by Camryn Eyde
“I missed this,” I said around a mouthful of food.
“Me too, Charli hates these movies and never lets me eat in bed.”
I choked on a piece of popcorn. She slept with her?
Taylor looked at me strangely then patted me on the back. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I coughed a little more. “I’m fine.” Taking a long drink of soda, I settled back into my pillow and said nonchalantly. “So, you’ve slept together?”
“Umm…yeah.”
“Oh.”
“What? You think it’s too soon?”
Absolutely! She had been an out bisexual for a microsecond and already had more action with a woman than I have in my ten years of lesbianism. “She’s your girlfriend,” I said, shrugging and trying not to sound spiteful. “I guess it was going to happen eventually.”
“It did. Just after Thanksgiving, actually.”
“Oh?”
“This is weird, isn’t it?” Taylor asked as an awkward silence filled by Rachel McAdams fawning over some boy echoed into the room from the TV.
I took a deep breath. “Sort of.”
Taylor turned to look at me, crossing her legs and looking serious. “I don’t want to be weird around you. How do we get past this?”
I shrugged and mirrored her position. On the twin mattress, we were both precariously balanced on the edge.
She reached out and took my hand. “I’m sorry about the way I acted last time. Olivia was a bit left field.” At my frown, she expanded on her words. “You coming home with a girlfriend was a shock.”
I nibbled at my lip.
“It makes sense now.”
“What does?” I frowned wondering how any of this made sense. I was sitting in my bed with the girl I had wanted for ten years, but couldn’t stop feeling like I was cheating on Olivia. Figure that one out.
“You’ve never told me anything about anyone you had a crush on.”
“That’s because I only ever liked…” Here we go. “You. You and Olivia.”
Taylor’s eyes widened and she gaped a little. “But what about all that stuff we used to say about Jack and that dreamy exchange student, Antonio? Why did you say those things if you didn’t mean them?”
I sighed. “I said those things to fit in, I guess. If you haven’t noticed, the kids at school weren’t all that tolerant. Look how they used to treat Marcus. He was a straight kid that loved to wear pink, but your boyfriend Jack and the rest were horrid to him.”
“I haven’t had any issues since dating Charli.”
I nodded and looked at my lap.
“You know,” Taylor said. “Since I came out, everyone has been asking if I used to date you.”
I shook my head at the notion.
“Jack thinks it’s awesome and said if we were ever up for a threesome…”
I grimaced. “Gross.”
“I know, right?”
Nodding, I sighed. “So…you’re bisexual now?”
Taylor shrugged. “I suppose.”
“How did that happen?”
“Charli just…I don’t know. She did something to me. She’s beautiful. Sexy. Confident. She stated in her interview that she was gay and asked if that would be an issue. Since then…” Taylor shrugged. “I got curious.”
I knotted my eyebrows together. “This is an experiment?”
Taylor huffed out a breath. “At the beginning…yeah. I guess. Now, though.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Being with a woman is so different. They’re softer, more tender, and well, you know, they know how to touch me. Guys are all fumbling and hopeless. At least, the guys at college were. And Jack.” Taylor chuckled a little. “He had no idea what he was doing.”
“But Charli does?”
Taylor nodded and studied my flat expression. “God, I’m sorry. This is weird, isn’t it?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’m just trying to figure out how you went from raging heterosexuality to lesbian sex.”
“I wasn’t a raging hetero?”
That made me laugh. Taylor had a diary filled with her conquests. At last count, it was eight. I guess Charli made it nine. “What’s it like?”
“What?”
I cleared my throat and fidgeted a little. “Sex.”
Taylor cocked her head at me. “You’ve never had sex? Still?”
I shook my head.
“But Olivia…?”
“We, ah…we’re still, umm…taking it slow?”
“But you’ve kissed her.”
I nodded. How could I forget? She was an incredible kisser. “Yeah.”
“But nothing else?”
I shook my head.
“Do you want to?”
I bit my lip as I thought about Olivia and I naked together. My body suddenly felt hot. “We’d probably argue the whole time,” I said in response. Something that probably wouldn’t be far from the truth. “She’s irritating nearly a hundred percent of the time. She probably makes love like she lives life. Strict, controlled and damn it, Darcy, I must orgasm now! What’s taking you so long?”
Taylor tipped her head back and laughed. I joined in as the whole idea of that situation amused me.
“Why are you with her?” Taylor asked when she calmed herself.
The smile fell from my face. This is where you insert the truth, Darcy. “I don’t know. I just am.”
“You’re nuts. I’d suggest finding yourself someone better, but the way you two were at Thanksgiving…” Taylor blew out a breath and shook her head. “It was kinda something. It…”
“It?”
She shifted a little. “It made me kinda jealous.”
“I noticed.”
Taylor averted her eyes and blushed. She huffed out some air and looked at my Melissa Etheridge shrine on my dressing table. “I wonder what would have happened between us if you’d said something earlier.”
“About Olivia?”
“No.” Taylor shook her head. “About the lesbian thing. You had a crush on me. We could’ve…” She shrugged a shoulder.
A crush? The understatement of the century. I blushed and nodded. “I did.” Past tense. I frowned a little. She leaned in and kiss my cheek, her mouth staying inches from my skin when she pulled back.
“I wish you’d told me this years ago. I can’t help but want to know what it’s like to kiss you.”
I licked my lips and nodded again. “Yeah,” I said with a choke. I had thought of it years ago. I would have given anything to show Taylor how much I loved her.
“I would have been safe experimenting with you.”
I pulled away from her. “What?”
“What?” she said, confused at the way I raised my voice.
“I’m a safe option to experiment with?”
Her forehead scrunched. “Of course you would be. You’re my best friend. We’d keep each other’s secrets.”
My chest tightened.
“And…you know, I’d know whether what I had with Charli was real or a phase.”
I blinked incredulously at her. Who was this woman that was talking as if my feelings in this situation were perfectly adequate for a trial run? Taylor must have finally understood my expression, because she gasped loudly.
“No! God, no. Sweetie, I wasn’t belittling you. I mean, you’re with Olivia. I meant I wished we had kissed back when there were no complications. No girlfriends to think about. I wasn’t trying to suggest you’d be a phase.” She looked imploringly at me as I swallowed. “Darce, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I love you, sweetie. I’m just not in love with you. Not like I am with—” Taylor gasped.
“You love Charli,” I said, stating the plain fact.
“Yeah, I think I do.” Taylor sounded bewildered. “Oh my God.”
And with those little words, what was left of my romantic feelings for Taylor ended like a test missile. Blowing up nothing but a pile of dirt leaving a big scar in the ground, only in this case, it was my heart.
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I rang Olivia’s cell the next morning when Taylor went home to change. We had spent the night watching movies and eventually fell asleep side by side. Or, at least, she slept. I spent the night being creepy and watching her trying to figure out where my heart sat now. Limbo was my best guess.
I could see the faint scar on her eyebrow from when we both fell down a thinly covered snow slope. I longed to trace it with my finger but I didn’t want to wake her. The scar reminded me of all the good times we had shared together. We had been through everything. Family grief as our grandparents, or beloved pets passed. And about that one summer we feuded, resulting in the worse two days of my life. We had promised never to let our dissimilar tastes in music come between us again, despite the fact that New Kids on the Block broke up and my preferred band, U2, still existed.
“Hello?” Olivia answered, sounding like she was in the bottom of a tin can.
“Hi there.”
“Oh, it’s you.”
I smiled. “Yep. How are you?”
“As well as could be expected when being interrupted at the laundromat.”
Ah, that explained the tinny sounds. Wait, why was she doing washing? “Aren’t you away with…whoever you’re supposed to be visiting?” I made a note to ask who the heck she was going to see one day.
“Postponed until tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Weather.” I heard a door close, presumably a dryer door, and she said, “Was there a purpose to this phone call, or did you just want to interrogate me?”
“Taylor slept over last night. She told me she loved Charli.”
I could practically hear Olivia roll her eyes. “What has that got to do with me?”
“It’s over.”
“What is?”
“Everything.”
Olivia sighed heavily. “Darcy, you’re making no sense.”
“Taylor and me, we’re over.”
“It’s Taylor and I, and what do you mean you’re over? Aren’t you best friends anymore?”
“Yes.”
Olivia groaned. “Then what is over?”
“She’s not in love with me. That’s what’s over. My dreams and hopes have been shot down. I’ve nothing left and no one to love.” I was smirking at the end of my rant.
“God. So dramatic.”
I sighed and said, “Love is hard.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How does love work? How do you make someone fall in love with you?”
“I think the point is that you don’t make anyone do anything. If it happens, it happens. Even when you wished it wouldn’t.”
I nodded my head. “Like me falling for Taylor you mean?”
“No, but that’s a good example.”
That was a curious answer. “Have you fallen for someone that didn’t love you back?”
After a long pause, Olivia said, “I wasn’t implying I had experience with the matter.”
Lie. I grinned. “Who did you fall for?”
Olivia huffed at me. “I really haven’t got time for gossip. Unless you’ve got important news, then I suggest you go play with your friend.”
“I wish,” I said with a chuckle and had the dial tone ringing in my ear a moment later. Olivia hung up on me. Rude.
I saw as much of Taylor as I could over the holidays, and it felt like high school and university all over again. We walked through the snow, went skiing at the lodge and sat by the fire talking the day away. It felt like old times.
Right up to Christmas Day.
Charli came back.
She arrived on Taylor’s arm, along with Taylor’s parents, who came around and joined us for Christmas dinner just like they do every year. Taylor’s house was smaller than ours, so with Mom and Dad’s renovated dining room, we became the official Thanksgiving and Christmas venue decades ago. Mr. and Mrs. Robbins, Ed and Catrina, questioned Olivia’s whereabouts.
“She couldn’t make it,” I told them, noticing Charli’s smug face at hearing that news. She may be physically attractive, but she was a little too competitive and conceited for my liking. I was thrilled when she left after dinner citing an early morning at work. I was fed up with her kissing Taylor’s neck at every opportunity. I wasn’t jealous of it, but it was a little overdone. Taylor didn’t look all that comfortable about it either. I mumbled ‘Get a room’ at them one time. Charli had winked and Taylor looked embarrassed. Charli didn’t leave soon enough, and the instant she did, I got my happy-go-lucky friend back.
Bellies full and the fire toasting up the house in the lounge, our respective parents settled in to watch a Bing Crosby movie while Taylor and I snacked on Christmas pies in the kitchen.
I tossed my fork I was demolishing pudding with in the sink. It was too cold to run at the moment, and I could feel my stomach bulging out over my pants. I poked at the flesh there. The damage wasn’t too bad. Turning around and leaning against the counter, I found the bravery to say, “She’s a bit…dominant, isn’t she?”
Taylor licked her fingers and gave me a quizzical look. “Huh?”
“Charli.”
Taylor thought about it for a moment then shrugged. “I guess. I haven’t really noticed.”
“How can you not? She’s all over you.”
“Careful, Darce. You’re sounding jealous.”
I shrugged this time. I couldn’t tell if it was jealousy or protectiveness.
Taylor rounded the counter and walked up to me. “Are you in love with me?”
“Yeah, of course I love you.”
Taylor smiled and her blue eyes sparkled. “That’s not what I asked.”
I swallowed the lump of gravelly truth that wanted to reveal itself. “I’m not in love with you.” Not anymore.
Taylor’s eyes roamed my face for a visual clue that I was lying. Those eyes lingered on my lips for a while, and I couldn’t help but lick them. I’m sure I still had a bit of pie there anyway.
“I have a present for you,” she said, snatching my hand and pulling me forward.
I frowned. “Oh? But you got me that stethoscope keychain.”
“I know. I have something else, too. Come upstairs with me?”
Nodding and wiping my mouth on a napkin, we trudged upstairs with an extra pound of pudding in our stomachs to make our legs work harder.
I smiled at her after she shut my bedroom door, assuming she was about to pull out a present. What she did instead was unexpected. Grabbing me by the face, Taylor pulled me in for a kiss. Shocked, I was motionless for a moment as her mouth moved over mine. Her lips nipped at me and her tongue insisted that it needed to gain entry to my mouth. Figuring I may as well go with it, I shut my eyes and parted my lips to find myself immediately assaulted by her tongue.
She tasted like strawberries.
She also moaned and took handfuls of my backside in her hands. That moan made me frown. It didn’t sound right and no surge of lust followed it. While I was trying to decipher the difference between her moan and Olivia’s, she pushed me against the door. That felt wrong too. In fact, the whole situation was awkward. “Wait,” I said, pushing her off. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you what you want.”
“Which is?”
“Me.”
My chest burned, but not with desire as it should have been. It felt hollow and wrong. I felt like I was kissing my non-existent sister. What the hell had I been thinking? “No.”
She frowned.
“I don’t want you like this. Not anymore. Once, maybe, but now…” I shook my head. Now I felt like a low-life cheater.
“But I thought…?”
I shook my head and created space between us. “No, Taylor. I’m sorry, but this feels…wrong somehow.”
“You want me to break up with Charli first?”
I shook my head. “I want you to be with the person you love, and I don’t think that’s me. I don’t feel that way for you. I…” I scratched at my head. “I did once,
but…”
Taylor sighed and sat heavily on my bed. “God, I’m so stupid. This was my worst idea ever.”
“It’s not your best, no,” I said, sitting next to her and patting her leg.
“I’m sorry, Darce,” she said, covering my hand with her own. “I thought…God, I don’t know what I thought. Can you forgive me?”
“Always.” I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “First and foremost, you’re my best friend, and I never want to lose that.”
“Will you tell Olivia?”
I nodded and she gasped.
“Seriously?”
I took in a deep breath, and let it out with a rush. “There’s something I need to tell you.” And like all bad ideas, I confessed the truth about my fraudulent relationship with Olivia.
“You used me!” Taylor yelled five minutes later. “Worst still, you used her! Jesus, Darcy, what the hell is wrong with you?”
I had my head buried in my hands before she started yelling. “I just wanted to know if you were interested in me.”
“By coming out and pretending to have a girlfriend?” Taylor bared her teeth. “That’s a freaking despicable way to find out. Ever thought of asking like a normal person?”
I stood and uncovered my face. “A million times, but I didn’t, because losing you would have been worse than hearing you didn’t feel the same way.”
Taylor stepped up to me and practically growled, “I would never walk away from our friendship, and you should have known that.” She began to pace around the room. I swear she was snorting smoke out of her nose. “Thanksgiving was one big set up, wasn’t it? Were you satisfied to find out I got jealous? Shit, Darcy, you made me look like a fool. I just about threw myself at you a second ago.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I just…” I withheld excuses. “I’m sorry.”
“And Olivia…just how the hell did you get the weirdo to go along with this ridiculous plan.”
“First, stop calling her names, secondly…” I cleared my throat. “I promised to clean the bathroom and cook for the rest of the year. Oh, and do laundry.”
Taylor raised an eyebrow at me. A very unimpressed one. “You’re kidding me? She came up here to meet your parents, your love interest, and even kissed you, just so you’d cook and clean?”
