21
HANNA
Hanna’s belly was in knots—but the good kind. The kind she knew came with anticipation, the kind she knew only her girls would be able to unwind.
It had been long, too long. The last time the three of them were together uninterrupted had been over winter break at Lily’s family’s winter retreat home. She hadn’t seen both Lily and Maya in the flesh since then. And she couldn’t wait.
Hanna pulled down the last corner of the fitted sheet she’d wrestled onto the giant bed. She hated fitted sheets. After getting the comforter on and pillows arranged, she went about removing family photos from the main bedroom — it would be too weird with her parents' haughty expressions staring down at them.
Her fingers thrummed with the anticipation of having her girls in bed: Lily, the one she’d secretly crushed on all through high school, all those years ago, and Maya, her rock. Maya had a confidence that had never sprouted for Hanna, snuffed out by feeling like she couldn’t burden her adoptive parents. She was one of the few Asian kids in the Maplewood, VT school system, and the only Asian person in her home. Hanna envied the way Maya could take up space. Her tawny brown skin was often asource of confusion in the situations they found themselves in. Maya would just say, “That’s being half-Black in Boston, babe,” her words loaded, but she’d roll them off her shoulders all the same. It was the type of confidence Hanna knew drew Lily in, a confidence she could not match. How could she think she was enough for Lily? Had enough changed in the four years since high school?
And now they were in Florida, spending four days in a white ranch house lined with struggling hibiscus in a quiet suburb outside of Miami. Out back was an enclosed pool, and the smell of chlorine filled every inch of the home.
Luckily, they were just outside of Miami, so notFloridaFlorida, but still, with the current state of things, Hanna wasn’t sure this was the safest place for her to bring her two…girlfriends? Was that what they could be?
Hanna sat on one of the barstools at the kitchen island, facing the foyer and front door. She knew the girls would text her upon their arrival, but she wanted to know the minute, to hear the moment they arrived. A blue wooden “Sea You Later” sign hung above the door. The entire house was nautically decorated, straightforward and predictable like her parents. Mary and Evan McAvoy were good people, tolerant people, but they definitely grew up coloring inside the lines. It was a four-bedroom, ranch-style house with a pool.
“For when you, your husband, and the kiddies visit,” her mother had stressed when Hanna had asked if four bedrooms were truly necessary, if it was just going to be her and her father.
What about for me and my two female lovers?Though, she thought, Lily’s very being was gender ascendent.
She had shown the same amount of enthusiasm when Hanna had asked her to use the house for spring break. “Hanna of course! I love that you’re finally using the house–and with friends! There’s plenty of room, you know that! A bed for eachof you.”Thanks Mom, pretty sure we will only need one, the biggest one.Thank goodness for the Californian King in the main bedroom.
The idea gave Hanna a thrill and also a shudder. She hadn’t even come out to her parents yet—a fact Lily often rolled her eyes at, even though she knew how vanilla Hanna’s parents were. She didn’t want to destroy the image of her they subscribed to: a wholesome, sweet, smart, and together girl. Such a brave girl, for having the life she almost didn’t have back in that Chinese orphanage.
She knew her parents loved her, adored her, but there were some things she was afraid they wouldn’t understand, and her saying, “Hey, I’m also into girls and have been sleeping with two different girls since last year’s fall break” felt like one of those things. Plus, winter break had made things feel deeper than simply sex.
Each time they’d lain together in each other's arms, it was like something was clicking into place all around them, but inside Hanna too. What had started as a messy queer exploration and friendship was snowballing into a different kind of desire than she’d started with: the desire to have them, truly have them, to truly be theirs and for them to be hers. They hadn't ever dared talk about it–what it would mean, or exclusivity, or if they were even building something.
Were they even building something? Or did she just want to because they were her firsts?
If Hanna were being honest with herself, she knew there was a level of refuge she found in sharing Maya and Lily. She had spent all of high school wanting to be one of Lily’s girls–to be taken up to her room after school to study and leave seeing stars. And Maya was just beautiful: she carried herself like a torch, drawing everyone to her light. Hanna both admired and envied how she seemed to burn so bright when as a fellow minority,Hanna had tried to hide. Hanna thought she could lie in Maya’s arms for hours. Maybe forever.
You know you want more.It was the creeping thought that had led her to research “polyamory” and Google questions like, “how to know if you’re poly.” Those searches led her down the rabbit hole of a subreddit on what it means to be in apolyculeand “how to do poly right.” She came across one person saying that “throuples almost never worked” and that they “were for the inexperienced and naive.” Another post said triads were “basically poly on hard mode.” She’d stopped searching after that.
Lily was practically a sexuality within her own right — women loved her, and she happily loved them back, and Hanna was sure she was doing exactly that while at school. Maya was harder to gauge.Stop thinking like a lovesick puppy.
Hanna was googling “female queer scene in Miami” when she felt her phone vibrate. She opened the “My Girls” group chat:
Lilith
Knock knock.
Papaya Maya
A car door slammed. She felt the prickle of perspiration, nerves and the anticipation of seeing her girls.
Hanna grinned, and then felt her smile slip — wait, had they arrived together? Hanna knew they were taking separate flights, Lily from Burlington and Maya straight from Boston. Hanna had been expecting Maya first, and then Lily not too long after. She had been looking forward to that time with Maya, not to mention the unwarranted twinge of jealousy she had now, the feeling like they’d started without her.Don’t be ridiculous, Lily isn’t exactlycrazed about you and Maya sharing a city during the school year.
Hanna made it to the door, breathed, and then opened it to what she hoped would be the start of something new. She just had to find a way into it.
22
LILY
Lily closed the car door behind her and slung her duffle over her shoulder. She hated the humidity of Florida, or any tropical place for that matter, much preferring the desert. But she was here, in fucking Florida, excited to have as much gay sex as possible. Being with her favorite ladies and having protest orgies, win-win.
She heard the other car door close. She felt Maya behind her and heard the Uber begin to pull away. Before them stood a white ranch-style house with a turquoise door. Hanna’s parents clearly paid for landscapers; there was a cute petite lawn with a decorative walkway to the door.
