They slept in the same bed, cuddled and kissed, but Seneca knew she wanted more than that. Then there was the question of being in love. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking of that since Dylan had asked.
“I don’t know,” Seneca said, realizing Kate was waiting for an answer. “Things were great, but I kinda screwed it up again. I don’t know how to make it better. Or actually I do, but I don’t. It’s complicated.”
Kate didn’t say anything, but continued to give Seneca her full attention. Seneca recognized that as Kate’s “if you want to talk I’m here to listen” face.
“We were…uh…this is embarrassing—” Seneca didn’t get to finish because a worried first year squash player came careening through the door, her eyes wide and her face pale. “Someone got hurt upstairs. We need you.”
Seneca grabbed a radio and put a calming hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “Who’s hurt?”
“Jenny. She got hit in the head.”
“With what?” Seneca asked as she scooped up her small kit filled with essential supplies and slung it over her shoulder. Kate did the same and they hurried out of the training room.
“A racket, or maybe Britt’s elbow, the ball, I don’t know.” She looked close to tears.
“Is she conscious?” Seneca asked, trying to keep her calm.
“Yes.” A smile slowly crept across the woman’s face. “She’s pissed as hell. Said you were going to see her all busted up.”
Seneca and Kate laughed. That didn’t sound life threatening.
“Head on up. Radio if you need me. Sounds like this doesn’t require both of us,” Kate said. Seneca noticed Kate had slowly been giving her more responsibility and autonomy in situations that weren’t emergencies. It seemed to be part of some master plan for her training, and it felt good. Kate kept giving her new challenges, so she figured she must be passing them. Well, maybe. She never really could tell with Kate’s master plans and Yoda-type lessons.
Upstairs in the squash complex, Seneca fought her way through the crowd of women surrounding their coach and Jenny, who didn’t look pleased to see Seneca.
“Go away. I’m fine.”
“I can see that,” Seneca said mildly, taking in her already swollen cheek and puffy eye that seemed to be blackening darker by the second.
She assessed Jenny’s immediate state and convinced her to head down to the training room.
“Aren’t you all supposed to get out of the way when another person is going to hit the ball? Gentleman’s game or something like that?” Seneca still hadn’t figured out the rules to squash.
“It’s a small court,” Jenny said, her uninjured eye not completely focused. “We’re supposed to wear goggles too.”
“That was going to be my next question.”
“It’s that big hulk of a roommate of yours that’s the problem. She ran into me. Or my face ran into her. I’m actually not really sure. She could probably tell you better.” Jenny swerved a little in the hall and Seneca grabbed her shoulders to steady her.
“Here.” Seneca offered Jenny her arm. “Hang on. We’re almost there.” Seneca was already mentally making a checklist of the next steps in Jenny’s care. Apparently, a concussion assessment should be a high priority.
“You’re tall,” Jenny said suddenly.
“That I am.” Seneca held Jenny a little tighter, wanting to get her to the training room as quickly as possible.
Jenny was silent a few moments and then looked up again. “You’re tall.”
Seneca groaned; it was classic concussion behavior. With her luck, Jenny would be commenting on her height until they got her shipped off to the hospital for an evaluation.
“You’re hot too. Has anyone told you that?”
“I think you got hit in the head harder than you think,” Seneca said under her breath.
“Well, you are. I’m just saying.”
“Jenny, you’re straight.” Seneca knew reasoning probably wasn’t going to work.
“Doesn’t mean I’m blind,” Jenny said before falling silent. “Was practice over?” She asked as they made it through the door into the training room.
“It certainly is for you.”
Kate was on her feet as soon as she saw the look on Seneca’s face. They ran through the concussion assessment quickly, pretty sure what they would find. They didn’t bother with the computerized version since Jenny wouldn’t be able to do it in her current state anyway. It only took a few minutes for the ambulance to arrive and transport her to the local hospital for evaluation and testing. Concussions weren’t treated lightly. As they loaded Jenny into the ambulance, she said to Seneca, “You’re tall. And hot.” Seneca just waved, and Kate chuckled.
The rest of Seneca’s shift wasn’t much calmer. It had been steady work after Jenny’s concussion, with a random assortment of blisters, bumps, strains, bruises, and one badly sprained ankle. Some days were just like that. Seneca had seen enough black-and-blue skin for the day, though.
By the time she and Kate had time to head upstairs for their customary workout, they were both dragging a little.
“Busy day,” Seneca said casually, trying to assess whether Kate remembered their earlier conversation and that it had been interrupted.
“Yep. You still liking it?”
Seneca felt the weariness of the day lift. “I love it. It’s, I don’t know, perfect, I guess.”
Kate nodded and seemed to know exactly what Seneca meant. She looked like she was making a mental note about something, but Seneca knew it wasn’t worth asking. Kate would tell her when she was ready, if it pertained to her. Besides, she had a more important question.
“Kate,” she asked softly, “how do you know if you’re in love?”
Kate stopped mid-stretch. “Shall we take a break for a minute?” Kate asked. They’d only just warmed up, but Seneca figured it was the kind of question you had to pay attention to. They lowered themselves against the wall and gulped down a few mouthfuls of water. “Do you think you might be?” Kate finally asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what it’s supposed to feel like. I haven’t ever…no one has ever…” Seneca didn’t know how to begin explaining her past and its influence on her present. She didn’t know what being in love was because no one had ever loved her.
“Do you like her?” Kate asked seriously.
Seneca figured this must be another one of Kate’s riddles.
“Yes, very much. I like her a lot.”
“Well, that’s a good start. Test out saying ‘I like you, Dylan’ and ‘I love you, Dylan’ in a private place and see how it feels. I bet one will feel a bit more true than the other, after you say it a few times.”
“That’s it?” Seneca asked. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me what being in love feels like? How I should be able to tell because my stomach does strange flippy things every time I think about her and I sometimes can’t form a coherent sentence when she’s around? Or that all I can do sometimes is stare at her?”
Kate laughed. “I think if you’re feeling all those things that’s probably a pretty good sign, but no, I can’t tell you what symptoms to look for. This isn’t like an injury in the training room, Sen. It’s different for everyone.”
Seneca didn’t like that answer. “I thought being in love was being in love. That everyone just knows.”
“Being in love is being in love, and it is as simple as that. And it’s so very much more complicated. I thought I was in love once,” Kate said. “I said ‘I love you’ to her, and I meant it and it felt good. And I got my heart broken when she left me after seven years. But then I met Lisa.”
“And you knew you weren’t in love before?” Seneca was trying to understand.
“No, I was. It was just very different than being in love with Lisa. It started differently, and I reacted differently. Most people would say that I was in love with both women, but the feelings didn’t look or feel anything alike. Does that make any sense?”
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��Yes and no,” Seneca said. “But I’m not sure that’s much help deciding if I’m in love with Dylan. All you told me is that if Dylan was someone else it would feel completely different and I wouldn’t recognize it.”
Kate glared at her with one eyebrow cocked. Seneca knew she wasn’t really upset and started laughing.
“I told you to say it out loud,” Kate said defensively.
Seneca was still laughing, releasing some of the tension she had been carrying since her fight with Dylan.
“What brought all this on?” Kate asked.
“Dylan and I got into a fight.” Seneca’s laughter died down as the details of the night came back to her.
“Ah, yes, fights always make me wonder if I’m in love, and they give me the warm fuzzy feeling you were describing earlier,” Kate said. “Although the makeup sex is a nice bonus.”
Seneca felt her face heat up and knew it was probably very red. “Aren’t you my boss? I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about that sort of thing.”
“I probably wasn’t supposed to invite you to live with me over the winter break either, but I did and you’re going to, and besides, I’m not your boss up here, just your workout buddy. So was I right about the makeup sex?”
Seneca figured, if possible, she turned even redder. “Um, that was kinda what the fight was about.”
“You got into a fight about makeup sex after a fight? I don’t understand young people.”
“We didn’t…there…no sex. I wouldn’t let her…she-wanted-to-take-my-shirt-off-and-I-wouldn’t-let-her,” Seneca said, turning the admission into practically one unintelligible word. Her face was on fire.
Seneca took a deep breath, mortified. She couldn’t look at Kate for a long few seconds, but when she finally did dare to sneak a peek, Kate was looking at her as she always did, with love and no judgment.
“When I got dumped, I didn’t go out with anyone for a long time. I thought if I stayed locked away from everyone, even my friends, no one would disappoint me, and I couldn’t get my heart broken again.”
“Why did she leave you?” Seneca was happy to have the focus on something other than her failure with Dylan.
“We grew up. The paths we were on just started to veer away from one another. They would occasionally meander in the same direction and we would rediscover what we liked about each other, but in the end, we simply grew apart. I was just blind to that happening.” Kate’s face grew sad as she thought about her younger self.
“But you found Lisa,” Seneca said.
“Yes. Well, actually, her dog found me. She had gotten out and ended up in my neighborhood. I called to return her and ended up with a date. I almost didn’t go.”
“Why?” Seneca asked, horrified. “You and Lisa are about as perfect for each other as I can imagine.”
“Too scared.”
Seneca couldn’t imagine Kate being scared of anything, let alone mild mannered and cute as a button Lisa. Sure, she could lay down the law when Seneca or Kate stepped a toe out of line, but still, not worthy of terror.
“Sometimes the past interferes so much with the present that it risks screwing up the future too. That was my problem. Good thing for me, Lisa is persistent, and damned stubborn.” Kate’s eyes sparkled and her mouth curled up a little more on one side when she thought about Lisa.
“So you’re telling me that whatever the problem is in my past, I shouldn’t let it mess up my future with Dylan?”
“I don’t remember saying that.”
“I’m starting to figure out these riddles of yours.”
“Riddles? I don’t speak in riddles.”
Seneca rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I want to get over it, but I’m scared. I’ve got these.” Seneca lifted up one side of her shirt, exposing her heavily scarred abdomen. “No one wants to look at someone whose body looks like mine. I’ve got them all over.”
“Who did this to you, kiddo?”
Kate’s tone was light, but her eyes were deadly serious. Seneca was afraid for the people responsible if Kate ever learned their names.
“Doesn’t really matter,” Seneca whispered, dropping her head.
“Okay. For now, I’ll accept that,” Kate said, lifting Seneca’s chin with her index finger, forcing her to look her in the eye. “Do you think Dylan loves you?”
“I think, maybe. I don’t know. She asked me if I loved her after I wouldn’t take my shirt off. I think she was maybe saying she did love me. I do know that I feel loved when I’m with her. That’s nice.” Seneca couldn’t help but smile. The thought of Dylan did that to her.
“If she loves you, then she loves all of you, even the parts you think you’re keeping hidden from her and the parts you might not love so much about yourself. I feel like we’ve had a similar conversation before. About your inner scars. She seems to have handled those pretty well, right?”
“So far she has. I took your advice about letting her show me how she sees me. I like it. But how do I know she won’t break my heart?”
“That, kiddo, is the million dollar question, one to which I have no answer. Relationships are work. You have to keep them healthy. In the good ones, though, the hard work feels an awful lot like play.” Kate gave Seneca’s arm a light squeeze. Maybe she was silently encouraging her to fight off her fears.
“You think she could handle seeing the scars? She saw one already and didn’t freak out too much,” Seneca said, not sure how serious Kate had been about Dylan loving all of her.
“Probably. She may not know what they look like or where they are, but she knows that you’ve been hurt in the past and that makes you cautious. She knows you’re tall and thin and strong, and she seems to like that combination, so I don’t think it would matter if you were covered head to toe in tattoos, scars, or painted blue. The woman is on your side.”
Seneca sprawled back on the floor and looked at the ceiling. What would Dylan do if she saw everything Seneca kept hidden under her clothes? Seneca didn’t know what she would do if Dylan wasn’t okay with it. She also didn’t know what she would do if she was. If Dylan didn’t mind her body as scarred and damaged as it was, if she was able to peel off that exterior layer and see what was underneath, what else might she see that Seneca tried to keep hidden, not under her clothes, but deep inside? It felt so vulnerable and soft and raw. Could she even risk it? Could she not?
Chapter Eighteen
“I’m going to brush my teeth,” Dylan said. “Try not to miss me too much while I’m gone.” She wandered out of the room and down the hall to the communal bathroom that was a staple of every college dorm.
Seneca paced the room, waiting for Dylan to get back. She didn’t even glance at the pajamas that were hanging neatly on the back of the desk chair across the room. She knew she was making a bigger deal out of this than she needed to, but she had never been in love before. It certainly felt like a huge deal. Aside from that, she had screwed things up so completely with Dylan before, she wasn’t sure she deserved another chance. She needed to make the first move if they were going to move forward, and damn was it hard.
“What’s wrong, my sweet girl?” Dylan asked, walking up behind Seneca and wrapping her arms around her.
Seneca startled at the unexpected contact. She hadn’t heard Dylan come back into the room. She spun around in Dylan’s arms and clung to her for a moment, drawing strength from her steadiness and wonderful calm.
“Ask me again what you asked me when you were mad, after we tried to…you know. I want to answer you now,” Seneca said, her face still pressed against Dylan’s shoulder.
“Ask you what, sweetheart?” Dylan sounded confused. She guided them both to the bed and sat them down facing each other. “What did I ask you―Oh.”
“The answer is yes,” Seneca said quietly, feeling incredibly happy, knowing what she was saying was true.
“Yes, what?” Dylan asked, a smile sweeping across her face.
“Yes, I love you,” Seneca said, louder this time.
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“Again.” Dylan laughed, her hands in Seneca’s hair, their faces just inches apart.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” Dylan said before closing the distance between their lips.
The kiss was sweet and tender, conveying their love and deeper level of commitment. It didn’t stay that way. Soon the sweetness was overcome by passion and the tenderness with urgency. Their tongues battled in the first attempt to show physically what Seneca knew words would never be able to fully express.
When Seneca reached for Dylan’s shirt, Dylan pulled back. Despite the new assurances of love, she clearly wasn’t going to be the only one lying naked in bed. Seneca felt the withdrawal and stilled her hands. She took a huge breath and held it. She reached for her own shirt but paused a moment. She blew the breath out, drew the soft cotton T-shirt over her head, and tossed it to the floor.
Dylan drew a rasping breath. She stood and pulled Seneca to her feet and stepped back to get a better view.
Seneca squirmed under Dylan’s intense scrutiny. She resisted the urge to hide her stomach, to cover the scars and blemishes that she saw every day in the mirror, or at least the days she was brave enough to look. When Dylan didn’t say anything immediately, she thought her gamble a terrible mistake. It would be impossible for anyone to see past the ugliness. That was why she always remained clothed, partly for the control it afforded, but mostly to stop the gaping stares she always expected would accompany the unveiling of her body.
“Bob?” Seneca asked, hating the uncertainty in her voice.
“God, Seneca, you are absolutely beautiful. It is criminal to have a body like yours.”
“But what about these?” Seneca motioned at her stomach.
Dylan unabashedly stared at Seneca. She took her time looking her up and down. She started with her shoulders, lingered on her sports bra, took in the curve of her ribs, and licked her lips as she moved along her abs and stopped at her waist. Seneca had never had anyone look at her like that. It was as if Dylan didn’t see, or didn’t mind, the hundreds of small round scars that covered her upper torso. Dylan had already seen part of the long, jagged scar that slashed across her shoulder blade and ended just below her armpit, but Seneca was most self-conscious about the raised patch of scar tissue that stood out on her belly and the multiple smaller linear gashes that were their companions.
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