“Of course.” She could ask me whatever she wanted as long as she kept talking.
“Did you know when we lived together?”
Ah. We were going to talk about our awakening stories.
“Sort of. I mean, I always knew I was into girls, but I told myself I was bi for a really long time. Like, way too long. The pressure from my mother to date guys so I could lock one in before I graduated high school was fierce, so I made myself talk to them and flirt with them and it wasn’t until I was in college that I figured out that I felt nothing for them.”
Now it was her turn.
Lea told me about those same feelings and how she’d held them back, but unlike me, she hadn’t tried with guys at all. I still remembered my friends talking about their crushes and how great sex was and joining in like I wanted the same things. Like I was the same. Just waiting for the right guy to light my fire.
We kept talking, for a long time. I got stiff after sitting for too long, so I put the phone on speaker and walked around the house, picking up and tending to the kittens.
She asked me what the noises were, and I told her about Brit and Tana. That made her demand pictures, so I sent her some and she squealed so adorably I almost walked right into my kitchen counter.
“You could come over and see them. If you wanted. I’m sure they’d love that.”
The kittens had really only been with me so far. It would be good for them to get used to more people. At some point I’d have to leave them and get a cat sitter, so it would be good if they weren’t terrified of strangers in their home.
“I’d like that.”
I did a little victory dance that I was thrilled she couldn’t see because it was totally dorky.
She’d told me that she had a lot to do today, but here she was, talking to me all afternoon.
It was a bad idea for me to be talking to her this much. I did my best to rest my voice when I wasn’t recording, which meant limiting talking when I was off the clock.
Oops. I’d just have to rest up tomorrow. It was fine. I wasn’t talkingthatmuch. My throat wasn’t even sore.
I made one of my special throat drinks anyway and had it while I continued to talk to her. It was already almost time for dinner, and I could hear the strain in her voice as well.
“I can’t believe we’ve been talking this long,” she said.
“I know.”
“Do you ever think about what it could have been like if we’d been closer when we were younger?” That was a question I’d thought about so many times.
“Sometimes. I try not to. I’m sorry about all of that. For being the way I was.” She deserved an apology for that. I hadn’t been nice to her at all and she hadn’t deserved it. She’d been a teenager with fucked up parents just like me and all she’d wanted was a friend. An ally living under the same roof. But I’d been too prickly and nasty and mean to see it.
“It’s not your fault. And I understand.” She was better than me. She’d always been better than me. Probably always would be.
“Thank you. I know we can’t go back in time but maybe… I don’t want to make any presumptions about things going forward, but I’d really like to be friends.” There. That was something.
I could hear the smile in her voice when she responded. “I’d like that, Vail. I’d really like that.”
Chapter Eleven
Lea
Who knewthat Vail would pop back up in my life in such a significant way? After the weird lunch and the phone call, it was like we’d opened a door that I’d been knocking on since the day she’d moved into my house.
I just hadn’t known that we’d get along quite this well. We fell into the kind of friendship that was as comfortable as your favorite jeans. Talking to her was so easy that hours would pass, and I’d realize that I needed to go to bed and that my house was a mess because I hadn’t been keeping up on cleaning. All of my spare time was being spent on Vail.
There were times when she couldn’t talk and had to rest her voice because of her job, so either we wouldn’t speak as much, or she’d type out her parts of the conversation and message them to my phone, even when we were sitting together on her couch.
I’d gone over to her house and met her kittens and became completely obsessed with them in five minutes. It was impossible not to fall in love with those two little tabby furballs.
“I think you like them more than you like me,” Vail said one day when I was on the floor with them and trying to play without getting sliced open by their little kitten claws. Vail trimmed them, but they could still get you.
