Chapter 30 #2
I flinch from the force in her voice. “W-why? The tour’s almost over, I’m sure Sigrún wouldn’t care that much.”
“No,” Darcy repeats, saying the word through clenched teeth.
“What’s wrong?”
“You can’t post about us,” she says, voice cracking.
“I can’t?”
“Of course not!”
“But … why?” I repeat.
“People can’t know about us.”
The silence is piercing, an atomic bomb of quiet as we both freeze. “Excuse me?” I whisper, a serrated edge to my voice.
“We … I … You weren’t planning on going public about all of this, were you?” she stammers out.
“What else would I expect to happen? This is going to get out at some point.” Even in the dark, I can make out her face, and she looks so vulnerable, so sick with fear, it rips my chest open.
“I’m not sure … I haven’t thought about it that much. I don’t think we should share this yet. At all. Even especially in public.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, strain in my voice as I try to discern her words. I hear them, understand each one individually, but together they aren’t making sense. “What … what does this mean for us? How does that work?”
“I don’t know,” she says, voice rising an octave as it wavers. “I don’t … I don’t want anything to change.”
My heart sinks like a brick in a pool. “Darcy, I think everything has to change.”
“No,” she repeats like if she says it hard enough, vehemently enough, it’ll be a universal truth.
Panic mounts, pulling me under like a riptide. I turn away from her, nausea throbbing through me as I try to parse this out. A secret? Is that what she’s asking? Another lie I have to uphold?
“I need more time,” she says, grabbing my arms.
“More time?”
“More time of this being just ours. No one else’s. No social media, no statements, no touching in public. Just ours.”
My face twists, world starting to spin. I slide out of her grip, scooting away and crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m not interested in being your secret, Darcy.”
“I’m not asking that of you,” she says, crawling to me. There’s been so much distance between us for months, I shouldn’t want any more of it, but I shrink away.
“Aren’t you?” I ask, voice cracking. “You’re telling me you don’t want anyone to know about us. That’s the definition of a secret.”
“Cubby, please. Please try to understand where I’m coming from. It’s taken me twenty-two years to even admit to myself that I’m … queer. I can’t just … tell people about it.”
I recoil at her words. “Don’t you dare talk like what we have is something shameful. That our love is something to hide.”
“I’m not, Cubby. I swear I’m not. I just…”
“You what?”
“I’m scared. My own parents won’t even acknowledge me when they find out.”
“You don’t know that,” I argue. But the horrible, repugnant truth hits me that she’s probably right. Her agonized expression makes me regret trying to lie to her.
“I tried to tell my mum once,” Darcy says, barely above a whisper. “It was awful, Cubby.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it went so badly telling her I wasn’t about to have a second go at it,” she says with a hysterical bubble of laughter.
“I … I asked her how she knew she loved my father. She told me she always just knew. Said it with such firmness. So I asked her if she always just knew she only liked men, hinted that maybe I might…” Darcy shakes her head, swallowing and gasping as she presses the story out.
“I couldn’t get the words out but I know she knew what I was saying. ”
“What did she do?” I’m not sure I actually want the answer.
She shakes her head again. “Somehow, that’s the worst part.
She did nothing. She was silent. Completely silent.
Blinked twice, turned away from me, clicked on the telly, and got back to folding the laundry.
Not a flinch of acknowledgment that I’d even spoken.
No pursed lips or raised eyebrows or anger or worry or gladness I was trying to talk to her about something so personal.
Just two careful, controlled blinks. A complete dismissal.
“And I know it’s fucked up, but God, I wish she had yelled at me.
Sometimes I think that might have been easier to deal with—her being an obvious monster, giving me some sort of tangible proof that she’s horrible.
But that silence was so much louder than anything she could have yelled at me.
It told me that if what I was hinting at was true, acknowledged, I would no longer exist to her.
I would be as invisible as the words I’d said, lost as sound waves dissolving in the atmosphere.
I’d have no existence if I told that truth again. ”
I sit there, helpless and insignificant as pain bears down on the woman I love. Darcy cries, that deep wound ripped open.
“What am I supposed to expect from the rest of the world when the people that are meant to love me unconditionally won’t even look at me?” Rough sobs rip from her throat, her shoulders hunching as she looks at me. “Cubby. Please. I— Please don’t leave me. I need more time. Give me more time.”
I reach for her, gripping her tight against me, holding her as gasps rack her small frame. Darcy, my indomitable Darcy, feels so fragile in my arms, and my heart is shredded to ribbons at the idea of the world hurting her.
I see it all as she cries against me. The scrutiny and the outrage. The accusations and name-calling. The internet—the world—is cruel to girls. Cruel to queer people. The combination would have them tearing us at the seams when we’re barely stitched together.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper into her hair. “This is new for both of us. We can take it at your pace. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I upset you.”
“It’s not you,” she says, pulling back and scrubbing her knuckles across her cheeks. “I wish I was braver. I wish—”
“I wouldn’t change a thing about you,” I say, tilting her face to look at me. “I mean it.”
After a moment, she meets my gaze, wrung out and weary.
“I’m not asking this to add more pressure,” I say, brushing away more tears from her cheeks. “But are we telling anyone in the band about this?” Harry’s warm, kind smile pops into my head. Darcy flinches, and I make a soothing sound.
“I don’t think we should,” she whispers.
I nod, a wave of guilt swamping me. “Harry confessed he might have feelings for me.”
“He told me too,” she says. “Back in Cleveland.”
“I can’t string him along. I need out of this. Out of the lies. Out of faking something so integral to who I am. What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” she says, hanging her head, voice broken and weak as she clutches my shirt. “Please, give me some time to figure things out.”
“Okay,” I whisper, trying not to sink too deeply into the quicksand of emotions we’ve stepped into. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”
“Don’t … don’t leave me,” she begs again. “I don’t want to disappear.”
My heart lurches, and before I can even think, I’m kissing her, one hand twisted in her hair, the other at her back, molding her to me. She returns the kiss like she’s been starving and I’m the sweetest thing she’s ever tasted.
Carefully, I lower her to the blanket, stretching over her.
She shifts beneath me, and one of my hands hooks beneath her knee, lifting her leg to wrap around my hip.
She does the same with the other, locking me to her, never close enough.
I’m still not used to the overwhelming pleasure of getting to touch her like this, and with shaky hands I move under her sweatshirt, feeling her warmth against my palms. My fingers play along the divots of her ribs, the swells of her breasts.
Breaking us apart for only as long as necessary, Darcy pulls her sweatshirt off, tugging mine away too.
We both sigh when our bodies make contact.
With aching slowness, I kiss up and down her body. I kiss every inch of her as if the press of my lips to her skin—her wonderful, perfect skin—will solidify her existence.
You’re here, says the kiss to her temple. You’re real, says the one right above her navel. You’re wonderful, the crease of her hip. I don’t want a world that doesn’t have you in it, says the press at her shoulder.
I see you, the inside of her knee.
I love you, a kiss to the center of her chest.
She touches me back, pleasure weaving us together until we’re moving as one, shaking and whimpering and feeling each other like any single brush of skin against skin could ever be enough.
We know better. A lifetime of moments like this still wouldn’t be enough to sate this need, but we’ll gladly waste all our hours trying.