Fourteen #2
“Absolutely not. She’s unconventional and occasionally juvenile, but that’s part of what works for her. She’s disarming enough for her skill and intelligence to sneak up on you. She’s probably the brightest practitioner I’ve ever witnessed working with adolescents and young adults.”
“So, she specializes in exactly the age we were when we went off track?”
“You and I went off track the moment we met in middle school, but to the larger point, she’s got a solid track record of reauthoring trauma. One such exercise ended up with Sawyer in her bed and my office in disarray.”
“Does that happen to you often?”
“More than I care for,” she said emphatically, but the idea she hadn’t wanted to allow to take root had already done exactly that even as her brain rebelled. “I’m not generally as hands-on in my approach.”
“As hands-on as Robin is with Sawyer?” Daphne laughed lightly. “Probably best in your line of work.”
“But not in yours.”
“To be fair, their relationship is also off limits in my line of work, but I understand you’re more research oriented.”
“Right,” Gillian said. “Research. I love research. Generally, the clinical kind, which would not help us here.”
“Shocking,” Daphne said, her voice once again full of humor. “There is no clinical study to determine whether or not the two of us, personally, would dislike each other less if we’d kissed in high school?”
“I didn’t mean to suggest …” Gillian rubbed her face with her hands. “I was merely reiterating there’s no way for us to know.”
“Especially since you prefer ‘clinical observation’ to ‘experiential learning’ or whatever you said that Brooke called the most formal way to say you don’t want a hug. If only you could clinically observe us kissing.”
Gillian understood she was being teased again, but it did nothing to undercut the seriousness of the ideas flooding her brain. “But I did, eventually, allow you to hug me.”
“And your world didn’t crumble.”
She cocked her head to the side, not sure that was true. She did at least feel her foundations shaking.
“Are you seriously considering …”
“No,” she said quickly, then caught herself. Was she? “Sawyer and Robin reauthored their prom experiences last year with great success, at least in the moment, but the day after there was more … chaos.”
“And again, we know how you feel about chaos.”
“I prefer to think the universe has given me repeated opportunities to practice my distress tolerance.”
This time when Daphne laughed it was a full, rolling sound, the same one that had reverberated through her dreams for years, and Gillian winced, in spite of all she’d learned recently.
“I’m sorry.” Daphne reached forward, catching her by the shoulders. “Gillian, I’m not laughing at you, only at the situation. I swear.”
She nodded but couldn’t unclench her jaw enough to speak.
“Don’t do this again,” Daphne pleaded. “We are adults. You are literally an expert in trauma and recovery and how to process shit, so we don’t have to do the same things we did as teens.”
The statement of her credentials went a long way to soothe Gillian’s fraying nerves, but perhaps not as much as Daphne’s soothing, steadying hold on her.
Her hands were strong and gentle at the same time.
Gillian felt a calm come over her the likes of which she’d used every method she knew to try to summon without success.
Daphne was here right now, present and accepting, the way she’d claimed to be all those years ago. Gillian knew the consequences of missing that opportunity then, or perhaps the consequences of not being brave enough to seize the opportunity through the awkwardness. Did she want to face that again?
“No,” Gillian whispered.
Daphne immediately released her. “No?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean ‘no,’ as in, ‘I don’t consent to be touched.’ I meant ‘no, I don’t want to repeat a trauma and shame cycle.’”
Daphne raised her eyebrows. “You do consent to be touched?”
She sighed, a shuddering sort of sound at the shiver that question sent through her.
If she was going to take the next step, she needed to do so with a clear head and a calm center.
“I consent to trying something different. To seeing if we could make new meaning. To rewrite whatever I authored incorrectly, by deliberately—”
“—kissing me.” Daphne finished the sentence bluntly.
She nodded slowly.
“For research?” Daphne asked with the playful lilt back in her voice.
Gillian nodded again, waiting for the shame to spike in her.
Daphne pressed her lips together as if trying hard not to smile without quite succeeding.
“It’s absurd,” Gillian said flatly. “I’m being absurd.”
It was Daphne’s turn to nod. “Ridiculously absurd.”
Gillian started to step back, but Daphne caught hold of her again, this time with one hand curled around her right arm.
“That’s not a condemnation. I like absurd, Gillian.
I like the side of you that’s willing to brave the prospect of looking silly in order to satisfy your very rational brain.
It’s complex and counterintuitive to take something full of emotion and wrestle it into some sort of rational experiment, but it’s also very you.
Logical research is as true to Gillian DeGarmo as laughing about overwhelm is to me. ”
“What are you saying?” Gillian needed to make 100 percent sure she didn’t misread another signal.
“Let’s lean in,” Daphne proposed. “Let’s give your teenage self the closure she needs. Mine too. Let’s find out what we missed all those years ago and lay that memory to rest. There is no way a kiss tonight can be anywhere near as momentous as we made it out to be then.”
Gillian liked that logic immensely. It offered safety, confidence, and a rationale she could cling to.
She knew as well as anyone that the anxiety of anticipation generally created infinitely more suffering than the event itself, and she possessed every ability she needed to make meaning out of whatever came next.
She’d finally have her answers, her peace, her agency all intact.
With such a compelling reminder, she did exactly what the woman in front of her had consented to. She leaned in and pressed her lips to Daphne’s.
She did it with confidence, with purpose, with certainty.
Then her world exploded.
Electricity arced through her. This was not academic or clinical. It was elemental. Daphne’s mouth stole all the breath from her, pulling it and her all the way in.
Gillian’s lips parted of their own accord. So much for agency, but she did nothing to fight it. This felt too amazing to be intellectualized. For once, she simply let herself feel, enjoy, revel in the rightness of something that should’ve felt wrong.
She didn’t know if this was what she’d missed in high school, or if the years of waiting and building and coiling tension had created something more, but she simply didn’t care. She didn’t need for this moment to mean anything else. Not with Daphne’s mouth on hers.
They curled around each other until bodies pressed flush, the suppleness of Daphne’s curves lush against Gillian’s hard edges. Her hands found their way into soft curls as she ran her tongue lightly over the full lower lip she’d fixated on.
Then she sighed, not with the frustration or exasperation that usually underlay that sound, but with a release, with relief, with a kind of settling deep inside her, and a cracked place mended itself.
Then her own body went as soft as the one in her arms, tension dissolving and sharpness smoothing over.
She pressed her forehead to Daphne’s, accepting the support she offered for a second. Then finding her feet on solid ground, she eased back.
Her lungs expanded on a fullness of breath she hadn’t felt in longer than she remembered. Her eyes fluttered open, and for the first time she saw Daphne clearly.
She was beautiful, stunning really, but more than that she was strong, open, and courageous. She always had been.
“Thank you,” Gillian whispered.
Daphne’s dark irises swirled with questions. “Did you get what you needed?”
“I think so.”
“And?” The simple word sounded almost breathless. “What’s that? Answers?”
Gillian smiled slowly. “Peace.”
“Holy shit.”
Gillian had kissed her.
Daphne sat in her car in the driveway to her own home.
She had no recollection of how she’d made it there, which should’ve scared her, but she was more disturbed by the fact that she couldn’t seem to force herself to get out and walk up the stairs.
She could barely make her brain process coherent thoughts. How could she make her legs work in tandem? She’d probably sit here all night long because Gillian DeGarmo had kissed her.
And Daphne knew she’d agreed to that, but also, not like that.
She couldn’t have possibly imagined. The woman was so uptight and overthinking and condescending. How could anyone, anywhere have known she could kiss like she did?
Soulfully. Sultry. Skilled.
“So good.” Daphne groaned and let her forehead drop to the steering wheel.
The porch light turned on, and Hugh peeked out the door, his dark eyebrows raised in silent question.
She merely lifted her head enough to shake it slowly. It wasn’t like she had any more explanation to offer.
The door shut and, for a second, she thought maybe he’d decided to leave her to her own processing, but a moment later he stepped out again, this time holding a bowl of popcorn.
He shuffled to the car in his slippers and climbed inside, pulling the door shut before grinning at her. “I was settling in for a movie, but whatever drama is happening out here seems more engaging. Now, spill.”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know why I’m sitting here. I just can’t seem to make myself do anything else. My brain and my body are both individually overloaded. Neither one of them has the capacity to work with the other.”
“Given what you do for a living, that seems like a rather inconvenient condition to develop. However did you make it through your sessions in such a semi-vegetative state?”
“It happened after work.”