Don't Say Goodbye

by Bridget Essex

  Max walked stiffly to the sink and turned on the hot water. She soaped her hands with care as the silence between them dragged out to an uncomfortable pause. That uncomfortable pause was filled, however, with the cheerful tunes of the little boom box on the far counter pumping out holiday music as loudly as it could manage.

  “You like the holidays?” asked Max as Fiona handed her a pair of plastic gloves to put over her clean hands. The gloves were red and white striped like a candy cane.

  Fiona grinned, her head to the side. “Oh my goodness, yes—it’s my favorite time of year.”

  “You’re a true picture of holiday spirit,” said Max, a little ruefully. “I honestly don’t know many people in my own circle of friends who admit that they enjoy the holidays. Everyone’s kind of a humbug.” Including Jo, she thought, but she kept that to herself.

  “What about you? Are you a humbug?” said Fiona teasingly as she also handed Max a stack of cupcake wrappers. “You’re going to separate these wrappers and then place them in the tins, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Max, saluting with a chuckle. She was still tense around Fiona, there could be no denying it. But as she began to move about in the little kitchen, the holiday music blaring out of the tiny, tinny speakers, she knew also that she was beginning to feel comfortable around her, too. She couldn’t become too complacent in that comfort, she knew. Things happened when you were too comfortable around someone you were desperately attracted to. She stiffened at that thought and paused in her placing of the wrappers. Holiday music. Yes. Think about holiday music.

  Max cleared her throat. “I don’t much care about the holidays either way, to be honest. We always had big Christmases at our house, but as I grew up…this is terrible,” said Max, her voice dropping to almost a whisper as she grimaced, “but it’s almost like I grew out of Christmas.”

  Fiona paused in her beating of the eggs in the clear bowl, her mouth open and her bright, dazzling green eyes wide as she held up the beaters. Max tried very hard not to stare too long into those eyes. “Outgrow Christmas?” she spluttered. “I mean, seriously, Max,” she said, brandishing the old fashioned beater out of the eggs with one hand as she waggled it in Max’s direction, shaking her head. “You’re a made-for-TV movie waiting to happen, the kind where the woman who doesn’t exactly care about Christmas ends up caring whole bunches. You’re going to be visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve if you’re not too careful!”

  “I’m not at Scrooge levels of Christmas cheer failure,” said Max with a quick laugh as she grabbed another stack of cupcake wrappers. “It’s just…I guess I just think too much this time of year.”

  Fiona paused again, wiping her forehead with the back of her arm. She sighed upward, blowing an errant red curl out of her eyes. “What do you think about?”

  The radio was currently playing a very melancholy and soulful version of Silent Night. Max didn’t want to appear pathetic in front of Fiona, but she also wasn’t a big fan of lying very much. And she’d had to lie by association around Fiona quite a bit lately. She didn’t want to do that anymore. Max sighed.

  “Well...honestly, I think about how I got here, to this point in my life. At a job I don’t like, without someone to love, living every day of my life for work I don’t believe in and never making a difference in anything,” she said softly, then, her throat tightening. “And how I might have done...better.”

  Fiona paused again. She set the beater down on the counter, and then she was beside Max before Max could even blink. Fiona’s warm hand was against Max’s arm, and Max realized, in that moment, exactly how close Fiona was to her, her beautiful, concerned face upturned toward Max, her bright green eyes sparkling with--what Max realized in horror--possibly some unshed tears. Fiona blinked, breathing out.

  “Listen to me,” she said firmly then, squeezing Max’s arm with her reassuring fingers. “No one ever knows how their actions affect other people, right? Have you ever heard of the ripple effect?”

  “I know,” said Max, suddenly feeling very self-conscious as Fiona leaned even closer to her. The sweet, subtle smell of vanilla and spicy floral washed over Max, making her breathe out shakily, making her breath come much too quickly and her heart beat much too quickly, and if Max was being honest with herself, other regions of her body react a little too quickly in a much too positive way. “That’s the thing with the butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the planet, and the other side gets a hurricane. If you toss a rock into a pond, the ripples are far reaching, and you’re never certain exactly what they’ll touch,” she finished, clearing her throat.

  “Exactly,” said Fiona firmly, squeezing Max’s arm once more before letting go, and trotting back to her side of the counter where she picked up the hand beater again. “I just have a feeling about you, Max. You’re such a good person. You’ve probably touched so many people’s lives, and I’ve already told you: I know with my whole heart that you’re going to open up a business in the perfect time and place, and it’s going to be a major success. It’s not too late for everything you think about. I promise.”

  Max stared at her in astonishment from across the counter, the cupcake wrappers in her hand forgotten. Fiona was staring down at the eggs as she beat them quickly, turning the wheel for the beater with precision, a lone curl of red having fallen out from behind her ear and brushing gently against the side of her face. Max wanted to reach out, to tenderly place the curl back behind her ear, her fingertips lingering on the cream-colored cheek with the rosy complexion, as if Fiona had walked to work in the blustery cold that morning.

  When Fiona talked like that, Max didn’t doubt her.

  Max actually believed her.

  How could this woman, this woman who hardly knew Max, who a very short time ago had been a complete stranger to Max, make her feel so good? How could this woman be so believable? How could this woman trust her and believe in her so completely?

  Max wanted to ask her these things, but she knew better. Instead, she cleared her throat as the mournful “Silent Night” ended, and something much catchier began to play. Max didn’t know the name of the song, but it involved a lot of raucous singing about lights and there were a lot of sleigh bells employed in the chorus.

  Instantly, Fiona began to move her head to the music. She was almost dancing in place as she grinned widely at Max. “This is my favorite song,” she said by explanation, then did a little twirl on her heels.

  “Hah!” Max chuckled. She watched Fiona practically shimmy in place, moving everything from her hands that cracked eggs to tossing out the eggshells completely on the beats of the music.

  “You must think I’m the most ridiculous woman you’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting,” laughed Fiona, twirling in place again before walking backwards—an improvised moon walk—toward the fridge.

  “Not the most ridiculous, no,” said Max, and she bit her lip before she could finish it: Fiona was not the most ridiculous woman she’d ever met. But the most wonderful. The most enchanting.

  The most captivating.

  “Come on, I can’t be ridiculous all by myself,” said Fiona, one eyebrow up as she grinned wickedly and began to sashay toward Max. The song had taken an even bouncier turn, and Max couldn’t help herself—she was tapping her fingers on the counter to the beat. “Come on!” said Fiona, crooking her finger toward Max as she struck a dramatic pose, then began to dance in place in the center of the tight kitchen. She was purposefully dancing badly, wildly exaggerated movements that might have been seen on a dance floor of a high school prom in the fifties.

  Max snorted with laughter and began to shimmy her hips, too, doing a little twirl on the floor. Badly. But Fiona was laughing, and then she took up Max’s hands in her own. Max’s stomach tightened at this, but Fiona only took her hands so that they both twirled together slowly on the floor. There were so many sleigh bells in the music that it seemed to drown out everything else. In that moment, all Max could really take in was Fiona’s head cur
ved back as she laughed, her sweet smile so beautiful that it was all Max could see. All she could hear was the incessant wave of cheerful sleigh bells surrounding them.

  In an instant, it was over. The song ended abruptly, and Fiona stood there, panting from her over-enthusiastic dancing, but still grinning.

  She hadn’t let go of Max’s hands.

  On the little boom box, a slow song began to play. A song about wanting someone for Christmas.

  About falling in love.

  Max stepped back. She had to. She had to break the connection between them, let go of Fiona’s hands, because if she hadn’t, she would have pulled Fiona to her. There were too many emotions, too much swirling inside of her, and she felt suddenly very exposed. She’d just been dancing ridiculously in Fiona’s kitchen with her, and then squeezing her hands tightly as they’d twirled together as if they were schoolgirls again. Max didn’t do things like this. She had schedules and she had restrictions in her life, and here was Fiona who could dance ridiculously in her kitchen and not feel even a little bit self-conscious.

  Here was Fiona, who could reach out in the space between them and take Max’s hands, as if it was a perfectly normal thing. And maybe it was. Fiona was obviously more touchy-feely than Max was. But Max had feelings for Fiona that holding hands in a sweet-smelling, warm kitchen while dancing would most certainly make much worse.

  Had made much worse.

  Fiona stood there, her breath coming easier now as her brows furrowed and she drew her hands back toward her sides, letting Max go, as if uncertain. “Max…?” she murmured, and Max breathed out slowly, staring at the floor before glancing back up at Fiona.

  “I’m sorry,” said Max carefully. It was an odd thing to say, and she knew it as she sighed out again helplessly, staring at the beauty that was Fiona. The warm, vivacious woman who made Max feel so much.

  Her heart hurt, aching inside of her like a blue pulsing light that would never stop. But Max was here for Fiona. She was here to help Fiona. Max needed to put aside all of her silly…

  Max stiffened, holding her breath as Fiona stepped forward again. As Fiona reached up and did what Max had ached to do. Fiona took a wisp of Max’s lanky brown hair and carefully smoothed it back behind her ear.

  It was such an effortless gesture. It took less than an instant to do, but the softness of Fiona’s fingertips on Max’s skin made an involuntary shudder run through Max.

  It was almost painful to stand so close to Fiona. To want, so much, to reach out with her arms and gather Fiona into her embrace, squeezing her tightly to Max’s form as if she’d never let go. And maybe Max wouldn’t. Maybe, if Max reached out right now to press Fiona to her, her breasts to Fiona’s breasts, her hips to Fiona’s hips, so tightly that there was not even a pin’s width between them, maybe Max would never let her go again. If Max closed her eyes, she could see what it would look like, that embrace. She could see how easy it would be for her to tilt down her face then, a finger below Fiona’s chin as she touched her gently, caressing the smooth, sweet skin there. And then Max would bend down, and her mouth would meet Fiona. And that kiss would be perfect.

  Max was aware, as she thought these painful thoughts and her heart constricted, that it was dangerously close to happening, that kiss that existed only in her fantasies, could only ever exist in her fantasies. All she would have to do was take the smallest of steps forward, and then it would be happening.

  Fiona took a step forward.

  The space between them became almost nonexistent.

  What was happening? Max’s heart beat too quickly, and adrenaline moved through her, coursing through every vein and artery. Fiona reached up her hand again, and again, she took a wisp of Max’s hair and slowly, carefully, tucked it behind Max’s ear, her fingers lingering on the side of Max’s face, tracing the curve of Max’s ear as if it were a fine, delicate shell. Fiona’s face was angled up, just like in Max’s imaginings, and as Max stared down at her, as she gazed down at Fiona, utterly transfixed, she watched Fiona’s bright pink lips part, her lip gloss shimmering in the bright light from the kitchen. She watched Fiona’s eyes darken, her eyelashes lower.

  Max’s heart thundered within her.

  And Max took a step back.

  Everything inside of her screamed against it. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to kiss Fiona. It would have been the thing that would make the ache leave her, it would fill her, it would make her feel more than she’d ever felt before. It would make her feel whole, Max knew.

  But she could not do it.

  Pain blossomed in her head, in her heart, moving through her at the speed of the blood moving through her heart as Max choked down a sob and cleared her throat instead, willing her limbs to not be shaking. She stared at Fiona because she could not help staring at Fiona. Fiona’s eyes had lost their sparkle, and she looked dejected, standing there, her hands hanging loosely at her sides.

  “I’ll…um. I’ll show you how to prep the icing,” said Fiona then, slowly, carefully. She moved away, stepping backward as if she’d been about to fall off the edge of a cliff, with a short jerk, running her hands through her hair. She put back on the plastic gloves that, somehow, she’d taken off and were resting on the counter.

  They moved around each other stiffly, then. Max did her best not to think. They made a lot of cupcakes and a great deal of stilted small talk as the boom box pumped out even more cheerful holiday music that suddenly very much did not fit the mood of the kitchen.

  Finally, the flurry of baking for the evening was done. Fiona stepped back from the last tray of cupcakes that she’d slid on the cooling racks, and stripped off her plastic gloves, slumping against the counter with a contented sigh. “You were great, Max,” she said, glancing sidelong at Max who stood, leaning a hip against the counter as she gazed out over the row of cupcakes. Max’s arms were folded in front of her, and she smiled a little, though she knew it probably looked as sad and wistful as she felt. She was too tired to mask it.

  “It was my pleasure,” she said. She meant it, but it was difficult to say, because it had so much double meaning. Whether Fiona realized that or not, she didn’t acknowledge it, but pushed off from the counter, undoing the ties of her apron with tired fingers.

  “Same time tomorrow, if you want to. But you’ve done so much, Max,” she said again as she peeled the apron off, over her head. When she looked at Max there was such a questioning gaze to her. Fiona was hurt, perhaps, by what had happened earlier.

  Max didn’t know exactly what to think about what had happened earlier. She just knew that she needed some time to think, some cold air to clear her head.

  And she needed to leave now before it happened again.

  Because Max very much wanted it to happen again. It went against everything she knew to be true and right, but she wanted it. She wanted Fiona’s soft fingers to caress her face softly, tracing down the curve of her ear to her neck, to the soft skin above her breasts. She wanted Fiona.

  “Yes,” said Max suddenly, clearing her throat and taking up her coat from where she’d set it on a kitchen stool. “Tomorrow.”

  “Max…” said Fiona, trailing off as Max made a beeline out of the kitchen, toward the front door of the cupcake shop. Max paused, turning on her heel to gaze back at Fiona. Fiona, whose gaze was now one of alarm.

  “Did I…did I do something to offend you? Say something that was…” Fiona trailed off again as she spread her hands. She looked so hurt.

  “No, no. Nothing. Fiona, I’m sorry. I just…I have a headache…” Max stumbled over the ridiculous words and excuse as clumsily as she stumbled out of the cupcake shop, then, the cheery bell over the door ringing out, and then silenced as the door shut with a sharp click behind her.

  What the hell are you doing, Max? she thought savagely as she all but stomped down the sidewalk, furious at herself for wanting what she could not have, furious at herself for causing that look of pain to come over Fiona’s lovely features.

&n
bsp; As Max fumbled with the keys at her icy car door, as she dragged out the windshield scraper and attacked the accumulated buildup of snow and ice on each of her windows, she fumed in anger at herself. But when she plunked herself down in the car, sitting down for the first time in hours, all of the fight evaporated from her, as if it had never filled her up in the first place. Instead, icy dread began to trickle into her stomach.

  She’d have to go back into that kitchen. Back into that small space with that woman who seemed to be a magnet to Max, drawing her ever closer. Max had thought that she’d be able to control herself around Fiona, and she hadn’t done such a remarkable job of that this evening.

  But what exactly had Fiona done? Why had Fiona stepped closer? Why had it seemed so much, in that moment, like Fiona was going to kiss Max?

  Max knew that she was probably reading far more into the situation than what had actually happened. Maybe Fiona had lost her balance, stepped forward to keep it. Maybe she’d tilted her head up to simply look at Max.

  Even as Max thought these things, she realized that they were stupid and probably not true.

  Maybe Fiona had stepped forward and acted like she was going to kiss Max because she was actually going to kiss Max.

  Could it be? Was that really what happened? Could it be that this incredibly beautiful woman, this woman that Max was so deeply attracted to, was actually attracted to her, too? Could that even be possible? It was almost too much for Max to hope for, but in that single euphoric moment, she hoped it with all of her heart.

  But at the same time, Max felt despair circle inside of her. She couldn’t imagine the look on Jo’s face if Max had kissed Fiona, if Max then told Jo what was happening, if Jo found out. It would break Jo’s heart eternally—she’d never recover from the ultimate betrayal of best friend and girlfriend together, in confidence and hiding what they’d done from her.

  And of course, as always, Max circled back to the truest thing she knew: Jo deserved so much better than this, a best friend who was wishing for her girlfriend.