26 Celeste
W hen she woke up on New Year’s Day to find Gemma standing in her bedroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around herself, Celeste almost broke her own rules.
The sight was too intimately familiar, like the Gemma from eight years ago had somehow time traveled to the present day. Back when they used to live together in their crappy LA apartment, the bathroom mirror would always fog up, so both she and Gemma would have to wrap themselves up in their towels and change in the bedroom, instead. Even though it was an inconvenience brought on by the misfortune of being broke college students, this and other quiet, mundane moments with Gemma were some of Celeste’s fondest memories.
Fortunately, the current Gemma had refused Celeste’s offer to cook breakfast, pulling her back to the cold reality of the present. If she hadn’t, well…
Back in her bed, Celeste stops herself from thinking about might haves and would haves. Instead, she forces herself to, not for the first time, think about what is and what isn’t .
She and Gemma had fun at the party last night. That is a fact. Then they came back to her place and had sex. Also a fact.
Despite all this, the morning after, Gemma couldn’t get away from her fast enough. Celeste had tried her best to be calm and relaxed, hoping that would help them get everything sorted out this morning. But maybe it’d been for the best that they didn’t. After all, Celeste doesn’t do relationships. Not anymore. She can’t completely forget that because of one tender moment of nostalgia.
Although they’re exes, Celeste still cares about Gemma. She doesn’t want to hurt her again.
Back when they seriously dated in college, Celeste believed that the happily-ever-afters she grew up reading about were real. When she and Gemma just happened to become roommates at the beginning of junior year, and then they just happened to become so much more than that, Celeste thought that she was finally getting a love story of her own.
But then, of course, real life had taken everything away from her. Just like that.
Her mother had believed in love stories, too. In fact, she’s the reason why Celeste had fallen in love with romantic K-dramas and other love stories to begin with. But after witnessing what her mother went through all those years ago and experiencing her own heartbreak with Gemma, Celeste had realized another probable fact. As entertaining as they are, love stories simply aren’t real. Or at least, for some unknown reason, they aren’t real for people like her and her mother. And there’s no use in believing otherwise.
Celeste only has one more set of interviews with Gemma. After that, they’ll return to their normal, separate lives in LA and SF, respectively. And she’ll finally be able to move on from the past.
Celeste’s alarm goes off, ripping her away from her thoughts. She reaches her arm out to turn off the incessant beeping and gets a whiff of Gemma’s scent, her eyes fluttering closed at the pleasant aroma. Before she can stop herself, she’s scooped up the blanket and gathered it up in her hands, sniffing it like some drug addict. Somehow, Gemma smells even better than she remembers.
Celeste thinks back to a study she discovered online that found that lesbian women and straight men react similarly to women’s pheromones in a way that straight women do not. At a time when everyone around her was denying her existence—or said “there was something wrong” with her—studies like this had made her feel a bit better.
“See?” she’d tell her parents. “There’s a scientific reason why I like girls. I’m just built different!”
Of course, now she knows better, and that no one has to have any reason, scientific or otherwise, to be gay. But it seemed to placate her parents enough, or at least until Celeste reached her twenties and the “you should find a nice husband and have kids” conversations started.
Celeste does want kids. Just not the husband.
Before she gets out of bed again, Celeste scrolls through the notifications on her phone, in case she somehow missed a message or a call from her mother. It’s something she’s been doing every morning since she moved back to LA, since Korea is seventeen hours ahead of California.
But today, there’s only a message from Min-joon. Nothing from her mother. And no news is good news. She lets out a quiet sigh of relief.
Eight years ago, she’d checked her phone and found out she had a missed call from her mom. And when she’d called her mother back, that one single phone conversation had completely upended her life. Her stomach twists into knots just thinking about it.
She sneaks one last whiff of Gemma before throwing her bedding in the washing machine. Then, after starting the cycle and turning on the coffee machine, she opens the windows.
The cool, salty air chills her face, and she takes a deep breath.
Just one more set of interviews. She can do this.