For my Bee, Judith of Chantgirl, who's the sweetest, kindest, wisest, most hilarious and gorgeous person I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. Have a happy birthday and a wonderful, WONDERFUL year, Bee! Your blog title is "To Love and Be Loved" and I like to think it's prophetic: you love with the most open heart of anyone I know and are loved dearly in return.
Thank you to my superbeta Sheila of Trainwreck91 for all of her awesomeness, intelligence and logic! Brittany isn't wearing pajamas in this version, don't worry. But she's wearing clothes—sorry to burst your bubble. ;)
She's never shown up to rehearsal before. I would have remembered how her eyes burned coal-dark and jewel-bright, doing that back-and-forth flicker thing they do when her feelings come too fast to settle, like droplets of paint in water. She's pretending to study: history book on her lap, cracked down the spine, the pads of her fingers wearing the Bible-thin pages thinner. I tip out of a pirouette when I see her sitting there. She wiggles her fingers shyly when she realizes why.
"Why are you here?" I mouth. She flushes—she's too dark to blush, but you can tell because her cheeks glow ember-hot—ducks her head, and peeks out from under the lattice of her eyelashes until I look away.
She watches the entire class. She won't meet my gaze, but I know, and she knows, that every move I make, every torque and dig and slide, is for her.
I love to dance—I used to think it was the only thing I was good at. It's different when she's watching me; it's deeper, brighter; I can feel energy and emotion sparking like lightning from my outstretched fingertips into the dip under her heart. It's strong tonight because it's the first time I've danced for only her.
I hold her hand over the gearshift as we drive to her house, my thumb brushing her knuckles like dry, sugar-soft kisses. We pull up to a drivethrough and I let go because she needs both hands now: one to steer and one to drink her dinner.
"Thank you," I say, and she rolls her eyes.
"Whatever." Her retort is lemon-sharp.
I ask, "Why'd you show up?" She doesn't answer. She's embarrassed, though I don't know why—she's always buying me things, and this is just a milkshake.
We pull into her driveway a few minutes later. I try to steal a kiss but she's already slipped out of the driver's seat. We creep through her hallway on silent feet because I'm not supposed to be here on school nights. I don't pay attention, though, because I never have; I've snuck like a shadow into her bedroom since we were children and our skinny hips clinked together as we jackknifed under a single sheet.
I close her door with a click; we're louder now, behind a door. I turn around while she changes into pajamas—I don't want to be caught staring.
She tugs me to her bed, but I pull her back.
"Sweetie, why'd you come tonight?"
She shrugs. "Reasons," she says. Her black eyes are soft and big; her eyelashes quiver with the weight of twenty answers she doesn't know how to mold.
When she's about to cry, my instincts—fine-tuned from years of protecting her from the demons in her head—kick in. She's a skittish bird easily spooked into flight when she's overwhelmed; I know this because I've pushed her into panic before.
"Dance with me," I say, stepping toward her and offering her the open shell of my palm. Dance with me so my body will know how to make you feel safe.
I hold her close as two pressed palms and breathe deep against her ribcage as we waltz.
"You were amazing," she finally whispers, soft against my collarbone. Her lips brush my pulse and I can feel the wonder cloud her breath.
"Thanks." I dip her. "I danced for you tonight, you know."
She looks at me and says she does, but her voice hinges because it's sweet and she doesn't let herself believe in nice things happening to her.
"I love it when you dance lyrical," she admits, "I love watching you stitch a story that doesn't need words. You move like smoke."
I run my cheek against the length of hers, supine and content.
"I really like jazz, too." It always takes her a minute to crack open, like shy, pearly lilies that only bloom in moonlight. "It's strong. Edgy. Carnal almost. Your face is all serious when you get into it, and you snap everything sharp when you move."
"Did you see me in hip-hop? I kept flashing you gang signs."
"Yes, you dork." The upturned curve of her top lip against my neck means she's beaming. "If you were part of a deaf gang and your signs meant I love you and I like your face."
I chuckle and burrow my face against the divot of her neck. We're both silent now, shuffling bare-legged and clumsy together, quiet as our socks against the carpet, dancing the dance one can't learn in a thousand hours of class. I swing her, dip, turn; she follows in the trail of my heart.
"I wanted to watch you tonight," she admits in a breath. "I've wanted to go for a really long time, to be a good girlfriend, support you."
Girlfriend. She said girlfriend. That little word, rich and heady like fresh pressed coffee, makes me falter. The air is suddenly saturated with her; her smell, roses, clean laundry, musk underneath, is overwhelming, and so is the press of her warmth against me, and the butterfly kisses her eyelashes leave against my jaw as I pause to breathe girlfriend.
She's never called herself that—never called us that. I don't think she even meant to. But she did. Girlfriend!
She mistakes my stunned silence for disenchantment and begins to panic. "Wait, isn't that what we are? Isn't that what you said last night? Dinner was a date; baths were a date? Oh my god. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Forget—"
I shut her up by squeezing her tight, curling my arms around her back. "Girlfriend? We've never... girlfriend?" It shocks me; it doesn't matter that I knew we were dating for ages; that just because she was too afraid to believe it, we were dating because how could everything—dinners, lunches, rose petal baths and the way we look at each other, all velvet and whispered—be anything but girlfriends? It still shocks me and it's everything I can do to not jump up and down, still hugging her, overspilling with excitement.
I flash back to the girls we were last year: best friends, friends with benefits, nothing more, both of us hurting and caged by our fears. Too afraid of others, of assumptions, of her parents and of inviting the devil inside by naming what we are. But now: girlfriends!
"You make me so, so happy," I breathe into the satin of her hair. "Can I kiss you?"
She beams and stands on tiptoes to reach. I bend down to kiss her. It's a sweet kiss, a tender peck, a kiss that lingers like cinnamon candy. It's an I-love-you kiss that will never change its timbre because we've been kissing this way for a lifetime-only now we've found the words. Girlfriends.
"I love you," she says. "Please don't leave just yet."
I promise I won't, and I don't. There's too much newness to explore; I need to remap the landscape of her face and neck and arms with my fingertips because suddenly, everything is shiny-bright and new.
I start by pulling her in for another kiss and don't leave until there are clementine clouds in the sky.