Roughly a month went by since the incident at the pool party.
Bruises and cuts that Tifa got from the scuffle with Zack have mostly healed.
Life has carried on as usual for her.
Breakfast and morning tea at 8am. Work on client orders in the studio from 9am to 11.00am. Lunchbreak, until it ends at 12pm when work resumes. Tea break from 2:30pm until 3pm. If lucky, work continues from 3.15pm to 5pm only. If unlucky, meetings with potential collaborators and corporate clients from 4pm to 7pm. After work meetings? Can possibly be arranged from 7.30pm to 9pm, if a client (who's shit at work-life balance) requests. If there's none? Go home and catch up on Gift of the Goddess before going to bed at, the latest, 1am.
Her body moves like clockwork according to her schedule.
Like she doesn't want to break away from the predictability. Like predictability makes things easier for her. Like predictability gets her mind off unpredictable things.
Unpredictable things like the talk she wants to have with Aerith.
She has put off the plan for so long that whenever it crosses her mind, she gets heart palpitations.
Aerith has tried reaching out a couple of times, starting from the flood of text messages, then phone calls. This lasted about 2 weeks.
She ignored them all.
By the 3rd week, the text messages and calls stopped.
It hurt her at first, thinking about how Aerith just gave up on her like that. Then it became a relief because she no longer needed to feel like an asshole for constantly pushing Aerith away.
That supposed sense of relief though is short-lived.
A new order that she receives on the sunny Tuesday morning of the 5th week quickly breaks the delusion of predictability that she thought she has created for herself.
Medium-sized crane neck vase, printed with Forget-Me-Nots, reads the request, and it is to be delivered to the Cetra Gallery.
The name of the client isn't on the paper but she knows exactly who it would be.
She checks her phone for the last text message sent by 'Flower girl'.
Flower girl: Can we pls talk?
"Ms. Gainsborough's currently working in the studio. She has warned us not to let anyone interrupt her," tells the Cetra Gallery receptionist after Tifa asked to meet with Aerith.
"But I need to deliver this to her," Tifa insists.
She didn't spend 2 days working on the vase to be turned away from delivering it directly to the client, even if it's someone she's not fully ready to meet.
The receptionist purses her lips, probably mulling over whether it would be appropriate to go against Aerith's instructions. Blessed be to Minerva, she changes her mind and immediately leads Tifa to the 2nd floor of the gallery, where the studio is.
There, Tifa finds Aerith hovering over a long canvas that stretches along the brick feature wall. She's in her work mode, a side of her that Tifa comes to love watching since they started passing time at each other's workplaces.
Sleeveless pink shirt underneath a blue overall entirely stained with different shades of paint. Her brown hair messily tied-back into a high ponytail bun with some strands still falling onto her face. A flat brush and a palette, held in both of her hands that are equally smudged with paint. Her brows almost joining as she runs her eyes through the canvas, trying to see if the painting she did so far in front of her matches what she has in her mind.
She looks stunning. Always has been, and always will.
"Hey," Tifa greets.
Aerith slowly turns around and smiles. "Hey… you're here."
Tifa saunters closer to study the painting. She sees dolphins swimming in between green swirling streams and floating flowers. Above them, silver dots drawn on a dark blue background are evocative of starry night skies. There's still a huge chunk of the canvas that needs to be filled.
"This is… meant to be a surprise. I only wanted you to see the painting once it's finished," Aerith remarks.
"This is for me?"
"Yes, of course. I owe you a painting, don't I?"
Tifa chuckles. "Yes, I guess you still do."
They're staring at each other for some time, like they can't move (or rather, they don't want to move) their eyes away… until Aerith looks down onto the floor, the smile on her face fading.
"Right. The talk," she says, putting her brush and palette down onto a round small table.
When she goes on to sit with her legs folded on the floor, Tifa makes a questioning look.
"Let's have a… back-to-back talk."
"If… you say so," Tifa replies, before joining her to sit on the floor.
She can feel Aerith's warmth spreading onto her back as they lean against each other.
"What I heard at the pool party… is it true?" she starts, gazing at the blank wall across her.
Aerith nods.
"It's true. What we have… it's never meant to be serious. I hit on you because I just wanted to hurt Cloud. I hated him for taking Zack away from me, and I wanted to take something away from him too. But… no one understood me the way you do, Tifa. And before I knew it, I was already falling for you. I didn't want us to end."
Aerith pauses, and Tifa hears her sniffing.
"I told Zack about it… about falling for you and we had a huge fight. He swore that he'll never let me go and now I'm stuck with him."
Aerith abruptly cuts herself off, and Tifa hears her scoff.
"Or maybe I'm making excuses to stay because to tell you the truth, even if he didn't stop me, I don't think I would be able to leave him."
Tifa frowns. "Why?"
"Because he's Zack. Zack fucking Fair, the man who held me together when I believed that life's not worth living because my mom's dead. Yeah, he gets batshit crazy sometimes… said some awful things, but he's always there for me."
"But him and Cloud…"
"I know… but I love him. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. I don't know how to make this easier for you to understand, Tifa."
Aerith's right. It's too complicated for her to understand. In fact, it doesn't make sense. Tears have begun flowing out of her eyes and she's wiping them aggressively away.
"When I told you that I love you… I meant every word, Tifa."
She says nothing in return.
When someone admits that they genuinely love you, yet they've chosen someone else, what is there to say?
"But Zack is… Zack. I want to stay with him, at least for now… until he really doesn't want me around anymore."
Every part of her body wants to scream and argue but she's tired.
So tired that she simply nods.
"Okay. Then this might be the last time we're seeing each other."
She glances at Aerith and finds watery green eyes looking back at her.
The moment she sees Aerith leaning forward, she does it too until their lips meet and they're kissing in slow motions, like they're savouring every flick of tongue, every softness and every taste there is to taste from one another.
When they pull away, she forces a smile and hands Aerith the item she's meant to give to the other woman.
"Thanks," Aerith mumbles, admiring the vase she's holding in her hands.
Tifa's soon making her way out of the studio, and she hears Aerith telling her, "I'll mail the painting to you once it's done."
She realizes that she hasn't told Aerith clearly with words about her love for the brunette with beautiful prominent collarbones.
And she doesn't know whether to cry or to feel relieved.