The Things She Kept

by Rosalie Marie Whitton

  Riley uses their clasped hands to hold her weight so she can half-heartedly smack at Willa’s shoulder. Underneath her, Willa’s laughing again, and the way she can feel that laugh all over just from how they’re fitted together is- it’s a lot.

  She tells Willa to shut up but doesn’t quite get it out before Willa’s kissing her. The mild discomfort of being ‘in charge’ is gone the moment Willa has a strong, sure arm around her waist- she knows what’s coming, and she’s right. Willa flips them, a little awkwardly, shifting and settling between Riley’s legs and slotting her lips against the spot where her pulse jumps between her neck and shoulder. Riley clings, one arm around Willa’s neck and her other hand gripping Willa’s hip. She doesn’t hear it the first time. She’s too busy dragging her hand along Willa’s ribs, searching for the ticklish spot she knows is there.

  Willa repeats it.

  “There’s more than one way to do this.”

  Even the second time, Riley doesn’t get it. It doesn’t quite make it through her head until she gets a little frustrated that nothing’s ‘happening’. Willa’s waiting for her to answer. More than one way to-

  “Oh. I’m not- I’ve never-”

  “Gone down on a girl? Mega surprise.”

  “Shut up,” Riley repeats, breathlessly, blushing again.

  Willa kisses her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone, with a clear intent to go further and a gentle reassuring hand on Riley’s abdomen.

  “Nobody’s ever done that. This. To me.”

  “Straight men are terrible at sex,” Willa observes, somewhere between Riley’s collarbone and shoulder, and Riley threads her fingers into Willa’s hair to tug her back. Eye contact says the things Riley’s not quite brave enough to say. It’s not like she’s at all worried that Willa’s going to disrespect her ‘no’, or say anything about it, but she doesn’t like the idea that she might be a disappointment.

  It’s not that she doesn’t want it. She doesn’t know whether or not she does, exactly, but she knows that it’s not like she’s disgusted by the idea, it’s just- “Too much?”

  Willa’s face softens when she asks, and she reaches to push a few stray hairs out of Riley’s face, gentle as ever. Riley nods, silent, embarrassed, disappointed a bit in herself but not enough to change her mind.

  “Hey, that’s okay.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. This way’s fun too.”

  ***

  Riley ends up staying the night. This time she picks a shirt out of Willa’s dresser, a Ghostbusters shirt she dredges up from underneath the more respectable shirts that’s big on Willa and long enough on Riley that she can walk around in it and her underwear without apparently worrying about it.

  She slips into bed and curls up beside Willa, who rolls onto her side so that Riley can sidle up behind her and pull her close. It’s backwards from how things usually are, but it’s nice, until she starts thinking and ruins things for herself.

  “Quentin says I’m gonna get called up for the pre-Olympic camp.”

  Willa looks over her shoulder and smiles a little, enough that Riley can see it in the light from the window. “I bet you will,” she says, and Riley rolls her eyes, but her heart thumps in her chest.

  “It’s just weird to think about. Cause I could- I mean, if I do, if I worked hard enough, I could even go, you know. Hypothetically.”

  It’s not as hypothetical as she’s making it sound, and even as humble as she is, she knows that. She knows who’s been at her games lately and she knows they’ve been talking about her. The idea of a chance to put on the red white and blue jersey at the Olympics- or at all, on the senior team- makes her want to laugh and cry at the same time. She’s wanted it forever, and she knows Willa knows that without her having to say it.

  It’s one of those things they have in common. It’s a soccer thing and it’s not something Willa will talk about or something Riley would try to bring up, because Willa’s voice gets so soft and unsure when she talks about it that it’s scary. The real problem isn’t that Riley doesn’t know what she wants- it’s that she isn’t sure what she ought to do. She finds Willa’s hand resting on her stomach and laces their fingers together, burying her face in Willa’s shoulder for a while before she finds it in herself to speak again. “I can’t do summer school if I get called in to camp and go,” she points out, as if Willa isn’t already smart enough to have figured that out. Willa rolls over, and for a moment Riley’s afraid she’s going to be pissed.

  She’s not. Her brows are creased in concern, and she takes Riley’s face in her cool hands and kisses her on the lips and on the nose and forehead.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  It shocks Riley so much that she almost cries. She can tell that Willa knows, even before she ducks her head out of Willa’s grasp and blinks the tears back.

  “It would probably be easier to ask me what I’m not afraid of,” she says, rubbing her eyes, trying to feign as if she’s sleepy instead of on the verge of tears. Willa looks like she might be buying it, which makes Riley brave enough to crack a smile. “I’m not afraid of you,” she offers, but Willa doesn’t smile back.

  “Are you afraid you’re gonna get there and play badly?”

  Riley thinks about it for a moment, but even though the idea wrenches her guts it’s not what she’s been feeling all this time. It scares her in another way, in the normal way she’s scared before any game, but not the way she feels when she thinks about the Olympics. The way she feels then is something closer to the way she feels when Willa looks at her really sincerely, a feeling more in her chest than in her stomach. She shakes her head.

  Willa tries again, this time reaching out and tilting Riley’s chin up so that they make eye contact again in a way that makes Riley shudder.

  “Are you afraid you’re gonna get there and- and kick ass?”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to love it and never want anything as much,” Riley blurts, before it even occurs to her that it’s what she means or what she feels. The tears come fast and hot then, and she can’t hide them from Willa, who doesn’t let her look away. For a few seconds nothing is said, Willa just rubs away her tears with gentle hands and then kisses her, on the lips and nose and cheeks.

  “You will,” she says, and to Riley it sounds like a promise.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I’ve never done this before,” Willa says through a mouthful of peanuts. Riley’s never met anyone who digs through trail mix for anything but M&M’s, but she doesn’t mind. It makes it easier for her to get at the almonds. They lean back on the hood of Willa’s jeep, resting against the windshield, and Willa checks her watch.

  “Next flight takes off right now,” she says. The end of her sentence is cut off by the roar of a plane, and she cranes their necks to see behind them, where the plane is coming from.

  “That totally ruins the point!” Riley shouts, and Willa looks back at her just in time for the plane to fly right over them, shaking the car beneath them, drowning out everything including the sound of her own heartbeat. Together they watch as it climbs out of sight, past the clouds and into the darkness.

  “Don’t turn around to see it coming,” Riley says, “this time just-wait for it, okay? You gotta let it just happen.”

  “You should take your own advice,” Willa says, picking out another peanut and crunching it between her teeth, “that’s like, exactly what I’m trying to say with this camp thing.”

  “We came here to distract me from waiting for that call,” Riley reminds her, but even that sends a pang of nerves through her that leaves her wringing her hands.

  “Sorry,” Willa says, and she does seem to mean it, “I just mean, don’t worry about it. It’ll come.”

  Riley is about to ask her what time it is when the next plane takes off. She hears it coming and closes her eyes, telling herself that when she opens them, the plane will be right there. Willa reaches for her hand and squeezes her fingers. Riley opens her eyes and
watches the plane leave them behind.

  “Why are you so good to me?”

  The question is out before she realizes she’s asking it. Willa turns her head to look at Riley, who knows that if she looks she’s going to cry, and stares up at the sky out of stubbornness.

  “Do you not think you deserve that?” she asks, rubbing her thumb along the back of Riley’s hand.

  “I never thought about it,” Riley admits, “but sometimes it feels like I have all this shit, you know? All this-mess, and you help it so much, and I don’t feel like I’m helping you at all. I just feel like a weight.”

  Now she is crying, and it feels ridiculous; she cries in front of Willa so often it’s like Willa’s her therapist and not her girlfriend sometimes and she hates it. That she does not say out loud, though. That she keeps to herself while the tears leak despite how hard she tries to keep them at bay. Willa reaches for her, taking her hand away so that she can take Riley’s face in her hands and turn them so they’re facing each other. She holds eye contact with Riley for as long as Riley can stand it before she just closes her eyes and cries.

  The next plane flies over.

  “You have no idea,” Willa says. “You have no idea what you’ve done for me, do you?”

  Riley shakes her head and Willa kisses her forehead, pulling her in close.

  “Let me tell you what my life was like before you, okay? I was-I woke up, I went to school. I studied, I went for a run, maybe watched some TV, went to sleep. Woke up and did it again. Every single day was exactly the same. There was nothing to look forward to or get excited about or even care about. I wasn’t even like, spectacularly depressed and crying all the time or having meltdowns or anything. I just didn’t care about anything. I didn’t care so much that I wasn’t even worried about the fact that I didn’t care.” Riley sniffles, curling into Willa, pressing her face into Willa’s neck as the next plane roars over them. Imagining Willa like that doesn’t make her feel much better, primarily because that’s a life she’s sure she’s headed for. It’s how she imagines she’ll feel if she ends up actually using her business degree: safe. Suffocatingly safe. But Willa’s not done.

  “And then you happened and I started watching you play,” she says, dropping her head so that her chin rests against Riley’s shoulder. “That was the first time I’d been anywhere near a soccer field since I opted out of the draft, and it didn’t even hurt. It was perfect.”

  Riley remembers. She remembers especially looking up once to see Willa talking to Quentin, and the deep burn of jealousy that had taken her by surprise. Tonight what surprises her, again, the way it usually does, is that Willa is hers. She slides her hand up Willa’s back, cupping her shoulders, holding her as close as she can.

  “You reminded me why I loved soccer,” Willa tells her, “why I do love soccer and I’ll always love it. It’s a part of me, and it’s a part of me that scared me so much that I tried to run away from it. But you brought it back. You brought me back. And I’ll never be able to find a way to thank you enough, Riles. I’m not a words person. So helping you is the only way I can think of to show you.”

  ***

  Now it’s Willa’s turn to cry, and Riley’s turn to be the strong one. She’s not entirely sure how long it’s been since she’s done this, cried properly like this, and she’s almost embarrassed about it but doesn’t have the energy, Riley holds her, and they shift so that Willa’s buried in the front of her sweatshirt, wetting it despite how hard she tries to stop. This is the exact opposite of why they came out here-they’re here for Riles-but it feels good, in a twisted way, to let go. It’s something she needed, no matter how much she tried to repress it.

  “You’re gonna be okay,” Riley murmurs, “you’ll figure it out.”

  It’s nonsense words, but they’re comforting anyway. Willa’s just taken her first deep breath when Riley’s phone buzzes. It’s in Riley’s front pocket so it buzzes against Willa’s thigh, confusing her until Riley reaches down to pull it out-and then she realizes and sits up just as another plane flies overhead.

  She can’t hear what’s happening, and can’t tell from the look on Riley’s face or the words she’s saying, words like “yes” and “uh-huh” and “okay” and “thank you” as she hangs up. She doesn’t know for sure until Riley drops the phone back into her lap and stares, stunned, into the sky.

  “Holy shit,” Willa laughs, “I was right.”

  “July,” Riley murmurs, “July through September.”

  “Dude,” Willa says, “Riley,” and Riley looks at her, eyes wide in surprise with no recognition until Willa nudges her and a grin breaks out over her face.

  “Oh my God,” she squeaks, and Willa laughs again. Riley launches herself into Willa’s arms and Willa catches her, leaning back against the windshield of the Jeep again as Riley settles into her lap, her hair falling into Willa’s face as she says again, “Oh my God.”

  Willa twirls a length of Riley’s hair around one finger, memorizing the way the joy and excitement lights up her face. Riley maintains eye contact for a moment, and then her eyes fall to Willa’s lips, and Willa’s eyes wander too. Riley smiles when Willa’s eyes fall to her lips, adjusting the way she braces against the windshield, in a way that reminds Willa of how Riley’s resting against her hips.

  “Hey,” Willa says, softly, and Riley’s soft, gossamer hair blows into her face as the next plane flies over them.

  “Hey,” Riley replies, her grin turning sly. Willa slides a hand under her sweatshirt, and Riley leans into it, dipping down to kiss her in a way that make Willa’s heart jump into her throat. Willa loops her other hand around behind Riley’s neck, threading fingers into her hair and slipping her tongue past Riley’s lips. Riley softens against her, into the kiss, bracing herself now with one hand on the windshield and one on Willa’s shoulder.

  When they finally get back in the car Riley’s handprint is still there, smudged in the headlights of oncoming traffic. Riley spends the whole ride with her hands in her lap grinning to herself about how worked up she got Willa-Willa knows this because she knows Riley well enough now to know she counts each time as a personal victory, and they couldn’t even do anything on the hood of her car other than kiss and fumble like teenagers.

  “I’m going to Michigan,” Riley says, mostly to herself.

  ***

  Willa doesn’t try to make a move when they get back. Actually, she’s expecting Riley to go home, but Riley gets out of the car and follows her in, and in the foyer she stands with her hands swallowed up by the too-long sleeves of her sweatshirt and gives Willa a look.

  “What?” Willa says, placing her keys on the counter behind her.

  “I’ll miss you,” Riley answers. “When I go away.”

  Willa reaches out and cups Riley’s face in one hand, drawing her in for a hug.

  “I’ll miss you too,” she replies, but having Riley pressed up close to her again, after kissing for so long on the hood of her car- is a lot. She buries her face in Riley’s hair and breathes in, then holds her breath when Riley’s hand slides across her stomach. She’s about to warn Riley, to ask her not to tease, but then Riley’s lips skim across her collar and she decides against it.

  “We shouldn’t have made out like that,” Riley says as Willa pulls away far enough to look her in the eye.

  “Maybe we made someone’s Snapchat story,” Willa jokes, and Riley shakes her head, still smiling.

  “I didn’t want to stop,” she admits, and Willa’s heart skips a beat. Riley’s blushing, but she never breaks eye contact. Something’s changed, something Willa isn’t sure how to name. She doesn’t try to speak, afraid she’ll scare Riley off whatever she’s trying to say, and Riley’s hand slides around to her lower back, fingertips pressing against Willa’s spine.

  “I never wanted anyone like this,” she admits, “before you. I never wanted a boy like this.”

  “I love you,” Willa says, but it doesn’t slow Riley down.

  “
I kind of wonder if you feel like that,” Riley says, a second hand snaking under Willa’s shirt, resting against her hip, “if you feel like this.”

  “I do,” Willa replies quickly, “Riley, I-you have no idea. It would probably freak you out how bad I want you.”

  “Right now?” Riley asks, and in the awe on her face there’s a trace of mischief that makes Willa grin at her.

  “Always,” she assures, “every time you look at me.”

  “Show me,” Riley says, and Willa leans down to do it.

  ***

  Riley’s fairly sure that she’s lost her mind.

  Willa’s mouth has that effect on her. She grips Willa’s bedspread in both hands, leaning her head back against the headboard behind her as Willa’s hot breath moves across her shoulder. Her shirt is already on the ground, and Willa is working at the clasp of her bra, and it’s all moving much faster than it ever had before, like Willa has decided not to be careful anymore. It’s better this way than it was. Better with Willa’s teeth scraping over her pulse point and one of Willa’s hands tossing her bra away, the other cupping her under her shirt.

  She rolls her thumb and Riley moans, clawing at the back of Willa’s shirt.

  Willa kisses along her stomach, and Riley doesn't feel the twinge of panic that she used to. This time it's a twinge of something else, of desire and excitement. Willa is still so slow and gentle, even with her hands shaking, even with her kissing Riley's hipbone as she presses Riley's legs apart. It's not the first time, but it feels like something new. It feels like she's becoming someone else.

  She can't find it in her to care until she catches her breath.

  ***

  “So the deadline for Maymester is tomorrow,” Riley says.

  “Yes,” Willa agrees slowly.

  It’s like an old-fashioned western face-off in her own kitchen. Riley blinks, crossing her arms, and Willa tries her hardest not to notice the whole lack-of-pants situation for the sixtieth time. This is more important.

  “So?” Willa asks, even though every part of her is telling her not to.