Chapter 16
Denny
I knew I was in danger
of being terribly understood.
― Stephen Dunn
In the dream, she and Eris had a cottage in the Alps, with their own little lake and a barn full of animals. A family of orcas lived in the lake and, even though Denny knew it was impossible, she loved spending her afternoons feeding them with Eris—with bread crumbs, of all things.
It was a wonderful day, the sun hot and bright in the sky, warming their skin. The orcas were happy, splashing water at them with acute squeaky chirps. Eris kept telling Denny that she was thinking of the wrong mammals.
A shiver shook her when a cloud obscured the sun, plunging the dream into a disturbing chill. She inched towards Eris, seeking her warmth, but the space beside her was suddenly empty.
No, come back… Please, it’s so cold…
Her eyes shot open. She was in her bed, the cold gone, but not the sense of absence: her arm was sprawled out on the empty mattress where Eris should have been.
She sluggishly reached for her phone: 2:31 AM.
The flat was silent. No sound from the bathroom next door, no light on. Eris’ phone wasn’t on the nightstand.
Perhaps Eris simply couldn’t sleep and had moved elsewhere so as not to disturb her.
Denny tossed the duvet aside and went to check the other bedroom, but the bed was intact, so she rushed to the bathroom, where she flipped the jewellery box open: the knuckle knife was there, half buried under silver and gold trinkets, almost forgotten.
She didn’t know why she’d felt the urge to check. Eris wouldn’t leave her just like that. Eris wouldn’t leave her, full stop.
As a last resort, she padded downstairs. The kitchen light was on.
Relief flooded her.
Eris was sitting at the table, her phone propped up to a glass, playing something at a volume too low to be discernible.
She did that, sometimes, when she was eating, but there was no food in sight.
All Denny could see was a variety of minuscule utensils and what she identified as a phone completely taken apart. Her phone.
“Eris?”
Eris jumped. She had the huge vintage quilt Denny had recently pulled out of the winter wardrobe draped on her back, hair pulled up in a messy bun. She looked so sleepy that Denny had to fight the urge to scoop her up and take her back to bed. Those puffy eyes were too cute for their own good.
Eris paused the video on her phone. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“So are you.”
For the very first time since they’d met, Eris blushed. She watched Denny approach, immobile, with the long face of a kid caught with her hands in the cookie jar.
“That quilt is way too heavy to wear like a shawl.”
“I like it. Feels nice.”
“Maybe I should get you a weighted blanket.”
“I like this one. It smells like you.”
At that, Denny had no choice but to hold on to her melting heart and shut up.
One of the parts on the table was a shattered screen that Denny had no doubt belonged to her phone. But the phone in question lay face-down in front of Eris, circuits exposed.
Denny’s eyes widened. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”
Eris dropped a minuscule screwdriver and sank back into the chair with a disconsolate sigh.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” she grunted, but didn’t protest when Denny bent over to examine the situation.
As she had suspected, turning the phone face up, she found a pristine new screen, plastic film still attached.
“You fixed it!”
“Almost.”
A flurry of emotions tingled in Denny’s chest. She couldn’t believe there were people who preferred diamonds to something like this.
“How on earth do you know how to do this?”
Eris shrugged. “I know a guy. He taught me a few things over the years. And I have a tutorial.” She pointed at her phone.
Denny remembered thinking ‘She’s amazing’ when Eris had straightened the telly in her room. If that had been amazing, she didn’t know what to call this.
“Where did you get the new screen?”
“From the guy.”
“You paid for it?”
Eris rolled her eyes. “Someone doesn’t want me to steal.”
Instead of responding to the jab, Denny slinked between the chair and the table and sat in Eris’ lap, looping her arms around her neck, fondling the velvety undercut at the nape.
“You paid for it,” she repeated with a sweet twinge in her heart. This was the most touching thing anyone had ever done for her. “You didn’t have to. I don’t want you to spend your money on me.”
Eris’ gaze caressed her, light and loving and a bit dazed. “You spend your money on me all the time.”
Denny almost retorted: I have plenty of it, you don’t. It would have been obnoxious of her.
“A few coffees can’t compare to a phone screen!”
“I just wanted to give you something back.”
As much as it didn’t sit right with Denny not to repay Eris for such a substantial expense, there was nothing she could say or argue.
Because she, a giver through and through, understood better than anyone the importance—the joy—of providing acts of service for the one you loved.
She couldn’t fault Eris, although she would have equally appreciated a less expensive gesture.
“Thank you,” she said, pressing her cheek to Eris’ while doing her best not to crush her bones into a hug. When Eris’ arms found their way around her waist and her head slotted under her chin, Denny felt like life couldn’t possibly get any better, any happier than this.
Or maybe it could.
“Want to hear something hilarious? I went to Richer Sounds to browse new phones the other day.” Eris tensed, so she immediately added: “I completely forgot about it the moment I walked in.”
Eris’ muscles went slack again as a little laugh shook her. “What distracted you?”
Denny bit her lip to contain the gloating. “There was this big screen advertising the perks of joining their VIP Club.”
“Let me guess: you ended up subscribing.”
“Oh, no. I’ve been a member for years.”
“Then what?”
“I found out about a specific perk I wasn’t aware of.”
Denny got up and went to the pantry. She’d hidden the surprise in a porridge box, trusting the perfect moment to whip it out would come. She guessed she should take fate’s hint.
When she placed the box on the table, Eris was understandably bemused, until Denny dived her hand into it and pulled out an entirely different box, wrapped up in fancy marbled paper.
“What’s that?”
Denny handed the gift to Eris. “Why don’t you find out?”
“It’s for me?”
“Yes! C’mon, open it!”
Eris stared at it for a long while. When she finally got to it, watching her unwrap the gift was quite a nerve-wracking experience: where Denny would’ve ripped and torn in feverish curiosity, Eris took her time to pluck the tape off and unfold the paper, ever so delicately.
A shiny headphone box finally emerged. Eris held it, transfixed and unblinking, as if she weren’t sure what she was looking at.
“I swear I didn’t pay for them!” Denny immediately stressed.
“Wait, that sounds wrong. They were included in my membership and I didn’t know!
” When she’d seen it in the advertisement, she hadn’t believed her luck.
It would’ve been tricky to get Eris to accept a gift that had cost money, but she might be persuaded to take a free one.
“They come with a six-year warranty, so don’t lose the receipt. ”
“You’re the one who loses everything.” Eris’ eyes were still trained on the box clutched between her hands like an invaluable treasure.
“Duh? Why do you think I’m giving it to you?” Denny reclaimed her spot on Eris’ lap and put her hands around her neck again. “For the record, I would’ve got these regardless of the price.”
Eris’ hand settled on Denny’s leg to give it a reproachful squeeze. “I wouldn’t have accepted them.”
An electric ripple rose up to Denny’s navel.
She gulped, mouth dry, and forced the feeling to simmer down to a quiet longing, although it was hard with the heat of Eris’ thighs right under her arse.
She was a horrible person, thirsting over her girlfriend’s hot body while they were having such a romantic moment.
“That’s the only reason I didn’t do it sooner,” she said, her breath catching just a little. “I see how frustrated you get when yours don’t work properly. You need decent headphones the same way I need glasses.”
Something in Eris’ expression shifted, the fondness and the gratitude in it slipping slightly, showing a glimpse of deep shades of blue.
“You’re never going to stop giving, are you?”
What an understatement. Denny would have ripped her own heart out to give it to her, if she could have. Sometimes she wanted to crawl out of her own skin from how desperately she craved to give Eris everything she needed—everything she deserved and had never had.
“My sweet summer child,” she said, a hand curling around the back of Eris’ neck. “I intend to spend the rest of my life making up for all the love you didn’t get in the last twenty-five years.”
Eris scoffed. Her fingers closed around Denny’s wrist with an unexpected urgency that carried into the kiss she briefly pressed to Denny’s lips before resting her forehead against hers.
“Denny,” she whispered with a half laugh that came out a little brittle, a little wet. “You’d already made up for that three days after meeting me.”
It couldn’t be true, but it still went straight to Denny’s heart.
And maybe, a little bit, to her head, too.
After Blake, she was so used to her caring gestures being downplayed or rejected altogether that hearing something like this made her feel absurdly powerful.
She had done so little, and it meant so much for Eris.
“I am a summer child, you know?” said Eris, bringing her back to earth.
“Really?”
“August 26th.”
“Of course you’re a Virgo,” Denny groaned.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Denny counted on her fingers: “Prickly, punctual, fastidious…”
“What are you?”
“Taurus. May 11th.”
“Born in spring, named after a flower, owns a flower shop…” Eris poked her with a shoulder. “She was a fairy.”
Denny laughed, not so much for the joke, which was more a compliment than anything, but for its value.