Chapter Nineteen #3
“Like assholes,” April said. “Those are the words I believe you’re looking for.”
Daphne laughed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. They are. Not your fault.”
“I get it,” Daphne said. “Having parents who don’t quite get you. When I was eleven, we read this story in school about fairies, and I remember wondering if I was a changeling.”
“Really?” April asked.
Daphne nodded, waving her hand at the lake. “The real Daphne Love—the straight, devout, smooth-haired girl her parents really wanted—was out there somewhere, frolicking in the Unseelie Court while the Daphne in Crestwater, Tennessee, wreaked havoc upon her family.”
Daphne’s glassy eyes were focused on the water, her thoughts far away.
Shame flared in April’s chest. Here she was sulking at her best friend’s lakeside mansion about how Mommy and Daddy didn’t love her.
They let her go to RISD. They sent her money when her job didn’t cover all her expenses.
They helped her start up Wonderlust Ink.
She’d had everything she’d ever needed, while Daphne literally ran away from home and pulled herself into adulthood all alone.
“I’m sorry,” April said. “I shouldn’t complain, I know.”
Daphne’s expression cleared, and she looked at April. “Why not?”
April sighed, picked up a small pebble on the dock and tossed it into the water, where it landed with a delicate splash, then disappeared into the darkness.
“You had it worse,” she said. “Ramona had it worse, even. Her mother left when she was thirteen, so she really knows what it’s like to deal with that kind of rejection, and she—”
“I don’t want to talk about Ramona right now,” Daphne said softly. She turned so she was facing April, one leg hanging off the dock and the other tucked under her as she leaned closer. “I want to talk about you.”
April blinked at her. “I…We…”
“You sort of do that a lot,” Daphne said. Her voice was so quiet. So close.
“Do what?” April whispered.
“Deflect,” Daphne said, then smiled a little. “I think that’s the right term. Put the focus on other people instead of yourself.”
“Did you learn that in therapy?”
“I can’t afford therapy,” Daphne said. “Though god knows I need it. My parents were adamantly opposed to any kind of psychology that wasn’t from a Christian point of view and provided by a pastor, and I—” Daphne froze and pursed her mouth, exhaling heavily through her nose. “You did it again.”
“Did what?” April said, laughing nervously. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“You change the subject, or you make things seem like less than what they are. Things that bother you or things that have hurt you. Or you make them not about you at all.”
April scoffed. “That’s not…I don’t…”
But she trailed off. She shut up, because shit, Daphne was right.
She wasn’t sure when it happened, when she’d started making herself smaller, more palatable.
Maybe it was when Elena left her, or maybe it went back even further than that, back to when she was a loud and strange little kid, begging her mother for a Rainbow Brite party and in love with the stars.
She didn’t know.
Didn’t matter, really.
All that mattered was that it was true, and she’d known it was true for a long time. But hearing Daphne say it, someone who had no reason to sugarcoat anything, who had only met April a few weeks ago. For the Daphne Love to see her so clearly, so completely—that was different. That was…
That was everything.
She reached out and twined her fingers with Daphne’s. She didn’t look at her. She just held her hand, and let Daphne hold her hand back, and looked out at the water under a waning moon.
After a while, she pulled Daphne’s hand into her lap, held it there while she looked down at their fingers, watched as Daphne ran her thumb over one of her silver rings, a moonstone at its center.
“I don’t really know what to do about it,” April said. Daphne squeezed her hand tighter, and April finally looked at her. Her face was a blur in the dim light, but somehow, she could see her perfectly. “I’m a mess.”
Daphne frowned, but her eyes were soft. “Everyone’s a mess, April. You know I am.”
“Tell me,” April said.
“April,” Daphne said. “We’re not talking about—”
“Please,” April said. “I hear what you’re saying, but talking to you…” She shook her head, staring down at their fingers tangled together. “Talking to you helps. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the only thing that does.”
Daphne inhaled sharply, and April waited, running her thumb over a freckle on the back of Daphne’s hand. Daphne’s grip tightened.
“When I left home,” she finally said quietly, “it didn’t feel like a choice.
It felt like life and death. Maybe not physically, but in every other way.
And I’m still a mess over it. The more time that goes by, the farther I get from Crestwater, Tennessee, the more I know it’s true.
Since then, I’ve had one major relationship in my life, and not only was it built on lies, but I let her walk all over me. I let her own me.”
“Why?” April asked.
Daphne sighed. “Because I wanted to be owned. I still do, in a lot of ways. When I lost my family, I felt completely untethered. I couldn’t find my footing, I had no place to land, no place to return to on holidays.
I took classes I couldn’t afford just so I could stay on campus during the summer.
I had Vivian, but I didn’t know how to be a friend because I had no clue how to love myself.
How to be me. I’d never been allowed to, and the sudden blast of freedom in college was overwhelming. And then…”
“And then Elena.”
“And then Elena.” Daphne wiped her eyes with her free hand. “I don’t know. She was a place, if that makes sense. She made me feel safe. She made me feel like I belonged to someone.”
April didn’t say anything at first, but something glowed warm in the center of her chest. An understanding. A sharing.
“That makes sense,” April said, and left it at that.
Elena had come along in her life at a pretty similar time.
She might not have been quite as unmoored as Daphne, but in every way that mattered, they’d been the same, secretly desperate for someone who would simply choose them over and over, come hell or high water.
And Elena…she was good at making you feel like you were the only person in the world who mattered to her.
But really, it was all an illusion. Because Elena truly excelled at finding vulnerable women who needed her far more than she’d ever need them.
April swallowed, her mouth dry. “Do you think you’ll ever talk to your family again?” she asked. “Make amends?”
Daphne was quiet for a bit, tapping her nail on one of April’s rings.
“It would be a nice story, wouldn’t it?” she finally said.
“The queer kid runs away from an oppressive home, and years later the family realizes just how horrible they were to choose doctrine over their own daughter. They seek her out, write her letters, maybe even travel to wherever she is to profess their love, their regret. They all begin to heal, to become a family again.”
“I think it’s a sad story,” April said. “But it has a nice ending.”
Daphne nodded, then sniffed. “Unfortunately, not everyone gets that ending. And after seven years, after the letters I wrote them when I first left, all the letters they never responded to, I don’t think that’s how my story concludes.”
“I would travel to wherever you are.”
Daphne’s head popped up, her eyes wide.
April forced herself not to look away. She hadn’t meant to say it, but it was out there now.
And it was true. In some way, in some universe where Daphne and April were infinitely less complicated, April would travel to the moon to see Daphne Love smile.
Or hear her laugh. Or just sit on a dock, holding her hand.
There.
She could admit it.
She had no clue what to do about it, but she could admit it.
“What do you want, April Evans?” Daphne asked, her voice a whisper.
And goddess, what a question.
The question, really.
She wanted so many things—she wanted a life full of art and beauty.
She wanted a queer community with friends beyond Ramona, beyond Clover Lake.
She wanted to travel and create, and she wanted the Devon.
A chance, at least, to do something that felt big.
That felt like stepping out of the tight circle she’d locked herself into for so many years.
But right now, on this dock with Daphne Love, of all people, she didn’t want to talk about any of that. She only wanted one thing. A simple, beautiful, terrifying thing.
“I want to kiss you again,” she said.
April expected Daphne to hesitate. To laugh shyly or shake her head as though April might be joking, but that wasn’t what Daphne did at all.
Instead, she made a sound that nearly did April’s head in—a quick, almost relieved exhalation—before untangling her fingers and taking April’s face in her hands.
Then Daphne kissed her.
She kissed her like she’d been waiting to kiss her every moment since Mirror Cove.
For months, even. Maybe years. Her fingertips trailed down April’s cheeks, and April’s hand circled around Daphne’s wrists, holding her in place.
Their mouths teased for a second, then opened, Daphne’s tongue sliding against April’s so perfectly, April heard herself moan.
It was quiet, but it was audible, and Daphne responded in kind, pressing deeper, licking into April’s mouth and then tugging on her lower lip, desperation building between them.
It was sweet and wild all at once, and April couldn’t imagine anything better.
She couldn’t even begin to think about anything she wanted more than this.
Except maybe her legs around Daphne’s hips.
Her fingertips dancing along those elegant collarbones.
And goddammit, this was about what she wanted, wasn’t it?
She broke contact just long enough to hook her arms around Daphne’s neck and settle in her lap, her jean-clad legs circling Daphne’s hips.
Daphne held on to her waist, their mouths finding each other again.
April sank her fingers into Daphne’s hair, soft curls that smelled like her usual smoky vanilla mixed with the coconut from April’s bodywash.
She must’ve borrowed it in the shower, which made April feel suddenly wild with want.
She imagined Daphne in their cabin’s bathroom, naked, soap sliding between her breasts, down her stomach, even farther south where April wanted her mouth right now so badly, she nearly released a whine.
“Why are we at this party?” she asked against Daphne’s mouth.
“I have no idea,” Daphne said, then trailed her mouth to April’s neck, sucking harder than April expected, but fuck, she loved it.
Still, the sting caused her to startle right when Daphne’s hands were moving from her waist to her ass.
The shift caused April’s body to fall backward enough for them both to realize they were pretty damn close to the edge of the dock.
“Oh, holy shit,” April said, clinging to Daphne’s shoulders. She looked behind her, nothing but dark water below. “That was close.”
“This should be a reality show,” Daphne said, laughing, her chin resting on April’s chest as she looked up at her. “Extreme Making Out.”
April laughed too, staring down at this beautiful person.
She didn’t want to make the same mistake that she had in the lake.
Pulling away. Pulling back. Choosing something easy over what she truly wanted.
She opened her mouth to say all of this, that she didn’t care if it was complicated or fraught or if, at the end of the summer, one of them would be heading for the Devon while the other floundered in uncertainty.
“Daphne,” she said, her thumb smoothing down a silky curl near Daphne’s temple. “I—”
“April?”
April froze, recognizing Ramona’s voice in the dark.
“Are you out here?” Ramona called.
Through the dim dock lights, April could see Ramona on the path from the house and heading toward them.
And she wasn’t sure what happened then, but within half a second, both she and Daphne were on their feet, at least a foot of space between them. April didn’t know who had moved first, or why, but here they were, breathing heavily and straightening their clothes just as Ramona came into clear view.
“Hey,” Ramona said. “There you are.”
“Here I am,” April said brightly. Too damn brightly. Like the center of the sun bright. She cleared her throat.
Ramona tilted her head at her, eyes flicking to Daphne, who was standing impossibly straight, her hands clasped demurely in front of her. “You two okay?”
“Fine, fine, we’re fine,” April said. “We were just…”
But she trailed off, her hand waving vaguely in Daphne’s direction. She felt sick, had no idea why she was acting like a high schooler caught making out in the janitor’s closet, but she couldn’t seem to act normally either.
Ramona didn’t look convinced. “Okay. Well. Dinner’s ready.”
“Great,” April said, shooting both of her thumbs into the air. “We’ll be there in a—”
“You two go ahead,” Daphne said, pulling her phone out of her dress pocket and frowning at the screen. “I need to take care of something.”
April swallowed hard. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Daphne said brightly, just as brightly as April had, smiling at her with all her teeth. But then she softened, met April’s eyes. “It’s okay. I promise.”
April nodded, and Ramona looped her arm with April’s as they turned down the pier and headed toward the house.
“What was that about?” Ramona asked.
April exhaled heavily, relief and regret swirling in her stomach. “Nothing. It wasn’t about anything.”