Chapter 16
THEN: DIANA
Diana couldn’t take it anymore. “So how did your whole hang go after the game?” she asked as she, Julia, and Maggie walked along the grounds, sipping cups full of cider and rum Julia had lifted and made, doubtful their parents would notice.
She thought she heard Julia give a small snort and Maggie looked over her shoulder and smiled weakly.
“It was pretty boring if I am being honest, would have much rather come back here with the two of you.”
Diana was momentarily taken back with ease at which Maggie now shared these things.
It was a cold Friday night in November. They’d given Sammy up, which Diana was kinda sad about.
Maggie seemed to be thrilled. Diana got the sense that she really didn’t like dolls, which was all but confirmed when Julia had suggested they watch Child’s Play during the Halloween season.
They’d gotten an A- for the entire project.
They’d done really well on their diary and presentation, but it was revealed that the doll reported a few longer than necessary moments of crying.
Overall they had passed with flying colors, and while Diana had been worried that she and Maggie would no longer have a shallow excuse to spend more time together, Maggie hadn’t pulled back one bit and had taken her up on spending weekends with her and sometimes, like tonight, Julia.
Diana was finding that she wanted Maggie around almost all the time.
She found her to be the most interesting puzzle.
A cheerleader who had eyes that almost never sparkled.
Instead, they were full of what Diana thought were constant calculations, like Maggie was always trying to figure out the solution to a problem.
But then there were the moments, especially since Maggie had shared she liked girls, where Maggie seemed to relish the ability to be vulnerable with Diana.
Diana thought it unlikely she could be the same way with Emmy and Mary, or the “M’s” as they liked to call themselves.
It was for this reason Diana had been holding back.
She had created a safe space for Maggie, and she didn’t want to ruin that by making a move on her.
Which was for the best, she decided. She still hadn’t fully gotten the fire of Jay out of her heart, but Jay’s absence hurt less and less each day she spent with Maggie.
“So no jocks got you interested?” Julia added as they began on a new row of trees.
“Not really, but Emmy is pretty insistent on setting me up with one of them, Brendan Miller.”
Julia made a gaging noise and Diana couldn’t help but smile, because she internally was making the same noise.
Brendan Miller was like the third most popular football player, and it made sense that Emmy would be trying to hook him up with the third most popular cheerleader.
Diana shook her head at the archaic practice, knowing somewhere some chauvinistic medieval man was smiling down on them.
Maggie laughed and said, “I think I have a double date with them sometime around the Thanksgiving break.”
Even though Maggie sounded less than pleased, Diana felt her stomach sink a bit at that.
“So you’re going to see him again?” Diana asked carefully.
“Yeah, I mean, you know, show face and all that, better to give people like Emmy what they want.” Diana felt the weight behind Maggie’s words.
She took a sip from her nearly-empty cider.
She knew they should head back to the house at some point, given how cold it was.
Walking could only keep you warm for so long out here.
As if reading her mind, Julia guided them on a path back to the house.
“So no plans tonight?” Diana said to her sister.
“No plans, why? Am I ruining yours?”
Diana wanted to shove her sister into the trees, but also didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d gotten under skin.
“You could never,” Diana said back to her instead. She wrapped her flannel around herself and wished she’d picked up a leather jacket like Julia was wearing. Maggie at least, was out with her coat on, because of course she was.
“We could watch a movie?” Maggie said over her shoulder.
“Nah, I have friends coming over later,” Julia said.
“It’s nine-thirty,” Diana said.
“Yeah and you have a friend over, MOM,” Julia shot back.
“Who are the friends?”
“Sorry did I say friends, I meant friend. Gretchen is coming over.”
“Gretchen Maddison, as in Ms. Maddison’s daughter?” Maggie interjected.
“Yeah,” Julia said coolly.
“Mmmm,” Diana said.
“What? It’s what we do right? I mean you have Maggie over, why can’t Gretchen come over?”
Diana gave her sister a hard look, trying to tell her to back off. Her having Maggie over was very different from Gretchen.
“So are you two like a thing now?” Maggie asked, breaking the intense staring contest between the two sisters.
“I mean it’s chill, she doesn’t really know what she wants, I think she’s just curious,” Julia said casually, but Diana detected the slightest hint of disappointment.
“Oh,” Maggie said and then added, “I think I understand that.”
“You do?” Diana asked before she could think better of it.
“Yeah I mean, I—well,” but Maggie didn’t finish.
“If you ever want—” Julia began.
“No,” Diana said protectively and automatically.
“—you can always talk to me,” Julia continued and then gave her sister a knowing look while rolling her eyes.
“I think we all know I am not the one you’re interested in,” Julia added, and Diana felt her face flush.
Because Maggie had said she didn’t have a crush, but then had alluded to having one.
All of that after dancing around the topic of being attracted to girls.
God, what if Maggie were into one of her cheer friends?
“Listen, I don’t think Emmy or Mary are like me, so I doubt you can talk to them. Even if you were into one of them,” Julia said, seemingly reading Diana’s mind. Diana found herself holding her breath.
Maggie let out a snort, “I am not into them like that, trust me, I would have realized something much sooner.”
“So what did make you realize?” Julia asked and Diana really wanted to shove her sister, but also was curious and thankful her sister had asked.
Maggie didn’t answer immediately. Then she turned her head over her shoulder again, the moonlight catching her ice blue eyes fixed on Julia as she said, “You know,” and then she smiled and turned around. Julia beamed.
“Uh excuse me? Since when are you two exchanging secrets and leaving me out?”
“Jealous?” Julia said, and then she jumped forward a little bit to grab Maggie’s arm. “Come on Mags, I’m freezing, let’s jog up to the house and see if I can lift us more cider and rum.”
“You know, you all should make an alcoholic cider or something,” Maggie said as she leaned into Julia’s grasp and the two of them began to run off leaving Diana behind.
“You both suck, I’m coming to the house too!” she called after them.
“So we’ll see you there,” Julia shouted back in that tone of voice that made Diana smile.
She took in a deep breath trying to collect herself, her heart was already lightly racing at the idea of Maggie liking someone, and her sister’s joy was feeding her hope.
After a second breath, she ran after them.
“So,” Diana said as she lay next to Maggie in her bed later that night.
“So?” Maggie said, but Diana could hear the playfulness in her tone.
It had a habit of coming out the longer she spent time with her and Julia; by the end of the night Maggie was always more loose and free, even without the assistance of the second round of hard apple cider they’d ingested before Gretchen showed up and disappeared with Julia into her room.
“Don’t pretend like I haven’t been asking all night,” Diana said, turning to face Maggie, who was still lying on her back. The room was dark, but there was enough moonlight that Diana could see Maggie was smiling.
“You have been pretty insistent,” Maggie said, still looking up at the ceiling.
“I guess you don’t have to tell me, no seriously you don’t—”
“Oh I don’t?” Maggie said incredulously, but her tone was still light.
“No, you don’t.”
“Do you really want to know or does it just drive you crazy that Julia knows.”
“Can I ask why you told Jules and not me?” Diana genuinely wanted to know this.
Maggie was quiet for a moment before she said, “I didn’t tell Julia, she just kinda figured it out.”
Diana let that soak in for a moment. She was ashamed that she was relieved that Maggie hadn’t confided in Julia instead of her, but she also thought that if there had been a chance Maggie was into her, for example, she would have just told Julia.
The fact that Maggie was even toying with the idea of telling her made Diana realize she was going to have to prepare herself for living through Maggie’s first crush.
The thought made her mind wander to Jay, and wonder if she were lying in bed alone or with someone new.
Then she remembered that Jay, who was a night owl, was likely not in bed yet, considering it was only eight thirty in California.
Diana heard Maggie clear her throat next to her, bringing her back to the present, and to the moment in which she would have to pretend to be happy for Maggie and her newfound crush.
“Can I ask you about your ex-girlfriend?” Maggie asked, and Diana had to blink several times, processing the unexpected question.
“My ex-girlfriend? Why?”
“I don’t know—-just wondering what type of women you’re into.”
“Well I like boys too,” Diana reminded her, and she wasn’t sure why she did because she instantly regretted it at the small sigh Maggie let out.
“Oh, so, you like both? That’s possible?” Maggie asked genuinely.
“I suppose it is because I do?” Diana said earnestly.
“So is it the same? Like you are into the same type of person, boy or girl?” Maggie asked.
“I guess so?”
“So tell me about your ex-girlfriend then, I wanna know what kind of people you like.”
What kind of people? I like you—Diana wanted to scream.
Diana took some time to consider the question and where to begin, but Maggie had been increasingly more vulnerable with her, so she could give her this.
“Her name was Jay, well Juanita, but liked to be called Jay. She’s from Mexico, her parents still work here for my parents, the Flores,” Diana took a second to laugh to herself, remembering that Flores meant “blossoms” in Spanish, and how fitting it was because Jay had the beauty of a flower right at its bloom.
Precious and rarely seen. “Anyway, I saw her one day after school, and something just instantly clicked.” Diana snapped her fingers for emphasis.
“I was smitten. But she didn’t really give me the time of day at first, she’s two years older than us. ”
“Oh?”
“Yeah but I eventually grew on her. She was my first for a lot of things. My first kiss that I liked, my first time, my first love.” It was strange to Diana to summarize Jay in that way but she didn’t know if she could correctly put into words the impact Jay had on her.
She would literally never be the same. Jay had changed her on a physical level.
Even though she knew she could move on now with Maggie in her life, a part of her would always belong to Jay.
But Diana wasn’t going to say any of that, not now, not to Maggie.
“Sounds like you still love her,” Maggie said.
“I do, and I think, you know, she was my first true love, I’ll always love her for that,” Diana responded honestly. There, she’d said it.
“So, you’re not looking to love anyone else, like you’re still into her?”
Diana looked at Maggie’s facial expression, it looked sad.
“It’s not like that? It’s like she and I built something and when it broke, we each took a piece of it. And that piece, I still have it. I don’t know if that makes sense. I have moved on, I’m just still carrying that piece with me. But honestly, I have moved on. Honest.”
Maggie did turn to her at that. “You have?”
“Yeah, the biggest part of me has, but a small part of me, I think, I always want to keep just for her, for what she showed me. Taught me.”
“What is that?”
“How to love, truly, freely.”
“And you’re willing to do that again, try that again with someone new?”
“I am,” Diana said and watched Maggie swallow at those words. Her lips parted slightly.
“It’s you, Diana, I’m completely and utterly crazy into you.”
The words crashed over Diana as she said, “Same, but I just want to make sure you feel safe and not indebted. And know that I care about you and would never want you to feel like you don’t have a place—” Her words were cut off. Because Maggie kissed her, and her world faded to warm black.