by Siera Maley
She looked at me with confusion. “I don’t understand.”
My throat ached and I wiped at my eyes, willing myself not to cry for once. “I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.” My voice cracked and I shook my head at myself, frustrated. “I know I made the wrong choice, but I thought I was doing it to keep my best friend. I went behind your back and I lied and I did things I promised you I wouldn’t, and you have every right to be mad at me for that. Skylar hates me now and I know you might, too. But before you decide you never want to see me again, you should know that for these past few weeks I’ve spent every day wishing we’d just met normally or that I could find some way to make things right without losing you.”
Chelsea seemed conflicted by what I’d said, and she stared at me for a moment. I shivered and she reached out for me like it was on instinct, pulling me under the water and right up against her. “I want to believe you,” she told me. Her eyes were red, and I knew she was trying not to cry too.
I nodded and wrapped my arms around her, tucking my face into her neck. “I know,” I breathed out, clinging to her for as long as she’d let me. “I’m sorry. If I could go back and change everything, I would.”
“I really want to believe that, too,” she said. “Everything you’re saying makes sense.” I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly, reaching down and finding one of her hands with mine. “I was just so angry at you. After I talked to Skylar, I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t eat for days. Gina took my phone from me the first night because I was scared of what I’d say to you. But I still didn’t want to see you get hurt tonight. I hate that I care this much.”
“I never wanted to make you feel like that.” I pulled away to look at her, trying to choose my words carefully when I spoke next. “When I asked you to come have dinner with my parents, there was a part of me that wanted you there just so that you could look back on it and see what you meant to me. Getting caught kissing wasn’t part of the plan, and I wasn’t following the plan that Skylar thought I was, either. That was how it was for so long. Just me sneaking around Skylar to find some way to prove to you that no matter what happened after, I meant everything that I said. When we talked about graduation and visiting each other in college, I wanted that and it hurt so much that it seemed like we couldn’t have it. I wanted to kiss you all the time and more; everything you wanted. I still want all of those things if you want them too. Even if you don’t, I just want to be in your life. Even if it’s just as your friend.”
She let out a breath and pressed her lips together tightly, and I watched her hopefully, willing her to give me something, even if it was just friendship. Finally, she opened her mouth and shook her head. “I don’t think we can be friends.”
I bowed my head, feeling my heart plummet into my stomach. I felt myself start to tremble and tears began to stream down my cheeks.
“Because,” she continued, and then paused again. I raised my head to look at her, and she bit her lip and reached down to wipe a tear from my cheek. “I don’t think we’d be very good at it. With our history.”
I watched as a smile pulled at the corners of her lips, and for just a moment, I let the tiniest flicker of relief come to life in my chest. “Can we just start over?” I asked her, still not daring to get my hopes up any higher. “Like none of this ever happened? No Skylar, no Cole, no stupid plan. Just you and me.”
“What does that even look like?” she asked, and I shrugged my shoulders.
“Honestly, probably a lot like it did the first time around,” I admitted.
“You think so?” She looked uncertain.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “If you weren’t faking anything, and I wasn’t faking anything, then I don’t see why not.”
She’d grown serious again as I’d spoken, and now she was staring down at the ground between us, deep in thought. The water washed over her head and pulled her hair toward her face, and I reached out and tucked it behind her ears. She didn’t stop me from touching her and she didn’t shrink away, so I kept my hands on her cheeks, brushing my thumbs along her skin.
Finally, she raised her head to look back at me, her eyes alight with something I recognized instantly. Her gaze dropped to my mouth and she breathed out sharply through her nose, appearing to have made up her mind. “So then convince me you weren’t faking it,” she demanded.
“Okay,” I replied simply, and stepped in closer to press my lips to hers.
Epilogue
My mom won the competition against Gina for who could hate me longer. But on July 27th, as the summer was winding down and we were all preparing for college at the start of August, she asked me at dinner to pass the salt, and it felt like progress.
Things between Chelsea and I moved slower the second time around (well, after the incident in the shower at Prom, that is), which wasn’t exactly a grand accomplishment given the breakneck speed we’d moved at the first time. We spent the summer hanging out with her friends, though Gina was the lone exception for a while when she couldn’t initially forgive me for what I’d done. I understood completely; paint prank or no, I thought I was lucky that any of them still bothered to speak to me at all, and the fact that Chelsea even wanted to be in my presence any time in the foreseeable future felt like winning the lottery.
After Prom, we didn’t kiss again until late June, and when I helped her move into her dorm at the beginning of August, a week before I was due to move into mine, she thanked me with a peck. Gina had come back around by then and thought it was heinous that we hadn’t progressed past that, but it was different than the first time, and that was what we’d decided we wanted: to distance ourselves from the whole ordeal with Skylar as much as we could.
I didn’t really speak to Skylar again. I knew through Alex that after she’d lost both of us as friends, she started hanging out with some of Devon’s old high school friends instead. Alex got a new boyfriend over the summer and started bringing him to hangouts with Chelsea’s friends, and when I finally got around to talking to her about our plans for the future, I found out we’d been planning on attending the same college all along. So, tentatively, we decided to give being friends a real shot again.
As I settled into my dorm on my first day, my new roommate yet to arrive, I collapsed on my bed with my laptop and called Chelsea for a video chat. She answered from her own dorm, beaming at me, and greeted me, “Hey, babe. I’m so sad I couldn’t be there today. Rush week is hell.”
“I still can’t believe you’re joining a sorority,” I laughed out, shaking my head at her, and her smile only widened.
“Well, you know…gotta do what I can to meet pretty girls, as always.”
“Priorities,” I agreed.
“New roommate there yet?” she asked me. I shook my head and she wiggled her eyebrows. “Ooh, what if it’s some weird chick with like, a strangely exotic stamp collection?”
“You have a coin collection, nerd.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t bring it with me!” She laid back on her bed and tilted the laptop so that her face was back in frame again. “I miss you,” she said. “You have to come visit tomorrow after I’m done being Kappa Kappa Whoever’s bitch all day.”
“I already agreed to go to this freshman event my dorm’s doing,” I told her. “I’m trying to make friends.”
She scoffed, pretending to be offended. “You already have friends!”
“Yeah, but I have to make new ones so that I don’t end up with just one friend I’m desperate to keep all over again.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m glad Alex is here, though.”
“Tell all your new friends that you’re gay from the beginning,” she warned. “And tell them you have a really hot girlfriend. That’ll make you friends.”
“Uh, not the right kind.” I rolled my eyes again at her and she laughed.
I heard a distant voice on her end, and she looked up and away from the camera, speaking to someone else. “Oh. Okay.” When she looked back at me, she was scowling. “Well, apparently I have to visit
Apple Pi Theta or whatever in the next hour and tell them how much I love handbags, chihuahuas, and shopping, so I gotta go.”
“You are so getting zero bids,” I told her, giggling.
“More time for you!” she declared, blowing a kiss at the camera. “Muah! Love you, bye!”
“Love you too,” I said, and she hung up. I leaned back against the bed’s headrest and sighed, unable to stop a smile from spreading across my lips. Between the issues with my mom and Skylar and having to lie to so many people, those couple months of senior year in the Spring had been absolute hell, with Chelsea serving as the only bright spot. But today, with freshman year set to begin and new experiences and friendships on the horizon, I was finally moving on from the past, embracing change, and felt excited about what would come next. Life was good.
And as one very wise girlfriend had once advised me: as it turned out, the good parts of life did, in fact, make the bad parts worth it.
About the Author
Siera Maley was born and raised in the Southern Bible Belt. After coming out as a lesbian as a teen, she relocated to a more suburban area and is now living with her fiancée and very adorable dogs. Previous works include Time It Right, Dating Sarah Cooper, Taking Flight, On the Outside, Colorblind, and The Noble of Sperath.
Visit her online at
www.sieramaley.com
[email protected]
Also by Siera Maley
Time It Right
Dating Sarah Cooper
Taking Flight
On the Outside
Colorblind
The Noble of Sperath