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In the soft pastel yogurt shop, Chloe and Brooke shared everything. They talked about their day, their feelings, and that dress they had almost convinced their mom to buy, but just couldn’t. It was a tradition for them. At the end of every week, Brooke would get up at eight in the morning. She would go downstairs, have her smoothy and french toast, and do some yoga until ten. After that, she would go back upstairs to her room, get dressed properly, and then write in her bullet journal anything she felt should be noted. This particular summer evening, she felt inclined to write a little bit more about her feelings towards Chloe. She grabbed a sparkly indigo gel pen and put it on the page. Careful to keep her words in the imaginary grid, she went on and on about ways that she had made her smile this week. The list for Monday alone was half a page, which worried her. If she kept everything the same length, then Friday would be left alone. She would still have the bottom half. Tapping the pen against her chin, she decided that once she got there, she would write ways to make Chloe smile in return. Satisfied with the decision, she continued to write for Tuesday.
Brooke knew she wouldn’t finish the list. Chloe always swung by from around ten thirty, to ten fifty. Her Saturday mornings included getting up at seven thirty and going to the gym, going for a run, and then cleaning herself up to pick up Brooke and go to Pinkberry. Given that the active girl got quicker run times every time, and Brooke got distracted from bulleting and would go on her phone, it was rare for her to finish. As much as she would like to rush and get it done, she took great pride in keeping the notebook so orderly.
This Saturday, she made it to the middle of Thursday’s list before Chloe showed up at ten thirty-seven. From the way she acted dressed, you would never think that she went to the gym and then ran two miles. All exercise aside, she was devoted to their friendship and always showed at the right time. With a grin, she lead her back to her car, and they drove off to Pinkberry.
The drive there was always Brooke’s favorite part. Instead of talking, greeting, or planting the seeds to any sort of conversations, what they would do is they would play some music from her phone, and they would just sing. The girl had no specific musical taste, so they had a lot of fun singing lots of different songs from Taylor Swift to Halsey to Beyonce, and plenty more. Neither of them would ever say they had a voice to rival them, they certainly had impressive voices themselves. This lead to fun and jokingly competitive sing off between the two as they drove from one end of the town to the other. It always put the two in high spirits in case there was any tension from the week before.
Brooke recalls a time when Chloe tried to hook up her music. She insisted that it would be fun to try out a new kind of music to sing along to. When she played her first song, Brooke was rather interested in it. It sounded vaguely familiar. Then, Drake started rapping, and Chloe did too. It was… A unique experience. She didn’t know that Chloe could rap. If you went far enough into her journal, you would find her fawning over Chloe’s many talents. You would also find that she planned on asking Chloe to play her music again one day. This Saturday wasn’t going to be that day though.
Eventually, they rolled into the Pinkberry’s parking lot. As they began to step out of the car, they could see that the place still had a few more minutes until opening. This lead to another Saturday tradition of theirs. Getting back into the car, both girls took out their phones. Chloe sent Brooke a game of pool over iMessage and they began to play. Both of them were notoriously good at this game, so when they played, they had to play it on hard mode without guidelines, or whoever went first would almost always win. The other thing about this was that they had to finish the game. They couldn’t just drop it midway, or else it they wouldn’t want to resume later. Sometimes, their froyo talks got serious, and the game just didn’t feel right.
Today, the Pinkberry opened at eleven, like always. Chloe and Brooke entered after the shorter blonde won at eleven o’eight.
Both smiling as they entered, they walked to the counter and got their normal choices. Chloe got vanilla and strawberry with cinnamon toast crunch cereal and caramel syrup, and Brooke got orange creamsicle with gummy bears. With that, they strolled over to their designated spot in the corner of the shop. This was when they began talking. Every week, they starting the same way.
“So.”
“So.”
“You wanna go first?”
This was how it always went. Chloe would start, Brooke would go, and then it would be decided who was to begin.
“Um… Not really. Nothing happened this week.”
With that said, Miss Valentine started on this particular Saturday.
“Oh okay good, because I have been absolutely dying to talk to you about this. Literally everyone in our circle is in love with each other. But they’re not doing anything about it. I can’t believe them, like it’s just so frustrating,” she paused and took a spoonful of strawberry before continuing. “Except Jenna and Christine of course, given their orientation, but ya know what I mean, right? You’re seeing what I’m seeing?”
Brooke giggled, before thinking about what she said. She said everyone in the circle. That would include them. The phrasing was surely accidental, though. She’d be rude to point it. She decided to let herself pretend that Chloe was in love with her as she continued to rant about everyone they hung out with. It was amusing to see how interested she was with the topic. She seemed to consider herself an absolute love specialist when it came to her friends. Brooke supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by now. Whenever Chloe found something she liked, she threw one hundred and ten percent of herself into it. Whether it was her fashion, her workout, or even the rare school subject that she liked such as that one year they offered dance in eighth grade, Chloe Valentine wasn’t going to half-ass it. It looked like other people’s relationships would have to be added to the list.
Her energy just seemed endless as she continued to rave about them. “I mean really? You can’t just fucking slap his ass as you walk by and try to fucking, ‘Oh, hah, no homo dude!’ out of the situation! That’s just, soooo gay!” Briefly, her voice softened as she clarified, “I’m not using gay in like, that derogatory thing. You know. I’ve said this before. Like, I literally mean gay as in they’re acting totally homosexual. Anyway…” Once again, her voice rose as she went on to talk other moments she witnessed throughout the weeks.
The infinite amount of passion she seemed to have for such a simple topic amazed Brooke. It was yet another reason she loved Chloe. As she absentmindedly ate her frozen yogurt, she stared out the window in though. Reasons she loved Chloe would have to be another page in her bullet journal. She was running out of pages, though. Pondering her options, she considered making an entire separate one just dedicated to her love for her. That might work. She reasoned that there was just far too much to her; Chloe was a very deep complex person who deserved her own space. Pleased with the thought, she turned back to Chloe to tune into the rant. However, she quickly found that there was no rant for her to tune into.
Instead, she found Chloe red faced and staring at her. That was a little odd. Her energy had dissipated and dissolved into thin air. She sat still, pink spoon still sticking out of her mouth. Putting the spoon in her almost empty cup, she lowered her voice as she said a single word.
“Brooke?”
Her name. That was her name, and she was saying it super gentle and staring at her in such a nice way. Her mind was abuzz with what the hell Chloe was going to say next after she replied. Knowing she couldn’t hesitate without looking weird, she spoke slowly to buy herself time instead.
She drew out the vowels as she responded in a similar dreamy tone, “Yeeeeees, Chloe?”
“Come’ere.” The girl seemed to be back in her earlier passionate mood. This time, though, she spoke with more determination than frustration. Her voice was slightly commanding, so who was Brooke to disobey? Unsure, she slid off the chair across from her and took a step to her side. Nervously, she stood there. She worried she had done something to upset her. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn’t paying enough attention to her? Should she have been facing her instead of looking out the window? Maybe she could have responded more, and gave her opinion a bit more. Why did she need to step over? They were only about a foot or so closer than they were before.
Then, Chloe stood up, leaving them only separated by inches. Shorter than her by around five inches, Brooke figured if she just got on her toes, she would totally be able to kiss her. Of course, there was no way she would actually do it. She didn’t want anything to be weird. She could dream though.
If kissing her was a dream, then she must have fallen asleep in the following five seconds. In the first second, she saw Chloe’s hand move up from the corner of her eye. She noted the manicure she had seen Friday afternoon on her Snapchat story. They were holographic. Trendy. In the next second, she felt her pretty nails and soft hands on holding her chin. What were they doing there? In the third second, her head was being tilted upwards. Chloe’s hazel eyes locking with hers. She was looking for something, gauging Brooke’s reaction. Whatever she was searching for, she didn’t find it. Her gaze wandered down to her lips. In the fourth, amazingly beautiful second, Chloe planted a very small peck at the corner of Brooke’s mouth. She could feel the warmth of her lips behind the cooler lip gloss she was wearing. Finally, in the last second, she had pulled away.
Brooke could only describe her feeling as hot. Not in the sense that she was turned on or anything, but in the sense that she literally felt hot. Like temperature. She was certain that her face was red she didn’t know what to say so she just stood there as Chloe took her seat again.
“Brooke sit down.”
She did.
“Anyway, I was talking about-”
“Chloe what was that?” No . Miss. I-can’t-believe-they-won’t-just-speak-up was not going to ignore her question and become a hypocrite as she did the exact thing she loathed. Her face was red, she wouldn’t look Brooke in the eye, and from the way she was talking, it didn’t seem like she wanted to mention it.
“There was froyo on your face.”
Brooke’s face contorted with disbelief, as she exclaimed, “Yeah, but that’s no reason to just… That!” She made vague gestures at her face and then to Chloe’s.
The girl still refused to acknowledge the event, though. “I don’t know what you mean there was froyo on your face and I just-”
“You kissed me!”
“Well, I… I mean-”
“You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen, because guess what? It did!” Chloe didn’t respond. Instead, she just turned her head and looked away. She took in a deep breath and wiped at her eye carefully, trying not to ruin her makeup.
After a moment, she faced Brooke. Another inhale. Another exhale. “Okay, so I realize now that I read our entire relationship wrong, and I’m sorry, so now I’m just going to tell you before you reject me.” Her voice was starting to shake.
Oh.
Chloe began what she presumed was going to be a very long monologue. “I really like you. I wasn’t kidding when I said everyone in the friend group was like in love, but I guess it was everyone but you and-”
“No no no! I totally like you too! I was just like really surprised! And I just, I didn’t know what to do, and um, and I was, I wasn’t sure what you were doing, and I wanted to talk about it and all, and I, I was not trying to reject you, like I am totally in love with you!” Brooke frantically tried to clarify, as she shook her head. During this panicked explanation, she had gotten up and was back at Chloe’s side holding her hands.
Behind them, they heard a whoop and a few claps. They had just confessed their feelings to each other in an empty Pinkberry. At that, they started laughing. They were laughing and hugging, and then they pulled back and had a proper, real kiss.
Both of them tasted like frozen yogurt and lip gloss, but the feelings were both so uniquely them they couldn’t care any less. Brooke’s hands were threading through Chloe’s hair, while her hands rested on Brooke’s hips, pulling them as close as possible. The kiss was quick, and light, expressing a joy and rush that neither would have been able to say in words. It was kept short as to not disturb the workers who looked on, but it left them feeling giddy nonetheless.
As they took back to their seats, they finished their froyo in giggles as they tried to eat it with one hand, as the other was building holding the other’s.
It was a Saturday to remember.