Chapter 36: The First Fight
The new house smelled of fresh paint, pine packing straw, and possibility. Sunlight, fierce and unfiltered by city smog, bled through the bay windows of the living room, illuminating a floating galaxy of dust motes swirling above a landscape of cardboard. Boxes were piled in haphazard towers, some neatly labeled in Suki’s precise script, others scrawled with Catriona’s chaotic marker shorthand: "SHIT FROM BATHROOM? and "AIDAN'S WEIRD TOOLS."
Aidan heaved a box marked "FRAGILE - KITCHEN" onto the granite countertop, the muscles in his back singing a faint protest. He’d been moving furniture since dawn. Catriona was across the room, sitting cross-legged on the rug, holding up a tarnished candlestick from their old apartment. "Do we keep this? It’s ugly."
"Everything from that place was ugly," Suki called from the hallway, her voice slightly muffled. She walked in carrying two more boxes, her movements efficient, her brow furrowed in concentration. She placed them with geometric precision next to the others lining the wall. "That’s why we bought a new house. To have nice things."
"Sentimental value," Catriona argued, but she tossed the candlestick into a black garbage bag with a clunk.
"Sentiment is clutter," Suki said, not unkindly, but with a firmness that had been tightening all morning. She sliced open a box with a box-cutter, the sound sharp in the air. "We agreed. If it doesn’t fit the new aesthetic, it goes. We’re building a brand, remember? A lifestyle. The audience can smell inauthenticity."
Catriona popped the cork on a bottle of sauvignon blanc they’d strategically packed with the glasses. "The audience isn’t here, Suki. It’s just us. And my ugly candlestick." She poured three glasses, sloshing a little onto the floor. "Aidan, break."
He gladly took the glass, nodding thanks. The wine was cold and good. Suki accepted hers but set it down on the coffee table, untouched, immediately returning to unpacking a box of her sleek, black photo equipment.
"The studio contractors come tomorrow at eight," Suki said, not looking up. "I need the east wall in the basement completely clear. That means all these books," she gestured to a teetering pyramid of boxes, "need to go to the library today. Not tomorrow. Today."
Catriona took a long sip. "Babe, it’s four PM. The library closes at six. We’ve been at this for nine hours. Can’t it wait?"
"No," Suki said, the word clipped. "The schedule is the schedule. Delays cascade. We have the first shoot for the new channel in ten days. We need a functional set." She began carefully wrapping a camera lens in foam. "If we’re doing this professionally, we have to be professional."
The air in the room changed. Aidan saw Catriona’s playful smile tighten at the edges.
"I am being professional," Catriona said, her voice losing its melodic ease. "I’m also being a human who needs to breathe. We just moved our entire lives. A one-day delay on some books isn’t going to sink the empire."
Suki stood, brushing dust from her knees. "It’s the principle. You said you wanted this. You said ‘let’s do it.’ But you’re treating it like a slumber party." She gestured at the wine bottle, at Catriona lounging on the rug. "This is a business. My business. The business that’s going to pay the mortgage on this house we just bought together."
Catriona got to her feet, her eyes flashing. "Oh, I see. Your business. So it’s your rules. Your schedule. We just live here, is that it? We’re just the talent and the labor for your brand?"
"That’s not what I said."
"It’s what you meant." Catriona took a step forward. "You’ve been directing us all day like we’re crew. ‘Aidan, move that there. Catriona, don’t put that there.’ I feel like I’m on one of your sets, not in my own damn home."
"Because someone has to have a vision!" Suki’s control finally cracked, her voice rising. "Someone has to care about the details! Or we end up living in a chaotic, ugly mess with bad lighting and no cohesive narrative, and the whole project fails!"
"The ‘project’?" Catriona laughed, a brittle sound. "We’re not a project, Suki. We’re a relationship. Or we’re supposed to be. You can’t art-direct a relationship."
"You think I don’t know that?" Suki shot back, her green eyes bright with frustration. "You think this isn’t terrifying for me? Letting you both in? All I know how to do is control the frame. So yes, I’m controlling the frames! Because if I don’t, I don’t know how to do this!"
Aidan had been silent, watching the tennis match of tension. The warmth from the wine was gone, replaced by a cold knot in his stomach. This was the first crack in the beautiful, daring vase they’d just blown together.
"Enough," he said, but his voice was low, swallowed by their anger.
"The problem," Catriona continued, ignoring him, "is you think my way is wrong. That relaxing is wrong. That having a laugh while we unpack is a waste of time. It’s not. It’s how we build the home part. You’re so busy building the set, you’re forgetting to build the home."
"Maybe I don’t know how!" Suki’s shout was raw, echoing off the bare walls. "Maybe I’ve never had a real one before! Is that what you want to hear?"
The room went very still. The admission hung between them, vast and painful.
Aidan set his glass down on the cardboard with a definitive tap. He stepped between them, into the space charged with hurt.
"Stop," he said, his voice not loud, but sharp as the box-cutter blade. It cut through the emotional noise. They both looked at him, startled. He rarely spoke in that tone. "Just stop. We're supposed to be a team. Act like it."
He looked at Catriona. "She's not attacking you. She's scared." He turned to Suki. "And she's not undermining you. She's trying to make this feel real, not just like another production." He ran a hand through his hair, the scruff on his jaw tight with exhaustion. "We're all scared. We're all in uncharted territory. But tearing into each other over where a box goes or when a book gets donated is a fucking waste of the only thing that matters—which is that we chose this. We chose each other."
The silence that followed was different. The anger had been punctured. Suki’s rigid posture faltered. Her eyes, fixed on the sun-dusted floorboards, welled up. A single tear traced a path through the fine dust on her cheek.
"You're right," she whispered, the words barely audible. "I'm sorry. I just… I want it to be perfect."
"Nothing about this is going to be perfect," Catriona said, her own anger dissipating, replaced by a weary empathy. She looked at Suki’s tear-streaked face, at the vulnerable trembling of her lips. "It's going to be messy and weird and we'll get on each other's nerves. That's the point. That's the real part."
She closed the distance, the cardboard labyrinth between them meaningless now. She didn't hug Suki immediately. She just took her hands, lacing their fingers together. "You don't have to manage the mess, Sukes. You just have to be in it with us."
Suki’s composure broke. A soft sob escaped her, and she nodded, unable to speak. Catriona pulled her in then, a deep, firm embrace that seemed to absorb all the day's tension. Suki buried her face in Catriona’s neck, her shoulders shaking.
Aidan let out a long, slow breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The knot in his stomach loosened.
After a minute, Suki pulled back just enough to look at Catriona. Her eyes were puffy, her expression open and young. "I'm sorry for being a control freak."
"And I'm sorry for being a lazy ass," Catriona replied, a tentative smile touching her lips.
"It's your home, too," Suki said. "Our home. The ugly candlestick can stay."
Catriona grinned, then leaned in and kissed her. It was not a kiss of passion, but of profound reconciliation—slow, tender, and soaking up all the unspoken apologies. Aidan watched them, the sunlight now painting them in a warm, forgiving glow. He saw the moment Suki fully melted into it, her hands coming up to cradle Catriona’s face.
When they parted, foreheads touching, Catriona looked over at him. "Get over here," she said, her voice hoarse with emotion.
He did. He wrapped his arms around both of them, a solid anchor in the sea of boxes. They stood in the middle of the chaotic living room, holding onto the only order that truly mattered.
Later, the wine was drunk. The books remained in their boxes, a problem for tomorrow. They ordered pizza and ate it straight from the box, sitting on the floor surrounded by their half-unpacked life. Suki laughed at something Aidan said, a real, unguarded laugh that echoed beautifully in the empty space. Catriona told a story about the candlestick, embellishing it until it became a legendary artifact, and Suki didn't once mention the aesthetic.
The studio would wait. The narrative could be messy. For tonight, the only shot that mattered was this one: the three of them, in the deepening twilight, building something fragile and real, one clumsy, forgiven mistake at a time.