon tree. It’s dead, but I can’t…

Would you answer if I called?

She fed the paper to the wood stove, watching flames lick the word lemon.

The Rehab Visit

Tori’s rehab center smelled of Lysol and defeat. Jeremy sat across from her, scratched table between them.

“They make us write apology letters,” Tori said, picking at her nicotine patch. “I wrote yours in my head.”

“Don’t,” he said.

She laughed—a dry, papery sound. “Still protecting her.”

Outside, a janitor hosed down the courtyard, erasing footprints.

The Studio

Months later, Julie’s paintings caught the eye of a Berlin curator. “Haunting, brutal, and beautiful,” he called them. She rented a studio downtown, its windows streaked with pigeon grime.

One morning, a familiar perfume lingered in the air—lilac and vodka. On the floor lay a note: I loved you too much to share.

Julie struck a match. The flame trembled, then swallowed Tori’s words whole.

The Empty Rooms

Jeremy designed a glass house on a bluff, its blueprints featuring three bedrooms. Nursery, he labeled one, then scratched it out.

At the groundbreaking, he pocketed a shard of sea glass—frost-green, like Julie’s eyes. The crew joked about the absurd number of bathrooms.

He didn’t laugh.

Julie walked the fogged-in beach at dawn, her pockets full of shells. Somewhere, Tori ordered a martini, her toast swallowed by barfly chatter. Jeremy stood in his half-built house, wind screaming through empty frames.

Three, no four hearts, ruined.

The tide pulled back, dragging secrets only the gulls could name.

Chapter Six: Echoes

The Exhibition

The Berlin gallery pulsed with murmured praise and clinking champagne flutes. Julie’s Fragile Triangles series hung like open wounds on the white walls—swirls of ash-gray and arterial red, geometries collapsing into chaos. A critic cornered her, breath sour with pinot grigio. “These pieces feel like requiems. What are they mourning?”

Julie glanced at the exit. “Mistakes that looked like miracles.”

Later, she slipped into the alley, where rain smeared the city lights into watercolor. Her phone buzzed—a photo from Jeremy: the dead lemon tree, its bare roots coiled in a cardboard box. Still can’t throw it out, his caption read. She deleted it, but not before memorizing the postmark: Seattle, 5,843 miles away.

The Relapse

Tori’s “one year sober” chip gleamed at the bottom of a dive bar toilet. She fished it out, vodka tonic sloshing onto her sleeve, and slid onto a stool. The bartender eyed her ringless finger.

“Celebrating?” he asked.

She pressed the damp chip to the counter. “To new beginnings.”

The lie tasted familiar. Across the room, a couple kissed, their hands tangled like Jeremy and Julie’s used to be. Tori ordered another drink.

The Blueprints

Jeremy’s glass house stood incomplete, its skeleton glinting under a frost moon. He wandered the rooms, barefoot, echoing. The nursery’s blueprint still bore Julie’s scribble: Too small. He’d kept it like a relic.

His contractor called at dawn. “We’re pouring the foundation today. You sure about three bedrooms?”

Jeremy watched the sunrise bleed across the Sound. “Yes.

The Note

Back in Berlin, Julie found a dried hydrangea petal taped to her studio door. Inside, a postcard of Tori’s rehab center: I’m here because of you.

This time, she didn’t burn it. She tucked it behind Fragile Triangles No. 13, where no one would ever see.

The Storm

A hurricane lashed the coast. Julie drove to the cottage, now abandoned, its porch sagging under the weight of memory. In the attic, she found Jeremy’s mountain sketch wedged in a floorboard—the pine tree she’d drawn still bent, still unbroken.

She left it to the storm.

The Horizon

Julie

She walks the beach at dawn, fog clinging to her like a shroud. Her hand drifts to her stomach—a habit now, a phantom limb. The tide drags out, revealing a child’s sandcastle far down the shore. She doesn’t approach.

Tori

At the airport bar, she toasts the departure board. “To earthquakes,” she slurs, her reflection fractured in the liquor bottles.

Jeremy

He sits in his glass house, watching rain slide down the windows. Three bedrooms, empty. Four hearts, undone.

Some loves are earthquakes—beautiful until they leave everyone in ruins.

Epilogue

Years later, a museum labels Fragile Triangles as “anonymous.” Critics call it a masterpiece of unresolved longing.

None notice the postcard or hydrangea petal pressed behind the canvas.