CHAPTER 11 #2
“Let’s just say he wanted to do more, and I didn’t, so I told him as much.
He got upset. We were at his house. He yelled at me about being a prude because we’d been together for six months and never had sex.
I then told him I wanted to leave and broke up with him because I didn’t want someone who would pressure me into having sex when I wasn’t ready.
When I left his room, Maia was in the hallway. ”
“I heard him yell and knew she was in there.”
“You knew they were alone in his room?” Larissa asked. “Did you know…”
“I had an idea, yeah. I thought they’d already done that.
Mom and Dad weren’t there, so I figured they were doing it again.
I’d gone to the basement and put on headphones so I wouldn’t have to hear them, and I tried not to think about him touching her because I loved her, but I took them off just in time to hear him yell at her, and I thought something bad was happening. I thought–”
“He didn’t, babe.”
“I know,” Maia said. “I mean, it might seem silly now, but I was sixteen, and emotions are crazy when you’re sixteen. I was already so jealous and so hurt, so when I saw you fleeing and my idiot brother standing there like he’d fucked up, I wanted to kill him.”
“What happened next?” Harlow asked.
“She asked me what happened. I just told her that everything was fine and that I was going home,” Winter replied.
“Then, I asked if she wanted to go to my room while I talked to my brother, and she said yes. She went in there and slammed the door. I talked to my brother.”
“You actually talked to him?” Harlow asked.
“Yelled is more like it, but I asked him what happened. He tried to blame her, and I told him to shut the fuck up and kneed him in the nuts. I got in trouble for that one later when my parents got home, but I got him in trouble for trying to have sex with his girlfriend, who didn’t want to.
He wasn’t even supposed to have her over while they weren’t home.
He was pissed. I was pissed. I went into my room and waited for him to leave the house, which he did in pain, by the way.
Then, I asked Winter if she wanted to go and took her home.
We started hanging out there instead of at my house after. ”
“I should say that Mike and I are good now,” Winter added.
“He’s apologized since, and he didn’t do anything to me physically after I told him that I didn’t want to.
He got angry that I didn’t want to sleep with him after six months, but we talked later, once I was with Maia, and he got it.
I’m not excusing his behavior, but we’re okay now.
He’s married and has three kids, and the four of us are all good. ”
“He was still an asshole, and I wanted to kill him,” Maia said.
“It was like my protective instincts came out, and all I wanted to do was keep her safe. I didn’t want her coming to my house anymore.
I didn’t think he’d actually do anything; he was embarrassed after he’d calmed down, and he apologized to both of us, but I wanted to keep her away from him. ”
“Also because you didn’t want us to get back together,” Winter said with a little smirk.
“True,” Maia said. “We spent time together at her house, and because no one worries about two girls hanging out alone, we started doing that more and more. She’d stop by my part-time job during the summer, and I’d stop by hers.
We’d take our breaks together. We would walk to and from classes together in school. ”
“When did you start dating?” Harlow asked.
“My senior year. Her junior,” Winter answered. “It was October fifth.”
Larissa then made a note of how Maia smiled to herself, likely because Winter still remembered an important event and date.
“It was Halloween season, and I asked if she wanted to check out a haunted house with me and my friends,” Maia revealed. “She said yes, and there were about eight of us. I remember standing in line to buy tickets, and something just came over me.”
“What?” Larissa asked.
“A feeling like everything was about to change. I have no idea why it hit me then, but it did, and I decided to buy her ticket, too, to see how she would react. She smiled and thanked me, and that was it – I knew it was a date without asking. It probably sounds weird because we’d spent months and months hanging out alone, and we were surrounded by people there, when my brain thought this would be our first date without even asking her if that was what she wanted, but that was how it felt. ”
“How did you feel?” Harlow asked Winter.
“The same. I stood in that line, and her friends had all kind of paired off, talking to one another, so it was just her and I standing there, and it was awkward, which was strange for us because things were never awkward after I dumped her brother. Suddenly, I had nothing to talk to her about, and it seemed she felt the same way. I remember wanting to hold her hand and having to shove mine in my pockets to keep from doing so.” Winter laughed a little.
“When she bought my ticket and handed it to me, I knew the same thing she did: we were on a date. We let her friends go ahead and hung back a little.”
“And I took her hand,” Maia stated proudly.
“She pretended it was because she thought I would be scared.” Winter laughed. “Not because she suddenly got so brave.”
“Hey, there was some bravery there. Your hand was like a vice grip the whole time we walked through that thing. I thought I might not get my hand back.”
“You still haven’t,” Winter stated and took Maia’s hand, placing it in her lap and linking their fingers. “And you never will, either. It’s mine now.”
“All yours,” Maia replied with a shy smile.
“When did you two talk about it being more than just holding hands because you’re in a haunted house?” Larissa asked.
“That night. My friends wanted to get food, and I told them we would meet them there, but we didn’t.
The haunted house was next to a baseball field, and people were kind of hanging out there, so we sat in the grass for a while.
We were still there when it closed and the parking lot was empty.
We didn’t even have a blanket or anything. It wasn’t planned.”
“I put my head on her shoulder once we were alone, and she felt me shiver because it was getting colder,” Winter shared with a smile aimed at her wife.
“I wrapped my arm around her, and we stayed like that for a few minutes.”
“Then, I felt her kiss the top of my head,” Winter explained. “And I knew we were finally about to do this thing we’d been dancing around, so I looked up and kissed her on the lips.”
“We’ve been together ever since,” Maia said.
“When did you tell her you loved her for the first time, Maia?” Larissa asked.
“About a month later. It slipped out when we were on the phone, hanging up. She said it back, though, and we said it in person the next day at school. We whispered it, and it became our thing to whisper it whenever we couldn’t say it out loud.”
“And when did you tell people that you were together?”
“Um… My parents and Mike knew around February. He was not happy and sulked a bunch at first, but then he said that it made sense that she didn’t want to be with him because she was gay. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was bi, so it was really just him that she didn’t want to be with.”
Winter laughed and said, “More like I was already in love with his sister, so I couldn’t be with him or anyone else.”
“Right. That.” Maia smirked.
“I came out around the same time to my parents, but we didn’t come out at school. I was graduating, and I didn’t want her to be there by herself dealing with it, so we decided to keep it to ourselves until we were out of high school, and we did.”
“Then, she went to college,” Maia said.
“How did that go, dating with one of you still in high school and the other one in college?” Harlow asked.
“Fine. I went to a state school and commuted from my parents’ house my freshman year to save money, so it was okay. I moved my bedroom into their basement for some privacy, which helped, and they treated me like an adult, so we didn’t have many issues with distance or anything.”
“And I went to the same school the following year.”
“How much did being with Winter inform that decision?” Larissa asked.
“It didn’t. I sucked at school, so it was the only place I was getting into,” Maia replied.
“She was great in school but couldn’t afford anything more than a state school, so we both ended up there for different reasons.
It worked out, though. I commuted my freshman year.
She had an apartment at that point, so I mainly stayed there, and we moved in together officially before I started my sophomore year.
We got engaged after I graduated and have been married for three years now. ”
“Together for over ten,” Winter added. “She’s my only love, you know?”
Larissa didn’t know why, but she glanced over at Harlow, who was looking down at the water bottle on the table in front of her.
“That didn’t bother you? Being each other’s only? Not exploring more?” Harlow asked.
“What’s to explore?” Maia asked back. “Do you know how lucky I am?” She shook her head and smiled.
“I found the love of my life at fourteen. Not only that, but we made it work. We still love each other like crazy. We both still want the same things. No kids, for example; just us. Maybe a cat one day or a dog, but they’re more to handle, so we’ll see.
We made a home together, and we’re going to grow old together. ”
“Plus, the sex is amazing,” Winter added.
“Babe!”
“What? It is. If that’s what she’s thinking we’d want to explore, no need. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Not only what I meant, but I concede your point,” Harlow said with a small laugh.
Larissa wondered why she’d asked the question at all. Harlow always seemed to be looking for something or someone, though, so maybe that was why.
“I find it interesting that your first kiss was right after a haunted house and that you both knew it was a date before you went in. Can we talk a little more about that?”
“She means dissect the whole thing for her,” Harlow stated with another laugh.
“Shut up,” Larissa replied with a laugh, too, and saw Maia quirk an eyebrow at her.