"Do you think you want to? Or you would want to?"
"I do, but I can't," she mumbled, focusing more readily on the coloring book in front of her. "Vanessa, her career is about to take off. Her album is coming out and - "
"She said she doesn't care about that," the brunette shrugged, turning her attention to her own coloring book and pushing the abandoned game of Clue further onto the other side of the table. "If she doesn't care - "
"I don't want her to resent me," Heather finally revealed. "She's worked so hard to get where she is, and as much as she hates the paparazzi and being followed, this is how her life is supposed to be right now." She heard the distinct shutter of Brad's iPhone and looked up at him with an arched eyebrow as Vanessa giggled.
"Somebody's got to get you on Twitter," he teased before walking away again to supervise the scene changes.
She let out a sigh, pushing a few loose hairs back into her ponytail and wiggling in her uniform uncomfortably. "I would give all of this up to be with her, of course," she stopped, running her hand back and forth against the page, focusing on the purple spreading there, "but she shouldn't give up on her dreams for me."
"She wants to."
Heather dropped the crayon, looking into Vanessa's eyes with a mix of exasperation and fear. "She does now, but what happens if this affects her album sales? Or she won't get a part in a big movie because she's with me? That would kill me Little Lengies. I can't hold her back like that." The brunette sat quietly, coloring her own page as she waited for her friend to continue. "Maybe later, once her career is established, but not now. She's doing so well for herself, and I'm so, so proud of her. I can't take that success away."
Vanessa nodded a few times, tucking her crayon into a place in the coloring book to hold her place before standing. "Success is nothing if you don't have someone to share it with," she whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of Heather's head before walking toward the other side of set, leaving the blonde more confused than she had been prior to their conversation.
Naya woke up the next morning with a blinding migraine and a sore jaw from clenching her teeth the night before. Alternating between massaging her temples and just below her ears, she curled further back into the pillows, thankful that she had no commitments that day and could simply lay in bed wallowing. She reached over for her phone, seeing just one text message, and it wasn't from the woman her heart was hoping for.
Call me when you wake up Naya Marie.
She groaned before pressing the call button and gingerly pressing the phone to her ear, expecting, but not receiving, an angry voice on the other line.
"I saw the press conference," the voice said lowly, not giving away any traces of emotion.
"That's already up?" Naya murmured.
"Yes, sweetheart, it is." The woman paused, taking in a deep breath before speaking again. "I thought you and Heather were together."
Her defenses jolted despite still feeling fuzzy from the dredges of sleep. "We are."
"Matt?"
Naya let out a sigh, curling further into her pillow. "PR made me Mama," she whispered. "I didn't want to."
"One day Heather's going to get tired of watching him parade you around like a trophy," the older Rivera stated matter of factly. "Your relationship can only handle so much of that Nay."
Nodding into the warmth of her bed, she allowed the words to wash over her, coating her in the panic she'd been fighting since the afternoon before. "I know. I asked her if we could come out." Her voice was small, hesitant, and clearly fighting back tears, which didn't go unnoticed by her mother.
"And what did she say?"
"That she didn't want to hold me back in my career with this." She swallowed the growing lump in her throat, the one that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her vocal chords. "Then she told me to get ready for the awards and left."
"Not exactly what I was expecting," the woman muttered. Naya echoed the sentiment silently, awaiting what she was sure would be a strong dose of her mother's typically infallible advice. "Give her a few days sweetheart, and then try talking to her again. She probably needs time to process everything, maybe talk to a friend about it."
"Yeah," the younger woman replied, not entirely convinced. "I don't think I really have any other option."
"It will all work out in the end Naya. You two were meant to be together. Just - " she cleared her throat. "Just give her some time. Call if you want to talk about it some more, okay? I love you baby girl."
"Love you too," the brunette whispered halfheartedly, snuggling back into her comforter when the phone call ended, a few tears falling over her cheeks and wetting the fabric of her pillow.
She had steered clear of Twitter for the past few days, replying to a few tweets, but wholly staying in her pajamas and catching up on the multitude of reality shows she'd managed to pile up in her DVR. She'd only sent off one tweet of her own, hoping that one of the dancers might see it when with Heather, encouraging the blonde to ignite a conversation.
Just watched the hold it against me video! When it comes to Britney, no one does it better than Hemo!
She shouldn't have been disappointed when she hadn't received a text or call in response, but she couldn't help but feel the pit in her stomach hardening at the lack of contact. She was drowning in the same feelings she'd experienced the last time they'd stopped speaking, earlier that spring, and until the next day, she'd had nothing to distract herself with. Lea had checked in on her, to no true avail, but other than that, she was alone, with only the cyclical thoughts swirling in her head as company. She was thankful for the Dior Operation Smile luncheon the next day, which at the very least forced her to get out of the house, given that her only interactions had been scoffing at the television and forming an intimate relationship with both her couch and bed. The next day's tweet of Heather will the dancers stabbed her in the gut once again, and brought her down from the slight high she'd been feeling, until one of the producers called to remind her that she had a call time for the following day, the first time she'd see the blonde since that Sunday. No conversation had been killing her, and she hoped, prayed, that Heather would do more than run the scenes and walk out as she had the season before.
The next morning, she settled into her couch early in the morning, intent on watching the previous night's episode, finally feeling strong enough to watch her girlfriend, if that's still what she was. Despite the painful weight on her chest, she couldn't help the sense of pride that filled her as she watched Heather perform, so in her element. With that though, came the sight of the blonde in oversized clothing, constantly snacking, and looking down at the bag of chips in her lap, she marveled at how well their show paralleled her life at times. Finishing the episode, she decided that wallowing wasn't doing her a bit of good, and headed to her bedroom to change, knowing that she couldn't stay cooped up inside for much longer.
Off to get a workout in before work at WMHS
Everyone says you shouldn't allow yourself to become so dependent on a person that you lose yourself. It's engrained in our minds from a young age - you cannot love someone until you love yourself. It's repeated to us over and over again, and it rings truth to some extent. Yes, you should love yourself before loving another, but at the same time, there's no way you truly can. Parts of you, so many parts of you, are molded into the people around you, and you must love those parts of them to realize that they are parts of yourself. You become a melding of the people closest to your heart. You may inherit your mother's eyes, but you'll also absorb her tendency to speed in traffic when she's angry. Your laugh will begin to mimic that of your best friend, and you may begin to sigh in exasperation when you're disappointed, like your father did. You take the confidence of the girls you spent years in dance classes with, and after living with a roommate who hates cleaning, you realize how neat you inherently are.
You are a combination of everyone you come in contact with, so it's impossible to love yourself, everything you are and everything you can be, before falling for another person, because in the end, they hold the most brilliant parts of yourself that you've yet to take hold of. The majority of your heart and your person is pumping through the veins of the one you fall for, and it's upon taking that chance, leaping without fear, that you notice how much of yourself you've been missing. So when they're taken from you, for a minute, a day, or indefinitely, you lose the remembrance of those pieces. They are still engrained in the person whose hand you held, whose chest you fell asleep on, whose warmth pulled you through the darkest nights and brightest days. Half of yourself rests within their beating heart, and once they're gone, that half of yourself that was on loan slips away. Once so whole, you feel lost, as if you're adrift without sight of shore or rescue.
And when they come back into your life? The pressure lifts from your chest and the sky shines with that much more blue. Your body falls into that relative ease you've felt, despite the separation. It may take days or sheer moments, but the touches return, the longing glances, and that portion of yourself that you know they hold folds back into your heart, and you feel like maybe things will be okay again. You're in love with the person, the feelings, the touches, and once more, with the person you've become around them - this softer, gentler, more whole version of yourself - and it feels as if everything will be all right so long as their arms are wrapped around you, holding you together.
Stepping out of her trailer, her eyes focused on blinding light hair and blue eyes crinkled in laughter as Heather swatted at Kevin's arm, clutching her stomach. The sight managed to both lift Naya's spirits and crush into her chest, seeing the blonde so content with the world, despite their lack of communication in the past four or five days. She slowly approached the pair, feeling a nagging tug of jealousy in her gut, brushing it away almost immediately.
"Hey," she practically whispered, cursing her voice for sounding so soft. Kevin's eyes immediately widened, and he nodded in the direction of his own trailer, leaving the two standing frozen, eyes roaming over one another.
The dancer caught herself staring and lifted her eyes to meet those of wavering chocolate. "Hey," she managed. "Are you ready to shoot?"
Naya shrugged, not expecting the conversation to be so tense. They had fallen past small talk within hours of meeting one another, and the climate change in their interaction wasn't helping quell her negative thoughts. "I guess so," she choked out.
"Brad got snow cones for everyone. There might be some left, if you - "
"No, I'm fine," she said, cutting the blonde off and tucking her arms around her body, the movement in itself a sign of Naya's defenses flying into being.
"Can we talk about this later Nay? I don't want to fight right now." The words were as soft as the brunette's greeting had been when she'd walked up moments ago. "I've missed you."
"Then why didn't you - "
"I needed time to think," she whispered, taking note of the tears building behind Naya's eyelashes. She wrapped the smaller girl in her arms, one arm spanning her shoulders, the other nestled into her lower back. "I just want to talk about it later, okay? Not now, not in front of everyone, but tonight maybe? We could watch the Almas together?"
Naya shook her head furiously, not wanting to see the look on Heather's face when Matt's hand pressed against her chest. "Tomorrow?" she managed weakly, hoping the blonde would cave as she sunk further into the embrace, relishing in the inherent comfort the dancer's body provided her.
Nodding against the top of dark locks, Heather agreed. "Okay. Tomorrow."
AN: All right guys, we have two more chapters, and this fic will be coming to an end. I know a lot of you are less than pleased with my decision to complete it, but I have several reasons, and it's not fair to you if my heart isn't in my writing of this story anymore.
Were it simply due to time, I could update more sporadically, yes, but not only would I hate to make you wait weeks for updates, I also would have issues with keeping up, given that this story, for the most part, has been written in real time. I stick to my word when I say that one shots may be an option, so if you'd like to put me on author's alert and haven't already, there's that.
To those who've expressed concern over whether Heya is end game, that shouldn't even be a question. ;) As I've said a few times before, this ending has been in the back of my head since the early chapters, it was a matter of having an event to spur the ending and having lost the time and/or motivation to continue. Therefore, with my deepest regrets, as I said, we have two more chapters - an ending to this portion of the story, and an epilogue. Thank you all for your incredible support, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed this chapter.