by Jea Hawkins
They both sat up, pushed off the comforter, and got out of bed at the same time. Emma tried to figure out what to say, but nothing came to mind. Even though they had given each other their share of the silent treatment over the years, especially recently, dressing without a word still felt strange to her.
Crystal handled checking out while Emma loaded their belongings back in the truck. Then she waited in the passenger seat. Having Crystal drive would give Emma time to mull over what to say. What could she say, though? It felt like they had lost their way. How could they make amends? Did last night’s argument mean they were past forgiveness? Or, as Crystal had said, was it a good thing that Emma finally shared her feelings?
The silence must have been too much for Crystal because she turned on the radio and flipped through the stations. A few minutes later, two voices filled the cabin of the truck – Robbie Grey of Bad English and Crystal’s.
Emma had always loved Crystal’s singing, especially when it was their song. When was the last time they had listened to I Melt With You? Despite her frustration, Emma found herself humming along. After all, the odds of hearing it on the radio were pretty low, even during their local station’s eighties weekends.
Somehow, the song lifted her spirits. Maybe the previous night’s yelling had lightened her mood a bit, too. She had never considered that putting her feelings out there would alleviate the burden of holding them inside but, apparently, it did just that.
And then Crystal pulled off the road and put the truck in park. Emma straightened in her seat as Crystal turned up the music even louder and rolled down the windows. When Crystal got out of the truck and ran around the front of it to the passenger side, Emma asked, “What are you doing?”
Without explanation, Crystal opened Emma’s door, pulled her out of the truck, and twirled her as she sang. The next thing Emma knew, they were dancing there on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere. Music blared from their speakers. She laughed and went with it, spinning again and then putting one arm around Crystal’s waist, while holding her hand with the other.
With each step, flowers emerged from the barren, dusty dirt and bloomed in a circle around their feet. Earth magick, water magick… love magick.
The vocals faded into humming and Emma tilted her head toward Crystal’s. Her lips parted slightly. This would be their first kiss in months, a kiss she needed so badly, she could already taste it.
It was the jarring honk of a semi horn that sent them jumping apart, pulling them out of their magick moment as the truck roared past. They stared at each other and then doubled over with laughter.
“Oh my gosh,” Crystal sputtered. “I think the truck driver enjoyed the show.”
“Probably,” Emma agreed. “And why wouldn’t he? Two beautiful ladies almost kissing in middle America. That’s what makes this country great.”
“I thought it was our Constitution. At least, that’s the line they fed us in our Problems of Democracy class back in high school. Remember Mr. Johnson?”
“I remember.” Emma rolled her eyes and patted Crystal’s cheek. “Come on. I’m so hungry, I could eat a whole cow.”
“Same here. Let’s get to that truck stop. Maybe we’ll see the honker.” Crystal sauntered around the truck, back to the driver’s side.
“Hey, don’t sound so excited about that,” Emma warned as she pulled herself back up into the truck. “I’m not sure a truck stop is a place where you’d want to attract much attention.”
Crystal climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door. “Why not? Nothing sets my heart aflutter like a truck driver in dingy overalls, with an overgrown beard.”
“I knew it,” Emma said with a mock growl. “You’ve been holding out on me.” Even as she said it, she felt better. She couldn’t remember the last time they had joked with each other like this.
“I’m glad we finally got down to the truth of the matter.” The lightness in Crystal’s tone only diminished slightly and she straightened in her seat. “There it is. Prepare your stomach. Sandy tells me they’ve got some high octane coffee on tap.”
“Sandy?” Emma frowned, trying to remember if they had a friend by that name.
“Our concierge at the motel. Would you believe she was back at the front desk this morning? She runs the place pretty much by herself. Lives there. That’s got to be exhausting.” Crystal navigated into a parking spot designated for normal passenger vehicles.
Even though she braced herself for offensive smells and tastes, the truck stop wasn’t what Emma expected. It was tidy and… nice. Like the motel, it surprised her with its cleanliness. Even the coffee the waitress served tasted pretty good. Emma clasped her fingers around the hot cup and felt her entire body relax in the booth seat.
She was so relaxed, in fact, that she couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, “Everything is just going wrong for us, in all ways.”
Crystal looked at her and then her body also sagged back against the seat. “Yeah, it is,” she agreed and then pursed her lips. “Not just our relationship, but work and life. And…?”
“And…” Emma blew out a breath. Her heart was racing again as she thought about what she needed to say. Where could she even begin?
“Look, I didn’t mean to place the blame on you,” Crystal started.
“No. Don’t say that. We both share responsibility for this, Crystal. I have a tendency to forget that other people need things, things I don’t think I need for myself but, in actuality, I do.” Emma took a sip of her coffee and welcomed the jolt of caffeine that finally flooded her. “I prioritize and focus on what I need to do based on that. When my mother was sick, I put her first. Not you, not me, not us.”
“And I understood that. Only a shitty person wouldn’t,” Crystal said. “But when your mom was on the mend, it’s my fault I didn’t come to you and tell you I needed your time and love.”
“Likewise, I didn’t pull back and think about self-care or nurturing my other relationships. I just thought about a specific goal, a job to be done, and getting to the end of that before moving forward in any other way.” Emma smiled tightly at the waitress who served their breakfasts and waited until she stepped away from the table. “That’s how I get. When we opened the store, you know what I was like then.”
Crystal went wide-eyed as she picked up her fork and cut into her pancakes. “Yes, I know. It was awful. It was the only thing you could think about for that whole year. Why didn’t I even think to make the correlation?”
“Why didn’t I?”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
Emma loved it when Crystal said something like that. Most of the time, she was a mouthy, sassy blonde, but she was also the person who managed to trump Emma’s clairvoyant advice with unexpected moments of introspection.
“Yeah. For both of us, I guess,” Emma acknowledged. She cut into her omelet and was surprised to find it was actually good. The cheese was a smoky mozzarella and the vegetables tasted fresh. The ratio of cheese to egg to vegetable was perfect – not too much, not too little. She allowed herself to savor it, something she rarely did with life’s pleasures. Sometimes she wished she could be more in the moment, the way Crystal lived.
“So everything is a mess,” Crystal confirmed. “And we both agree we’ve had a hand in it.”
“That’s right and this is one thing I don’t how to fix.”
“I don’t know what to do about it, either. But…” When Crystal looked up at her, Emma felt her heart skip a beat. “But I still love you and that’s a start, right?”
“I still love you too so, yeah, that’s a start.”
Crystal tipped her head back against the seat and let out a thin laugh. “Good, because I was beginning to think this entire trip was going to end in the end of us. So what do we do now?”
“That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for months,” Emma admitted and her brow knitting. “A question I can’t answer, either. I mean, I don’t know if we just move on and forget a
bout it, or what.”
“I don’t think I can do that.” Crystal looked down at her plate and used her fork to swirl a piece of pancake in the syrup that had pooled near the edge. “I guess the first thing I need to tell you is it was just the one time and I’m sorry I did it. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I’d like us to work out. There’s no way I want to throw away all those years we have together, especially when I still love you so much.”
Emma pulled in a breath through gritted teeth and then nodded. “Yeah, I appreciate you telling me that it was just once. I guess my thing is I’m sorry for neglecting you. I can only use my mom’s cancer as an excuse so much. Goodness knows I hardly took care of myself, let alone you during that time. I could have called on any number of resources to give me and dad a break, but I didn’t. I chose to put on my blinders and pour every ounce of energy – both mundane and magickal – into helping my parents. Not only was that a drain on our relationship, but it was a drain on me, too.”
“Yeah, I worried about you. A lot.” Crystal wiped her napkin across her mouth and smacked it back down on the table. “I should have tried harder to be there for you. Instead, I did something so stupid, that there’s no way I can take it back.”
“No, you were there for me. You took almost one hundred percent responsibility for running the shop. You took on much more than usual. We were both exhausted and rather than think about our own needs or each other’s needs, we let ourselves get buried by everything around us. What we should have done was turn to each other for comfort at the end of every day. It was a mutual misunderstanding and miscommunication.”
Emma felt tears burn at her eyes and she looked up to see Crystal’s gaze had also gone watery. Her mouth twitched as well and she had to take several deep breaths to compose herself.
“I’m sorry. This never happens to me. I mean… it’s been happening a lot lately, but never before this.”
“Yeah, after seven years, I know you don’t cry.” Crystal chuckled through her almost-tears. “So why are you doing it now?”
“Um, because instead of being a team, partners, allies, we just neglected each other. I’m guiltier of this than you are, but guilt is guilt. I’m a real shit.”
“Em, don’t you dare.” Crystal wagged her finger as she shook her head, her blonde hair also bobbing back and forth with the motion. “You aren’t a shit. I’m the cheater. I’m the real shit. I won’t even get into how shitty my shit is because this is just turning into a gross conversation. Now we’re done blaming ourselves and each other. Got it? We try to move forward from here.”
After another deep sigh, Emma nodded in agreement. “Right. How?”
Chapter 8
Nearly eight hours later, they arrived in Holbrook, Arizona. Or, just south of it, since Crystal had chosen yet another motel just off the beaten path. This time, however, Emma didn’t complain. She embraced the experience, which included the two of them raiding the brochure rack in the cramped area that passed for the lobby.
“Why are we doing this?” Emma asked between clamped lips. They worked from opposite sides of the rack, taking a brochure from every single row until they met in the middle.
“Because the conference and expo are only for two days. We’ve taken two whole days to drive down here and we need two days to drive back. Add two days for the conference. That’s six days, which gives us an extra day to just do something.” Crystal stuffed another brochure into the pile Emma clutched between her hands. “We’ve never been to Arizona, let alone Sedona, so let’s do something fun while we’re here. Besides, we can always use these to plan a vacation and come back someday.”
Considering all the time spent driving, Emma wondered if Crystal was open to another option. “What if we just spent a lazy day at the hotel and went to the spa or something? It might be nice to get massages and beauty treatments.”
“A lazy day? You? When have you ever taken a lazy day when there are things to be done? Besides, I thought you wanted to see Sedona?” Crystal put her hands on her hips and glared at her with mock reproach. “What happened to wanting to see all the nifty, New Agey things out this way? When we registered for the conference last year, we talked about what a great opportunity it would be to see a bit of the southwest.”
“I know, but that was then. Things are a little different now. I just thought that since we need to figure out how to reconnect, maybe…” Emma rifled through the final row of brochures, plucking one of each from the rack. “Maybe mutual massages or facials or something, just to relax us. That might be nice.”
“It might,” Crystal agreed. “But it wouldn’t be our style.”
When they settled down into bed that night, Emma rolled over and stared at Crystal’s back. Her girlfriend’s long blonde curls spread out over the pillow, baring her neck. It was Crystal’s favorite place to be kissed and Emma’s favorite place to lavish attention on her.
Even now with so much unresolved between them, she wanted to touch her, to make her shiver with need. All it would take would be the lightest touch. Crystal would certainly respond to that. Her body was sensitive in all the right places, responsive to even a subtle invitation to make love.
For a brief moment, Emma extended her index finger, intent on tracing it along Crystal’s neck. Then she drew it back and closed her eyes.
They weren’t back there yet. Not just yet. Making love was for two people who were happy to be together, and as much as Emma wanted to connect with Crystal physically, she knew she wasn’t there emotionally.
Her body demanded she ignore the emotional need and give in to her sensual needs, instead. But Emma rolled over and closed her eyes tightly.
Another time.
The only thing about waiting for “another time” was that she imagined she would experience a similarly explosive expression of her feelings.
If they got back to that kind of intimacy, another time was going to be one hell of a ride.
****
Sedona was only a couple of hours away from Holbrook. They got on the road early, ate at another tidy truck stop with delicious, filling food and potent coffee, and continued to their destination.
As she drove, Emma couldn’t stop thinking about how much she wanted to touch Crystal. But they hadn’t touched each other in months. At least, not intimately. There might have been an accidental brush of fingers or a nudge here or there, but mostly she had been careful not to let her body near her girlfriend’s. It wasn’t that she had a rational reason for keeping her distance. It was fear that if she gave into showing affection, it would somehow make everything okay.
Even though they agreed they loved each other and wanted to move past the infidelity incident, it still seemed like a long way from here to wherever there was. Trust and respect had to come before physical affection. It was a step-by-step process, but it still left Emma unfulfilled and wanting.
Emma puffed out her cheeks and blew out a breath as she pulled into the hotel parking garage.
“Hey, what’s up?” Crystal asked. As much as Emma wanted to hide her feelings, she knew she couldn’t. But she had learned to shield them enough to keep Crystal from reading her perfectly.
“Uh, just overthinking, I guess.” Yes, that sounded like a reasonable explanation. “What did we come here for, again? I hardly remember the description. It seems like a long time ago.”
Crystal laughed and undid her seatbelt. “I know, right? Let’s see – we talked about getting ideas and attending the workshops. Take your pick, Em. Let’s get in there and see what it’s like. We can’t check into the hotel until after lunch time, but the expo should have just opened.”
It seemed strange to follow Crystal’s lead, especially considering the place Emma held in both running her shop and her circle, but that is exactly what Emma did. She let Crystal do the talking at the registration table, while she just stood at her side smiling and nodding. With a tote bag of conference goodies in one hand and the folded program in the other, Emma let Crystal lead her through
the maze of exhibits and vendors.
They weren’t the only witches there, Emma noticed. There were a handful of others, mostly earth like her, and a couple emanating other elemental energies like water and air. It made sense. After all, growing and nurturing things tended to be the province of the earth witch, a natural gift. Water was necessary to the process too, while air also helped.
Crystal led her to a spot just beyond the vendors and opened her program. She flipped it over a couple of times and then said, “Okay, let’s take a look and see what’s on the schedule. I think when we registered for this last December, our big thing was considering how we might want to rework the garden at home to the benefit of the shop. We have so little space to work with.”
“Right,” Emma agreed, the memories coming back to her. December was still a rough month, her mother getting daily treatments that left her exhausted and unable to perform even simple tasks without sitting down to take a breath. Those were the days Emma spent bringing her to and from appointments, making light healthy meals for her parents, and then falling into bed without thinking about anything else.
“Anything about space saving would really help us. I remember something caught my eye when we registered for the conference, but I can’t remember what it was.” Crystal scanned the program.
“That,” Emma offered, “and maybe learn about some new plants we might want to grow for it. I think we talked about finding plants that thrive in containers.”
“So it looks like the first workshops are at one. I guess the ones about gardening in the desert don’t do us much good, but what about this one about water gardens?”
“Water gardens?” Even though she had her own program, Emma leaned closer to Crystal to look over her shoulder. Again, that desire to touch her filled her entire being. But Emma kept a small distance between them. This was the last place she should be thinking about sex, but she couldn’t deny the sensual draw of Crystal’s proximity. Her girlfriend’s shoulders were bared with the white tank top and Emma just wanted to kiss that rounded, tanned skin. Work her way up and then back down…
