by Siera Maley
“I don’t feel the need to have kids,” Chloe told me, and went back to resting her head on my shoulder. “So that works out.”
I let out a laugh despite myself. “I thought we weren’t necessarily talking about me and you.”
“A compatibility test can’t hurt every now and then,” said Chloe, grinning. “Besides, I was neutral, so this was a safe question. I just wanted to get to know you. Start planning our future out early, you know?”
She was joking, I knew, but I had to work hard to hide my sadness. “I’d marry you, if we were together for long enough,” I told her at last, long after she’d fallen silent again. “I want you to know that.”
Chloe raised her head to look at me, a small smile on her lips, and then cupped my cheek in her hand and kissed me softly. “Me too,” she murmured against my lips, and my heart only sank further.
* * *
With Dad’s permission, Chloe was allowed to join me in my room that evening, as long as we kept the door open. I turned on a movie, cut the lights, and we kissed our way through at least the first quarter, until onscreen machine gun fire distracted us long enough to cool us off. I cuddled up next to Chloe, an arm on her stomach, and rested my hand against her heart, counting the beats until I fell asleep.
She was gone when I woke up the next morning. I went downstairs to have breakfast with my dad, who told me, “Deborah and I are going out to a movie tonight. You’re welcome to come along if you’d like. You could bring Chloe.”
I considered accepting, but then a better idea occurred to me, and I shook my head. “That’s okay. I’ll stay in. I need a chill night.”
“Chill night, huh?” he arched an eyebrow at me. “Alright, well, let me know if you change your mind.”
“I will.” I forced a smile as he moved to clear his plate off of the table. When I finished, myself, I went back upstairs and immediately texted Chloe: “No dad at home tonight.”
I didn’t get a response immediately, so I took a shower while I waited, then examined myself in the mirror, self-conscious. My stomach was flat enough even if it could use some work; I’d worn a bikini in front of Chloe before and caught her staring. My breasts were around the same size as hers, so there was nothing to be self-conscious about there.
I turned around, looked down, and wrinkled my nose, reminding myself to buy those special shoes that supposedly made butts look better. I’d caught Chloe wearing a pair on a couple of occasions now.
I inhaled sharply at the reminder, and decided I just wouldn’t let her see my butt. And I’d take another shower that night, right before she came over. Just in case.
“I am so not ready for this,” I mumbled aloud to my reflection. “Get it together. She hasn’t done this before, either.” I paused. Had she? She’d never said she hadn’t, but I’d assumed it’d come up at some point if she’d had. What if she had tons of experience and I had none? What if she’d just kept it quiet so that I didn’t feel embarrassed?
My phone buzzed in my bedroom and I jumped, then closed my eyes and let out a sigh as my heartrate came back down. After a brief pause, I went to go check Chloe’s text.
“Should I come over?”
I hesitated, and not for the reasons I’d talked to Robbie about. I was surprised at myself, because when it came right down to it, my biggest reservations stemmed from my own insecurities about my body and lack of experience. Which were things entirely normal teenagers worried about.
That didn’t exactly make me feel any better, however.
“If you want,” I sent back. This time I got a text back immediately.
“Do you?”
I stared at the phone for a few seconds. I imagined Chloe waiting with her phone on the other end. I wondered if she was anywhere near as nervous about this as I was. “I think so,” I started to type out, but then deleted it and sent instead: “Yes.”
Her response was instantaneous. “What time?”
* * *
I went on a run that day for much longer than I should’ve, and wound up with achy legs by the time I got back home in the afternoon. It felt silly, but I couldn’t help but spend the day nitpicking at every little thing I wanted to fix about myself. I plucked hairs, I moisturized, and I showered two more times instead of just once: another time after my run, and again about an hour before Chloe was due to show up. I wanted everything to go perfectly.
Dad and Deborah left just after nine o’clock, right on schedule, and I made myself not dress up or put a ton of makeup on. Chloe was too confident to do that, and I felt like I’d look lame if I did it and she didn’t.
When my doorbell rang ten minutes later than expected, I was surprised to see Chloe breathing hard and looking a little disheveled. She grinned at the sight of me and caught her breath enough to explain, “Your dad told my parents he’d be out for the night, so they wouldn’t let me come over. Had to sneak out.”
“Oh my God,” I marveled, moving aside to let her past me. “Are you gonna get into trouble?”
“Not if they don’t know I’m gone,” she told me. “Besides, I don’t actually care if they figure it out in the morning.” She smiled. “I just care that we get to have some time alone before they figure it out.”
I nodded, feeling more than a little out of my element, but Chloe just laughed at my expression and took me by the hand, leading me upstairs to my bathroom. “Give me like two seconds to stop looking like a troll?” she requested, and when I nodded, she closed the bathroom door behind herself. I stood, blinking at the door, as I heard the sink begin to run. Then I realized I was being awkward and stepped away to head to my room.
I hadn’t really altered it in any way, which I hoped was the right decision. It felt cheesy to light candles or put on music.
I hesitated for a moment, glancing back toward the bathroom door, and then crossed to my bed, sitting on it with my hands in my lap. The sink in the bathroom stopped running, and a few seconds later, Chloe emerged and crossed the hall into my bedroom, pausing in my doorway.
We stared at each other for a moment, and Chloe visibly took in a deep breath, then shook her head and let out a soft laugh. “So I guess we just do this?”
“You have more experience,” I countered immediately. “I thought maybe you’d… I don’t know. Lead?”
She raised both eyebrows. “I have to-? Oh. Okay. Yeah. Totally. Well, I think once we’re making out and everything it should be pretty easy from there.”
“Exactly. Totally easy,” I joked back, and she smiled, leaning against the doorframe with her eyes on me.
“It felt easy the last couple of times, anyway. Last night and at my house. Would’ve been easy to go from there.” She paused. “This probably works better when it isn’t planned, huh?”
I nodded emphatically. “Yes.”
“So… maybe we shouldn’t plan it? Sure, your dad isn’t here, and this might be like the only time we get a chance to do this anytime soon, but we don’t have to.”
“Right.”
“I mean, we’ll probably want to, but if something feels wrong, we can always wait.”
“Ri-… uh.” I paused, thinking that one through for a moment. “No,” I said instead, eyebrows furrowed.
Chloe looked caught between surprise and uncertainty. “No?”
I shook my head, mentally thanking Robbie for knocking some sense into me yesterday. Chloe wasn’t going to be around forever. I wasn’t about to stop this because of some slight jitters. “Mm-mm.” I stood abruptly before I could lose my nerve, took Chloe by the hand, and tugged her toward my bed. Then I crawled onto it, turned myself over, and sat down, cross-legged, as Chloe stood at the foot of it, watching me.
“So you don’t want to wait?” she clarified. “Are you sure?”
“You were the one who said you never wanted to have any regrets,” I pointed out. “We don’t know what’ll happen tomorrow. I don’t want to wait.”
“That’s… morbidly romantic,” she decided. “But are you-?”
“Chloe, stop talking,” I told her with a laugh, and then reached out to take her hand. She crawled onto the bed and over top of me as I resituated myself to rest my head on my pillow. Then she looked down at me, biting her lip.
“Okay,” she sighed out. “I guess I’ll come clean. I’m… kind of still a virgin. In a way.”
I stared at her, taken aback. “In a way?” I echoed.
Her cheeks turned a little pink as she explained, “I was fourteen, and there was, like, three minutes of fumbling around at a sleepover. I don’t think that actually counts.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” I breathed out, and felt some of the tension dissipate as she hung her head and I chuckled. “Like, a hundred times better.”
She raised her head to sigh at me. “But you’re still nervous, right?”
I stopped smiling and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good. Because I am, too.”
“Okay.” I reached up to cup her cheek, chewing on the inside of my cheek for a moment, and then suggested, “Just kiss me?”
“Okay,” she echoed, and leaned down to do just that.
And once we’d started kissing, the rest was surprisingly easy. There was an awkward moment where my pants got stuck around my ankles and another when I couldn’t unhook Chloe’s bra as fast as expected, but that was okay. We laughed it off and it wasn’t an issue. Sex was hyped as this massive, life-changing experience, but I didn’t feel any differently afterward. Just more attached to Chloe, if that was even possible, and maybe a little more prone to let an “I love you” slip out any day now.
And just more scared to lose her.
Chapter Eleven
Chloe was still in my bed when my dad and Deborah got home later that night. She was asleep, but I was alert enough to hear their voices carry upstairs.
“I’m just gonna go check on Harper really quick,” I heard Dad say, and my eyes immediately widened.
“Shit,” I hissed, realizing there was no way I’d be able to wake Chloe and hide her fast enough. I could already hear his footsteps on the stairs.
“Honey, she’s probably asleep. Check on her tomorrow?” came Deborah’s voice.
There was a pause in Dad’s footsteps.
Deborah spoke again. “She’ll be fine.”
The footsteps resumed, but I realized with relief that they were heading back downstairs. We were safe as long as Chloe could get back home by morning.
She managed it, but only after being unable to find her shoes and then sneaking out barefoot through the back door early in the morning, which was further from my dad’s bedroom than the front. I saw her off and then went back to sleep.
The second time I woke up, it was to a knock on my door. I rubbed at my eyes and sat up, groggily calling out, “Come in!”
To my surprise, it was Deborah, not my dad, who cracked open the door and peered in at me.
“Oh. Hi,” I said. My eyes widened when she stuck an arm through the door and I saw what she held: Chloe’s shoes.
“Your dad went into the kitchen for a minute when we first got home last night,” she explained, very clearly amused. “I wasn’t sure he’d recognize that these weren’t yours, but I’ve seen Chloe wearing them, so I took the time to hide them before he saw them. I’m sorry she couldn’t find them.”
She tossed the shoes into my room, and I stared at her hard for a moment, before simply declaring, “Truce.”
She laughed and moved to shut the door. “Okay, Harper.”
* * *
The weather in California didn’t change over the course of the next few weeks, despite summer drawing closer to its end. Chloe and I spent most of our time outside together, either by the cliff and the water or at the park or even just walking the streets of our neighborhood with Baxter. I didn’t want to stay away from her. I couldn’t. And luckily, by the time August hit, my dad had accepted that I was growing up and that avoiding discussions about certain uncomfortable topics didn’t stop me from growing up, and that Chloe’s much less uptight parents were letting me spend the night at their house.
One night, after we’d finally untangled ourselves from each other and agreed to try and go to sleep, Chloe gently traced letters into my back with her finger while I, half-asleep, guessed what she was trying to spell out.
“U… end word. R… end word. P…R…E…T…” I spelled out, before laughing quietly and saying, “Aw, thank you. You’re pretty, too.”
“You’re too good at this. I was going to say ‘you’re pretty annoying’, by the way, but you didn’t let me finish.”
“Oh, I thought you were going for ‘you’re pretty but not as pretty as me’. I gave you too much credit.”
She chuckled against my shoulder as she leaned in to kiss it. “Okay. Pay attention for this one.”
“I will,” I yawned out, and focused on the light touches against my back. “I… end word. L…O…” I paused, and then rolled over to face her. She offered me a gentle smile.
“Me too,” I told her.
She arched an eyebrow, her demeanor changing instantaneously. “You love chocolate? I thought you were allergic.”
“That wasn’t what you were going to spell out,” I said.
“No,” she agreed, leaning in to kiss me. “It wasn’t.”
* * *
“Maybe this is a weird call to be making,” said Robbie over the phone just a few days later.
Confused, I held the phone to my ear with one hand as Chloe painted the nails of my other. I was sitting in my bedroom on the edge of my bed, and Chloe sat on her knees in front of me.
He continued, “I, uh… guess maybe I’m being contradictory here, but I know we haven’t seen each other much in the past couple of weeks, and so I just wanted you to know that I get why, and that I don’t mind. So just know that it’s okay and I get why you’re spending all of your time with Chloe.”
I laughed lightly. “This is totally a weird call for you to be making. But that’s okay. I think it’s sweet.”
Chloe arched an eyebrow at me and I mouthed, “Robbie.” She nodded her understanding and went back to painting my nails.
Robbie sighed on the other end. “Yeah, I’m lame. Okay. Just let me know if you need anything. If anything, uh… happens.”
“I will. Seriously, thank you.”
“No problem.”
I hung up the phone to a questioning look from Chloe as she requested, “Can I ask you something?”
“What’s up?” I offered her my other hand as she finished up with the thumbnail of my first.
“You and Robbie are really close. I like him, but I guess I don’t really see what you guys have in common.”
“We’re both very cynical,” I offered evasively.
“You both lost someone important to you, I know. I just never thought that was enough to bring two people together like that. Especially since you’re so different. He’s a lot older, too. Do you guys have some, like, secret dorky hobby you share that you’re too embarrassed to tell me about?”
“Yes,” I told her, and she laughed.
“Seriously, though.”
“Seriously,” I confirmed. “I’ll never tell you.”
“I can’t tell if you’re messing with me or not right now, but if you’re being serious, you’ll have to tell me eventually,” she pointed out.
“I couldn’t. You wouldn’t believe me if I did.” I resolved to change the subject as soon as the words were out of my mouth. It ached to talk about this.
“Now I know you’re messing with me,” Chloe confirmed with a shake of your head. “Alright, lesson learned. I accept your strange, seemingly random friendship. I’m just gonna assume he got you into Dungeons and Dragons or something and you’re too embarrassed to tell me. It’s okay; I wouldn’t judge.”
“And you shouldn’t. You mocked our comic books but I saw a manga in your closet the other day.”
“I was thirteen and it was lesbian-themed,” she shot back. “Doesn’t co
unt. And it’s not the same thing, anyway.”
“I bet you still go back and read it.”
“Do not.”
“Also, I was only reading Batwoman. She’s a lesbian.”
She looked up sharply. “Wait, really? That’s a thing?”
“Yeah. There was this whole controversy where she couldn’t get married and everything.”
“So even Batwoman falls victim to homophobia? That’s depressing; I don’t wanna read that.”
“Anyway, Robbie’s cool and he gave me Batwoman to read for the lesbian content. That should show you what kind of guy he is.”
“Does he read manga?” she asked me, and I burst into laughter.
“You have zero room to judge now!”
“Shut up. Give me your foot; I’m giving you pink toenails, too.”
I grinned down at her as she grabbed my foot and went to work. We sat in comfortable silence for a moment, and I shifted slightly on my bed and let out a soft sigh.
“So how do you feel about a laser tag rematch?” she proposed without warning.
I laughed, surprised. “Really?”
“What, don’t think I can beat you? We can do it just the two of us. One on one.”
“Uh huh. I would crush you.”
“We’ll see.” She winked at me. “We’ll go tomorrow.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah. I liked it. The whole place, actually. I might go back there for my birthday in three weeks, too. You think they let people make reservations? Eh, I’ll ask Robbie next time I see him. He probably knows.”
“You’re having a party?” I forced myself to ask. “Do you know anyone else around here?”
She glared at me as though she was offended, but I could tell she didn’t mean it. “Well, I know your family and mine and I know Robbie. It can be small. Plus, can’t you totally see my dad getting into laser tag? He’d have a blast.”
“It could be fun,” I relented, mostly so she would change the subject again. “So maybe tomorrow you could come over after laser tag and stay the night. Dad mentioned leaving tomorrow evening to go somewhere with Deborah for the weekend.”
