VI - Dancing With Our Hands Tied (Chloe's POV)
It was early in the evening when Chad dropped me off back at Auradon Prep. People in the hallways kept staring at me, some of them laughed or said things but I didn't care. I wasn't here for them, I was here for Red, and to tell her the truth. I made my way back to my dorm, taking in a breath before I slid the key into the lock. I mentally prepared myself for the girl I might find inside my room.
When I opened the door, Red was lying on her bed, scrolling through her phone. She perked up her head when I came in. My breath hitched in my throat, nervousness suddenly taking over my body. Thinking about telling her the truth was much easier when I didn't physically see her.
There wasn't much I was certain about in life, but I knew I would rather die than hurt Red like that ever again.
"Red I—" I started, the words choking in my throat. I brought my eyes up from the floor to look at her, she was sitting cross-legged on her bed now, awaiting my confession. Her face doesn't betray any emotion, and for that alone I'm terrified.
I draw in a sharp breath, "Red, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run off and left you all alone after our kiss." The words come out almost too fast, like they're spilling out of my mouth without control. "I was wrong for that, but the truth is…" I pause, almost as if I'm bracing myself for an impact that I know won't happen. "I'm gay, I don't like boys, like at all. I like girls, and I like you, Red. I like you a lot actually, and after that kiss, I was so scared that you wouldn't feel the same way, or that you'd be mad at me, so I ran. I didn't tell you in the beginning because I was scared you would hate me for liking girls. I understand if you don't like me back."
There's an emotion on her face now, but I can't tell if it's pity or disappointment. "Chloe," Red says as she stands up and walks over to me. My eyes fall to the floor, not wanting to see the disdain for me in her eyes. Tears are beginning to well in my eyes and it feels like I'm about to lose my best friend. She grabs my right hand, holding it, and I'm bracing myself, waiting for her to tell me she hates me. Her right hand lifts up my chin, forcing me to look at her and she can see my glistening eyes, tears threatening to spill over at any moment. Then she closes her eyes, and presses her lips to mine ever so gently, so delicate, like she's afraid she'll break me by kissing me too hard. I close my eyes and kiss her back, our lips moving together and the kiss becomes more passionate than gentle before she breaks away.
"I like you, too, Chloe," is what she says after pulling away from me. Her hand rests on my cheek, her thumb caressing over where a few tears slid down when I closed my eyes during our kiss. "I was never mad at you, I just wanted this conversation to happen sooner. I could never hate you, not now and not in a thousand years."
The rest of the tears fall from my eyes as I throw myself into her arms. This is the only place I want to be from now, held tight to her, where nothing bad could ever happen to me. She was warm and smelled like brownies, which was ironic considering the mother she grew up with outlawed sugar. Her hands are combing gently through my hair, soothing me as I cry on her chest. I pull away from her, and I'm sure I look even worse than I did when I came in. We go to sit on my bed, and I have to fight to not lay on her completely.
"Chloe," she starts. "How long have you known that you like girls?" I panic, oh no, she's going to think I was creepy. I keep calm, taking slow deep breaths between sentences.
"Since I was eight," I said. "When my mom would always say I'd have my own Prince Charming and I always thought they were ugly and girls were prettier. Do you think I'm a bad person?"
"What? No. I was just wondering when you realized it yourself. I realized I liked both when I was thirteen. You could never be a bad person, princess." Red says, and when she calls me "princess" it feels different than all the other times. In the past it had been a funny joke, but now it felt endearing and my stomach did backflips and my cheeks flushed when she said it. Red notices and laughs a little. "I guess I'll have to call you princess more often, you're cute when you're blushing." My cheeks keep getting hotter by the second.
I sighed, "I never said it out loud. I didn't even want to risk anyone hearing it, but now, I know that it's just who I am, and I can't change that."
"How did you come to terms with it? What happened after you ran?"
" I wound up at the tourney field and I called my brother. He came and got me and we talked it out. He asked me if I was gay, and I didn't want to admit it, but I knew I had to. You deserve the truth, Red."
"Chloe," Red sighs, grabbing my hand, rubbing her thumb in gentle circles. "I thought you hated how I reacted, that I leaned into the kiss and kept going. I thought I scared you away and would never get you back. If I tell you this, do you promise not to tell anyone?"
"Of course."
"I was scared of losing the one person that genuinely cared about me, the only person who I thought…loved me." I see a tear fall from her eye and I hate myself even more for how I made her feel. She never deserved to feel that way, in this timeline or not. I despised the way her mother used to treat her, and I'd gone and just added more wounds to her heart instead of healing them. I didn't deserve Red's loyalty, to have her keep coming back to me.
"Oh, Red," I say as tears start to fall from my eyes, too. I throw myself onto her again, and we cry together, holding each other. She cries harder than I do, and feeling her body shake from sobbing so hard makes me sick to my stomach. If either of us was evil, it was definitely me, Red's heart was too pure for her, for me.
I take her face in my hand, making her look up at me. "Red, I am so, so sorry for what I did to you. I'm so fucking sorry, and I will do whatever it takes to make it up to you, to make it right."
She sniffles and gives a dry laugh, "Did you just curse? For me? I'll have to record it next time." I roll my eyes, but her humor coming back tells me that she forgives me, even a little bit. "I just—I want you to stay with me, right now. Just for a little bit."
"Okay," I tell her. "I can do that for you." I lay back onto my pillows, throwing back the covers while I'm at it. I open my arms out to her and she crawls up between my legs, laying her head on my chest. I put the covers over us and wrap my arms around her, knowing that we'll be here for a very, very long time.
The screaming of my alarm for school the next day wakes me up, ruining my peaceful sleep. Red is still clinging to me in a death-grip even in her sleep. I shut off the alarm, and for someone with perfect attendance this year, I could miss one day of classes if it meant being with Red all day. The alarm never even rouses Red from sleep. I stroke her hair as she sleeps, feeling how soft it is. Sometimes I've seen her flinch away from people touching her, but never from me. I kiss the top of her head and her hair smells like cherries. When she sleeps is the only time I ever see her truly at peace, relaxed. She's always on edge when we're out or at school, always looking around to see who's near her, watching the doors.
Some of her hair falls to her side and I can see parts of her back since she's wearing a tank top. Faint, pale lines are scattered all over her back, some of the lines have dots on either side of them. It takes me a while to wonder where they're from, how she got these scars, until I remember her mother. Red never told me about these scars, and maybe she never will, but I'm willing to bet that these were a punishment inflicted on her. It looked like they had been gashes from a whip, and some of them looked like they needed to be sewn shut.
How one woman could treat her child so awful made me feel sick and angry. It reminded me of my mom, and how horrid her stepmother was to her growing up, and yet she turned out to be kind and loving. That was what Red needed, kindness and love, not brutality and strict rules. If anything the rules made her misbehave more than no rules would have.
She stirs in her sleep as I gently rub her back. Her arms loosen around me before tightening again. I can tell she's awake because her breathing changes. She's no longer relaxed anymore. She isn't particularly high-strung right now, but she's not fully content anymore.
"Good morning sunshine," I say gently and she looks up at me. I could get lost in her big brown eyes, they were like pools of chocolate.
"How did you know I was awake?" Red asks, her voice still sleepy.
"I just knew," I told her, smiling. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah, I always sleep good when I'm sleeping with you," she said, and then her face turned to horror. "Wait, I didn't mean sleeping with you, I just meant sleeping in the same bed as you." I giggle at her still-tired words. I knew what she meant, but I might make her squirm a little.
"You wake up in the morning and that's all you can think about? Of course," I joke with her.
"Shut up," Red groans and pulls out a pillow from behind me, smacking me with it. I accidentally let out a scream as she straddles me, playfully beating me with my own pillow. I steal the pillow away from her and throw it across the room, both of us laughing. Her hair falls into her face as she leans down toward me and I brush it away, tucking it behind her ear. My gaze falls to her lips, wanting to taste them again. No, not wanting, needing.
"Chloe," Red breathes. "I…I really want to kiss you right now." Red's eyes seem to be filled with something, but I don't know what.
"So kiss me," I tell her, wanting it just as much as she did, if not more. She leans down, holding her hair back, and places her lips carefully on mine. I cup her face in my hands and she pulls back ever so slightly before returning her lips to mine. This time she's hungrier, wanting more of me. She bites my bottom lip and I open my mouth more for her, letting out a quiet moan. She slides her tongue over my lip and I let out a breath. My hands trail up into her hair and she pulls away, pressing her forehead to mine and she smiles, lets out a breath and says, "How was that?"
I sigh, "Good. Really good."
She laughs a little, and it seems like there's no one else in the world but us. I could stay here until the end of time, and I finally realized why Red liked skipping class so much. Red's phone vibrates, the screen lighting up with a notification, and her face falls from happiness to disappointment. She picks up her phone from my nightstand and glances at it, her face gets even more upset as she reads the screen.
"Red, what's wrong?" I didn't know what was going on, but I didn't like seeing her upset. If it was something I could fix, consider it done. If it was me that upset her, I'd do everything to make her happy again. I hadn't even touched my phone since I got here, let alone taken it off do not disturb.
Red sighs and then bites back emotion, "Chloe, I don't know how to tell you this without you freaking out, but you deserve to know. Henry took a picture of us at Castlecoming and posted it on the school network. Everyone saw it. I've been getting really mean messages from people because of it."
My heart sinks to the floor. Who has seen the picture? Can my parents see it? I'm not ready to tell them about Red yet, and that I like girls. And Red, how many messages has she gotten lately that have been mean and hateful? I wanted to fix it, but I didn't know how. The guilt of kissing her at Castlecoming rises up my throat again, and I hate that I feel guilty for doing something we both wanted.
"Let me see the messages," I tell her, and she hands over her phone willingly. I open the school network app and go to her inbox, seeing nearly a hundred messages.
Dykes like you don't belong in Auradon, go kill yourself
Fucking faggot you should just go back to Wonderland and fuck yourself
You're a fucking twink
Normal girls don't kiss other girls. You need to be in a mental hospital
You deserve every horrible thing that ever happened to you
You shouldn't be alive. I hope you get fucking murdered in your sleep
Bile rises in my throat at these messages and tears threaten to spill from my eyes. If this is what Red's messages look like I can't imagine how bad mine are. Red sits on my bed, staring down at her lap. It takes everything in me to not throw her phone across the room and smash it. No one could treat her this way and get away with it, not if I had anything to do with it.
"Red," I say gently, and she looks up at me. "Baby girl, I am so sorry that these people are telling you this shit." I take her face in my hands, "But I'm gonna fix this, you don't deserve to be treated that way. From now on, whatever they say means nothing. I don't care what other people think of me, all that matters is you." I press a kiss to her forehead and she smiles lightly.
"Okay, princess."
I take her phone again, turning it off completely, and then I look at my messages. To my surprise, I didn't have nearly as many mean texts as she did. I still had a lot, but some people were calling me brave for being different, for "embracing who I was" as one person said. It didn't make sense, Red shouldn't be getting hate messages while I was praised, it was just wrong. I guess some people saw her as an easy target because she's still new and isn't from Auradon like everyone else, but that doesn't excuse their shitty behavior.
A look of realization flashes over Red's face, "Wait, what time is it? You'll be late for class."
"I skipped class today. I wanted to stay with you," I told her.
"You skipped school and ruined your perfect attendance for me?" Red asked.
"Yeah, you were more important than listening to the scientific notation of silver," I joke with her, but I mean every word I say.
"Thank you, Chloe. That means a lot to me," she says, smiling. I would never get used to her smiling, seeing how happy I made her made me feel warm and glowy inside. An idea crosses my mind and I take both her hands in mine.
"Princess Red of Wonderland, will you go on a date with me?" I ask her.
"Yes, Chloe. I would love to go on a date with you," she answers before planting a kiss on my cheek, making me giggle.
"Good, because you didn't really have a choice anyway," I laugh a little at her and she sighs at me before plopping herself down on my bed again.
"I know, I know. You're so…what's the word I'm looking for?" she fakes being deep in thought before her face lights up again. "Charming."
I groan and roll my eyes, "And you're so cheesy."
"I feel like you really enjoy dad jokes," Red says and I place my hand over my heart, feigning pain.
"Ouch, that was a low blow." I wrap my arms around her again, and this time I'm the one holding tight.
We spent the rest of the morning laying in bed together, just enjoying each other's company until our afternoon classes started. Red made me get up and go to class, even just for the afternoon so that it didn't look as weird on my attendance record. We hold hands as we walk to our classes and some people stare at us, but it doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Instead I just shoot death glares back at them.
"Hey, Chloe. Red," Lonnie's little brother, Li Shang II said to me as he stood outside my locker between classes. I was surprised that anyone approached me today, let alone him. He was on my Swords and Shields team and we had practice tonight, but that was really the only connection we had.
"Hey, Li," everyone called him Li, he didn't like going by his dad's name all the time. "What's up?"
"Nothing much. Coach Jenkins just told me to tell you that he wants to talk to you after practice tonight. Oh, and congratulations by the way, you guys are cute together." Li says.
"Oh, uh, thanks. And thanks for the heads up. Not everyone feels the same way about us as you do," I replied.
"What? Why? Auradon has been really open to gay couples," He says as he trails off in thought.
"Well, people seem to hate me pretty bad lately," Red speaks up, surprising me. She didn't really talk to the same people I did, or anyone else at all really.
"That's weird," he says. "Because you guys aren't the first girl-girl couple here, if you guys are official I mean." We start to walk off, headed toward our last class of the day. Red and I don't have the same class, so I walk her to her honors art class and give her a kiss on the cheek goodbye.
"I'll see you in an hour," I tell her before I leave. Li continues to walk by my side since we have classes in the same general area.
"You really have it down bad for her, don't you?" he asks.
I feel my cheeks burn a little, "Uh, yeah, I do."
"Are you dating or just testing the waters right now?"
"We're gonna try dating. I asked her out earlier and she said yes, so now I'm going to plan an amazing date for her."
"Chloe, do you love her?" He asks as we stop right outside my classroom door. "I mean, the way you talk about her, you glow when you're with her."
"I—I'm done with this conversation, Li. I'll see you at practice."
I can't think about anything in my Auradon History class because of what Li said earlier, about if I loved Red. I couldn't help but feel like he was right, but I couldn't tell her I loved her yet, not so soon. I might scare her away and I couldn't do that before we'd even officially started dating.
The teacher dismissed us a few minutes before the bell rang, so I went to Red's classroom and waited for the bell to ring. When it finally did, Red was one of the last people out the door. She always was. History was my favorite subject and art was hers. When I finally saw her again I gave her another kiss on the cheek, grabbing her hand to hold it while we walked to Swords and Shields practice. Normally she just dropped me off and went back to the dorm, but something felt different about today.
"How was class?" I ask as we walk.
"It was good. Today was sort of a free day, so we got to work on whatever we wanted. I just worked on a drawing the whole time." Red says nonchalantly.
"I wanna see."
"I'll show you after you get done with practice okay, princess?" she says when we finally arrive at the gym.
"Fine," I grumble, kissing her yet again before I leave to change into my practice uniform.
As I get dressed I wonder if Red likes me doting on her as much as I have recently. She never shies away from me kissing her cheek or grabbing her hand but it still makes me wonder if she actually likes it or just tolerates me.
When I walk out of the locker room Coach Jenkins is ready to start directing practice. We start out with basic cardio drills before even touching our equipment today. After that we scrimmage with each other for the remainder of practice. I beat everyone until it's down to me and Li and it always happens this way. Every practice this year has ended with us going up against each other. I've won against him more times than he has against me but he's getting better and better every practice.
"Alright, practice is over. Get out of here. Chloe, meet me in my office," Coach Jenkins says at the end of practice. When I meet him in his office he's sitting at his desk and I knock before entering, the same way my parents raised me to.
"Hey, Coach," I say as I sit down in one of the chairs across from him. He stands up and closes the door, and I get nervous. It must be something bad if it's private.
"So, Chloe. Some of your teammates have brought it to my attention that there's been a photo of you and another girl going around." He clears his throat, "Now, it's none of my business who you decide to love, but I just want you to know that if anyone is bullying you because of that photo, you can come to me, and I will take care of it. I support you in your choice to love whoever you want. I just wanted to make sure you knew that you could come to me."
I smile, surprised at the topic of the conversation. "Thank you, Coach. That means a lot to me."
"You're welcome, Chloe. You're one of my star athletes and I've become quite fond of you. I remember when your dad was in my Swords and Shields team, and your brother of course. I know you're only a junior and you've still got some time to think about colleges, but I think you've got a shot at a full ride scholarship to Auradon University if you keep this up."
"Wow, I…I've never really thought of that before," I said.
"Keep it in mind. Now go back to your dorm, I'm sure your cheerleader wants to have you back," Coach says. His tone isn't mean or condescending, but I know he's right. Red is probably waiting for me in our dorm. I head back to the locker room and change into my regular clothes from the school day, and when I walk out I find Red outside the door waiting for me.