Didn't Stay in Vegas

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  “That’s why I have these stashed all over the house.” It was a chew toy that might keep him busy long enough for us to inhale our snacks.

  “Brilliant. Have I ever told you how much I envy your mind?” It must be so organized in there. Lots of shelves with labels. It probably looked like The Container Store with all her thoughts cataloged and in the right place.

  “Maybe, but it’s always nice to hear,” she said, giving me a soft smile. I dug into the cheese and crackers, just shoving them in my mouth indiscriminately. Emma, on the other hand, made little sandwiches and nibbled like a duchess, getting zero crumbs on the bed. We were such a contrast sometimes.

  “Are we going to talk about what happened or no?” Emma asked, after she had a few of the cracker sandwiches and moved on to the grapes. I was alternating cheese, crackers, and pepperoni so I got a little bit of each, and tried not to get too many crumbs on the bed.

  “I’m not ready, Em. I’m just not ready to talk about how I feel. This was all a massive shock to me. What you did and what I did and what we did together? It’s too much to process all at once. I mean, have you been thinking about all that before?” I hadn’t. Not in a concrete, tangible way.

  “Yes,” she said, popping a grape in her mouth.

  “Okay, are you going to elaborate?” I asked, when she didn’t add anything else.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think you’re ready for that.” I set down the two “fun size” (bullshit) candy bars that I’d been about to nom on and gave her my full attention.

  “Ready for what?” My stomach knotted up a little, realizing that our friendship had completely changed and there was nothing we could do to put Pandora back in her box.

  “That’s because we were never talking about this.”

  “And what is this?” I gestured between us.

  “I don’t know,” she said, after the longest pause in history.

  “I don’t either, but you’ve definitely thought about this longer than I have. That’s pretty clear.” Just how long? And why hadn’t she said anything until tonight?

  “It’s complicated, Callyn. So complicated.” She sealed her lips shut, as if she was blocking the tide of words that were going to spill out of she let them.

  “Just talk to me. Tell me.”

  I reached out and took her hand, squeezing it. For some reason that action felt different now. Everything was different.

  She made a sniffing noise and ducked her head.

  “Hey, don’t cry,” I said, shoving the snacks aside so I could pull her into my arms. “There’s no reason to cry, Em. You can tell me anything.”

  “I don’t know if I can tell you this. I don’t want to wreck everything.” I patted her back and held her as tight as I could.

  “You’re not going to wreck everything.” I mean, if having sex had wrecked anything, the damage was already done. But our relationship had been through so much already. We’d crossed time and distance away and we were still together. I couldn’t foresee a future that Emma wasn’t in. She was home for me, and I think it was the same for her. That didn’t go away overnight.

  “I’m scared,” she said, and that was the root of things. She was scared that she was going to lose me, but that wasn’t possible.

  “You can never lose me, Emma. You are literally stuck with me forever. I’m not going anywhere. You’re my go home.”

  “I’m scared it’s going to change everything.” I pulled back so she could look at me.

  “Emma. You literally had your mouth on my junk. Everything has already changed. Now we have to make sense of it and the first thing to do is for you to talk to me.” She sighed and reached for a tissue from her nightstand.

  “I know. I know. And I’m sorry for being so weird now. Things were different when we were naked and I was making you scream.” Chills broke out on my skin when I thought about all the ways she’d made me scream.

  “Mmm, that was pretty good. But we need to talk about the stuff that happened before and after the screaming.” Emma shredded a few tissues in her hand.

  “I’ve been in love with you for our whole lives, Callyn. Both as a friend and as something else. I was in love with you before I even knew what that meant. I’ve . . . I’ve been holding onto this because I thought I would grow out of it, or I thought it would change, or I thought it would ruin what we had. I knew you didn’t feel that way about me. Trust me, I looked for signs. I would have given anything for a sign from you that you felt the same way.”

  I was about ready to slide off the bed.

  “You love me? As something other than a friend? Like, the sex was about you being sexually attracted to me? And you’re romantically attracted to me too?” My voice squeaked because I was pretty much flipping out. You might as well have told me that the planet was actually called Xeron and the ocean was full of orange juice.

  Emma shook her head at me.

  “Callyn, you useless lesbian. I’m attracted to you in every way you can be attracted to another person.” She laughed a little as I gaped at her.

  “What is even happening right now? You love me?” I was losing my mind. This couldn’t be real life.

  “Yes, I love you. I’ve been in love with you forever. You just never noticed.” There was no way I could be that dense. No way.

  “You never said anything!” I screeched, throwing my hands in the air.

  “I didn’t want you to know!” she yelled back.

  “What the fuck!” I screamed, and then I started laughing because this whole thing was beyond ridiculous.

  “I don’t know!” Now we were both yelling, and Vegas had started barking to join the mayhem.

  “You love me?” I asked again, in a softer voice.

  “Yeah, I do. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t. I don’t know how to not love you, Cal.” She leaned close and I dove deep into her eyes to see the absolute truth in them.

  “That’s a double negative,” I said. “But I get what you mean. I think . . . I don’t even know. I really don’t.” Was I in love with her? Surely not. I couldn’t wrap my head around that concept. Of course I loved her as a friend, but that was it, right? I didn’t love her all the other ways.

  “It’s okay. This is why I didn’t want to tell you, because I knew it would freak you out and then I thought you might go running for the hills. We can’t stay friends if one of us is in love with the other one. I could never lose you, Callyn. Never. That would destroy me and I’d never recover.” Uh, same. Needing to do something with my hands, I started pulling grapes off the stems and then popping them in my mouth. I didn’t even really like grapes, but it didn’t matter.

  “I’m not freaking out,” I said, but then I realized I was squishing grapes with my hands.

  “I think you’re freaking out a little bit,” Emma said, as she took the squished grapes out of my hands and then wiped them off with more tissues.

  “Okay, fine. I’m freaking out. But only because I feel like everything I knew is wrong and now I have to readjust my entire fucking perception. And that’s a lot.” I was doing the exact thing she’d worried about me doing, thus proving her right.

  “I’ve tried to tell you, so many times. So many damn times.” She took the rest of the grapes away from me so I wouldn’t massacre them too.

  “And what stopped you?” I asked.

  “This.” She gestured between us. Right. She did have a point.

  “But it must have been killing you all these years to hold that secret, my god, Emma.” That made me want to cry. She was keeping this enormous secret from me for our whole lives and had to deal with that every day.

  “It wasn’t easy. It hasn't been easy.”

  “You hid it so well.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Not well enough, I’m pretty sure all of our friends know. Actually, they definitely know.” And they never said anything either? I really was a useless lesbian.

  “Everything I knew is wrong,” I said, and I started laughing again unt
il I couldn’t stop. I started choking on my own saliva and then it was all over after that.

  Emma handed me one of the seltzer waters and I gulped it down before burping a few times.

  “Sorry. I have no idea why you love me, I'm such a mess.” Right after I said that, I slopped some seltzer water on myself. Emma patted me dry.

  “You’re a little bit of a mess. But you’re my mess. Always have been. I don’t mind a little mess. I think I need it to shake me up. Do you have any idea what my life would be like without you?”

  “Cleaner?” I asked, brushing some crumbs off the bed and onto the floor.

  “No. Boring. Colorless. Way too controlled. You’re my surprise. You’re my pizzazz. You’re the sun hanging in the sky.” Her words created a lump in my throat and I had to hold back tears.

  “That’s an awfully nice thing to say,” I said, sniffing. Now it was my turn for tissues. Emma handed me the box and I blotted at the corners of my eyes.

  “It’s true. I don’t know what shape my life would have been without you and I don’t like thinking about it.” Agreed. Emma had always been present, even when she was miles away, or we hadn’t talked in weeks. I’d hear her voice in the back of my mind, I’d write down lists of jokes and other things I wanted to tell her and then I’d send these long emails and messages that I know she read every word of because she would send similar long emails back. Emma was knit completely and totally into my life and she always would be.

  “I just love you, Callyn. Always have, always will.” Now I was crying again. What a night this had been. It was beyond late and Vegas had passed out again and I needed to go to work tomorrow, but none of those other things mattered.

  “I love you. I’m not sure what that means right now. Can I take some time and figure it out?” I asked. She nodded and rubbed my arm.

  “Yeah, you can. Just keep talking to me and asking any questions. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you until now. Until I had to.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, the sex kind of made this conversation inevitable. Speaking of that, it was really good right? I mean, holy shit. You are good at sex and we are good at sex together.” That made her blush and giggle. She was so damn cute.

  “Yeah, it was pretty awesome. But we probably shouldn’t do it again until you figure out your feelings, right? And then there’s the whole fact that we’re married.” Oh, shit, I had completely forgotten about that part. It was kind of hilarious when you thought about it.

  “Now I’m beginning to see how we ended up married in Vegas if you’ve been secretly in love with me all this time. You sure you didn’t instigate it?”

  “I don’t remember anything,” she said, a little too quickly, but instead of calling her out, I decided to let that one go for tonight. It was so fucking late and I was so tired.

  “I think I should sleep in my room and you should sleep in yours and we should both be clothed, yes?” I picked up the tray, fully intending to bring it back to my room with me. I was still hungry.

  “Excuse me, where are you going with that?” she asked.

  “I’m taking this back to my room where I’m going to finish it. I can’t let this go to waste. That would be shameful.” Emma hopped off the bed and tried to take the tray from me. I had to dance around her to get out of her reach.

  “No, my snacks!” I growled at her and she just stopped and narrowed her eyes.

  “You are ridiculous when it comes to food. I guess I’ll let you get away with this. Once. But never again.” She pointed at me and left the room, presumably to go to the kitchen and get her own snacks.

  “That wasn’t mean, was it?” I asked, looking down at the passed-out Vegas. He was such a weird sleeper sometimes. He’d either sleep with his back bent so far, I was worried for his spine, or he’d sleep flat on his stomach with his legs out at all angles. Neither position looked that comfortable.

  I went to my room with the tray and was hit in the chest by the rumpled bed. It didn’t smell like sex in here anymore, or at least I didn’t think it did. I put the tray down on my dresser and stripped the bed, chucking the sheets in the corner. I’d wash them at some point. I pulled the extra sheets out from the closet and spent a few sweaty minutes wrestling them back onto the bed. The pillows were still dented from our heads. I stripped the cases and fluffed them a few times to make them puffy again.

  Vegas ran in and cried to get on the bed and I gave in and then gave him two pepperonis to munch on as I finished the rest of the snack tray standing up.

  There was a knock at the door and I had my mouth full, so it took a few tries before I could say “come in.”

  “You’d better not be feeding him people food.” Vegas and I looked at each other and then at Emma.

  “I would never do that,” I said, and Vegas barked, as if he was agreeing with me. “See?”

  Emma shook her head.

  “So, I’m going to bed and it would feel weird if I didn’t say goodnight, so . . . goodnight? Uh, I’ll see you tomorrow?” She saluted me and I started to laugh. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did that. It was weird.” She spun around and left before I could say anything. I wanted to say goodnight too. I heard the water going in the bathroom and I saw the door was open.

  “You didn’t let me say goodnight,” I said, and she jumped, her toothbrush in her mouth.

  “You scared me,” she said, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

  “Sorry. But goodnight. You didn’t let me say it.” I saluted her as well and she rolled her eyes and spit into the sink.

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “And you love it,” I said, twirling around.

  “Yes, I do.” She said it quiet enough that I didn’t think she wanted me to hear.

  Eleven

  I made Vegas stay with me the whole night and I think he got tired of me nervously petting him, so he went to the end of the bed and laid on my feet, but he did stay with me.

  I couldn’t sleep. It was impossible to be in a bed that only hours ago I’d been fucking my best friend in. How did I see this bed for sleeping when it had been used for that? I couldn’t get comfortable and I couldn’t stop thinking about the sounds she’d made and how she tasted and how she said she’d always been in love with me.

  Honestly? I was kinda pissed. How dare she keep that secret from me for this many years? I mean what the fuck. I kept searching my memories, looking for clues. So far I didn’t have any. Was it possible that I had missed all the signs? My friends hadn’t, so Emma had said. I needed to have a serious chat with all of them and ask what they were thinking when they didn’t tell me how obvious it was that Emma was in love with me.

  What had I missed? And what did it mean for me? What happened now? How could I be only friends with her if she was wanting something more? That wasn’t fair to either of us. And if I decided that I was in love with her, was it real, or did I just think that because I wanted to make her happy because she was my best friend?

  Too many questions and I had zero answers. So I spent most of the night turning everything over and over in my head, like socks in a dryer. I had no answers by the time I passed out, right before my alarm went off.

  Today was going to fucking suck.

  I needed a coffee IV to get through the day, but that wasn’t going to happen, so I just stopped and got a Venti pumpkin crème cold brew after dropping Vegas off at doggie daycare. Emma was sleeping in and mumbled goodbye to me when I left. It wasn’t like her to sleep in, so I was a little worried, but she answered when I texted her later and didn’t seem any different, so who knew.

  I sucked my coffee down so fast that I swear I started vibrating on the street.

  “How much coffee have you had today, my goodness,” Jessika said, when I was pouring myself another cup during my morning break. My hands were shaking, but I had to stay awake today or else I wasn’t going to make it through. Yes, I was leaving in less than three days, but I was training my replacement and she wouldn’t stop asking questions and I need
ed to be alert to tell her the answers. I didn’t want my employer to pull something and not pay me because I’d mentally checked out. That sounded like something they would do. My replacement, Maggie, was . . . eager. She was also young and wanted to do a really, really good job and I wanted to tell her that she needed to tone it down and also not to give this place her everything because they would chew her up and spit her out, just like it did to me. But I didn’t think she’d listen to me, so I went ahead and just took all of her questions and tried to keep the editorializing to myself.

  I realized Jessika was waiting for an answer. I sucked in a mouthful of coffee before I answered. I hadn’t even added any cream or sugar or anything and it was awful but I didn’t need anything impeding the caffeine getting into my body.

  “Uh, enough,” I said, in answer to her question. My lips were trembling.

  “Yeah, you’re going to need to put that cup down, babe,” she said, taking it from me. I resisted for a second, but let her take the cup from me. She stepped closer and examined me.

  “Your entire face is twitching. Why have you been downing the coffee today? Rough night? I hope it was fun.” Uh, that would be one word for it, I guess? The sex was fun, more than fun, but the other stuff wasn’t so great.

  “Uh, just had a lot . . . on my mind and didn’t sleep and I need to keep myself peppy for the new girl and I think I ordered a coffee that was too large and drank it really fast and here we are.” Even I could tell I was speaking at a speed too fast for another human to follow.

  “Water. Right now. You aren’t going to be any good at anything when you’re in hyper speed like this.” She was probably right. I poured the coffee down the sink and then took a few breaths before I went back to my desk. I told Maggie to take a break herself, but she said she didn’t want to (what?), and was at the desk reading through the employee manual again.

  “Hey! You got a few calls,” she said, and I didn’t know if I could deal with much more of her enthusiasm. I was just so tired. Wired and tired at the same time. It wasn’t a fun state to be in.

  I grabbed my water bottle and gulped some down while Maggie prattled away. There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Jessika looking down at me.