A Certain Kind of Perfection

"Morning, luv," she whispers to me. I adore when she calls me that. It's a British thing. It doesn't mean she's in love with me, I know, but when she says it, somewhere in my little always hungry heart, I believe she does.

Because I want to believe.

"Good morning. Oh! I should probably hurry up and jump in the shower. Got lots to do today." I never stay in bed long after the alarm sounds because it is just too tempting to reach over and caress her, to bring my lips to hers, to press her back on the mattress and finally, for the first time ever, really explore her body.

I hurry to stand up but my eyes stay on her. She's gorgeous when she first wakes up.

"You bolt from a bed faster than anyone I've ever seen." She stretches, looking wild and elegant all at once.

I'm crazy about her. There's no doubt about it anymore. For a long time I thought it was something less than romantic love...but that was just me fooling myself.

I've fallen in love with a woman- with the most amazing woman I ever met, Leyla Mir.

It all started when I was the needy new girl in town who ached for her friendship, who needed her desperately and she seemed to see that and take me as her own from the start. She gave me somewhere to live, a home, a family...in her....she became my best friend, my closest confidant and my whole world, really.

But I have never been hers. She belongs to Bianca Montgomery. Her perfect girlfriend who will probably one day be her perfect wife, and they will raise little Miranda as their perfectly lovely daughter. Together they are the modern American Ideal family.

Leyla has this whole world that doesn't include me. Still there are moments when it is just me and her that feel like a certain kind of perfection all of its own.

Some nights we share the same bed. It started after Matt Hunter let me scrub in on a surgery of this ten year old little boy who was hit by a car while riding his bike home from school. When he flatlined, and we couldn't get him back, something in me broke.

I lay in bed that night, sobbing. Leyla came into my darkened room, murmuring soothing words in her husky British accent, and then she crawled into bed with me, wrapping her arms around me from behind and nuzzling her face into my neck, making me feel safe and protected.

"Well my Aunt Raylene always said the early bird gets the best worm."

She giggles. "An Aunt Raylene mention two minutes into the day, that must be a new record."

I smile, wondering if she can tell that the last thing I want to do is leave this room. In this room, she is all mine. In this room, she loves me. In this room, I am hers and I know my place in the world. Here everything feels right and out there everything feels wrong, unsure and shaky.

I never expected to fall for Leyla. To be madly in love with someone I never even kissed, let alone a woman when I have only been with men. Two men, and neither time was anything to write home about, but I didn't realize why. I didn't know that Leyla existed then, that anything like what we share now could exist at all.

Now that I know it does, I sure don't know what to do about it. Do I blow apart her world and say Be with me instead of Bianca. Love me. Marry me. We can buy a farm and raise horses, chicken and babies together.

She loves Bianca. They were together before I even moved to Port Charles. She doesn't belong only to me. So why does it feel like she should? Am I fooling myself? All I know is she's who I want to spend my life right beside.

"I know my Aunt Raylene sayings drive everyone nuts. Sorry." I move to the dresser and pull some scrubs, bra and panties out of the drawers.

Leyla sits up. "They don't drive me nearly as batty as they used to. They're you."

In the mirror, I watch her, she smiles gracefully and my heart flips over. How could I not fall in love with her?

"Yep, me. Don't know that it's a good thing but its definitely me. You must think I'm so silly sometimes."

"Dreadfully silly," she says, throwing a pillow at me.

A laugh bursts from my lips as I toss it back at her. "I'm serious. You grew up in London. And Bianca lived in Paris. You are both world travelers and you speak more than one language. I'm just a girl off a farm in Ohio. Port Charles is the furthest I've ever been from home."

"Well, we could visit Europe in the Spring, if you want. I could show you London, Paris, Rome, Provence."

"You would do that for me?"

"Why wouldn't I? You're my best friend, Nadine." She crawls out of bed. My eyes quickly drift over her lingerie clad body, a stark contrast to me in my flannel pajamas, then I jerk my eyes away.

"It's a nice idea but I could never afford it."

"I'm sure Bianca would loan us her family's jet. Her sister is married to a very rich man, you know, and we could stay at hostels."

"Bianca....she probably wouldn't like the idea."

Leyla pulls on her robe and asks casually "Why not?"

"Well, you're her girlfriend and she would miss you if you were gone for weeks. And I wouldn't blame her a bit if she raised holy hell if you even mentioned it."

"Binks?"

"Right. Right. She's way too refined to do that."

Leyla walks past me. "You really shouldn't move so slow, luv."

I freeze. "What? What do you mean?"

With laughter in her voice she teases "You missed out on your chance to take the first shower."

Leyla leaves the room, while I plop down on the bed, sighing. A trip to Europe with her. My dream come true.

Sure, it won't be ideal, I know that. We won't walk around holding hands and kissing underneath the stars. But it will be a certain sort of perfect, all the same, our sort of perfect.

And maybe, one day, if I wait long enough, Leyla will see that she doesn't need to go out in the world and seek Bianca to fill her needs....she already has all she needs right here in our home, in our bed, with me.

I used to want to marry a prince. Not anymore. I have the love I want now. She just doesn't know that when she calls me luv....I hear I love you, too.

THE END