Eighteen
“That was amazing,” Tegan said as Sawyer held open the flap of a plastic igloo for them all to tumble inside.
Gillian staggered slightly across the threshold, her feet not yet used to hitting flatly on solid ground after an hour of ice skating at Buffalo’s Canalside district. She fell gratefully, if not gracefully, into a cushy chair draped in fluffy blankets as her friends did the same all around her.
“Wow, the igloo looks flimsy from the outside, but they’ve thought of everything.” Brooke burrowed into her own end of a blanket and held up the other side for Tegan to snuggle in with her.
“They even have a ‘fireplace’ going.” Sawyer put air quotes around “fireplace” as there was no actual fire, but what it lacked in authenticity it made up for in heat.
“And best of all, we already ordered our first round of drinks,” Robin announced. “Hot chocolate for me, Teegs, and Sawyer, and mulled wine for Brookesy and the boss.”
“If I’d known there was a warm cocoon with mulled wine delivery, I would’ve skipped the skating and come right to the igloo,” Brooke lamented.
“Which is why we didn’t tell you.” Sawyer laughed.
“Besides,” Tegan added, “if you’d skipped the skating, you would’ve missed Sawyer’s epic jump.”
Sawyer shook their head. “The jump may’ve been epic, but I assure you it was unplanned. I’m glad I landed on my feet, or my skates, instead of flattening the tiny child who darted out in front of me!”
“But you hurdled him like a champ.” Robin kissed them soundly, and Gillian glanced away.
Her nerve endings and synapses were all still too overloaded to process intimacy.
She’d been dissociating all night, and she was aware enough to understand that was a problem.
Despite having these plans sprung on her without warning, this would’ve normally been the type of outing she enjoyed.
Pairing something mildly athletic with people she adored in the heart of the city she loved, followed by mulled wine and lively conversation ticked all her boxes for social interactions.
And yet she wasn’t even there. Not really. Not the way she’d been present with Daphne earlier. Not even the way she’d been present with Izzy or Lauren at fencing.
She felt like she was floating outside of herself, watching her friends from afar or catching snippets of a distant conversation.
Then again, there were moments when she felt too in her body to function, moments when the brush of her own clothes against sensitive skin felt reminiscent of Daphne’s hand slipping under her shirt. How was it possible to be entirely detached and still so painfully aware all at once?
“Earth to Gillian,” Sawyer called through the haze.
She glanced up to see them holding out a mug for her to take.
“Sorry. Thank you.”
“You okay?” Brooke sipped from her own steaming cup.
“Yes, just in my own reflections.”
“Dissecting your post-skating performance reel in that big brain of yours?” Robin asked lightly.
“Something along those lines.”
“Once the team captain, always the team captain,” Tegan said, then turned back to Robin. “This hot chocolate is amazing. Thank you for organizing tonight.”
The conversation moved on around her, but Gillian’s heart ached in her chest. She’d put them off again, held all her closest people at arm’s length.
She flashed back to her conversation with Brooke over the weekend.
She’d missed so much with her and Tegan, with Sawyer and Robin, too, and she’d never get those moments back.
They were settled, their origin stories written without her.
She could be left behind while they moved forward, or she could pull them to her in the only ways she had left.
“I kissed Daphne,” she blurted. Everyone turned to her, eyes wide, expressions nowhere near neutral. She wasn’t used to being the center of their attention at this level, so she simply added, “Twice.”
Everyone lost their minds, and Gillian couldn’t even blame them this time.
She was losing hers, too. Something about their joint reactions gave her permission to admit what a big thing she was experiencing.
Kissing Daphne the first time had set something right inside her.
Kissing her the second time had blown all that short-lived peace to bits.
“I need more details,” Tegan finally shouted over the din of everyone talking at once.
“Agreed,” Robin called. “Everyone but Gillian shut up and let her tell us everything.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t give them everything. She didn’t even understand everything, but she supposed putting things into some kind of narrative order couldn’t hurt.
“It started as part of our attempt to reauthor the prom narrative.”
“Makes sense.” Sawyer reached for Robin’s hand. “Worked for us. Did it work for you?”
“In a lot of ways, yes,” she admitted. “I’d let those memories shape me for years in ways I didn’t fully comprehend and maybe didn’t want to.
Kissing Daphne under the heading of closure or reconceptualization or offering grace to our teenage selves exceeded my expectations. It settled something inside me.”
Brooke beamed at her. “That’s amazing, and brave. I’m not surprised, but proud.”
Gillian smiled at the memory of the peace she’d finally felt in Daphne’s presence. It had been such a huge shift to safely tuck all that turmoil into bed. Her stomach clenched. God, what had she been thinking opening Pandora’s box again tonight?
As if recognizing the change, Robin leaned forward. “Okay, if the first time was sweet and satisfying to that level … why the second time?”
Gillian pulled her fuzzy blanket a little higher on her lap.
“I don’t know. I mean, I can tell you what happened, but I have no easy answer as to why.
I haven’t had time to process or talk to Daphne.
I worry she doesn’t want to talk to me about it because she was all too ready to shove me off with all of you tonight. ”
“Oh shit,” Sawyer said. “Did we interrupt you trying to talk about the second kiss?”
“You, well…” Gillian’s face warmed. “You interrupted the second kiss.”
Everyone grimaced, and Tegan covered her eyes with her hands.
“Nooo,” Robin finally said. “We cockblocked the boss.”
“Ew.” Gillian shook her head. “Don’t ever—”
“Metaphorically speaking only,” Robin said quickly. “I thought you two looked heated, but I assumed you’d been arguing.”
“We had, kind of.” Gillian tried to piece together how things spun out of control so quickly. “She was mad at me, and she admitted the first kiss had affected her, so I tried to apologize, but she didn’t seem to want that, either.”
“Because she didn’t want you to be sorry. She wanted you to feel what she was feeling,” Brooke supplied.
Gillian nodded. “I think so.”
“Been there,” Tegan sighed. “It’s the worst being all wrapped up and overwrought and having all these pent-up emotions all alone.”
“Same,” Robin said.
“Except you weren’t alone in your emotions.” Brooke looked pointedly at Robin, then Gillian. “Neither of you were, and it kind of sounds like maybe Daphne wasn’t either.”
“I didn’t think about the first kiss the way she did,” Gillian said slowly.
“I didn’t feel revved up. I felt calm and safe, but I think feeling those things with her was so new it may’ve worked me around to the same place via a different route.
When she started talking about everything the kiss did to her, I realized it had done quite a lot for me, too. ”
“That’s beautiful,” Tegan said, “and sounds like it led to the second kiss.”
She nodded as the memories stirred in her once more. “And the second kiss was … different.”
Everyone sat forward, clearly wanting more, and not just for clarification purposes. They wanted the full impact, and for the first time since she hired any of them, Gillian wanted to share it.
“It was hot, okay? So hot I forgot where I was, forgot who I was. I forgot everything but her.”
A cheer went up from her friends, and, for some reason, Tegan and Robin high-fived. She should’ve been annoyed or embarrassed, but she only felt relief to have it out there.
“And now I’m proud of you, too,” Sawyer said with a grin. “How long has it been since you let go and kissed a woman without having a plan?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember. I mean, I’ve gone on dates in the last couple of years.”
“Years?” Robin fell over onto Sawyer’s lap. “I thought she was going to say ‘months.’”
She shook her head. “I’ve been kind of busy the last few months. I had friends and colleagues actively blowing up my world.”
“And now it’s Daphne’s turn,” Tegan said. “Ready or not, here she comes.”
“Wait.” Sawyer laughed. “No one’s coming yet. I mean, we didn’t interrupt that, right?”
Gillian scrunched up her nose at the crude framing of the question, but, honestly, she couldn’t completely deny the possibility.
When they’d walked in, she’d been nowhere near stopping the kiss, if you could even call it a kiss by then.
They had at least devolved into a full-blown make-out session and maybe even a bit more.
“Wow,” Brooke said.
“What? I didn’t answer.”
“You didn’t have to,” Robin said. “It’s written all over your face, which is weird enough with you, Queen of the Blank Slate.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Tegan sounded mystified. “You’re so into this woman.”
“I’m not sure that’s true. We’re worlds apart.
She and I don’t agree on hardly anything about how we view the world or the proper ways to move through it.
” Even as she said the words, a few counterarguments rose up, but she tried to push them down.
“Daphne’s not what I’m looking for in a long-term partner. ”
“Why not?” Brooke and Tegan pushed at the same time Sawyer and Robin both said, “Long term?”
She looked from one couple to the other, not sure which to address first. She was sure she had plenty of rebuttals for either, but her brain was too shot to summon all of them at once.