Pt. 4
Gail didn't see much more of Holly after the softball game that summer. Alex said she was working on her thesis prep, and applications for something, although she wouldn't divulge what exactly the applications were for.
Gail would have been lying if she said she wasn't disappointed at the brunette's absence from her life. Their time together that day had shown her just how easily the two of them got along. They had only really had one day's worth of interaction, but it felt like they'd been friends for years. She was just as easy to talk to as Alex was, but where Alex shared her slightly impetuous traits, Holly played off them in her own, calm, collected way. And Holly was incredibly interesting. She was majoring in Biology with a minor in Chemistry, but she wasn't just book smart, she was worldly and knew so many random things it kind of blew Gail's mind. She had hoped they would at least become friends after their day together, but apparently not.
She had changed from being terrified of running into her every time she was at Alex's house, to desperately hoping that they would end up sat in the kitchen together, or bump into each other in the hallway.
She had worked out why she still liked Holly, even though she had got to know her, going against Lizzie's hypothesis. It was because they had the potential to be such good friends, because they connected and could have a good time.
Sure, she was still attracted to her, of course she was; Holly was ridiculously attractive. As in, by far the most attractive person she'd ever met, level attractive. There couldn't be many people who would be able to hang around her for any length of time without gawping at her body or getting an overwhelming urge to kiss her. It was probably the same for people who met Leonardo DiCaprio in person. Add her attractiveness to the fact she was still older and unobtainable, factors Lizzie had said contributed to baseless crushes; of course Gail was attracted to her.
She had missed her because she wanted to be friends with her. She was attracted to her because she was a beautiful person; certainly not because she had feelings for her. Her feelings were strong, but they were platonic. She'd been reading up on girl crushes, and they were perfectly normal.
~x~
One Saturday in mid-November of her final year of high school, Gail was watching television alone in her living room. Her parents were at a conference all day, and had suggested they may not bother coming home but get a hotel room when it was over. Gail was waiting their call so she could let her friends know if they were free to crash at hers that night.
She had just glanced at the clock -3.05pm- when there was a knocking at her front door. Frowning, she pulled herself off the couch and to the door. What she found there threw her completely.
Holly was standing on her doorstep, eyes red raw, skin blotchy. Her hair was slightly damp, her coat was slipping off her shoulders and her bag dumped unceremoniously on the ground.
"Holly, what…?"
"Do you know where my family are?" Holly asked weakly.
"At one of Rob's hockey games, what are you doing in Toronto?"
Holly turned her face slightly and wiped the back of her hand across it. "Can I come in, it's raining?"
Gail stood back and let the brunette pass her into the house. She helped in the removal of her coat and hung it up on their rack. Then they stood, facing each other in her parent's entrance hall.
"Holly, what's wrong?"
The brunette let out a sob and hurled herself at the younger woman, burying her face in the crook of her neck as she wept.
Gail wrapped her arms around the brunette, breathing in the smell of rainwater from her hair, mixed with a smell she was used to from the Stewarts' house that she could now identify as coming from her shampoo.
She felt Holly's arms wrap around her neck, and tightened her own hold against the older girl's back, content to stand there and hold her until Holly felt comfortable to part again. Or until Gail's parents returned and questioned why there was a weeping twenty two year old clinging onto their daughter for dear life. Whichever happened first. At that point it was looking likely it may be the second scenario.
They did part eventually, as Holly took a long sniff and pulled her face back. "I'm sorry," She croaked. "I was crying on a bus for seven hours with no-one to hold on to and then…" She paused to push back a sob, sniffing again. "And then my mom wasn't even home." She looked like she was about to burst into tears again at any moment.
Gail brought up her hand to sweep some damp hair out of the other woman's face, and then continued to run her hand through to the end of her locks. "Oh, Holly."
Holly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm such a mess."
"What happened?" Gail asked carefully.
"I… Can I have some water, please?"
"Sure." Gail smiled gently, leading her through to the kitchen, passing her the box of tissues they passed on the way through. Holly sat at the table, and Gail joined her moments later, sitting around the corner from her so they could face each other, placing two glasses of water between them. Holly blew her nose loudly into a tissue.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Gail asked.
Holly shook her head, then nodded slightly, then shrugged, before slumping her shoulders dejectedly.
"You might need to explain that gesture to me." Gail smiled.
"My… that person I said I was seeing, they're cheating on me." Holly said quietly, her eyes filling with tears again.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." Gail offered, feeling somewhat useless. This was not her realm of expertise. She reached across to take one of Holly's hands and stroked it with her thumb. "I really am, that's horrible. The worst. Sh… They're an idiot, Holly, they really are."
"I couldn't stay in Montreal, I just wanted to come home." A tear escaped down her cheek, and Gail caught it with her thumb, resting her hand against Holly's cheek.
"I'm sorry your parents weren't home, that's shitty; really, really shitty."
"I was in such a rush I forgot my keys." Holly whispered.
"I have a spare if you want me to drop you over there." Gail offered.
But Holly shook her head. "I don't think I want to go there anymore. I don't know what I'd tell them."
"Tell them the truth."
"They don't even know I was seeing someone."
"They wouldn't care. They'd just want to help you."
Holly shook her head. "I don't know." Another tear rolled down her cheek, but this time she caught it herself with a tissue. "I don't know anything. I don't know what to do." Holly looked up from the table for the first time, looking Gail straight in the eye, silently begging her for guidance.
"Well I was watching a M*A*S*H marathon when you arrived, you could do that too. If you want." Gail suggested. "Just until you decide what else to do."
Holly nodded weakly, letting Gail pull her to her feet, and into her living room.
She let Holly sit on their largest couch, expecting her to want to lie across the length of it, but she felt a tug on her sleeve, and the other girl pulled her down to sit next to her. Gail felt Holly lean into her side as she turned on the television, and instinctively wrapped her other arm around her body.
"Thank you, Gail." Holly murmured, as the television flickered into life mid-episode.
"It's nothing." Gail twisted and kissed the top of Holly's head in response.
They were sat that way for only ten minutes before Holly was softly snoring on her shoulder. When Gail received a text from her mother at 6.18pm, informing her that she and her father were going to be staying at the hotel overnight. Gail gently moved out from underneath the other woman, guiding her down to lie on the couch, before retrieving a blanket to drape over her. Then she settled into the armchair to finish her marathon, one eye maintaining watch over the sleeping brunette.
~x~
Gail woke from the doze she had accidentally fallen into when she heard Holly rise from the couch.
"Where are you going?" Gail croaked, as Holly shuffled past her.
"Contact lenses."
Gail looked at her, she looked slightly more together than she had been when she arrived. "Do you want some tea?"
Holly considered the question before nodding slowly. "Thank you."
"No problem," Gail smiled.
When she came back with two mugs of tea, Holly had returned to the couch, she was sat with her arms pulling her knees to her chest. She smiled weakly when Gail offered her a mug, and took it in one of her hands.
"Do you mind if I sit here, or…?" Gail asked nervously, indicating to the space next to Holly on the couch.
"Please." Holly said quietly.
Gail glanced at the clock, it was only nine o'clock, but it somehow felt much later.
"Where are your family?"
"Out, my parents are at a hotel downtown tonight, and my brother lives on Queen West."
"I didn't know you have a brother."
"Yeah, Steve. He's in the Toronto PD, but he's quite a bit older than me."
"How much?"
"Eight and a half years."
Holly took a sip of tea. "And I always thought four years was a big age gap. Lex and I seem like virtually twins in comparison to that."
Gail smiled softly. "Eight and a half years is enough to know you were definitely an accidental baby."
"A happy accident though."
Gail didn't bother to tell Holly she was probably wrong there, she didn't feel like that would help lighten the mood.
"Should we talk about what happened?" Gail asked, slowly.
"I don't… I don't know." Holly's shoulders slumped.
"Ok. Well, if you want to talk, - and you should talk to someone - I swear, on everything I own, that I won't tell Alex anything you tell me if you don't want me to. I would never, ever do that."
"I know, I trust you, I think. It's just, it's complicated. But it's so much more complicated than it should be."
"I'm good at complicated." Gail smiled as gently as she could manage.
Holly looked at her, deep into her eyes. To Gail it felt like her soul was being opening and carefully examined. "You won't tell Alex?"
"No, I won't even tell her you were here if you don't want me to." Gail offered, earnestly.
Holly took a long breath. "The person who I was seeing. Who cheated on me. It was Ellie."
Gail's heart broke as she watched Holly brace herself for some sort of negative reaction or outburst to her revelation.
"I never liked her much." Gail commented. She had suspected, strongly, many times since Holly had confirmed to her that she was in a relationship, that Ellie was the other party.
"You… you don't care that she's a girl?"
"Of course not." Gail shook her head gently, a bewildered look on her face.
Holly looked at her intently. "Did you already know? Do my family already know?"
"Yes." Gail said, then quickly corrected herself as she watched panic emerge on her best friend's sister's face. "Yes, I knew; No, your family don't. Not as far as I know, anyway."
"Not even Alex?"
"Definitely not Alex. She still thinks you have a secret boyfriend."
"How did you know?"
"I didn't know, know. Not for sure. I just had a very strong suspicion." Gail admitted.
Holly looked thoughtful for a few moments. "Did you find something in my drawers?"
Gail fell silent at that, before realising she really couldn't clear her conscience unless she confessed. "Yes. I'm so sorry. I feel so terrible that I did it, and I swear, I didn't tell a soul."
"I knew Lex was lying when she said she hadn't looked in my room!" Holly growled.
"I promise you she didn't see a thing, I was the only one who saw. It was stupid, and I know it was completely juvenile, but we really weren't trying to violate your privacy or anything like that, I promise. She just really wanted to have sex, and I really wanted her to shut up about how much she wanted it. I thought you were this really cool, intimidating twenty year old who didn't care about talking about tampons with your younger sister's best friend, I just assumed you would have condoms. It never crossed my mind for a moment for a moment that you may be… gay? I don't know how you identify. Fuck, sorry, I'm screwing this up. I understand if you hate me."
Holly was looking at Gail with a degree of sympathy. "I don't hate you."
"You don't?"
"No. I mean, I'm embarrassed, slightly, about what you may have found. But I do understand, you were sixteen, I would have been too embarrassed to go to the store and buy condoms if I'd needed them when I was sixteen. And I'm just too tired of being angry to be too pissed at you right now."
"She's a real fucking idiot, Holly, you know that? She's doesn't deserve any space in your thoughts, angry or otherwise."
"We were so good for three years." Tears were rising once more, and it broke Gail's heart all over again.
"Which is why she's even more of a fucking idiot. I mean, look at you. You're spectacular. You're so beautiful. And you're smart, and funny, and nice. Only a complete fucking cretin would let you go."
Holly looked at her. She looked tired, every part of her. "That's nice of you to say, but you don't really know me that well. She knew me, better than anyone, and she decided that I wasn't enough for her."
"Sometimes people just do shitty things because they're shitty people, Holly. I'm sure it wasn't because of you. I'm certain of it, because the idea of you not being enough… well, that's just ridiculous."
"She wasn't a shitty person, though, that's the thing."
"That doesn't mean she did it because you weren't enough for her. People make stupid mistakes, they go through things, or things happen to them, and they make really stupid decisions about how to deal with it. I mean, I do it all the time, and it's always just because I feel like shit inside, not because I think any less of whoever I'm hurting."
Holly smiled weakly. "I don't know. I don't know what to think. I just don't understand, it's not like her at all. She hated cheaters."
"Had anything happened between you, recently?"
"Nothing big, I mean, we had a few arguments about how much I was working. I really wanted to do well this year, you know; graduate well. I'm applying to med schools at the moment and I didn't want to screw my chances by letting things slip in my senior year."
"Ok, well I mean, I don't know much about relationships, but it seems to me that if she can't deal with you trying to do well for yourself, academically, or in your career; if she can't see the bigger picture, that you're trying to do something that you really want to do, then she's not worth it. And if she dealt with it in the way that she did, then she's a coward, and then she's really not worth it."
Gail knew her arguments were largely falling on deaf ears, that when you mind up that you weren't good enough for someone, arguments to the contrary go largely unheard. But she hoped, beyond hope, that some of her words were seeping through, that Holly would realise she didn't deserve what had happened to her for a moment.
"You're wiser than I expected." Holly said quietly, after a long pause.
"Yeah, well when you have my parents you get used to dealing with people who make you feel inadequate."
"I'm sorry." Holly offered.
"Don't be, it's not your fault."
Holly tried to offer a smile of sorrow, but it didn't really happen.
"Are you going to go to your parents'?" Gail asked eventually.
"I don't know." Holly answered bleakly. "I really don't. It's kind of ridiculous that they don't know I was with someone for three years, I know that. But every time I was going to tell them I just thought, they were the only people who would break my heart if they couldn't accept it, even though I think they wouldn't care. I just didn't want to run the risk. And now, if they rejected me on top of this; I'm not sure I'd be able to cope with that."
"Holly, I am one hundred percent sure that your parents wouldn't have cared in the slightest. They'd just want to know you were happy."
"I know." Holly sighed. "I think so too. Probably. But it was just too scary. And Ellie never really cared that they didn't know, because we spent most of our time together in Montreal, and everyone there knew."
"Well if you want to stay here, you can. Or if you want to go, I'll drop you there."
"Thank you, Gail." Holly whispered. She looked like she was about to start crying again, so Gail reached over and pulled her into an embrace. Sure enough, the brunette soon started shaking into her shoulder and the sounds of sobbing restarted.
When Holly eventually fell silent, Gail continued the circle she had been absently tracing on her back with her fingers. The brunette pulled her head back, and Gail instinctively reached up to wipe her cheeks dry.
"I'm sorry, I've cried all over your sweater, it must be ruined." Holly whispered
"Don't worry about it." Gail, for some reason she didn't understand, continued to stroke Holly's cheek even though the tears were long dried.
Gail watched as Holly's gaze dropped to her lips, and felt her start to close the distance between them, but they never met, Holly stopped abruptly no more than an inch from her. She slumped, her gaze falling to her hands in her lap, and Gail wrapped her arms around her back once again. She was positive Holly had been about to kiss her. She would have put money on it. And she couldn't deny the fact that her heart was pounding out of her chest at the idea. But Holly looked so lost, like she didn't know which way was up, and Gail started the long process of convincing herself it meant nothing to the brunette. Nothing but a craving for comfort, a craving Gail was well acquainted with.
"I'm so tired." Holly murmured into her neck. Gail shivered slightly at the feeling of the brunette's breath on her skin.
"We have a spare bed, come on." Gail pulled the other woman to her feet and led her to the spare bedroom, picking up her bag from the hallway on route. She left her to get changed, heading downstairs to get them some water for them both, but when she knocked on Holly's door there was no response, and when she nudged the door open, the brunette was lying, eyes closed, under the covers, chest moving up and down with her steady breathing. Gail tiptoed in and placed the glass on the bedside table, turned off the lights, and went to her own room and climbed into bed. Three hours later, she finally managed to fall asleep.
~x~
The next morning, Gail was in the kitchen when Holly finally arose and walked down the stairs. Gail made them both toast and coffee, then Holly took a shower before making her departure for Montreal, having decided over night that she didn't want to see her parents just yet.
As Holly stood in the front door, making ready to leave, she looked nervous.
"What's up?" Gail asked.
"I don't know, I'm just going to have to see her when I get back. It's making me feel a bit sick." She may have felt sick, but she certainly looked healthier than she had the previous day. Her were no longer bloodshot, her skin was less pale – although that could have been makeup, Gail reasoned – her hair had been washed and her eyes were no longer darting around the room nervously like she had no idea what to do with herself.
"Tell her to go fuck herself. Tell her you deserve better, and you both know it."
Holly laughed slightly. "Thank you, Gail."
Gail smiled gently, but said nothing.
"For everything. It's so ridiculous, that I got on a seven hour bus journey and didn't even go home. But thank you for letting me stay here."
"It's not ridiculous, you needed to get out of Montreal; I get it. And then you had reasons to not want to talk to your parents; it's fine, I understand why you don't want to tell them. I completely get that, the idea of the people you trust and love the most turning around and hurting you is terrifying. Even if you're sure they won't. And when the time comes, I'm sure they won't either. And if they do, you can come here again, my parents are never home; it's actually kind of lonely here half the time."
Holly smiled. It was the closest she'd looked all weekend to regaining the wide, reassuring smile Gail was used to seeing on her.
"Plus, if you think about it, it may be for the best in the long run that you didn't tell them this weekend. I mean, coming out to your parents is a big deal, you want that to be a happy memory you can hold forever; not have it be a constant reminder of some fuck stain like Ellie hurting you."
Holly pondered that for a moment. "I suppose you're right."
"I'm always right." Gail grinned, and Holly laughed softly. "Here, give me your phone."
Holly handed it over without question, and Gail typed something into it. "Ok, you have my number. Text me when you get to the bus station. And then when you're home. Just so I don't worry."
Holly flicked through her contacts. "There's no Gail in here?"
"Oh, no, it's under 'Alex's superior best friend'."
Holly smiled. "Thank you. I should go, or I'm going to miss this bus." Gail highly doubted that, the bus wasn't due to leave for another hour and a quarter, and it was a maximum twenty five minute journey to the station on the subway, but she nodded. She suspected Holly wasn't one who was comfortable pushing deadlines tightly.
"Ok. Have a safe journey." Gail nodded.
"Thank you. I hope you have a good day. See you in the winter break, maybe?"
"Probably, unless I really piss Alex off before then."
Holly smiled softly and left in silence. Gail watched her walk down the road for a moment, then shut the door gently, and let out a long breath. Her entire body was aching somewhat at the brunette's absence. That couldn't be a good sign. Friends definitely weren't meant to feel like that about each other. And she'd definitely never almost kissed one of her friends before. "Fuck." She whispered.
Pt. 5
Gail only received three texts from Holly over the next six months. The first to let her know she was at the bus station, the second stating that she had arrived in Montreal, and the third about a week before Christmas, reading "Told my parents. You were right. Mom won't stop crying because she thinks I was scared of them knowing. I think Dad's secretly pleased no guys will be violating his daughter. Won't tell them about Alex's quest for condoms, then! Thank you! –H x".
Gail just replied to congratulate her and let her know she was happy. She didn't bother to point out that Holly was scared of her parents knowing. She never received a response to that though, not that she was particularly expecting one.
Sure enough, that evening, Alex turned up on her doorstep to recount the entire exchange Holly had had with them, apparently she'd told them all together over lunch. Alex, to Gail, seemed to be in some sort of shock.
"I'm happy for her, I really am. I just never expected it!" Alex explained as they watched a dreary action movie. "She's so pretty, and I know she doesn't really wear dresses but she has beautiful long hair."
Gail looked across at her best friend.
"You know being a lesbian doesn't mean you have to be any less feminine."
"I know." Alex assured her. "I mean, Portia de Rossi is gay and feminine, I know. But the ones you see in real life, on the street and that, they're always kind of butch."
Gail frowned slightly. "Don't you think, maybe that's because when you see a feminine person on the street you're assuming they're straight and when you see a butch girl you're assuming they're gay." She pointed out.
"Huh." Alex shrugs. "I hadn't thought of it like that."
"It's not like we really know many people who are out as gay." Gail pointed out. "Although even if we did I still don't think it's good to generalise a whole group of people."
"I used to think Lizzie was a little gay." Alex mused. "I thought she had a crush on Holly, to be honest. With that stuff she used to say about the boys fancying her."
Gail froze. "I think maybe Lizzie's one of those people confident enough to say she finds people objectively attractive and not worry about people thinking she's gay." She said slowly, vocalising one of the very clear differences between herself and their friend. "Besides, she's admitted she's seeing Tim now, so I don't think you have anything to worry about."
"Thank God, can you imagine, one of us dating Holly."
Gail shuffled nervously.
Alex continued. "It would be like me and Steve hooking up."
"Ew no, Steve is twenty six, that would be creepy. At least Holly's only twenty two. And she's a girl; that makes it better, for some reason."
"It's still really weird." Alex observed, but thankfully seemed to drop the subject, focussing on the movie instead. "Hey, do you think she was sleeping with that Ellie girl who kept coming over?" She asked eventually, wide eyed.
Apparently Holly had not told them everything. "I don't know. I guess, maybe. But just because you're gay doesn't mean every relationship you have with a girl is romantic. They always just seemed like friends to me." She answered slowly.
When Alex finally left that night, Gail breathed an enormous sigh of relief.
~x~
Gail did run into Holly a couple of times that Christmas. Both times the brunette smiled widely at her. Gail found herself unexpectedly relieved that her usual smile had returned in full force. Both times Holly had been in a rush to go somewhere, but she had made a point to stop and ask Gail how she was, how her university applications were going, if she was excited to finish school? Both times Gail's heart started thudding uncontrollably at the acknowledgement that the other girl was actually taking the time to talk to her, where for the last eight years she had just smiled at her brightly then continued with her day.
The situation had gotten beyond complicated. But after one particularly graphic but sensual dream in February, the blonde could no longer deny that she had feelings for her best friend's older sister. Big, hard, "I want to be with you every moment of every day, and definitely every night" type feelings. She didn't let herself dwell on what that meant other than the fact that she was screwed.
Aside from the fact that Alex would probably skin her alive if she found out, she also found herself considering, for the first time, the fact that Holly probably didn't feel the same way about her.
That had never been a consideration before, when it had just been a crush, and there was no idea in Gail's head of their relationship ever extending beyond Gail admiring the other girl from afar. Now it weighed on her every day. Holly was smart, older, mature, funny… so many things. Gail still hadn't graduated high school, she was dorky, awkward, mean and most of all, her younger sister's best friend. A best friend she had seen pretending to be a galactic Starfighter pilot when Gail was ten, fail catastrophically at playing softball for three years, and who, aged sixteen had knocked on her bedroom door - probably interrupting her having sex, Gail now realised – embarrassed red raw about asking for a tampon.
There was a higher likelihood of pigs flying than of Holly finding Gail in any way desirable.
The only moment she was lifted from her funk about Holly's probable feelings was on the day of their Prom. Well, technically it wasn't her prom, but Gail had skipped her own, due to her intense dislike of her peers, and Alex had suggested she come as her date to theirs. Alex, after the initial shock had subsided, had launched herself into her new identity as a PFLAG, and glared down anyone who raised an eyebrow at the idea that you should only bring someone of the opposite sex to your prom.
"Stop being so heteronormative!" She had shouted at more than one person. Heteronormative was one of her new favourite words. It was a term Gail, too, had discovered, in her own, much more secretive, research on the LGBT community.
The girls; Gail, Lizzie, Alex, and to Gail's disdain, Lucy, got ready at Alex's house. Gail did consider it weird that the boys should get ready separately, and thought maybe either she or Alex should be with them. But then she remembered Alex was her date in name only. And that would involve labelling one of them as 'the man', and as she was sure Alex would shout at someone who suggested such a thing, "There is no man, that's the POINT!"
Gail wondered what Holly thought about her sister's new, exuberant activism.
When the boys arrived, their parents lined them up for photographs, together, then separately, then in gender groups, then as couples. Alex insisted she and Gail got a photo together. Gail noticed Holly emerge into the front garden to stand next to her parents as Alex protested the unfairness of the straight couples getting photos together but not gay ones. Holly rolled her eyes at her sister's antics, but looked both amused and warmed by the gesture.
Then Gail pointed out that they weren't actually a couple, and Holly laughed softly, smiling brightly as she looked over at the blonde. Gail was certain she wasn't kidding herself that Holly's eyes did a quick roam of her entire body, from her heeled feet, up through her tight, black, mid-thigh length dress, over her chest and to her face.
To be fair, Gail argued with herself, she did look good. She would have checked her out; Holly doing so didn't mean anything other than that she looked hot. She didn't dwell on the fact that Lizzie looked just as good as her, if not better, and had not received the same treatment from the older girl.
The Prom turned out to be quite good fun, in the end, once they actually got there. Alex abandoned her after about half an hour to go for a "walk" outside with one of her male peers. Not that it really bothered Gail. Tim and Lizzie stayed with her most of the night, neither of them particularly keen or talented dancers. Then one of their peers asked her to dance, and she acquiesced, more to leave Tim and Lizzie alone than anything, and stayed on the dancefloor with him until the night ended. Once they were ushered out by disgruntled teachers, Gail headed home with Alex and they both passed out on her bed from exhaustion and the slight tipsiness brought on from the alcohol them had smuggled into the prom.
~x~
Mid way through the summer, Alex and Holly threw a party. Their parents had gone on holiday. Rob, then sixteen, was also there, but allowed only to invite one of his friends. Gail barely knew anyone in attendance well other than the Stewarts and her best friends, although she recognised many of Alex's guests from the Prom and some of Holly's from the game of softball the summer before.
Holly had bought the alcohol for Alex, Gail and the other four. There was a lot of it. Gail suspected Holly had forgotten how little alcohol the underage, pre-university, eighteen year old body could handle. There was tequila and vodka and two large crates of beer. The boys' eyes had widened when they saw it. They'd never really drunk spirits as a group before, usually just consuming the beers their parents provided for them.
Holly had poured them out shots early in the party and done two rounds with them before moving on to speak to her friends, her eyes sparkling.
It was a good number of people for the size of their house. One of Holly's friends, a boy named Ethan, took a shine to her pretty early on, and Gail had initially stayed hanging around him because he gave her an in to a conversation Holly was involved in, in the garden. A group of six friends, most of whom had just graduated from college, chatted nostalgically about their time at school together, while Gail listened and watched Holly. She looked happy, really happy. She was smiling and laughing, but somehow, whenever she caught Gail's eye, that smile seemed to stretch even wider.
Then, somehow, the others disappeared back into the kitchen, and Gail was left alone with the object of her affection. "Hi." She said shyly.
"Hey. How are you doing?"
Drunk, to be honest. Gail definitely felt quite drunk. "I'm good. How are you?"
"I'm great." Holly smiled widely. "Alex told me you're going to McMaster in the fall?"
Gail nodded. Somehow she had been accepted into a university her mother actually approved of. Although, Gail knew she would have her to get into U of T, but that was never going to happen. Also it would have meant Gail staying at home through university. No chance.
"What about you, where are you going?" Gail asked, forgetting in her drunkenness that if Holly had failed in her attempts to get into med school that it could be an awkward question.
"Toronto." Holly smiled. "I actually wanted to go to Mac, their med school programme is amazing, but I didn't get in. I'm kind of jealous."
"Yeah, but Toronto." Gail was impressed. "My mom wanted me to go to Toronto."
"Look at us, getting into each other's colleges." Holly smiled warmly.
"I'm leaving the city just as you're coming back." Gail pointed out.
"That's what mom said about me and Alex." Alex was going to Queens.
"Are you going to live at home?" Gail asked.
Holly shook her head. "My friend Samantha, over there, is going to Toronto for her masters, we're going to get an apartment together."
Just then, Alex appeared, and grabbed her best friend's hand. "Come on Gail, we're going to do shots!" She dragged the blonde back into the house. Holly watched them leave, amused.
Three rounds of shots later, Gail was definitely as drunk as she'd ever been. Ethan had found his way back to her, and at some point, when they were sat on a bench in the garden, his lips had found their way to hers. She gave in, Ethan was good looking and Holly was, she knew, a distant dream. They made out a few times, between conversations with various people. Then he wanted to go to a bedroom.
Gail may not have had many inhibitions left at that point, but she knew fooling around in a bed belonging to one of her best friend's family members was crossing a line. So they went to the bathroom instead. The logic of the drunken brain was somewhat interesting.
She was leant back against the wall next to the sink, shirt off, with him in front of her, one hand wrapped around her back, and another down her pants, when the bathroom door swung open.
"Oh." A familiar voice started.
The couple broke apart, and Gail's eyes widened in horror. Holly was stood frozen in the doorway.
"Shit, sorry." Ethan murmured. "I thought I locked it."
Holly started to back out of the room slowly.
Gail gave Ethan a shove and she pushed off the wall, retrieving her shirt and re-buttoning her jeans.
"Go away." She demanded. Holly seemed to pause, thinking the words were aimed at her, but Gail's glare was focussed solely on the man in front of her.
He looked at her suspiciously, before shrugging and skulking out of the room. Holly made to follow.
"Holly, wait." Gail called. The brunette stopped for a long moment before turning around.
"I'm so sorry." Gail gushed. "I didn't mean to… I don't know what I was thinking."
"Gail, it's fine, I'm not going to tell you what you should and shouldn't do." Holly replied, but she didn't look fine, she glanced around, not looking Gail directly in the eye. "That doesn't necessarily mean I think I it's a good idea though."
Gail shook her head. She felt slightly sick, and couldn't think straight. Fuck, she was so drunk.
"It wasn't, it wasn't a good idea." Gail conceded. "I wish I didn't do it."
"Everyone does things they don't mean to when they're drunk, Gail, its fine."
"No, no, it's not fine. I didn't want to get this drunk, I'm sorry."
"Gail, stop apologising." Holly said, finally looking her in the eye. She looked sad, disappointed, or something.
"Sorry." Gail snapped her mouth shut. "I'm not that kind of person, I don't do that, ever. That's not me."
"I'm not judging you Gail. And I won't tell anyone what I saw, I promise."
Gail persisted. "No, Holly, it's important to me that you know that it's not me. I don't want you thinking that's what I want. I hate that you caught me. I always make an idiot of myself in front of you." Gail admitted, with more honesty than she would soberly have been comfortable with.
Holly looked at her intently. "You don't make an idiot in front of me, and I believe it's not you. I guess that's why it was a bit of a shock, I suppose. I kind of imagined catching Alex doing something like that, not you."
"You won't again, catch me, that is. It won't happen. I wouldn't." Gail knew she was repeating herself but her brain wasn't coming up with anything else to say, and she couldn't live thinking Holly in any way thought she was really interested in having sex with boys she just met.
Holly was staring right into Gail's soul. "I know, Gail." She repeated.
Lacking the ability to think of anything else to say, Gail then let her basal instincts take over. "I just, I…" She didn't finish her own sentence as she pushed her lips to Holly's. They were soft and gentle, frozen still for a few seconds in shock, then moving against Gail's for a moment before the brunette pulled back, apparently realising what she was doing.
They looked at each other in silence and bewilderment for a few moments, before Holly spoke. "You're really drunk. You should probably go sleep in Alex's room."
"I… ok." Gail conceded, shocked at her own behaviour, she turned towards the bedroom she had been in a thousand times. At the door she looked back, "Holly, I'm really…" but Holly was no longer there.
Inside the room, she fell face first into Alex's bed and passed out immediately.
Pt. 6
The next morning, Gail experienced the worst hangover of her life. Alex, however, was extremely chipper. Apparently she had hit it off with one of her former peers, and they'd stayed up all night talking. Gail suspected from her boundless energy that she was still drunk.
"We barely even kissed, Gail!" Alex explained enthusiastically. "We just chatted for hours after everybody left. Can you believe I hit it off with a guy at a party and didn't feel him up?"
Gail groaned at the role reversal of their usual behaviours.
"Anyway, we went out to breakfast together, and I just got back, but Holly said she thought you were feeling a little rough. What happened to you last night, I don't remember seeing you much?"
Gail shook her head and buried it in her pillow. "Don't remember." That was a lie. While her memory was not fantastic, she definitely remembered getting caught being fingered in her best friend's bathroom, and she could not, even if she tried, forget kissing said best friend's sister.
"Rough." Alex said sympathetically stroking her back. "Look, I'm just going to shower, then I'm going out to a Blue Jays game with Paul, but Holly's downstairs. I'm going to leave you some water here, and some bread, if you fancy trying to eat. Don't worry if you just want to stay in bed all day though, I don't mind."
After Alex left, Gail spent about an hour lying completely still, sweating viciously and willing away her pounding headache and aching nausea.
She eventually tried to drink some water, which helped, and eat the bread, which did not. Given her exceptional grogginess, Gail was impressed at herself for even making it to the toilet before her insides emptied themselves. As she sat on the floor, head held over the porcelain bowl, she looked up at the wall Ethan had her pressed against the previous night, and her nausea increased tenfold.
Holly must have heard the sudden movement, because she was soon knocking at the bathroom door. "Can I come in?" She said quietly.
Gail could only groan in response, and she entered. She slid down to sit on the opposite side of the toilet bowl to the blonde, placing a glass of water on the floor as she did so, and reached over to start stroking her back comfortingly. Even when she felt like this, Gail couldn't help but notice that Holly was much better at back stroking than her sister.
"We need to stop running into each other in here." Holly attempted a joke.
"Believe me, I'm trying." Gail whispered hoarsely.
Holly smiled sympathetically, continuing her rhythmic stroking.
It was only after throwing up three more times that Gail felt ready to address the elephant in the room.
"Holly, I'm so, so, sorry about last night."
"It's ok, we don't need to talk about it now." Holly tried to reassure her.
"No, I want to. If you don't mind, that is?"
Holly nodded, slowly. "If you're sure."
"I have never been that drunk before. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking, and I was hormonal, and…"
"It's ok, Gail. I get it. You made a mistake, and you didn't know how to deal with it. I don't mind. I like you a lot, I think you're funny and sweet, and you have a great heart. I don't want you to think I think any less of you because of it. I feel like we were just starting to get to know each other, and we could be really good friends. I'd hate for this to stand in the way of that."
Gail considered her words. She knew that if she was going to tell Holly, now was the best moment to do it. But Holly had used the word 'Friends'. She had given no indication that she liked her in any way other than platonically. And Gail just couldn't deal with that rejection, not yet. Not today. "I'd like to be friends too." She said weakly, and Holly smiled brightly.
"Do you think you're ready to come downstairs yet?
Gail shook her head. "I think I'm going to sit here and feel sorry for myself a little while longer."
"Do you want me to stay?" Holly asked.
Gail shook her head again. "No, it's ok. I'll be down soon."
Holly gave her a sympathetic look and left the room, the half empty glass of water the only evidence she'd been there at all.
~x~
Gail didn't leave the Stewart house for the rest of the week. Partly because staying there was infinitely preferable to going home and dealing with her parents, and partly because she didn't want to break this fragile friendship she had going with Holly. She worried that if she left their house, she'd stop seeing her altogether; it wasn't like they had ever really hung out with each other much before outside of Holly's home, but as long as they were both there, they seemed to keep ending up doing stuff together.
One night they stayed up and played card games together; Gail and all three siblings. Alex, it turned out, was a bit of a card shark, but after an hour or so, Gail and Holly had silently worked out a few ways to team up so she wouldn't win every single game. Meanwhile Rob had been quietly accumulating quite some winnings, often taking advantage of Gail and Holly's mission to stop Alex winning at any cost. He was a dark horse; the youngest Stewart sibling. When Alex realised that the two other girls had been in cohorts, she had demanded that they take over her washing up duties. As they cleaned and dried the dishes, Holly explained how their grandmother, who had always made it clear Alex was her favourite granddaughter because Holly was 'a little too boring', had taught Alex to shark after their poker game last summer.
Another day they watched a Star Wars marathon. Gail and Holly had been sat at opposite ends of the three person couch with no-one between them for two films already when Gail adjusted her position and lay down, accidentally nudging Holly's thigh with her toe as she did so. Holly simply lifted Gail's calves over her lap, not taking her eyes off the screen as she did so – to be fair Princess Leia was wearing her gold bikini and it was not hard to see what on screen was capturing Holly's attention so intently – encouraging Gail to stretch across the length of the couch. When Leia had put some clothes back on and Holly's captivation mellowed somewhat, she looked across at Gail and smiled, before gently starting to massage her feet. That day was the first time since Gail was a child that she had seen Holly wearing glasses instead of lenses. It was a good look; she had a kind of sexy, authoritative thing going on that Gail digged. Alex never noticed that anything was happening in the room, but Rob hissed a quiet, yet discernable "Get a room!" on his way to bed.
On the day that Lizzie and the boys were going to come over for a barbeque, Holly helped them prepare the salads and marinate the meat. Then, when they had finished, and realised they had no other excuse to spend time together, Holly offered to help them bake a cake. She ended up doing most of the work, naturally, while Gail and Alex largely just waited around to eat the batter from the bowls. When their friends arrived, Holly had started to head towards the stairs, only to be stopped by Gail's hand on her wrist as she walked past the blonde. "Eat with us; you made most of the food anyway." Gail asked, in a low voice. Holly's lips curled into a smile, and she nodded, following Gail out to the garden. She stayed, talking to Gail, and to Lizzie, for a couple of hours until Paul arrived, and she took her absence, softly whispering that she had no desire to see some boy's hands all over her little sister. That evening, when the boys had left, and Alex had gone to bed, Lizzie asked her if anything was happening between she and Holly, and Gail brushed her off, recalling what Alex had told her a few months before about thinking Lizzie had a thing for Holly. Lizzie just shrugged and didn't pursue the topic.
One evening, Rob had suggested a video game tournament. Although she had no games consoles as a child, years of playing with Rob and Alex, as well as at Steve's when he had moved into a place of his own, had made her the best player of the group. And for that she was given Holly as a teammate. Holly was truly dreadful, which wouldn't normally have been a problem, as Gail was almost good enough to play for two, only Holly had a terrible habit of accidentally killing her – lord knows how, as she was killing absolutely no-one else. They had pretty much got the friendly fire issue under control after an hour or so though, and then they moved onto racing games, which unleashed a whole new barrage of problems as the older girl got increasingly infuriated by the lack of realism to the driving simulators; "You can't accelerate and break at the same time, that's insane; you'd go straight off the road!". Alex later informed Gail that she had never once before seen Holly play on their games consoles, and while she was not very surprised at the information, it lit a spark of hope in her that Holly was participating in things she would otherwise avoid.
Then; one afternoon, as they lay in the back garden, Holly reading a medical textbook in the sun, Alex next to her on her phone, and Gail hiding in what little shade she could find, reading up on her programme at McMaster on Holly's iPad, Alex declared that she was headed on a date with Paul that evening. Gail looked around nervously, wondering if that meant she had to finally go home.
"No worries, Gail and I will just have dinner or something and watch television." Holly replied, like it was the most normal thing in the world. She looked up at the blonde. "Unless you want to go home?"
Gail shook her head, maybe slightly too enthusiastically. "Your plan sounds good."
"Can you top up my sun screen?" Holly asked her sister.
Alex stood up and shook her head. "Sorry, I'm going to get ready."
"When is this date?"
"Three hours, but I need to wash my hair, pick out an outfit, loads of things… get Gail to do it."
Holly glanced over at Gail as Alex left. She looked as uneasy as Gail felt; like the levels of comfort they had reached with each other this week still hadn't quite put them at a level where this was ok yet. Like neither of them knew for sure that they were ready yet to have the other person's hands roaming over their naked skin. But Holly apparently decided the benefits outweighed the costs, and she held out the bottle. "Do you mind? Sorry."
Gail swallowed. "No, it's fine." She walked over to the other girl, feeling the sun's rays on the back of her neck the moment she was out of the shade. She squirted the cream over the expanse of olive skin covering the brunette's back. She saw Holly shiver at the sudden coldness of the lotion. "Sorry." She murmured, before starting to rub it in at Holly's shoulders, and working down her back.
"Do you even need sun screen? I can't imagine you get sun burnt much." Gail asked as she rubbed the cream in gently.
"No, I don't really, not in Canada, anyway. But I have quite a few moles, so best to be safe, I suppose." That was true, Gail observed. The skin on Holly's back was completely clear aside from a pattern of small dark dots, scattered from her neck to her waist.
When she was finally done, and it took a while, because while her initial intention had been to get the job over with as quickly as possible, by the time she was finishing she found she was dragging it out as long as possible, she realised she, too could do with a top up. Probably more than Holly.
"Would you mind?" She asked, holding out her own, ultra high protection sun block.
"You can't be getting much sun under that tree." Holly observed.
"Sun finds me everywhere." Gail grunted in response, as Holly pulled her tank top straps down over her shoulders to get better access to the top of her back. Unlike Holly, she had not opted for a bikini, but she regretted that decision when it became clear that Holly was going to be finished applying the lotion to her upper back and shoulders much more quickly than she had taken to cover Holly's entire spine.
"I remember a few years ago when Ellie and I were out here sunbathing, she glanced up at Alex's window and there were four people staring down at us." Holly mused lightheartedly as she finished, and Gail could feel herself turning bright red.
"I didn't know you saw that." Gail mumbled, turning around and lying next to her.
"Yes, well, you weren't very subtle." Holly smirked.
Gail's embarrassment lessened only slightly at Holly's brushing off of the incident; she tried to think of a way to defend herself, but found she was coming up blank.
"I think she almost enjoyed it, in a slightly voyeuristic way." Holly recalled.
"We weren't looking at her." Gail blurted out, before she could stop herself.
Holly looked up at her, eyebrow raised.
Gail paused, trying to think of a way to explain herself. "We had this thing; we used to joke about how hot you were because it wound Alex up. And even though it was mostly a joke, the basis of it was true, we did all kind of fancy you." Well, if she was hoping to dig herself out of this hole, she had probably just failed.
"Huh." Holly looked thoughtful. "I guess I was used to being such a nerdy outsider. I never thought that people would fancy me much."
"Well, we didn't know how much of a massive dweeb you were back then." Gail teased. Back to familiar territory, thank God.
Holly batted her shoulder lightly. "Because you're so cool."
Gail grinned. "I am, actually."
"Yeah, right. Shouldn't you be getting back under your tree so you don't start to fry?" Holly teased.
Gail pouted. She probably should, even through her many layers of sun block she could feel the sun launching a restless attack on her milky complexion.
"Summer is awful." She grumbled as she sat back down in the shade.
Holly just grinned at her silently as she picked up her book and continued reading.
