I slept most of the day. When I woke up around 4:30, all I did was take a shower and eat a sandwich before I headed back to Tegan's apartment.
It was a good fifteen minute walk, so I had a lot of time to think about the previous night. If I wasn't in love with Tegan at the beginning of the night, I was definitely in love with her by the end. I really would have given anything to be in love, but by the morning I was. I had fallen for Tegan, and I had fallen hard. My heart had become connected to hers somehow. And I didn't even think twice about it.
When I got to her door, Tegan opened it before I could even knock. I smiled at her as she took my hand and pulled me into a hug.
"Come on in," she said, putting her arm around my shoulders and guiding me inside. She led me to the kitchen and offered me a drink.
"I think I'll just have a beer, if you've got one," I said. I really wasn't looking to drink tonight. I drank a lot last night, and I didn't want to risk facing a hangover at work the next morning.
"So, what's the plan, Sare?" Tegan asked as she handed me a beer. She went into the living room and I followed her. She sat down on the couch, patting the spot next to her. I sat down and scooted close to her. She put her arms around me, and I rested my head on her shoulder. I didn't know is was possible to feel so close to someone so quickly. We had known each other for less than twenty-four hours, and all I wanted to do was melt into her. I wanted to be close to Tegan every moment of every day. I wanted reach up and the hand she had on my shoulder. If someone had walked in and seen us in that moment, that would have probably assumed we had been together for months. We weren't even dating yet.
"Oh, I don't know," I said. "We could see a movie or go get dinner." Just then my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled in from my pocket, seeing a text from Emy.
"Or!" I said as I read the text. "We could go to The Q. Emy says she got a local DJ to come in, and Emy set in up like a club for the night."
Tegan laughed. "You want to go dancing? Really?"
"Yeah! Why?"
"Oh, no reason," she said. "I just never thought you would enjoy going to a club." She pulled me close and kissed the top of my head.
"Well, I'm not, really. But I thought it might be fun with you." I blushed a little bit. Dancing with Tegan…. That was something I would be more than okay with. I could tell from the way she moved on the stage last night during her performance that she probably knew how to dance. And if she knew how to dance, I wanted to be the only girl she was going to dance with.
"Well, then!" Tegan said. "Let's go to The Q. But first, let me make you dinner?" She said it like a question, so I answered.
"Of course. Dinner sounds great." I smiled and looked up at Tegan. She was smiling at me, her face only a few inches away from me. My eyes locked with hers, and in that moment I knew exactly what I wanted. So I went for it.
I closed my eyes pressed my lips gently against Tegan's. There were no fireworks, no sudden rush of emotion. But what I felt was, in my mind, better than that. Everything felt normal. Our first kiss felt like the thousandth kiss. The way her lips fit against mine, then way she slid her tongue between my lips at just the right moment, then way my body pressed against her… it felt like we had kissed like that a hundred times before. She felt like safety and comfort. She felt like home.
When Tegan pulled away a few moments later, neither of us said anything. We just looked at each other. I was trying to memorize her face, from her brown eyes to her cute nose, from her adorably bent ear to her gorgeous jawline. I wanted to capture that moment in my mind's eye for eternity. A soft smile was on her lips, and the way the sunset light drifted in through the window made her skin glow. The longer I looked at her, the more I fell in love with her. I couldn't stop myself from leaning in to kiss her one more time. Her lips were so soft and warm, I couldn't resist.
When I pulled away, I took a deep breath. Tegan grinned and chuckled.
"Well, I can honestly say I wasn't expecting that," Tegan said. When she was the nervous look on my face, she was quick to reassure me. "It wasn't bad! Not at all. I felt like… like we'd done that before. Like kissing you was normal."
"Yeah, I felt the same. I've never felt that way before." I knew I was blushing. I could feel it. But I just kept smiling up at Tegan.
"I better make some dinner, or we might not make it out of the house tonight," Tegan said, standing and heading to the kitchen. I laughed and followed her, and together we made spaghetti for dinner. We talked about family as we cooked. Tegan told me about her dad and her older brother Ted, and how her mother had died the summer before Tegan's freshmen year of high school. She told me about the summers they spent at her dad's cabin north of Vancouver.
"The cabin was my favorite place to go. It was about half a mile from the coast, and I walked there almost every day. Ted and I weren't that close when I was in junior high and high school, so we didn't really hang out much when we were at the cabin. I spent as much time on the beach as I could. I'd take my guitar out there and play and write songs all day. When I got my driver's license, I'd go up almost every weekend during the school year, too. The cabin was my safe place.
"After Mom died, I hated being at home. Mom had always stayed at home and taken care of Ted and I, so home was Mom. It was hard to separate the two in my mind. Being home hurt all the time. So I stayed out as much as I could during the weeks, and then I'd drive up to the cabin on the weekends. Dad understood. Whenever he could, he'd come up with me. I made him promise that I could have the cabin when he wasn't around anymore. That place will always be so special to me."
I listened carefully, trying to soak up everything Tegan would tell me about herself. I wanted to know everything about her. While we ate, we talked. A meal that should have taken twenty minutes to eat took an hour because we both talked so much. I had never opened up to someone so quickly. When Emy and I met, it took almost a month before I would even tell her anything about my past or childhood. I didn't open up to people I didn't know. But Tegan made it easy. She made me want to tell her everything. So I did.