word count: 327
Lavender is smiling. Parvati feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. The day hadn't started out terrible, per se, but her girlfriend had been in a slump. There are good days and bad, and sometimes Lavender gets caught up in the darkness, no matter how hard they both try to keep her anchored to the here and now.
"You didn't have to do this for me," Lavender says, holding out her hand and extending her fingers, twisting her hand this way and that to admire her new manicure and the way the iridescent nail polish seems to change from green to pink to blue against a black backdrop. "I'm just… It's just stress."
Parvati gets that. But she also knows what trauma is like. She is all too familiar with the way even the smallest amount of pressure can cause cracks, how just one bad day can lead to seemingly endless misery in the long run. Besides, even if that hadn't been the case, Lavender is her girlfriend, and all Parvati wants to do is treat her right and make her happy. She would go to the ends of the earth to make her smile. A manicure is such a small price to pay.
"And you deserve nice things," Parvati counters, lifting her cup of hot cocoa and sipping as they make their way along the pavement.
"You are nice things," Lavender says, and she offers Parvati the most adorable look that almost borders on a pout.
Parvati just chuckles and shakes her head. "If you say so."
"I do."
Sometimes the grief and trauma make them strangers. Sometimes it's hard to find a smile when the world around them is still healing, and they're just as lost and confused. But right then and there, in that moment, Parvati sees the girl she loves, really sees. And she knows that everything will work out in the end.