Fifteen #3
She nodded tightly, and Daphne noticed the hints of hurt creeping in again.
That was not good. She couldn’t handle vulnerable Gillian.
It made her feel vulnerable, too. “Hey, you must be a really good friend if you’re sitting with so much discomfort on your end and still showing up to help your friends find ways to be happy. ”
“I’m a terrible friend,” Gillian said flatly.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Daphne said softly. “Your people adore you. They’d follow you into battle if you asked them to. I’ve seen the way they look at you with awe and admiration.”
“Because I’m a good boss,” Gillian said matter-of-factly, “and it was very important I become that. I worked hard to learn, to be better than my mentor on that front.”
“Sawyer’s mother?”
She nodded. “I wanted to create a workspace where they felt safe and valued, and I think I did, but the more energy I put into being a great boss, the worse I became as a friend.”
“Hard to believe.”
“It’s true. I didn’t handle Brooke and Tegan’s disaster well.”
Daphne grimaced. “You don’t still refer to their origin story that way, do you?”
“Only in my inside voice, but I know part of what made it spiral out of control was how I approached them both. Honestly, maybe things had already begun spiraling by then, because Brooke didn’t call in the first place.
Even before that, Sawyer had left us. Then when they came back, I was still reeling from Brooke and Tegan, my fear of what I had almost let happen on my watch.
” Gillian’s voice caught, and she blinked a few times as if to steady herself.
“I completely missed Robin and Sawyer until they were in deep, and Maura had already … God I never … I didn’t see the full scope of the pain she inflicted. I don’t think I wanted to.”
“Hey.” Daphne placed a hand on her leg, risking the type of touch they’d both shied away from, but she didn’t know any other way to reach for a drowning person than with her hands. The connection seemed to jolt Gillian back into the moment over the ones she’d been reliving.
“Anyway,” she said, “I’d spent so much time and energy trying to become the type of boss I wanted to be, I missed out on being the type of friend my friends needed in those moments.”
“It’s not too late. They’re all still here, every day. You could become a better friend now. You’re maddeningly good at being whatever you need to be.”
Gillian gave her a half-smile. “It almost sounded like a compliment that time you said it, but they don’t need me anymore. They have each other.”
“I’m not sure it’s possible to have too many friends who care as much as you do.”
“I think I missed my windows.”
“And you’ll keep missing them if you don’t break the pattern,” Daphne pushed.
“Brooke doesn’t even joke with me anymore,” Gillian pushed back.
“We used to be irreverent together. We went through so many hard things, big things by laughing in the face of them, and what happened with Tegan should’ve been funny, maybe the funniest coincidence of all times.
Instead, it was serious and got downright dangerous. ”
Daphne frowned. “Is it dangerous now?”
“No.” She shook her head as if she needed to make that sink in.
“Then if the danger has passed, maybe you could ask for a do-over on the funny part.”
“I don’t know what that would look like.”
Daphne’s face warmed at the idea before it even hit her lips. “You got a good start on reauthoring our prom narrative. If you can go back and collect a kiss from more than twenty years ago, surely you can face your best friend about a girl she slept with last year.”
Gillian smiled a little more. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Holy shit.” Daphne laughed. “First you apologize, now you say I’m right?”
“I said, ‘maybe.’”
“I’ll take it and keep running. What would you have done differently if you could’ve handled Brooke and Tegan differently?”
“I don’t know. I was supposed to be at the bar with her that night, but I let work get in the way.
Still, if I’d gone, she might not have met Tegan, and I don’t want to change that.
I mean, I did at first, but not now. I guess if I could rescript it, I’d want Brooke to call me the morning after, but she didn’t. ”
“What if you’d called her?”
“I should have.” Gillian pinched the bridge of her nose.
“I stood my friend up at a bar because I had a client. I should’ve called her, or if it had been college, I would’ve shown up at her place with coffee and doughnuts.
I don’t know when I stopped. Probably because I didn’t want to dump work stuff on her personal time, and all I had was work stuff. ”
“For what it’s worth, if you showed up at her house with coffee and donuts this weekend, I think Brooke would love to work through that exercise with you.”
“Because she’s a great therapist?”
Daphne laughed. “No. Because I suspect she misses her best friend as much as you do.”
Gillian seemed to think about that for a second before lifting her eyes to meet Daphne’s again. “What about you? I’ve never been a good friend to you. Why are you working through this exercise with me?”
“Me?” Daphne’s heart hammered in her chest at a million answers she couldn’t bring herself to say.
She didn’t want to admit to any of the reasons she was being so nice to Gillian, not her lips or the way they had wrecked her.
Not her vulnerability or this softness or the way she contrasted it all with that power-lesbian suit.
Not the magnetism Daphne would never let herself admit she felt all the way back in high school or the command Gillian exuded or how she really was good at everything, even fucking apologies.
Instead, she said, “I’m bored and a little bit of a sadist. Besides, sad people are good for business, right? ”
Gillian stared at her, and Daphne worried she’d pushed too far. Then Gillian cracked. In a good way. In a beautiful way. Her smile spread and she laughed. A loud, unexpected burst of humor, unrestrained and shaking, not just from her lips or throat, but through her shoulders and stomach.
Daphne had never heard anything like it, but the sense of power and pride she felt at knowing she caused something so joyfully undignified to spill from this woman was how she always imagined the first hit of a drug might flood her system.
Oh yes, much like their kiss, she already knew she was going to lose sleep wanting more of this.