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Chloé waited on the bench in the park for exactly one hour and thirty seven minutes, and by that time she knew that her date wasn’t coming.
Margot seemed too good to be true when Chloé had met her at her father’s Charity Ball. It was the way she was able to sip from champagne flutes without smudging her lipstick and walk in a long, opulent evening gown without stepping on the train or tripping up the stairs. Looking back, Margot’s flirting was too smooth and too polished, almost as if she were speaking from a script she’d memorized long ago and refined through repeated use. But she was a year older than Chloé, and the fact that she took interest in her while carrying herself with such effortless grace left Chloé dazzled.
They texted for only two days before Chloé lost her patience and asked Margot if she would be willing to go on a date with her — a walk through the park at six, dinner at seven, and a show at nine. It was a hassle to get her to agree on a day, seeing as how Margot always seemed to have something to do no matter what Chloé suggested, but Chloé forced herself to be as flexible as she could until they both agreed to meet each other that Friday night.
For the four days leading up to the date, Chloé was a flurry of nerves and excitement because she knew it was going to be a day of firsts. It was so frustrating to accept that you only liked girls only to realize later on how hard it was to find others like you to share your feelings with, so Chloé wanted everything to be special. She bought a brand new mustard dress to wear with her favorite pair of heels, she spent all morning getting a manicure and a fresh blow out, she slaved in front of her vanity for an hour getting her makeup just right, and she even stopped by a flower stand to buy Margot a small bundle of tulips as a little surprise.
Chloé got to the park early, texted Margot that she was sitting by the big oak tree, and waited.
They’d already missed their dinner reservations, and Chloé had a feeling that the two show tickets sitting in her purse were also going to go to waste. All of the texts that she sent to Margot had gone unanswered, so she figured she’d try one more time and give her a call instead. When she heard Margot’s voicemail message, Chloé tried to swallow against the waves of crippling disappointment that were making her throat feel tight so that she could leave a message.
“Hey Margot,” Chloé began, already feeling tears pushing against the backs of her eyes. She leaned her head back, blinked rapidly, and promised herself that she wouldn’t lose her cool until she hung up. “I, uh….thought we had a date tonight! Six o’clock at the park. But I guess I was wrong, or I guess you thought it would be funny to stand me up because you thought I was some silly little girl who took you too seriously.” Chloé dropped her head and cursed herself for sniffling during the recording. “Whatever. Do what you want. Just don’t call me ever again.”
Chloé ended the call quickly, and the moment she stuffed her phone in her purse and laid her flowers on the bench next to her, all of the frustrated tears came pouring out at once. She tried to keep her sobs quiet, and she pulled her hair in front of her shoulders so that her hair would shield her face from the few other people scattered around the park. She watched her tears drip down onto her dress in blotchy patterns, and every time she wiped underneath her eyes, a new streak of makeup would rub off on her fingers. She felt awfully silly sitting here alone and crying in public, but Chloé was too humiliated to move — she didn’t want to call her driver and tell him to pick her up early, and she didn’t want to go home and have her butler see her throw out the flowers and show tickets she didn’t get to use. Everything about her in that moment felt like a joke. It made Chloé sick to her stomach, and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do other than sit here.
She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there crying, but Chloé was suddenly brought out of her thoughts when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her head snapped up, and she was ready to berate the other person who dared to interrupt her wallowing. But the anger fizzled out in her throat and was swallowed back when she saw Marinette standing over her, a canvas bag full of fabric bolts slung across her shoulder.
Chloé knew that Marinette could see the tear tracks and the smudged makeup, but she tried to compose herself by straightening her back, lifting her chin, and regarding Marinette with the same cool, dismissive tone she always used in school. “What do you want?” she asked, hating how thick her voice sounded. “I’m trying to enjoy my day at the park and you’re totally ruining it.”
But Marinette wasn’t deterred by her curtness. Instead she laid her bag down on the floor between her feet and sat down on the bench right next to Chloé, letting her hand rub up and down Chloé’s arm in a way that she wished wasn’t so comforting. “What are you doing here in the park all by yourself?”
“What are you doing here?” Chloé snapped without thinking.
Marinette pointed towards the southern gate of the park. “Well, I live right over there, remember? I was coming back from the fabric shop and I thought I’d cut through the park. But I was passing by and I heard you crying.”
“I wasn’t crying!” Chloé insisted, even though vocalizing that lie seemed to make her tears start up again and cloud her vision. She shut them closed and shook her head, hoping that would drive them back. “It’s Spring. I have pollen allergies.”
“You’re in such a nice dress though,” Marinette lamented. “And you’ve got flowers with you.”
Chloé snorted rudely. “Well, look at what a sterling detective we have over here. One more clue and she’ll have this whole case wrapped up. I mean, it’s not like it’s all that hard to figure out.”
She tried to make everything sound sarcastic, but it was ruined once she started sobbing in the middle, and once the tears started up again she couldn’t stop them. But this time Marinette immediately started digging through her purse, pulled out a travel pack of tissues, and yanked out a couple before turning Chloé’s face towards hers. “No, no, come on. It’s okay,” she soothed, dabbing Chloé’s cheeks. “You don’t want to let the rest of your makeup run.”
Chloé rolled her eyes and snatched the paper out of Marinette’s hands, passing it underneath her eyes and hoping she didn’t look too ridiculous. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like anyone’s gonna see it anymore anyway.”
Marinette moved her hand down from Chloé’s arm to her knee and squeezed. “Do you want some water? You look like you need it.”
Chloé didn’t bother to respond, but Marinette dipped into her canvas bag and pulled out an unopened water bottle anyway. She twisted off the cap and held the bottle close to Chloé’s face until she finally relented with a snarl, snatched the bottle away, and took a couple of gulps to try and rehydrate herself. Admittedly, once she was done with half the bottle, she felt a little bit better. Marinette held out the pack of tissues again, and this time Chloé was more careful as she took more to dry her cheeks and her chin.
Marinette let the comfortable silence hang for a few moments before she spoke again. “Do you wanna tell me what happened?”
Chloé glared. “Come on. You’re smart. You know what happened.”
“I can guess,” Marinette admitted. “But I’d rather you tell me. Might be better to just get it all out.”
“You’re oddly invested in my well being for someone who doesn’t speak a work to me in school. I get lycée separated us and we can’t kill each other anymore, but we’re still not friends.”
Marinette chuckled. “No offense, but you’re in what looks like a four hundred euro dress, sitting in a park alone, crying, and with a bouquet of flowers next to you. I don’t have to like you to know that you’ve had a hard day and that you need some help. I’m not heartless, you know.”
Chloé rolled her eyes. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Marinette chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds, stared across the park, and stood up on her feet. “Alright. How about you tell me at my house? It’s a little chilly out here. You can wash your face, I can get you some warm tea, and you can get out of those shoes and that dress for a bit. It’s always best to get comfy after a good cry.”
“You’re inviting me to your house?” Chloé asked. “Is there some community service quota you’re trying to fill that involves taking in sad little girls on park benches?”
Marinette smirked. “Are you giving me permission to call you a charity case?”
“I’m giving you permission to quit while you’re ahead!”
“Hey, relax,” Marinette giggled. “I’m just teasing. Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t get a good diss in there somewhere, right?”
Chloé rolled her eyes. “If this is you trying to cheer me up, you suck at it.”
“Hey, I happen to be great at cheering people up,” Marinette insisted. “If you come back to my house, I promise I can do a better job of it.”
Chloé sighed. “Are you actually serious?”
She nudged Chloé’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t. Come on. I’ll even give you some pastries from the bakery. On the house.”
Chloé had to admit the offer sounded tempting. There was something rather wretched about having to go home and spend the rest of the evening in her room all by herself, mostly because she knew it was going to turn into her moping far more than was probably necessary. Some company sounded like just what she needed. Marinette definitely wasn’t her first choice in that regard, but she supposed it was hard to be antagonistic towards someone who was being so nice and patient with her when she didn’t really deserve it. It was rather endearing that Marinette would even bother to put this much time in for Chloé’s sake.
She stared down at the pile of tissues in her lap before peeking up at Marinette through her lashes. “Do you have those honey and milk macarons?”
“We made a fresh batch this morning.”
Chloé shrugged carelessly as she mulled things over. “Fine,” she decided. “But only for ten minutes. And we speak to no one about this.”
“Oh, were you not aware? I have cameras all around the park recording us right now. I’m going to spread the footage to the entire school.”
“You’re hilarious,” Chloe deadpanned.
“And you’re being ridiculous. Now hurry up before we run out of the flavor you want.”
The walk to Marinette’s apartment was a short one, and it wasn’t until they were passing the shop windows of the bakery that Chloé suddenly felt self-conscious about being in Marinette’s home with her parents around. The moment they walked into the bakery, Marinette’s mother looked away from the two orders of baguettes she was wrapping for a customer and widened her eyes at the sight of Chloé carefully shutting the door behind her to make sure her dress didn’t get pinched between the frame. Mme. Cheng’s eyes immediately darted to Marinette as if there were cause for worry, and Chloé suddenly felt rather silly for forgetting that Marinette probably didn’t have many nice things to say to her parents about her. She dropped her gaze to the floor, but Marinette seemed unbothered by the awkwardness as she hopped behind the counter and quickly whispered something in her mother’s ear. She stepped back with a smile on her face and folded her hands under her chin in a silent plea while her mother laughed at her enthusiasm and waved Chloé over to the counter.
“You’re very lucky, darling,” Mme. Cheng teased, pulling out her serving gloves and pulling out a tray of macarons. “There’s just enough milk and honey macarons left for a double order. Marinette must have a bit of a sweet tooth too, otherwise she wouldn’t be pulling it out of her allowance.”
“They’re yummy!” Marinette giggled. “Second favorite flavor.”
“Well, your father and I are going to be down here for the next few hours. She can stay until the bakery closes, and there’s leftovers in the fridge if you girls want some dinner as well. Do you need a ride home, Chloé?”
“Uh, n-no madame,” Chloé muttered, trying to remember her manners. “My driver can come pick me up.”
“We won’t be long, maman,” Marinette said. “Just gonna talk for a bit. Nothing bad.”
Mme. Cheng finished filling up the pastry box with two dozen macarons before tying it off at the top and handing it to Chloé. “Just make sure to keep the noise down, alright?”
“We will!” Marinette called back, already unlocking the door leading up to the apartment building. “Up here, Chloé.”
Chloé quickly thanked Mme. Cheng for the pastries before following Marinette upstairs to the top floor of the walk-up. Her feet were screaming inside of her heels by the time they reached Marinette’s apartment, so she toed her shoes off by the shoe rack next to the front door the moment Marinette let them in. Marinette hurried her upstairs to what Chloé soon found out was an attic remodeled into a pretty adorable bedroom, with a loft bed and a skylight, that Chloé secretly found rather charming once she got over how small it was.
Marinette dropped her bags by her desk and started looking through one of her dressers. “Here, you can borrow one of my pajamas. Alya got them for me for my birthday, but I think you’re a bigger Ladybug fan than I am.” She dropped a pair of fuzzy pajama pants covered in a ladybug pattern and a t-shirt with Ladybug’s yoyo emblazoned on the front into Chloé’s arms. They seemed much too big, but they were perfect for lounging around in.
“Are you….sure this is okay?”
“Just put it on, trust me,” Marinette said. “I’m gonna go downstairs and heat up some dinner and get the tea. Bathroom’s over there, and you can hang your dress up on the folding screen in the corner. Is white tea okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Marinette scurried downstairs, leaving Chloé alone to deal with the almost excessive amounts of generosity that even Chloé felt too guilty to say no to. She figured washing off her makeup was a good start, so she snuck into the bathroom and freshened up until her face was no longer pink from dried tears. She had to use the full length mirror in Marinette’s room so she could twist around and pull down the zipper on the back of her dress, but she eventually peeled it off and slipped into Marinette’s pajamas, sighing at how cozy they felt. Chloé rocked back and forth on her toes and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room for a bit before she decided to sit down against the chaise in the corner and pull the box of macarons in her lap.
It only took a few minutes for Marinette to bring up a tray with two mugs of tea and two small bowls of what looked like noodles, meat, vegetables, and a few other ingredients Chloé didn’t recognize. Marinette shoved over a box of unopened fabric orders to act as a makeshift table as she laid the tray down on top of it. “Sorry for the microwave dinner,” she said. “The bakery is open really late on Saturdays so that’s usually our leftover night. It’s the stir fry maman made last night though. It’s really good.”
Chloé chuckled. “You don’t miss a step, do you?”
Marinette stuck her tongue out at her as she pulled out her own pair of pajamas and skipped behind the folding screen to change. “Told you I was good at cheering people up!”
Chloé waited until Marinette sat down in front of her wearing some embarrassingly dorky kitten pajamas before they started to eat. Marinette even connected her phone to her desk speakers and played some music so that the silence wouldn’t seem too strange. Not that it would’ve lasted that long anyway, because the moment they were each five bites in, Marinette started up with her questions again.
“So. Still not gonna tell me what happened?”
Chloé was too comfortable and too lazy to bother staying tight lipped about it anymore. Besides, it was probably good to complain about it just to shake off all the hurt feelings. “Not much to tell. I had a date that never showed up.”
“Were you dating for a while?”
“Not really,” she answered. “I met her at a charity ball my father was holding not that long ago. She was older than me, super pretty, and she paid attention to me in a way that felt really nice. I thought that meant she was really into me, so I asked her out on a date and she seemed really happy when she said yes. But I guess I must have misread something along the way because I was obviously wrong.”
“So you had a whole evening planned and she just didn’t show up?”
“Dinner reservations and tickets to a show all down the drain. We were supposed to meet at six and I had about just given up by the time you showed up. But hey. Thank God for unlimited credit cards, right?”
Marinette didn’t latch onto the joke. Instead she stared pitifully over her mug of tea, looking sorrier for Chloé than she ever had in the years they’d known each other. “That’s awful, Chloé.”
“It is what it is,” Chloé tried to brush off, feeling her chest feel heavy again. “No use dwelling on it.”
“But it upset you,” Marinette said. “You really liked her. You were so excited for the date, and she just blew you off. That’s such a cruel thing to do to another person. No one deserves that.”
Chloé shrugged and purposefully took a long time to swallow her food. “It’s whatever.”
“Don’t give me that,” Marinette said softly. “She was important to you. You’re allowed to be hurt by that. You don’t have to hide it from me.”
“That’s the thing,” Chloé began. “I don’t think I’m upset about not having the date with her. I’m….upset because I didn’t have the date at all.”
Marinette frowned. “What do you mean?”
Chloé kept her eyes down at her food. “It was….it was supposed to be my first date. You know. With a girl. And I guess….I don’t know, I guess I was really fixating on that, and hoping it would happen.”
Marinette let out a small breath. “You’ve never dated a girl before?”
Chloé shook her head. “Nope.”
“You brag about flirting with girls all the time though,” Marinette commented. “Everyone always thought that you’d been dating girls for a while. Heck, I thought that.”
“Yeah, well, when you decide to come out to your entire class you have to spice it up a bit,” Chloé defended bitterly. “Besides, is this at all surprising coming from me?”
Marinette smirked. “Fair point. Continue.”
“I don’t know,” Chloé sighed. “I probably hyped it up in my head a lot. But I’m seventeen and I thought I’d finally get to knock off all my firsts tonight. First date with a girl, first time holding hands with a girl, first time sharing a meal, first time kissing, first time….doing a lot of things.”
Marinette nodded. “I understand.”
Chloé snorted. “Do you?”
“A little,” Marinette admitted. “I’ve only ever kissed a girl once. Never dated one. Never had a girlfriend. It kinda feels like you’ve been holding onto these secret feelings for so long you just want to let them out and share them with other people. But it’s never that easy because it’s just harder to find other girls to share those experiences with. Makes every little chance you get to be with another girl feel really huge.”
Chloé shook her head. “I keep forgetting you’re bi. Plus, that crush you had on Adrien was so huge, I thought you’d never look at another person ever again.”
Marinette rolled her eyes. “Oh, leave me alone.”
Chloé stuck her tongue out and smiled when Marinette pouted in response. “I don’t know,” she continued, “I’m just tired of waiting. I want one chance to do all those things with someone who isn’t going to make it awful for me.”
Marinette drummed her nails against her bowl and chewed on the inside of her cheek. “What was it you said? First date, first meal, first handhold, and first kiss, right?”
Chloé raised a brow. “Yeah.”
“Hold on a second.” She got up and made her way over to her desk, searching the clutter on top of it before locating a tall mason jar filled with art pencils, pens, rulers, and bits of thread. Marinette emptied the whole thing out on her desk before she unscrewed her thermos of water and filled the jar all the way to the top. Chloé watched in confusion as she plucked up the flowers that Chloé left by the chaise, took off the paper they were wrapped in, and placed them inside the makeshift vase of water. Marinette placed it in the middle of the box they were eating out of and gestured to their meal with a satisfied look on her face. “There! We had a meal. Now it’s a date!”
Chloé thought for a second that she was kidding, but then finally allowed herself to laugh at the ridiculous stunt once she realized that Marinette was being completely sincere. “What are you even doing?”
“I mean, it’s not very fancy. We’re eating leftovers on top of a cardboard box in our pajamas. But there’s food, there’s flowers, and there’s just the two of us. I’d say that counts as a date.”
“Are you trying to lead me through all my firsts?” Chloé teased.
“What part of I’m brilliant at cheering people up was not getting through to you?” Marinette complained. “Yes! We’re making up for your jerk of a date standing you up. Quick and dirty do-over, Marinette style.”
She knew that Marinette was acting silly on purpose to try and brighten her mood, but Chloé supposed it was worth it to see Marinette make a fool out of herself. She leaned her elbow on the box and cradled her chin in her hands. “Well, if this is a date, then the next logical step is hand holding.”
Marinette straightened up, squared her shoulders, and gracefully offered her open hand to Chloé. Chloé rolled her eyes at the theatrics but indulged her by laying her hand on top of hers. Marinette gave it a quick squeeze before twisting their hands around until they were both upright and lacing their fingers together right next to the bouquet of flowers sitting between them. Chloé watched Marinette rub her thumb against her own and adjust her grip so that she could feel her fingertips brushing against the back of her hand. Marinette’s hands were warm from the tea she was holding, her hands were so soft, and she found herself admiring the little pink hearts she’d drawn onto her nails that were only just starting to chip at the tips. It felt like they were holding hands for a long time, but Marinette wasn’t bothering to let go, so Chloé didn’t think she had to either.
“There,” Marinette grinned. “Handholding.”
Chloé pretended to look impressed. “You’re a decent handholder.”
Marinette fluttered her lashes. “Oh, why thank you. I’ve been waiting years for someone to tell me that.”
Chloé traced her finger around the rim of her mug and laughed. “Well, I guess that’s a meal, a date, and some handholding taken care of. Hopefully the kiss will happen someday before I die.”
Marinette shrugged, looking down into her own tea but not letting go of Chloé’s hand. “I mean….I did say I’d lead you through all of your firsts. You could do it now if you want.”
Chloé blinked and felt her heart do a strange little leap that made her chest tighten for reasons that had little to do with the resentment over her ruined date. “Wait. Seriously?”
“I-I mean, if you don’t want to, obviously we don’t have to. We could pretend I was kidding or something and keep eating. But if you….if you wanted to. I could give you a quick one. I wouldn’t mind.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Marinette said quietly. “They say it’s better to do these things with someone you know. But if you want to wait for someone special I totally get that too. Like I said, we could just forget I said anything.”
“No, no,” Chloé said quickly. “It’s fine. I’m not really waiting for anyone specific to come around. I just….want to know what it feels like. You know?”
Marinette was smiling too hard, probably trying to hide her nerves. “Yeah, I get it.”
Their hands were still laced together over the table, but this time Marinette’s hand felt heavier and every twitch of her fingers was much more obvious to Chloé than it had been before. She suddenly found herself appraising the details of Marinette’s face — her freckles, her eyes, her small nose, the bangs hanging over her lashes — before finally staring at her lips and feeling her heart jump in her throat in response. Her whole body felt tense with anticipation despite neither of them making a move, and she was suddenly realizing how warm and wonderful the thought of kissing Marinette was despite never having considered it before.
Marinette decided to make it easy for both of them and crawl around the box until she was sitting right in front of Chloé, close enough for their knees to touch. She cleared her throat and tucked her hair behind her ears while Chloé licked her lips to make sure they weren't dry. “Close your eyes,” Marinette asked. “It's easier on the nerves, trust me.”
Chloé let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding and nodded as she did just that. She waited in darkness for a few seconds, wondering what Marinette was up to while she couldn't see, and then she felt a gentle pressure on her lips and Marinette’s quiet exhale unfurling against her face. It took her a couple of seconds to register that it was Marinette’s closed lips against hers, but by the time her brain understood this, Marinette was already slowly opening her mouth, moving it down, and closing her lips around Chloé’s bottom one. Chloé shivered when their lips locked, and she felt her body push into the kiss and follow the easy, tentative rhythm that Marinette had started.
It was a really good kiss. It wasn't too hot, too heavy, or too quick. Chloé could sometimes feel the tease of Marinette’s tongue and feel the hushed noises vibrating from the back of her throat. Chloé managed to reach her free hand up and trace her fingertips across the apple of Marinette’s cheek and marvel at how soft and sweet everything about her felt. It left Chloé’s mind racing, thinking of deeper kisses with more contact and longer kisses with more touching, but she knew there was time for all that another day. For now, Chloé felt light and happy. For the first time, she was so thankful to have run into Marinette that evening and to have gotten a piece of her thoughtfulness. Perhaps she could come up with something creative and make it up to her later. Maybe a fresh dinner on a proper dinner table with nicer flowers and candles lit around them. Maybe more handholding and kissing.
They eventually broke the kiss with a flurry of laughter, and Marinette looked at Chloé like she was this fresh, clean, and polished version of herself that she had never seen before. Chloé quite liked it when Marinette looked at her like that, and all she wanted was to find ways to keep earning that look until she could keep it for herself. It was a loaded thought that was probably best kept to herself, but Chloé marvelled at the strong sincerity in Marinette's eyes and wondered if she was maybe thinking something just as heavy.
She danced her fingers across Marinette’s knuckles and felt her cheeks hurting from all the smiling. “Thanks,” she whispered.
Marinette brought Chloé’s hand up to her lips and kissed the knuckle of her thumb, erasing every awful feeling that Chloé had felt that evening and replacing it with this. “My pleasure.”