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The night that it finally happened wasn’t ceremonious like Frankie would have imagined. It wasn’t candlelight and dinner and deep confessions, it was just, easy; comfortable. Familiar, almost. Frankie had long become a permanent fixture in Grace’s bed, at first always insisting the studio was too far in case either of them fell again, until eventually there was no point in pretending it was anything other than a deep need to be close to one another.
Never having been one who picked up on things better left unsaid Frankie slipped into this new chapter of her life surprisingly quietly, almost as if afraid too many words might disrupt the nature of this flower blooming in her chest. Years ago she never would have assumed Grace would be the one to nurture such growth out of her, she couldn’t possibly have imagined a scenario where Grace Hanson’s hands were the ones to pull her out of the soft earth and back into the light.
Frankie hums to herself as she folds the towels, she doesn’t hang them to dry like she used to, or roll them into a messy ball and stuff them on a shelf like Sol would’ve. She takes her time and matches the corners perfectly. It’s the small adjustments she finds the most calming. Noticing how quickly Grace’s routine became her own and vice versa. Grace likes her laundry folded a certain way, Frankie likes to use thai crystals instead of deodorant and she noticed last time Grace restocked it for her she got one for herself too. Frankie knows not to use Grace’s expensive eye cream on her mosquito bites and Grace now understands that wind chimes can’t just be placed anywhere, it’s all about the coastal air pressure and the need to maximize the flow of chi.
Their lives had fallen so blissfully domestic Frankie should have seen it coming- but she didn’t. She’d thought about it, as a sort of incompressible alternate timeline. Not so much a fantasy, just general musings, the thought that maybe somewhere else her and Grace had always been destined for this. But the image never fully formed in her mind, always shut down before she let herself think about it too much, afraid that underneath the innocent curiosity something deeper might be churning.
They lived their lives with a loose unspoken set of rules. The first being they never fell asleep touching one another. The second being they never drew attention to the way they would wake in the morning a tangle of limbs, legs curled together. Arms slung around waists, sometimes hands clasped together. Grace, with her sleeping pills usually the first to submit to sleep, left Frankie to sit up in the dark and watch the gentle rise and fall of her chest. On especially bold nights she would find herself stroking the soft blond wisps away from Grace’s eyes. Not being much of a morning person left the reverse to transpire as the sun began to leak in through the curtains. On more than one occasion Frankie awoke to the warmth of Grace’s lips on her open palm, the burning sensation of Grace’s eyes watching her enough to will herself to keep her eyes shut for just a few moments longer. Once they were both awake it was business as usual, discreetly untangling and going their separate ways to get ready for the day. Once in the spare bathroom that had now been deemed Frankie’s, she would look at herself in the mirror and reassure herself that this was normal, they were just close friends. Close friends who could both use a little bit of extra comfort now and then. Nothing out of the ordinary, she would try to convince herself and sometimes it worked.
The morning before things changed Grace left early without explanation and Frankie was left to her own devices, most of which involved distracting herself from the gnawing desire to know where Grace was at nearly all times. She went to the farmers market and picked up some of Grace’s favourite flowers, tried not to think about how Robert never bought them for her. Visited with some of her old friends, tried not to think about Jacob. A lot of Frankie’s day to day revolved around stopping her brain before it swept her under the currents of the past.
It’s nearly 8pm when Grace makes her way back home to find Frankie painting in the living room. She leans up against the open doorframe, not yet discovered, and watches her work for a few minutes.
“I thought you couldn’t paint in here.” She gestures lazily with her left hand, “Vibes or some similar nonsense.”
Frankie tosses her a squint over her shoulder but doesn’t turn around.
“Now you’ve said a lot of crazy things but to call vibes nonsense really might take the cake.” She says before striking a long dash of mustard yellow across the bottom of the canvas.
Grace lets out a soft chuckle and goes into the kitchen to pour herself a drink. She sees the vase of white calla lilies. She pours one for Frankie too.
“This is very. Abstract?” She says reentering the room, before placing the glass into Frankie’s empty hand.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“Oh?” Grace sits on the same spot on the couch. Her spot.
Frankie shakes her hand, dismissing the inquisition. “What were you up to today?” She asks instead.
Grace pats the cushion beside her and Frankie responds accordingly. A few months ago the farther cushion was her spot but slowly she’s crept her way over to the middle seat. Sometimes she can even feel Grace shift closer to her as well, and by the end of the night they’re nearly always hip to hip.
Tonight however, Grace nonchalantly swivels her body around on the couch and lifts her legs up, resting them across Frankie’s lap. She doesn’t ask if it’s okay, she doesn’t need to.
“Oh god I won’t bore you with the list of mundane errands I ran today, but you will be pleased, I did go see my physiotherapist today.” She says and Frankie’s eyes automatically go to the knees resting on top of her. She wiggles her hand lose and lightly rubs the left one. When Grace doesn’t flinch she presses a little harder.
“What did she say?”
“She said it’s healing quite well. I used the treadmill and she did some stretches with those rubber bands. It all made me feel quite old to tell you the truth.”
“Oh shush with that missy, if you’re old then that means I’m old and we both know I can jump a fence like a teenager.”
Grace smiles and shakes her head as she pushes her knee up more into Frankie’s hand.
“And what shenanigans did you get into today?”
Frankie continues to rub Grace’s knee with her left hand, her right resting on Grace’s shin.
“Oh this and that. And the other thing.” She says absentmindedly, distracted entirely by the firm legs underneath her hands. “I am proud of you for going though, I can’t imagine it’s a real picnic.”
“Only if the picnic was at the top of the mountain and my legs belonged to a hundred year old woman.”
“They certainly don’t feel like it. I’m not hurting you am I?”
“No. No. It feels.. nice.. actually.”
“I missed you today.” Frankie says before she thinks better of it.
“I was only gone for a few hours.”
“I know, but I kinda like to know where you are. I don’t know if you know this but I’m kind of fond of you these days. Believe it or not.”
“Frankie...” Grace says and she places her hand over top of Frankie’s, stills her movement. Her eyes look tired and she’s leaning against the back of the couch.
“Hmm?”
“Frankie?” She says again, and Frankie feels it rumbling in her sternum, the feeling of the earth moving beneath her. There’s something delicate in the way Grace says her name that makes Frankie immediately begin to mourn all they’ve been while simultaneously thanking the goddess for whatever comes next.
It isn’t ceremonious. When Grace leans over and first kisses her it isn’t fireworks and butterflies, it’s soft and warm and comfortable. She’s less nervous than she would have expected, almost as if they had done this hundreds of times before. Grace shifts her hips so her legs move off of Frankie’s lap and she misses the contact immediately. She goes to reclaim Grace’s thigh but thinks better of it.
“Grace.” She breathes out, not realizing she had been holding it in. Her entire body feels light, and fluid, as if she’s the ocean washing softly against the shore.
“Frankie...” Grace husks back and her eyes are more unfocused than before.
“Grace?”
“Frankie.”
And then Grace kisses her again, this time hard and then as if reigning herself in, she slows down and kisses her so softly it almost aches. Grace’s hand snakes around Frankie’s neck and they release one another, pressing their foreheads together and breathing hard.
“Frankie...?” It comes out tinged in vulnerability and Frankie’s heart leaps. She feels a need to swoop in and reassure Grace that she wants this... this.. thing that seems to be happening without either of them even controlling it. She doubts they could if they tried.
“I want this.” She whispers and Grace shudders. “I want this, I want this. I want this.” She whispers in between kisses.
Frankie’s hands rest on either side of Grace’s face and her tongue swipes across her lower lip, eliciting a small gasp from the other woman.
“Shou- should we stop? Or...” Grace’s hand sneaks its way onto Frankie’s thigh, “Oh. No... no we shouldn’t.”
“Upstairs?” Is all Grace can muster, nearly as if she’s worried that if they stop for a moment they’ll never return to this moment. Frankie knows that isn’t true, she can feel it, the cosmic energy, the universe finally snapping into place after too many years of being cracked. Frankie doesn’t know how long this fusion has been being created but right now in this moment she is more certain than she ever has been that no matter what lives they lived this exact moment would have occurred.
When they enter the threshold of their bedroom hand in hand Frankie can feel the tension seep out of them and sink through the floor. For the first time it really feels like their bedroom- not Grace’s, not Robert or Sol’s. Theirs. If Frankie had ever let herself imagine this scenario to fruition she likely would have pictured Grace as uncertain, possibly even uncomfortable to start but the opposite couldn’t have been more true. It is almost as if Grace unzipped the version of herself she presents to the world and let her real self step out. Frankie nearly cries at the beauty that is Grace unfiltered. With each kiss she watches Grace release a small amount of sadness and regret and with each touch she feels her replace it with fresh air. If Grace is a gardener watering the new life under Frankie’s ribs, a garden she thought to be long dead, then Frankie is the curtains being pulled open in Grace’s heart, letting the light in and reminding her that there is so much more to her that she keeps hidden in the dark.
Grace’s tongue is on her neck and her hands are in Grace’s hair and she can’t believe how fluidly they move together. Legs and arms and heaving chests move in a rhythm so synchronized it could only be explained as instinct. When Grace hooks her thumbs into Frankie’s waistband her hips buck before she can even tell them to.
“Grace. Grace you’re so beautiful” she gasps and she means it in every sense of the word. She knows she’ll spend the rest of her life proving it to her.
Grace is soft and loving and gentle, which Frankie appreciates but she can see a hunger for this has been itching below her skin for longer than Frankie might’ve even begun to guess. Grace keeps whispering it’s never felt this way before, keeps whispering that she’s never felt this way before, almost more to herself than to Frankie. Almost as if she’s been waiting her whole life for it to feel like this.
They don’t lose complete control and Frankie knows it isn’t easy for either of them but when they finally collapse together into a hot pile of skin on skin on skin Grace looks her in the eye and whispers, “How did I get so lucky.” It’s a statement not a question and Frankie responds with the first thing that comes into her mind.
“I love you.” It comes out so softly, so full of love that she can watch the remaining fear escape Grace’s face.
“I love you too.” And she knows it but it’s still beautiful to hear it. Those words she’s heard from Grace countless times, but now with a whole new gravity. She kisses her once more before turning around, remaining two bodies pressed as one.
As they lay there, nearly asleep, Grace’s arms wrapped tightly around her she knows there is nothing more that needs to be said. What can be said about something that feels so deeply cosmically right? Frankie can’t help but wonder how they possibly slept so near one another ignoring this building for as long as they did. Why they chose to deprive themselves from this unfiltered happiness for so long. Right as she drifts off to sleep, and she feels Grace’s chin nuzzle in closer to her neck she finds immense comfort in knowing that Grace will still be there in the morning, that they’ll still be naked, and that everything will be okay.