18 #3
“Oya, calm down.” She laughed. “So. Uh. Remember when I told you and Bernice that he’d suggested we, sort of, have our first time with each other? And you said we should try kissing if jumping straight into things felt too strange.”
“Right.” Her lips twitched. “I’m guessing you did more than kiss.”
“We did more than kiss,” I confirmed solemnly, needing to make light of the situation or I’d literally explode. “And it was so fucking good, Fiona. So good that I don’t know if what I’m feeling is actual romantic love or if I’m just riding some sexual high.”
She frowned, quiet for a moment, then said, “So, you think if you went to bed right now and woke up tomorrow, all these feelings would disappear?”
I bit my lower lip. No. They weren’t going to disappear. I knew that. I’d known that from the moment Uzezi had asked me to continue with this unusual “pact” of ours, and I hadn’t spared a single moment to even think about it before saying yes.
I couldn’t say any of that out loud, so I simply shook my head. My eyes burned. I pressed my hands fitfully to them to keep the tears from falling.
“Oh, honey.” Fiona walked up to me, wrapping me in a tight hug. “Is your fear really about that?” she whispered into my shoulder. “Or is it that you’re afraid he might not feel the same?”
“I ... I suspect he might feel the same.” I wasn’t sure if that thought terrified or excited me.
“But ... I’m just so afraid of things changing.
” I swallowed down a sob. “What if doing this, acknowledging this, is going to be a mistake? It just feels like going back to the way things were would be ... safer.” Pretend the last few days had never happened, as heart wrenching as that might be.
But what was a little heartache now compared to a future world of hurt?
“Right. Yeah. Change is scary,” Fiona said lightly, her gaze faraway. I remembered suddenly about her thing with Tamara and Ezra, wondering once again if it was a thing, or if I was projecting.
“Change is scary, but it can be good, too,” Bernice said, and we both jumped, turning to find her standing in the open doorway, empty cereal bowl in hand.
“I swear, you walk like a cat sometimes,” Fiona said.
Bernice shrugged, grinning unapologetically as she took her bowl to the sink.
“You know what I love most about all of us? Especially after I realised I was aroace? It’s the way we view friendships.
I love it so much that we treat it as something to cherish, neither more nor less than any other kind of relationship.
” She dropped her washed bowl upside down on the rack, then turned to face me.
“If you try the romantic shit with him and it doesn’t work out, or if dating him ends up feeling ...
wrong, then you’ll simply go back to being friends without it affecting the mutual love and respect you have for each other. ”
Put like that, it sounded so fucking easy. But I thought about Uzezi, Bernice’s words swirling in my head, and I knew it was true. The thing I was really scared of wasn’t us potentially breaking up in the future—which was still a fear, but a distant one—it was the change itself.
It was potentially adding a new label or two to our relationship.
It was those labels changing how we interacted with each other, and how the world would in turn interact with us and vice versa.
It was about us maybe trying to fit in this entire new way, and it ended up not working.
It was about a lot of things, well, changing.
It was the fact that my love for my best friend had evolved so quickly, so effortlessly that by the time I’d noticed, I was already unrelentingly besotted.
Utterly and completely gone for him. As though the possibility had always been there, lurking underneath; I’d barely skimmed the surface when I was suddenly underwater, with no idea which way was up.
And that was terrifying. Because how could it happen that quickly? How could I never have noticed?
“Looks like you’ve figured out some shit of your own just now, eh?” Fiona said to Bernice.
Bernice blushed. “Abeg, leave me alone.”
I glanced playfully toward the cupboards. “Was it something in the cereal?”
“Ha, ha. I’m leaving.”
We watched her go. I thought about asking Fiona about Tamara and Ezra, wanting to see if maybe she also needed a listening ear or whatever, but she asked, tone falsely bright, “Do you need any help?”
“I’m good, but thank you.”
“I’ll just head back to my room, then.” Yeah, she definitely didn’t want me to ask. “Just ... let me know when you’re done cooking. Thank you, by the way.”
“Psh. It’s no problem at all.”
She left, and I turned my focus back to quickly whipping up our dinner. Even though the talk had calmed me somewhat, I still refused to think about what would happen tomorrow because it made me feel like I was going to be sick.
But, just as Bernice said, whatever the future held, the one thing I knew would remain a constant was the honest love and respect Uzezi and I shared for each other, be it platonic or romantic.
We’d take this step—whatever “this step” might look like; staying friends or becoming something else—as we tackled nearly everything else: together.