Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
ALEJANDRA
When Clara gets home, we start cleaning the house. Organizing the living room and kitchen to my very strict standards.
I want to ask her why she and Valeria all but ran out of the house earlier, but Clara’s energy is all off. And as much as I want to know why, I should give her some space. She knows I’m always here whenever she needs me, so even though I’m dying to talk to her about it, I don’t bring it up.
After we get everything cleaned up, we both drop onto the couch. Clara wraps herself in a cream-colored throw blanket and sighs as she melts into the cushions.
Her eyes are closed, body relaxed. I grab her legs and throw them over my crisscrossed legs, reach for her foot, and start massaging it.
She tenses up at first, but as I dig my knuckle into the curve of her foot, she relaxes again.
We’re constantly giving each other massages.
The action is so normal between us that it’s become something we do whenever one of us is sitting on the couch and the other is lying down.
I usually do it because it feels good to take care of her, but right now, I’m really craving the closeness.
And as much as I’m doing it because I want to offer her some sort of comfort, selfishly, the weight of her legs over me is grounding, and I need it right now because my mind has been in overdrive since she bolted out of our home.
I’ve been wanting to talk to her about the girls’ reactions since it happened, and when she went out with Valeria, my brain started racing. Because isn’t overthinking the best pastime?
Now that she’s back, I need to bring it up or I might implode.
I’ve never been good at processing my feelings without discussing them with her.
There’s something about talking things out with Clara that helps the spiral of overthinking slow down.
I need to check in with her and see where she’s at with everything.
I want to make sure there’s no weirdness lingering, especially if others’ opinions are messing with how she feels about our friendship.
What if she wants things to change because of it? I don’t think I could handle that.
“Can we talk?” I ask, and Clara tenses up again.
Fuck, that’s not a good sign. Clara rarely tenses up on me, and now it’s happened twice in less than five minutes.
“About?” She pulls her foot from my hands and sits up, wrapping the blanket tightly around her.
“Everything the girls said.” I grab a strand of hair and twist it between my fingers—a nervous habit I’ve picked up from Clara.
“About us finally being together?” Clara gulps.
“Yeah . . . have they ever brought that up to you? Did you know they felt like that?”
Clara shakes her head slowly, chewing the inside of her cheek.
Her answer doesn’t loosen the knot in my stomach. If anything, it makes the knot pull tighter.
“Do you think we’re different with each other?” My heart races.
“Maybe a little.” Clara twirls a strand of her blue hair around her index finger.
“Really? In what way?”
“I think it’s because we’ve been friends forever, plus we’ve lived together for close to seventeen years.
There’s a familiarity that comes from that alone.
You walk into the bathroom while I’m showering to tell me about your day, because you just can’t wait.
If it’s locked, you’ll use a bobby pin to unlock it.
I don’t think you know the meaning of a locked door at this point.
” Clara laughs. “I’ve never seen you do that with Valeria, Lily, or Isabella,” she says a little more seriously.
She’s right. There’s definitely a blur on boundaries between Clara and me. Ones I’d probably never cross with anyone else, not even our closest friends. But they don’t feel like a boundary with Clara.
“Do you hate that I do that?” I ask as a hollow sensation opens inside me. The last thing I’d ever want to do is make Clara uncomfortable, and thinking I did makes my heart drop.
“No,” Clara whispers, her honey-brown eyes going softer than I’ve ever seen them. “You know if I did, I would tell you.”
Her hand moves to my cheek, her fingers warm against my skin. The simple touch sends a wave of calm through me, something only Clara can conjure in me with just one touch. It’s amazing, really—how she can still the chaos inside me with nothing more than a single touch.
“Good,” I breathe.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never thought it was because you wanted to . . . sleep with me,” she chokes out, quickly pulling her hand back as her cheeks turn bright red.
It’s kind of cute, seeing her blush at the thought. I never took her for the blushing type, especially not when it comes to sex, considering how often she has it.
“I am a little surprised that everyone seems to think there’s something more going on between us, but if I’m being honest, I guess I’m also not that surprised.
We’ve been living together since seventh grade, and even when we had the chance to go our separate ways, we chose to become roommates in college.
We’ve never lived with anyone else but each other.
So I guess it makes sense that people would assume there’s something more. ” Clara gulps. “Even when there isn’t.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, trailing off as I process everything she’s saying.
It makes perfect sense, especially considering our oldest argument—the one we’ve had since we could talk—always comes back to her being messy. And how much I struggle with sharing space with it. Well, not really with it . . . more like against it.
“Or is there?” Clara asks, catching me off guard.
“What?” I ask, a nervous laugh tumbling out.
Clara smiles and shakes her head. “Nothing.” She reaches for my hand and caresses my palm as she asks, “Why is this bugging you so much?”
“It’s not that it’s bugging me. I love that people think I deserve someone as amazing as you. But there’s something about everyone acting as if us being together was inevitable that is making me feel like I’m missing something.”
“Something like what?”
“I don’t know, but they see something I don’t,” I say, rubbing my eyes until I see stars.
“It’s nothing,” she says as she settles more deeply into the couch. “We know where we stand; we’ve always known. Them saying they think we’re too flirty or too close doesn’t change that, right?”
I nod because I agree, but I wish I understood what everyone else seems to. What is it about me and Clara that makes people ship us so hard?
I’ve always known that people assumed we were together, or thought we were those typical lesbian exes who can’t seem to let go of each other, so we defaulted to being best friends.
One—or several—women have stopped dating me because they thought I was too close to Clara. Which was fine by me. I don’t want to date someone who’s weird about my closeness to one of the most important people in my life.
I’ve lost count of how many fights Mia and I had about Clara.
Lily, Isabella, and Valeria came up as well, but Clara was the one she always came back to.
After we broke up, I told myself I wouldn’t date anyone who couldn’t deal with how close I am to the girls, but especially to Clara.
She’s my person, and I even have the tattoo to prove it.
Clara and I got them as soon as we graduated from high school.
My mom made us both promise we’d wait until then.
But we’d had the tattoo picked out since we were sixteen.
And now, we both have a tattoo on our ribs.
Mine says “You are” and Clara’s says “My person.” Both of them have an arrow pointing toward our ribs, so anytime we hug, we are pointing at each other.
I have two other tiny tattoos on my forearm, but even if I had a million, that one would still be my favorite.
“Unless you want it to,” Clara says softly, pulling me from my thoughts. Her gaze drops to the blanket around her.
I reach for her hand so fast that I barely register the movement. I give it a tight squeeze before saying, “Never.”
Clara nods, but she still won’t look at me. With my free hand, I gently lift her chin. Her eyes are red, the whites tinged with pink, and her usually bright honey-brown irises appear dull. It makes my chest ache, because I know she’s holding back tears.
If it meant she’d never look this heartbroken again, I’d move every grain of salt on earth, one by one, to take that sadness out of her eyes.
I hold her gaze and cradle her face because I really need her to hear me.
“Clara, I love our connection. I love how close we are. I wouldn’t ever want it to change, okay?
Never ever. No matter how many people say we’re freakishly close.
Because I think we could be closer.” I laugh, and Clara rolls her eyes, but I see the tiny crack of a smile on her lips.
“I’d live inside your skin if I could. You’re my favorite person in the entire world,” I say, and I mean every fucking word.
I can’t imagine a life without her where the bond we have is any different, because that would destroy me.
“You’re mine,” Clara says as she turns to kiss the palm of my hand. Immediately my body relaxes, because this is us. This feels good, natural, and I wouldn’t change it for anything or anyone.
“Are we okay?” I know we are, but I need to hear her say it.
“We’re good,” Clara says with a smile, but it’s a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. I want to ask her why, but before I can, she says, “Do you want to talk about what we’re telling your family?”
That kicks me into a completely different state of mind. What are we going to tell my family? They are going to go CIA-level interrogation mode when they see us, and we need to be ready, or my grandma will sniff out the lie, and we’ll both end up on an endless loop of dates we can’t get out of.
“Fuck, I don’t know. What do you think?”
Clara shrugs. “I can think about it tonight and get back to you about it tomorrow. We’re not seeing them for another week, so we have time.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
That alone makes me relax a little, but not enough to stop my brain from spiraling.
I still need to tell Clara that I have the best breakup excuse for us, but I can’t do that without mentioning that I might be moving. And now’s definitely not the time to tell her that.
I’ll wait until I actually have a job lined up, which probably won’t be for a while, anyway. I’ve already received a few rejections, and I don’t have any interviews lined up, so it’s pretty clear this is going to take some time.
I’ve got time.
“Try not to overthink it. Yeah?” Clara pulls me into a hug. She knows me too well. I don’t fight it; I let her yank me on top of her, and I melt into her, allowing the smell of her to lull me into deep relaxation.
“I’ll try,” I say, even though my mind is already completely blank.
The smell of Clara always does this to me. It wraps around me like a weighted blanket, coaxing me into utter relaxation and perfect calm. She’s a human balm for my nerves.
It’s moments like this that make it so hard to tell her I’m thinking about moving. Because when I’m next to her, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
We stay this way for a few hours, watching Bob’s Burgers.
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, Clara is gently nudging me to wake me up.
“I need you to get off me,” she says.
I groan and nuzzle into her deeper. “But I’m so comfy.”
Clara laughs and starts to push me off.
“Fine,” I say, slowly sitting up.
She kisses my cheek before standing and whispering, “Goodnight, bunny.”
A nickname she’d given me when we were ten, because she’d sworn I had too much energy, and I tended to skip everywhere instead of walking.
“Good night,” I say through a yawn. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she says back, and that makes me fully wake up.
“No, I said I love you. Say it back properly.” I cross my arms.
Clara rolls her eyes. “I love you, too,” she says before walking to her room.
With a satisfied hum, I flop right back onto the warm spot Clara left on the couch, too tired to make it to my room. I grab the blanket Clara was using earlier and throw it over me. It smells faintly of her, and I let that guide me back into a deep slumber.
Fake dating Clara has been the best idea I’ve ever had. I haven’t had a single call from Lala telling me about one of her friends’ granddaughters in weeks, which has made my mood a thousand times better.
I’m glad Lala and I can finally go back to talking about things that don’t directly involve my love life.
Of course, she still asks about my “relationship” with Clara, but it’s not all-consuming like it was when I was going on all those dates she’d set up for me.
I’m still adjusting to the overwhelming number of messages congratulating Clara and me.
My grandma has been busy calling everyone with a phone to gossip about our relationship.
Even my cousins in Mexico DM’d me on Instagram to congratulate me.
I don’t think I’ve heard from them since Christmas last year.
My family doesn’t seem even a little surprised that I’m dating Clara, which I’m still trying to wrap my head around. I had no idea so many people thought we’d end up together.
But I shouldn’t be surprised. When your best friend is as attractive as Clara, it kind of makes sense.
Of course people assume you’d fall head over heels for her.
She’s beautiful—in that effortless, kind-of-annoying way.
She’s kind, ambitious, funny as hell, basically the whole package.
She’s the one person you want in your corner.
She makes even the worst days feel survivable.
If she weren’t the most important person in my life, maybe I would’ve risked a heartbreak for her.