I Have Come Home by Carla Bruce #4
It’s hard to form thoughts, much less words; Neese surrenders to the hungry pull of pure sensation.
Audrey’s soft cheek beneath the slow drag of her knuckles, mapping the glorious expanse of her jaw and neck by touch.
The taste of her. Audrey’s teeth, tugging cautiously, so slowly at her lower lip—igniting another tug deep in her belly.
Neese exhales a quiet moan into Audrey’s open mouth.
The tacit, burning need for more, closer, the kiss deepening as Audrey swings a leg over Neese’s lap to straddle her in one smooth movement, Neese’s arms encircling her instantly, pressing her closer.
As Neese chuckles quietly, her brain unlocks long enough for her to quip, “I said you were graceful.” She speaks the words into Audrey’s ear, as she’s been wanting to kiss there for months.
To her utter delight, Audrey shudders, hands clenching hard on Neese’s shoulders. “Do that again,” she orders, breathless, so Neese does, singularly attuned to her reactions, determined to coax out even more—even if it takes all night.
Neese and her parents have had a tradition since her freshman year: one visit every semester to have lunch together on campus, catch up, and see how Neese lives. But trying to plan this one meant so many postponements due to her relentless workload that they compromised with a phone call instead.
A pity, when Neese had been entertaining vague fantasies about having a long overdue conversation with her parents, in which she might finally tell them the truth. The burden of her secret is like a physical weight now.
Her mother’s initial questions remain endearingly familiar, and annoying.
Is Neese sleeping enough? Eating enough?
Does she need anything from home? Then her father’s deep voice crackles over the line, looking for updates on her professors and classes, feedback on her latest assignments.
Lying back in her bed, the long cord of her phone coiled between her fingers, Neese finds it increasingly difficult to stay focused on the conversation, her mind a tangle of longing, suffering a visceral pull back to Bethune Annex, back to Audrey’s orbit, their heated embrace, consuming kisses.
The memory, as always, comes accompanied by a swift electric current, shorting out her synapses, a brushfire of remembered want.
It’s unbearable. Is Audrey thinking of her now, too?
“Alright, babygirl, I have to run,” her dad says, finally snapping her back to attention. “Giving the phone to your momma. Be good.”
“Bye, Dad,” Neese says, rolling her eyes at the outdated sign-off. As her parents shuffle the phone, her eyes fall on a pile of laundry that’s been waiting for her attention, so she reluctantly sits upright to deal with it.
“So,” her mom begins, instantly sparking suspicion. “Are you…going around with anyone special?”
Neese’s fingers still as she blinks down at the pair of socks she’s conjoining, her mouth suddenly dry. “Um. Not…um. What makes you ask that?”
There is an amused, long-suffering sigh. “You have always been such a private and mysterious child.”
“Not a child.”
“Does he make you happy?”
The pronoun chafes, as does the assumption, but Neese reasons that further denials or protestations will only invite more unanswerable questions. “It’s…early. We aren’t—” Her mind derails as she contemplates what she and Audrey are not, so she abandons that track. “Yes, very happy.”
“Good.” The word carries a note of finality, even triumph, which hurts most of all. “I’m happy to hear that. But if that ever changes—”
“I know,” Neese interrupts, a half-truth.
What does she know? Not too much, actually.
She becomes aware of the growing ache in her chest as it climbs to her throat, so she says her goodbyes on autopilot, wishing with a ferocity she’s never possessed before that she could find the strength to be honest, for once, that she could confide all of her secret fears and joys to her mother, who so clearly wishes to hear them.
She wonders if and when that impasse can ever be bridged.
She wonders if her mother will just become more of a stranger as they both age, with such a gulf of ignorance growing between them.
After a long three-day weekend visiting home, Audrey doesn’t show up to Language and Comp. Neese thinks about going to her dorm and immediately talks herself out of it, not wanting to appear needy or desperate. When she doesn’t show up to LSA either, CeCe seems equally puzzled by her absence.
“I haven’t heard from her since Friday,” she explains as the members arrange the chairs in their usual circle, lines of concern etched between her eyebrows. “I thought she’d be back by now…I hope she’s okay.”
Before Neese can respond, the doors fly open, admitting Blue and Cyrus, who are uncharacteristically late, and by the looks of it, fuming.
“They said no!” Cyrus bursts out, eyes ablaze, bringing all conversation to a screeching halt.
“The dean looked over everything we submitted—the petition, the letter of intent, all those damn signatures, which were more than the ten required, I hasten to add, and said he couldn’t write a letter recommending the organization. ”
“What?” Aja gasps, looking to Blue for confirmation. “What does he mean, he can’t?”
“He means he won’t,” Blue says, a quiet tremor in her voice. “Of course he could. He has no reason not to.”
“Except homophobia.” Cyrus is already pacing at the front of the classroom, his movements agitated, lacking his usual mindless grace. “I knew, I knew this would happen, didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I?”
“Not helping,” Blue growls, sinking into an empty chair, slumping until her head is leaned back against the edge, and staring woodenly at the ceiling. “We have to appeal. The world is changing, and it’s embarrassing that this administration doesn’t see that.”
“Okay, but how?” Rashad demands, looking from one cofounder to the other. “How do we appeal?”
“More signatures…rethink the petition, make it stronger, and march in there every damn day demanding a real reason they’ve denied us,” Cyrus says. “Or—”
“No,” Blue interjects, shaking her head. “I mean, yes. But that can’t be all. We need more numbers. They need to see that this isn’t about us, it isn’t just a gathering for gays.”
“Let’s just hold a member drive on The Yard,” Val suggests, shrugging. “I see other clubs do it all the time. I know we’ve been on the down-low for safety reasons, but maybe it’s time to put our money where our mouth is.”
“There’s more safety in numbers,” Rashad agrees. “There have to be more of us on campus.”
Neese listens as the others parry ideas back and forth, feeling both energized and out of her depth.
If the university refused their first attempt to ratify their organization, wouldn’t continuing to meet and press for more members signify some sort of rebellion?
Neese is far from the days of getting an irate phone call home to her parents for misbehavior, a consequence she associates with the petty mischief of high school, but would this rank proportionally higher in terms of on-campus misdeeds?
Why is she so hung up on this, anyway? Shouldn’t she be more concerned with being a part of the larger movement that her brave schoolmates are leading than with her own family’s reaction to her being gay?
How can she reorganize emotional priorities when fear has been a guiding factor for most of her life?
“What do y’all think?” Jordan asks, looking at her and CeCe, interrupting her increasingly panicked train of thought. “About recruiting younger students? Are there other things we should take into consideration?”
CeCe glances at Neese, looks around at the expectant faces. “Well…if this hasn’t been thought of already, maybe someone who’s good with words can write something for The Hilltop. Like a personal essay?”
“An op-ed!” Cyrus snaps his fingers at CeCe, pleased. “Shit, a reported piece! We need all the press.”
“Why stop there?” Diamond wonders. “The Post is right here. They were all over the march in October. Howard University suppressing Black gay students trying to organize and break new ground? Let’s give them the real low-down.”
There’s a momentary hush, another near-tangible shift as the weight of their shared endeavor triples.
The silence is broken by the door opening: It’s Audrey, more wan and exhausted than Neese has ever seen her.
Her brows furrow in confusion as she takes everybody in, and then her eyes fall on Neese, her expression softening.
“Sorry I’m late,” she says, closing the door gingerly behind her. “What’s going on?” She glances at Blue and Cyrus. “Did you hear back from the dean?”
“Yes, and it was about what we expected,” Cyrus said. “Stop hovering, girl, sit down. We’re making plans. We’re not going out that easy.”
“You okay?” CeCe whispers as soon as Audrey brings a chair over to where she and Neese are seated.
Audrey shakes her head, leans in to hug them both.
Neese takes the liberty of holding her close for an extra second or two, trying not to be too obvious about inhaling that particular sweet and slightly nutty scent that she’d been dreaming of for the past two weeks—surprised to feel Audrey clinging just as tightly back.
Neese weathers Audrey’s silence over the next few days, even and especially during Language and Comp.
Seated beside each other but not exchanging the small glances and notes that have been sustaining so much of their growing connection.
She doesn’t quite understand what is going on with Audrey but imagines it has something to do with her visit home. She tells herself she won’t pry.