Chapter 30
Ellie woke to bright sunlight and a worrying throb behind her eyes that told her that last night was absolutely about to have consequences. She lay still for a moment, letting it all come to her. I’m in Florida, we went out last night, we went to a bar, we… oh.
She felt herself blush even as she knew she didn’t have anything to blush about, but then she smiled… it all started coming back to her. Spring break, she thought, better late than never.
Next to her Becca was face-down, one arm hanging off the bed, her hair a dark catastrophe against the white pillow.
She was breathing with the slow, heavy rhythm of someone who was either not waking up anytime soon or was desperately trying to get herself into that state.
Either way she was a long way from being ready for coffee, and until coffee she’d be no use to anyone.
Ellie slipped out of bed as quietly as she could, pulling on shorts and a t-shirt. She padded barefoot downstairs to the kitchen.
The house was quiet. The pool glittered undisturbed beyond the glass doors, the sun already high and hot.
Evidence of the previous night was scattered around: wine glasses on the poolside, the rum bottle on the kitchen counter with about an inch left in it, and a single sandal near the terrace door that Ellie was fairly sure belonged to Mia.
She made coffee, strong, tidying up while it brewed, and was standing at the counter taking her first sip when she heard footsteps on the stairs.
Alexa appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing a Georgia Volleyball t-shirt and shorts.
Her blonde hair was piled into a messy bun, her face was bare, and she had the slightly shell-shocked expression of someone who was replaying the previous twelve hours and couldn’t quite believe what her memory was telling her.
“Morning,” Ellie said.
“Morning.” Alexa looked at the coffee. “Is there enough for two?”
“There’s enough for twelve. Help yourself.”
Alexa poured a mug, wrapping both hands around it, and leaned against the counter opposite Ellie. They stood in comfortable silence for a minute, drinking, the kitchen cool but bright around them.
“So,” Alexa said eventually. “Last night got a little wild.”
Ellie smiled. “A little.”
“Yeah.”
Ellie took a sip of her coffee. “So was that the full spring break experience?”
Alexa laughed. “And some. I’d put it around eleven on a scale of one to ten.”
“Even spin the bottle?”
“Especially.” Alexa laughed. “You had fun?”
“Loved it. You? Any regrets?”
“No.” The answer came quickly and with absolute certainty. “No, I don’t regret it. Any of it.” She paused, and something flickered across her face that Ellie couldn’t quite read. “It was kind of amazing, actually.”
“It was kind of amazing.”
“You and Becca are…” Alexa shook her head. “I don’t know how to say this without it sounding weird, so just… You’re really inspiring. The way you are together, even when you’re with other people. There’s this thing between you that never goes away. I could feel it all night.”
“Thank you. That means a lot.” Ellie meant it. “Is Mia up?”
Alexa let out a short laugh. “Mia is absolutely not up. Mia is face-down and making sounds that suggest she might not be up until Tuesday. She isn’t a morning person.” Alexa looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Or a midday person either, thinking about it.”
“Becca’s the same. They must be the same species.” Ellie put her mug down. “You want to go for a walk? Get some brunch? We can bring stuff back for the other two.”
“God, yes. Fresh air sounds incredible.”
They headed out through the gate in the hedge, down the short path to the beach.
The morning was beautiful: white sand, emerald water, the sky a deep, cloudless blue.
It was quiet on their stretch, just a few walkers and a guy throwing a ball for a dog in the distance.
They walked at the water’s edge, the waves washing over their feet, talking about everything except the night before, topics like the water temperature, how different this beach was from the chaos of PCB, Alexa’s plans for after graduation, Ellie’s work in Austin.
The conversation flowed easily, like they were firm friends and not just last night’s entertainment.
They found a cafe at the edge of town and ate outside, Ellie’s treat. Before they left they loaded up with takeout for the casualties, an extra-large orange juice each and a box of pastries.
They were about halfway back along the beach, the house visible in the distance, when Alexa slowed and then stopped.
“Ellie?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I talk to you about something?” She was looking out at the water, not at Ellie, and her voice had changed, the breezy confidence stripped back to something more vulnerable.
“I know I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours, which makes this ridiculous, but I don’t have anyone else I can ask. Not about this.”
“Of course.” Ellie turned to face her. “What’s going on?”
Alexa sat down on the sand, knees pulled up, and Ellie sat next to her, the takeout resting between them. They looked out at the Gulf together, the water flat and glittering, a pelican gliding low over the surface.
“It’s about Mia,” Alexa said.
Ellie waited. She’d learned from Becca that the best thing you could do when someone was working up to something was to give them the silence to find their own way there.
“I’ve been in love with her for a while now,” Alexa said suddenly, and the words came out in a rush, as if she’d been holding them so close for so long that letting them out was explosive. “Two years, give or take. I’ve never told anyone. Not a single person.”
Ellie kept her expression open, present, leaving Alexa the room for whatever she wanted to say. “Ok.”
“She’s my best friend. My teammate. My roommate.
We do everything together, we know everything about each other, and for two years I’ve been carrying this one thing that she doesn’t know about and it’s been…
” She let out a breath. “It’s been really hard.
Because I can’t risk it. If I tell her and she doesn’t feel the same way, I lose everything.
The friendship, the dynamic, living together next year after we graduate. All of it.”
“That’s a lot to hold to yourself.” Ellie paused. “Can I ask you something? Is it just Mia, or have you been interested in any other women?”
Alexa dragged her hand through the sand, letting it run through her fingers. She didn’t answer for a few seconds. “I may have slightly underplayed my prior experience last night,” she said eventually, a wry smile flickering across her face.
“How so?”
“I had a thing with a girl in high school. A teammate. We kept it completely secret, nobody knew, not our friends, not our families, nobody. She even had a boyfriend.” She shrugged.
“It ended when we went to college and we never talked about it again. But it wasn’t just fooling around. It was a relationship. A real one.”
“And Mia doesn’t know that?”
“She knows I hooked up with a girl a few times before I knew her. One of those brags when you first meet people, showing everyone how experienced I was. She doesn’t know it was a relationship. She doesn’t know I’m…” She waved her hand vaguely. “Whatever I am. I’ve never really labelled it.”
“You don’t have to label it.”
“I know. But the point is, she doesn’t know the full picture.
And now…” Alexa’s voice caught slightly.
“Now I slept with her. Last night. Not just when all four of us were… whatever we were doing. After you and Becca went to your room we just… it happened. What I’ve wanted to happen for years.
And it wasn’t drunk fooling around, Ellie.
It wasn’t spin the bottle or spring break or any of that.
It was real. She was looking at me, and I was looking at her, and it was amazing.
We… you get the picture. We didn’t get much sleep. ”
Ellie nodded. “How did she seem? Afterwards?”
“Happy. Like, genuinely happy. We held each other while we fell asleep, we kissed, she kept saying ‘that was amazing’ and so did I.” Alexa’s voice was shaking slightly now.
“And I’m terrified because I don’t know if that was Mia having a wild night at spring break and moving on, or if it was Mia feeling what I’m feeling.
And if I ask and it’s the first one, I’ve ruined everything. ”
“What does your gut tell you?”
Alexa was quiet for a long time. A wave ran up the sand and touched their feet.
“I’ve seen Mia like that with guys. If she hooks up she’s all-in.
But… my gut tells me she felt it too,” she said quietly.
“The way she kissed me wasn’t how you kiss someone you’re hooking up with.
It was… God, it was incredible. And after, when we were lying there, she said something…
” She paused. “She said, ‘We should have done this sooner’. And I didn’t know if she meant earlier in the evening or, like, two years ago. ”
“Did you ask?”
“I was too scared to ask.”
Ellie thought carefully about what to say. This wasn’t her area, she wasn’t the therapist, Becca was, but she knew how to listen, and she could ask the questions that might help Alexa find her own way through it.
“What’s the thing you’re most afraid of?” Ellie asked.
“That I tell her and she panics. That it makes everything weird. That I go from being her best friend to being the friend who’s in love with her, and she can never look at me the same way again.” She shrugged. “That we lose what we already have, which is great.”
“And what’s the best-case scenario?”
Alexa turned to look at her, and her eyes were bright. “That she feels the same way. That last night was the start of something. That we’ve been idiots for years and we finally figured it out.”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Yeah.”
“Before last night, before us, before the kissing game, before any of it, was there ever a moment where you thought Mia might feel the same way?”