I pulled myself up on the counter and sat, facing her. “I was thinking about when you talked about people in your corner and I realized that I can’t just have you. It’s unfair of me to rely on you for everything and I don’t want to. I’ve always told myself that I don’t need friends, but maybe I do. Friends and a brother.”
Lea set the spoons down she’d been using and came to stand between my legs. I rested my arms on her shoulders.
“Look at you, deciding you need family and community. I’m so proud.” Maybe I should have been embarrassed at her saying something like that seeing as how I was a grown woman, but honestly?
Hearing those words felt really nice.
“Thank you,” I said, leaning forward and capturing a kiss.
Lea melted into me and then pulled back abruptly. “Shit, this is going to burn.”
She rushed back to the stove and turned all the burners off. Crisis averted.
* * *
The restof the week had its ups and downs. Lea and I had our first disagreement when I was stressing about emails and ended up taking it out on her. I apologized immediately, but I felt sick the rest of the night.
As we were getting ready for bed, she made me sit with her.
“V. I can tell that you’re waiting for me to give you the silent treatment. To punish you for the fight. But I’m not going to do that. Well, I’m going to try not to do that. It’s one of my impulses when things get uncomfortable. But I don’t want us to repeat the same mistakes as our parents. We have to be better.”
She was right. She was so right.
“I know. I’m sorry. Again. I’ve been thinking about what Dallas said about therapy and I might see if I can find someone to talk to.”
Lea sighed and rested her head on my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about it too. Just find someone who can give me better coping mechanisms, or maybe help me come up with better ones. We could both do it.” There was an idea. If Lea wanted to try therapy too, then I completely supported that.
“And therapy might not be for us, but it wouldn’t hurt to try, right?” she asked.
“You’re absolutely right.”
“I can’t remember if you met Reid at Stace and Hunter’s party, but I know she had some difficulty with her family, and I remember her talking about seeing a therapist. She might be willing to talk about her experiences.” That could be helpful. The only thing I’d ever heard about therapy from Allegra was that it was for weak and crazy people. It was for people who were losing at life and needed to be coddled by soft words instead of reality.
Allegra was wrong about so much else, so no wonder she’d be wrong about that too.
“Look at us. Talking about our feelings and considering therapy,” I said. “Who are we?”
She kissed my cheek. “We’re Lea and Vail. We’re just us.”
That sounded pretty perfect to me.
* * *
One week bled into two,and both of us adjusted to being together. It didn’t feel right to only hang out at my house, so we did do weekends at Lea’s, since I needed my recording booth during the week.
Even when she left to go teach Pilates, I missed her so much that I inevitably ended up in her class and she told me she needed at least one that didn’t have me in it because she couldn’t concentrate. That was cute, but fair.
The kittens came with me to her apartment, and Lea turned it into kitten heaven. She even got a cat tree, in spite of me telling her not to. Then when it arrived, she made me help her put it together, but I didn’t mind helping.
Since Lea shouldn’t revolve her entire life around me (or me for her), I told her to have nights with her friends, and to have them over to her place. I’d go back to my house and garden, or do errands while she had friend time, but a few times we all went out to Sapph together. It was much more fun to be able to kiss her instead of holding back.
Being with Lea was like…it was like taking a deep breath for the first time. Being with her was like freedom.
Dallas and I stayed in regular contact, and he and Laird were coming up in August for a week to stay with me. Laird had joined the video calls with Dallas and Lea had joined mine and the four of us were going to have a good time when they visited. I was really looking forward to it.
Learning how to be a girlfriend and a sister at the same time wasn’t easy, but I’d finally made an appointment with a potential therapist in the city.
I hadn’t heard a damn thing from Allegra. I know she’d seen me at the wedding, and I’d expected an angry follow-up, but I’d heard nothing. Dallas hadn’t either, but he monitored her social media accounts to make sure she was still alive. She and Charles were boating around Europe for the next four months on their extended honeymoon. Good riddance.
