A/N: This chapter takes place a couple months after where we're at now in canon, so Winston and Zoë are over, and Zoë and Esme are…well, you'll see. It's for the dinner prompt.
My heart was racing as I set three place settings at our kitchen table. Once everything was to my liking, I decided to focus on phase two of my plan to make sure tonight went perfectly. Using my theatrical talents, I sprang forth a few tears and threw myself onto the couch in our adjoining living room.
"Oh, sweetie," my mother said gently. "Is this about Winston again?"
I nodded vigorously. "I just can't believe he broke up with me," I said with all the talent of an ex-TV star. "What did I do wrong?"
"I'm sure you did nothing wrong," my mother said in the same protective, overbearing voice she used on directors who didn't cast me. "You were too good for that boy. Way out of his league. Someday, when he realizes that, he's going to feel like an idiot for what he did."
The next few tears I cried were real ones. Winston did realize that I was technically out of his league, and he did feel like an idiot for dating me. I waited too long to tell him I wasn't into him (or any other boys, for that matter), falling harder for Esme each day while pretending to be in love with him, and now he was hurting at least as badly as he did after the much-gossiped-about dissolution of Frankston last year. I may not have ever loved him, but I still had a heart, and I still felt guilty about using him the way I did.
"I hope so," I told my mother, sniffling for dramatic effect as she handed me a box of Kleenex.
She nodded. "I'm glad your friend is coming to stay with you," she said. "If I had known you were going to have this blow-out with Winston, I never would've agreed to go to the audition this weekend."
"I know, Mom," I said. "It's okay."
The doorbell rang, and willed myself not to perk up and run to answer it the way I wanted to. I let my mother answer the door and let my secret girlfriend in. "Esme, thank you for being here for Zoë. I just feel terrible that I can't stay with her this evening."
"It's no problem, Ms. Rivas," Esme said with a giant, charming smile. "I'll take good care of her."
I got up to take Esme's bag up to my room, and I could hear my mother excusing herself to come talk to me upstairs.
"I'm so glad you're making some new friends," my mother said. "She seems like a nice girl."
"She is. I didn't realize it at first because we kind of fought over Winston," I said, hoping to falsely emphasize Esme's straightness, "but now we both realize we're better off."
My mother smiled, predictably. "I'm glad you're done with him, and I'm also glad you're done with that dyke you were hanging out with last semester."
Hearing that word from my mother felt like a dagger through my chest. "Me too," I said, omitting the fact that the word made me sick, even when incorrectly applied.
When the two of us went back downstairs, Esme shot me an apologetic 'I heard everything' glance and then quickly covered it up with "I bet you can do a lot better than Winston."
"That's what I was just telling her," my mother said, excited that someone agreed with her. "The marsala's on the stove, and it's just about ready. Let me check on the chicken, and then we should be about ready to eat."
Esme sat down at the table, looking polite as ever. "It smells delicious, Ms. Rivas."
"Thank you, Esme. So, how did you meet Zoë?"
"At an audition a few months ago," Esme said.
"Oh, that's right," she said. "Bet you're glad you didn't get the part now, what with the way that jerk, Winston, treated my daughter."
It was almost hilarious hearing Winston cast as some horrendous womanizer, but both Esme and I managed not to laugh.
My mother put on two oven mitts and pulled the chicken out of the oven. "Can you serve the pasta, Zoë?"
"Already on it."
"How can I help?" Esme asked.
"Don't worry about it. You're our guest, Esme," my mother said.
It amazed me how charming Esme could be when she needed to be. If my mother knew what Esme could really be like, she would be chasing her out of this house.
Once we were all seated and served, my mother's awkward attempts at conversation began again. "So, Esme. Who do you hang out with at school?"
"I have a lot of friends," Esme lied, "but not necessarily the same ones as Zoë. I hang out with Goldi a lot, sometimes Frankie, Yael."
She did a good job of listing real girls I wasn't friends with, girls my mother could never cross-reference with.
"Zoë has some nice friends too. Have you met Tristan Milligan?"
"Of course," Esme said.
"Personally, I wish Zoë would give him a chance. He's so handsome."
Esme nearly spit her pasta.
"What's so funny?" my mother asked.
"Oh, I just thought of something I saw on TV yesterday," Esme lied.
Somehow in spite of thinking Grace was a lesbian, my mother had no idea that Tristan was gay. Her gaydar was the worst ever, mostly based on outdated stereotypes from the 1980s, and she didn't even seem to realize it.
"But wouldn't Tristan make a great boyfriend for Zoë?"
"If he wasn't Miles's best friend, I'd almost say so," Esme said, "but dating your best friend's ex can be super awkward."
I breathed a sigh of relief. That was the perfect response, and I was disappointed I hadn't thought of it. The two of them were inseparable, even if it was for more-than-friendly reasons.
My mother nodded. "Oh, that's too bad. So how about you, Esme? Any boys in your life?"
"Sure," she said. "I'm dating this great guy right now. His name's Patrick, and I met him in homeroom. We've been together for about four months, and he's really sweet."
My eyes widened with surprise. Sure, I was good at telling people what they wanted to hear, but Esme was capable of just weaving shit out of thin air and making people believe it. It was both amazing and terrifying.
"That's good to hear," my mother said. "Maybe Patrick has a friend or two you could introduce to Zoë."
"Oh, I'm sure he does," Esme said. "Patrick's got more friends than I do."
I somehow managed not to laugh at my girlfriend's blatant lies.
"You seem like a nice girl," my mother said.
Once we were finished eating, Esme and I watched some reruns of Pretty Little Liars until my mother finally left. The moment she did, both of us busted up laughing.
"You are awful," I told Esme.
"Yes, but you love it," she responded.
I couldn't deny that.
"Does your mother seriously think Tristan is straight?" Esme asked with her signature laugh.
"Y-ep," I said. "She only ever accuses girls of being lesbians, and she only does that if they dress un-feminine."
"Good thing I'm such a girly girl in my business casual attire," Esme responded.
I leaned in to kiss her and was instantly soaring from happiness. Kissing Grace had been amazing, but kissing a girl who was as into me as I was into her was a whole new experience. I loved her lips; I loved pecking them, nibbling her lower lip, and just about everything they could do to me. She had moved to kissing me on my neck when I decided it would be best to go upstairs.
Holding hands, we walked up the stairs to my room and shut the door. Sure, we had had sexy sleepovers before, but this was the first one in my room.
"You have a double bed!" she said excitedly. "Okay, that will make this about a hundred times easier than in my room."
I giggled. "Surprise."
She returned to kissing me, and soon her lips moved lower until my top was off, hers was unbuttoned, and I was kissing the perfect breasts she teased me for liking when we first met. I loved hearing her soft moans and remembering with each one that this girl was actually mine. There was no way she was going to leave me after this. I couldn't ruin things. I was loved. I was safe.
The pleasure of her lips between my legs, her tongue between my folds, always built me toward heavenly climax faster than I wanted it to. I wasn't used to sex taking round after round to get old like it did with her, but every time I took a break to massage her body with my tongue, my own sex recharged and wanted more of her. It gave us plenty of room to experiment and plenty of room to enjoy each other.
In a moment of overwhelming pleasure, I didn't notice that the door was suddenly open. My mother was staring, shocked.
"My flight got cancelled. What on Earth is going on in here?"
Esme threw my blanket over her as I scrambled to toss her blouse and skirt over to her, more worried about my girlfriend's comfort than mine.
"Mom! I thought you weren't coming back until Sunday."
"That's no excuse for this…behavior. Esme, get out. I need to have a word with my daughter."
Once Esme was gone, I was stuck alone with my mother. "I'm not mad," she said.
"Wait, you're not?" I asked. "I thought you told me…"
She held up a hand to silence me. "You were upset about Winston, and you made a crazy mistake. It's something that happens. You'll go to confession on Friday, and after that, you're not going to see this girl anymore. You hear me?"
"I don't hear you," I said. "Esme is my girlfriend. Winston and I broke up weeks ago; I just waited to tell you so you wouldn't find out that I'm gay."
"Zoë, you are not gay. That girl has you confused."
"Did Grace have me confused? Or was I confused from fucking Zig and not feeling half of what I felt with a girl who didn't even like me?"
My mother just stared blankly ahead. "I don't even know what to say."
"Then don't say anything, Mom," I said, "because you don't control my life anymore. I earn at least half our income, and I can stop anytime I want."
"Don't you dare threaten me, young lady," she said.
"I'm not," I said. "I'm stating a fact." My heart was racing, but I couldn't bring myself to stop.
I knew I had my mother backed into a corner. As much as she hated my homosexuality, she didn't want to give up the luxurious lifestyle my acting career afforded her, especially now that she was no longer getting the callbacks she used to.
It was two days before my mother talked to me again. It was when I came downstairs, dressed for church.
"Just where do you think you're going?" she asked.
"Church," I said. "Like always?"
"If you're not going to confession, then forget it. You don't belong there."
"Maybe not," I told her. "I'd say we'll let the church decide."
As requested, I went to confession. I didn't confess to having lesbian sex. Instead, I confessed to lying to Winston and my mother, and to being cruel toward Tristan through the process. I didn't listen to the number of hail Marys the priest asked me to do for loving Esme. Instead, I walked out of the confessional with my head held high. I loved my church, but I loved my girlfriend more. There were other churches out there, but there weren't other Esmes. I had challenged my mother once before when she had tried to control my acting career, and she had come around then. I could only hope that this time would be no different.