“I’m wounded,” Erika said.
She sat on Steph’s front porch, legs crossed, fingers wiggling to amuse the kitten on her lap. Steph sat beside her with her knees to her chest and thought about making some more lemonade, or maybe some snacks—but mostly she thought about Erika, and how close she was.
“I just didn’t want to come up to you and saddle you with those two,” Steph argued, a hand on the back of the kitten napping beside her. “You’d just asked me to dinner.”
“So?”
“So!”
Erika laughed. Steph liked that the things that worried her seemed silly to Erika. It made her less anxious, like she could screw up and Erika would just laugh like it was all fine.
“I’d still take them in now,” Erika said. “I mean—if you were going to give one of them away or something, I’d totally adopt it. The house’s so empty. I miss a pet.”
Steph resisted the urge to snap that she wasn’t going to give them away because she was going to stay in this town forever so there was no reason to do that—and instead gave the other woman a smile.
“It’s kitten season, Erika,” Steph told her slowly, but her voice was joking, and Erika rolled her eyes, good-natured. “You could literally just walk around for a bit and bam! You’d find a damn cat to adopt.”
“I’m already attached to these, though!”
“Then you should visit them more often,” Steph said before she could back out of saying it.
She immediately regretted it. Oh, god, why did she say something so stupid and cheesy? Erika was going to laugh in her face—
“Then I will,” Erika told her easily.
“Oh,” Steph said, and deflated, anxiety leaving her.
“So, when’re you coming back?” Erika said. “So we can set the date for that date.”
“A couple of days,” Steph told her, feeling her face flush at Erika’s mention of their date. “I should be back on Friday afternoon. We can go have dinner any time.”
Erika sighed dramatically. “So, you’ll leave me here to wait for—what, three whole days? How cruel.”
Steph rolled her eyes.
“But I suppose this could count as a date,” Erika continued, and let herself fall back until she was lying on Steph’s porch. She held her kitten and brought it with her, set it down on her stomach. “We’re together, we’re alone, we’re talking. All things people do on dates.”
“I suppose,” Steph agreed, voice low. Everything had gone fine so far. This could count as a good date. She tilted her head to the side to keep on looking at Erika.
The other woman looked steadily back at her, not prone to averting her eyes as Stephanie was, and somehow that gave Steph the strength to not look away.
“I haven’t been a date in a long time,” Erika confessed in a murmur. “I’m assuming someone in this damn place already told you about the divorce?”
“Jay told me,” Steph admitted. “The very day I met him.”
“Damn gossips,” Erika said with an eye roll. “I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but—I never dated anyone who wasn’t her.”
Steph tapped a foot against the floor. Her feet were bare, the tops of it red. She poked the burned skin.
“Married your childhood sweetheart?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” Steph murmured. “About your divorce. Jay—uh, not wanting to keep on with the gossip thing, but—Jay told me you were pretty bad when you moved back here? “
“It’s fine.” Erika rolled to the side to look at Steph and propped her head up in a hand. “It wasn’t the divorce, really. I mean, it was awful. But…” She traced patterns in the wood of the porch with a finger. Her kitten followed it with its eyes, intense. “I lost the future I’d always been certain I’d have. I didn’t think we were fine, exactly, but I didn’t know it’d gotten so bad. I didn’t ever think we’d break up. I thought we’d have kids soon, move back here together.”
“I’m sorry,” Steph repeated.
“Then she wanted a divorce!” Erika shook her head. “It was this awfully long thing, it took a year to settle everything, and I didn’t love her—I didn’t. But she’d been my partner for something like fifteen damn years and—there’d been love, once. You know. And then she was hiring a lawyer to try and get as much of my inheritance as possible.”
Stephanie couldn’t contain a wince. She’d never had a wife, but she’d had a partner—she and Pedro joked but they both meant it when they talked about building a life together. The thought of him doing something like this to her was unbearable.
But it’d happened to Erika.
“Why… why did she want a divorce?” Steph asked, then felt blood rush up to her face. “That was rude, I’m sorry! You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. I’m sorry.”
Erika shook her head, unbothered.
“It’s fine,” she said. “She… fell in love with someone else. She didn’t cheat on me! She just… thought the possibility with that other woman was worth more than our future. So she sat with me and said she wanted to slip up.”
Just like that.
“My friend died,” Steph said, eyes on the floor. “Not that I—not that I’m comparing, or that I meant to change the subject. I just… lost him too.“
“It’s fine,” Erika said with her own grimace. “Please, do change the subject. I’m really regretting dumping all of that on you, now. We haven’t even been in a date yet. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t—don’t be sorry,” Steph told her, hugging her knees closer to her chest. “I’m glad you told me.”
Erika picked up her cat and hugged it to her chest.
“What about your friend?” she asked in a low voice.
Steph crossed her arms above her knees and hide her face in them. The sadness, for a moment, was big enough to make her breath hitch, to make her regret mentioning him at all—but they were sitting on the porch of the home she and Pedro chose together, and if there was one place she could talk about him, it was here.
It was his house. He was buried far away, but he lived here with her, too. His ghost.
“It was a robbery gone wrong,” Steph said with a humorless smile: Pedro’s death could be summarized in such small words. “He was in a store, a bunch of armed men came in. Things went wrong. He got shot...”
“I’m sorry,” Erika said. “That’s awful.”
Stephanie shrugged. “He had life insurance, though. Enough to pay for the hospital and then some, and his parents knew we’d wanted to move away—we’d been saving money for years, we had the house picked out.” Steph rubbed her face against her arm, trying to dry her tears. “They didn’t want the money they got from their son’s death, so they gave it to us. It was enough to put a down payment for the house. So here I am.”
She tipped herself back and laid down on the porch like Erika was, feeling too open, but she was tired of curling up, too.
“My job is mostly online and all, so I moved in right away,” she added.
Erika played with the paws of her kitten. “They gave it to… us?” she asked, hesitant.
Steph turned to look at Erika, who seemed very focused on her cat.
“Me and Donald,” Steph told her. “Pedro wasn’t… he wasn’t my boyfriend, but he was my best friend and my partner and we… we were going to have a life together. Donald’s our friend, and we were going to move in together, the three of us. But Don got a job he can’t leave and some problems he has to deal with, and he couldn’t come.”
“Oh,” Erika said. “I suppose—I’m sorry. That was awful. But I’ve never seen two people who wanted to build a life together and weren’t, like, together.”
Steph laughed; she definitely wasn’t the first. Erika blinked at her, surprised, having expected anything but that reaction.
“But you’d still be open to romantic relationships?” Erika asked, letting her mouth tug up in a smile.
“Well,” Steph said, her laugh lingering at the corner of her
lips, “if she was okay with my weird platonic partnership thing.”
“So, if everything had been fine, and you’d moved here with the two of them… we’d have met anyway.”
Steph felt something in her chest grow soft, and when she smiled at Erika it was with no nervousness, no anxiety over spilling her stupid story to her. Just something like happiness curled up between her lungs.
“Yeah,” she said. “But would you have been okay with my weird platonic partnership thing?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But… I think after a while I’d have figured out you were worth it.”
But Steph really wasn’t, was she? Her fingers gripped at each other over her stomach. She regretted not having a way to hide her face.
“Would you?” she asked, voice small.
When Erika reached out it was a hesitant thing. Her hand brushed messy strands of hair away from Stephanie’s face without touching her skin like she’d figured Steph was too shy, like she was afraid Steph would bolt if she moved too suddenly. But Steph stayed still, heart beating a mile a minute in her chest, face red—eyes locked on Erika’s, and Erika grew bold. She dragged herself closer, cupped Steph’s cheek in her hand.
Her skin was warm. Everything was warm: the wood under them, the breeze, the looks Erika gave her. It was high summer, the day a blue and green thing. It was the perfect time to fall in love.
When Erika kissed her, her mouth was very warm, too. Her lips were plump and her lipstick red; Steph arched herself up and kissed back and imagined her own lips being stained. Erika slid her hand back to the back of Steph’s neck, her touch uncomfortable against Steph’s burned skin—but Steph shivered anyway.
“You are,” Erika murmured against Stephanie’s lips, “so beautiful, Stephanie, so—so cute, god. You picked cats off the street, you made me lemonade—do you hear yourself? Of course, I would.”
“I’m a mess,” she argued, toes curling on the edge of the front steps of her home.
“I like a good mess,” Erika promised her.
Chapter Six
Erika entered her café with light steps. For once everything in her life was fine; the family restaurant was recovering from Edward’s terrible reign over it, she had a date with Stephanie, who would go visit her family soon but would be bad shortly after, and her café had been doing wonderfully. Erika was considering getting a cat. Or a dog. Lu didn’t like pets, but Erika could do whatever she wanted, now.
She waved at people as she walked in, greeting her regulars easily. She nodded at her brother working the register; she needed to talk to him about him finding a damn job—
Oh. Stephanie was there today. Erika barely stumbled as she diverged on her path and made her way to her; she was in the back of the room, sitting at a small table in the corner, her laptop on top of it. She didn’t raise her head when Erika approached. She was probably working; Erika hadn’t thought about it, but her work was probably done almost entirely online.
“Hey, Steph,” she said, grinning at her.
Steph looked up in surprise then grimaced. She gestured at the cellphone she was holding. “Sorry,” she said, “I’ll be done soon?”
Erika backed off. “No, it’s okay! I’m sorry, I didn’t see you were on the phone, I’ll just go— “
“Oh, no, you can—you can stay? I’ll, um, I’ll just be a minute.” She grimaced and turned back to her phone. “It’s—it’s no one. She’s the owner, actually. No, I don’t get free lattes! I don’t even know if they serve lattes here.”
Erika frowned. It’s no one?
Maybe she was talking to someone she didn’t know that well.
“We do,” Erika told her, as she sat down. She didn’t mind creeping into Steph’s conversation if Steph didn’t mind, and she didn’t seem to. Erika wondered who she was talking to. “We serve all the fancy things.”
Steph glanced at Erika and rolled her eyes before going back to her conversation.
“Tomorrow. Yeah, Suz, but actually I wanted to talk—No? I mean, I’m going back home.”
For a second, Erika felt herself freeze. But they’d just talked about her coming back a few days ago, and they had a date. Stephanie wasn’t leaving, no matter what she said...
“No, I’m—" Steph continued, and her knuckles around her phone turned white. “I’m visiting, I told you that. I don’t care—going back home is just an expression. I’ll arrive tomorrow, end of afternoon. Suz. Suzannah, I’m not—I’m—I’ve got work, actually. Okay? I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.”
She let her phone clatter to the table and sighed, moving her hand to card through her hair.
“Everything okay?” Erika asked softly, and still Steph startled.
“Ah—yes, it’s all fine! Sorry about that. It’s all fine.”
Erika proper her cheek up with a hand. “I’ll buy you a latte if you want.”
Stephanie blushed. “I don’t like lattes,” she said. “My sister loves them, though.”
Erika blinked at her. “That was your sister?”
“Yeah. She’s older, two years. She… my family doesn’t like that I moved so far away.”
“They must miss you a lot,” Erika said vaguely, mind stuck on the fact that Stephanie had told her sister that Erika was no one. Maybe she didn’t get along with her sister, maybe she thought it was just too soon. They’d kissed, but they hadn’t been to that dinner date yet…
She knew how shy Steph was. Maybe that was that.
Maybe. Erika decided to not think about it. She was from this small town; she was used to everyone knowing everything.
“But you’re staying, right,” Erika said, drawing patterns on the table with a finger.
“I live here now,” Stephanie said very firmly, an edge of annoyance in her voice. Erika blinked up at her, surprised. “I mean, I’ve got cats now,” she continued in a softer voice, eyes away. “Can’t just abandon them here.”
“I’m glad you’re staying,” Erika said frankly, voice low. “I’d be sad if you left.”
Stephanie bit her bottom lip, reached out to tap a finger against the hand Erika had splayed on the table.
“I’d be sad to leave,” she said, but her eyes were away, and her voice was uncertain, and Erika felt as if Steph had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart.
***
Erika glared at the papers in front of her and tried to focus on the numbers she needed to read.
“—going away, already,” her mother commented to her father. They were both in her kitchen, making dinner for their weekly family dinner, which Erika had liked, then tolerated, and could now barely stand. “You know Thalia, her front door neighbor? She said she knocked the other day and she answered the door without trousers on—”
“Mom, can you not?” Erika asked, turning around with a scowl.
“I’m not saying anything the entire town isn’t saying!” her mother argued, her hands up in a defensive pose. “She doesn’t leave her house nearly at all, she’s always so messy, and she’s nearly thirty and she’s moved here all alone—”
“She’s twenty-six. And also, I’m twenty-eight and live alone and you never said anything,” Erika said, going back to her numbers. These papers were about the finances of her goddamn restaurant and she needed to pay attention, even if she didn’t want to, even if the restaurant was supposed to be her brother’s.
“It’s different with you,” her father said.
“She’s just… weird,” her mother continued, voice somewhat muffled by how she’d turned around to go back to cooking. “She hasn’t met anyone other than Erika and that man, Jay, who isn’t even American. She’s always weirdly dirty whenever she steps out, her appearance is not the best, and she doesn’t look in people’s eyes when she talks.”
Erika glared at her paper and tried to tell herself her parents wouldn’t change their minds no matter if Erika told them Steph didn’t know anyone because she was shy, that she worked online, that she moved here because her friend died, tha
t she was always dirty because she was always working on her garden.
“Seriously, mom,” Erika ground out from behind her teeth. “Who isn’t even American?”
“Oh, Erika, don’t be like that,” her mother tried, turning to her. “We’re not saying anything bad, we’re just commenting. She’s our new neighbor, of course we’re going to talk. Also, we want to know more about this woman you’ve decided to date. I’m just saying, she doesn’t seem like the type to marry, to have kids. Didn’t you want those things? “
“Actually, you should be focusing on the restaurant,” her father said gruffly. “We don’t want a repeat of the past few years, and things have just started to get better.”
“Dad, I’m handling the restaurant perfectly,” Erika said blandly. “And my café. And my love life.”
“If it crashes and burns again—”
“I’m not Edward.”
“Edward is offended,” her brother piped up from the couch, where he was reading a magazine instead of looking for a job.
Erika sighed, rubbing her hands over her face, and fiercely missed Steph’s empty, beautiful house.
***
Erika laid in bed not able to sleep.
Her house was too full when her family had been there, and now it was too empty; the house cracked at night, the wind whistled through the little gaps she’d left in windows, and the lack of another person was almost too much to bear. There was no one using the bathroom or watching TV late at night, walking around with soft steps, or breathing quietly next to her on the bed.
She covered her face in her hands and tried not to miss Luciana.
Stephanie was a beautiful distraction, and Erika had been letting her mind stray to her often enough since they met—but Steph was leaving in a few days and Erika wondered about the anxious knot on her chest. Stephanie was leaving; she hadn’t told her sister about Erika; she hadn’t sounded sure. Erika didn’t know her enough to be so anxious about those things, but she was.
She hadn’t noticed that things were so bad with Lu, and now she was desperate not to let this fledgling relationship escape from between her fingers.
Without Stephanie around, there was nothing to distract her from how anxious the restaurant made her, how lonely she’d been, how much she hated this house. Erika tried to swallow her nerves and sleep.
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