When she gets excited, she jumps in and blurts out what she thinks I’ll say before I do. The strange thing is that she’s usually right, even if it annoys me. Am I an open book? I thought I was good at concealing my emotions. Not from her.
“In essence,” I agree. “Since I can remember, I’ve always felt the most at home in the water. Baths when I was small or in the rain before I’d get ushered inside. I joined a local enthusiast’s club to catalog seaweed and learned some more on the side whenever I could about whales and deepwater fish, all sorts of things. Did you know we have red seaweed species here as the water gets so cold, but there’s also green and brown varieties?”
Bridget brings me up into a hug. “There’s nothing less understood on earth than the sea. I think it’s marvelous you’ve got such an interest.”
Bridget weaves a future that wraps around me like a blanket. The two of us exploring coastlines and islands, never stuck in one place toolong—yet together. Her sketching out crags and bays, me searching the tides for animals no one’s cataloged before.
“Wouldn’t I slow you down?” I ask. It’s been burning on my tongue for hours.
“What’s wrong with slow?” she asks back, winking. “I’ve been on my own long enough, Liney. I know what I shouldn’t let go of when I see it. See her.”
I thought I dreamed too large, but Bridget’s opened my eyes. I’ve never dreamed far enough. I can’t hide my blush. I move my face away, but her hand cups my cheek and gently nudges me to look at her.
“There’s a fish called the ghost pipefish,” I say, reverting to spouting marine knowledge because the distance between us is far too close for me to say anything else comprehensible. “They mimic seaweed to hide from predators and sneak up on shrimp. They’re spiny all over and usually bright red.”
She gulps. With all her worldly travels, am I making her nervous? With my fish fact?
“This has been such a comfort to me.”
“This?” I repeat, the word nearly caught in my throat.
“You. Here. Us.”
Cold surges through my veins despite the warmth in her voice. Can’t we stay in this vague possibility? I don’t want tomorrow to come. And if I don’t ask, it can always be true. We can dance around each other, close but not too close. Separate but connected. No wonder Chamomile worked so well on me.
But if I don’t ask, I’ll be haunted. If Bridget doesn’t understand, perhaps she won’t believe I care enough to go with her. I’d lose her forever because of my cowardice.
“Bridget, do you…? I’m sorry, I’ve never asked this before.” If she’s my angel, I’m heaven’s fool. A churn deep in my chest draws it out ofme, unanchored from my shame. Pull, pull, pull. “Do you hold affections, for me?”
“Yes.”
So simply said! But not enough. Even as her gaze moves from mine to my lips and back, I need to know, exactly, or my heart might burst.
“Romanticaffections?” I clarify.
My head pounds with my heartbeat. Every muscle tenses. Ready to run. Affections are silent things. In the open? Unfathomable.
“Yes.” Her voice hitches up. “Does that scare you?”
I want to hold heryesso close that it nestles into my heartstrings forever.
“Yes,” I admit, then rush to add when her gaze casts down, “in the best possible way.”
She breathes out a shaky sigh and looks up again, eyes bright as the blue center of a flame. Then she closes her eyes, mine follow, and her lips press against mine.
Bridget isn’t the first girl I’ve kissed. That honor went to Miss Young when I was thirteen. We snuck out of a luncheon at the church and walked through the nearby gardens, giggling together. It happened after we’d ducked behind a large hydrangea bush to hide from her chaperone. Light, chaste, two friends. She meant it as practice. We weren’t caught, thank God, but it was our only kiss. The Youngs moved back to England only a month later.
But this is my first kiss born from admiration. Bridget’s gentle hand on my cheek leads me closer to her. I reach my hands up and hold her jawline, cradling my fingers behind her ears and into those curls I’ve pictured in restless nights and cave-hidden days. Her nose presses against the edge of my own. I never knew lips could feel like such sweet pressure.
She moves forward, presses against me until I’m pinned between her form and the cave wall behind us.
“Wait,” I breathe.
She leans back, and I open my eyes. Ours are so different, mine near black and hers gray in the low light. Her breath comes quick and shallow like mine, her cheeks red. A line down her neck quivers beneath the surface with each beat of her heart. “Did I—”
“You did nothing wrong,” I promise, smiling to prove it. “This is sudden, and I don’t want you to feel… We should consider—you mustn’t feel obligated to—”
“Obligation is the last thing on my mind, Liney,” she says, low and husky.
