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Just before midnight, the party was still going hard. Most of the boys had taken off their blazers and loosened their ties, and every girl but Violet had kicked off her shoes and was dancing in her stocking feet.
Karen was restocking the punch bowl when Violet came over to her.
Violet leaned in close to Karen’s ear to be heard over the music. “Can you come up to my room? There’s something I need some help with.”
“Everything okay?” Karen asked.
“Just something that requires some privacy,” Violet replied, rolling her eyes and grinning. She shifted her shoulders as though something she was wearing was giving her a problem.
Maybe her slip is all tangled up under there, Karen thought as Violet led the way up to her room. Upstairs the music was not quite as overwhelming. Violet hurried ahead and called over her shoulder, “Close the door when you get here?”
Karen worried about her hurry so she jogged a bit to catch up, closing the door as Violet had asked. She turned to face her friend when suddenly Violet was right there, up against her, pressing against her, pushing her back to the door, chest to chest, face to face, lips to lips.
Kissing her.
Karen hadn’t been kissed in so long there was a moment of pure shock quickly followed by all her walls of resistance crumbling and she sank into the kiss, eyes fluttering closed, falling into it, melted away until all that remained was the press of lips against lips, body against body.
An eternal second passed, and Karen came to her senses, pushing Violet away. “Violet! What are you doing?!”
Violet giggled. “Kissing my girlfriend, silly.”
“Girl… Girlfriend?! We’re not! I’m not!” Karen sputtered, at a loss. “We haven’t even gone on a date!”
Violet crossed her arms. “Now you really are being silly. We’ve been on six dates.”
“What?!”
“That time we went shopping together,” Violet said, ticking it off on one finger. “Then we went to the movies on Valentine’s Day. That lunch we had. The time you picked me up after school and we walked along the beach? Also that picnic in the park, and now tonight.”
“I’m your date?”
Violet laughed, incredulous. “We slow-danced to Baby I’m Yours.”
“You said there wasn’t anyone else to dance with!”
“I said there was no one else I would rather dance with.”
Karen tried to rally back to the original point. “Those were dates?” Memories flashed through her mind. Holding hands with Violet. Hugs from Violet. Smiles and secret looks from Violet. Kisses on the cheek from Violet. Awkward, expectant pauses from Violet which Karen now realized were her waiting to be kissed. “Oh my gosh those were dates.”
“And since you didn’t kiss me on the dance floor, I thought you wanted our first kiss to be something special and private, so…”
“Okay, Violet, I mean…”
“Don’t you want to kiss me? That’s all Tony wanted to do.”
“That’s not the point!”
Violet raised an eyebrow. “Do you or don’t you?”
Karen couldn’t bring herself to lie to her friend. Her shoulders slumped and she looked away. “Yes.”
“So what’s the problem?
“The problem is you’re sixteen and I’m going to be twenty.”
Violet sat down on the edge of her bed. “What has that got to do with anything?”
Karen went to sit beside her. “What… Okay, so, first, it would be illegal for us to date.”
“That’s stupid,” Violet said, frowning.
“Also, it’s immoral. I’m older, and more experienced, and that means it’s unfair to you.”
Violet shook her head. “No. Look. It’s very simple. Do you like me?”
“Of course I like you,” Karen answered. “You’re…” she searched for something to say as words like ‘wonderful’ ‘amazing’ ‘everything anyone could ever hope for’ offered themselves and were quickly set aside, settling on, “…a great friend.”
Violet leaned toward her, eyes wide, trusting, seeking. “But do you ‘like me’ like me?”
Karen stuttered, fiddling with her hands, letting her hair fall between them.
“Because I love you, baby.”
How was it possible for her heart to both freeze and explode at the same time? To hear the words, those words, that she had so longed to hear, and from this incredible, wonderful, amazing girl… she felt dizzy, lightheaded, giddy. She wanted to shout, scream, cheer… weep. Violet was sweet, kind, strong, smart, caring, and Karen couldn’t let herself be so selfish as to take all that for herself. She couldn’t. Violet deserved better.
Karen knew if she looked at Violet, she’d be lost, but she couldn’t stop herself. She had to face her, face what she had to do. She turned, and was lost.
“Yes,” she admitted before she could stop herself. Her heart pounded, a thumping in her chest and a rushing in her ears and a burning in her cheeks. Her emotions erupted into all out war - sadness holding back the tidal wave of joy, longing chaining the joy and sadness in equal measure, anger that fate could be so cruel like flashes of lightning, fireworks of love and desire both growing to a huge crescendo, bitterness at the injustice of the situation, and finally, the cold splash of relief that she had finally admitted - not just to Violet but to herself - that yes, these feelings were real, yes they were genuine and yes, they were mutual, returned in equal measure and not some hopeful imagining.
“Yes, I like you like you.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper, hating herself for being too weak to lie and save them both the heartache to come. “I love you too.”
Violet sat back with a self-satisfied smile. “Then that’s all that matters.”
Shocked, angry, incredulous, Karen stood and began pacing. “It is absolutely not all that matters!”
Violet looked at her with an expression that bordered on the infuriating - part loving patience, part amusement.
Karen tried to rally again. “Violet, it can not work out. I will not be the person to break your heart.”
“You could leave and never come back and you would never, ever break my heart.”
“You say that now,” Karen stopped pacing, “but you’ll think differently when it happens. Do you remember the slammed doors and nights crying and drowning your sorrows in ice cream floats when you and Tony broke up?”
“I remember,” Violet said.
“So you have to know that-” Karen pointed at Violet, then herself, back and forth “- this? Can’t work. It can’t. I care for you too much to hurt you. I can’t. We can’t. You have to know that.”
Violet took a deep breath, stood, and took Karen’s hands in her own. “I’ll tell you what I know. I know that all my life, all I’ve ever done is hide, and push the world away. I know that my whole life, I felt like an outsider, like there was something wrong with me, and I could never figure it out. I had feelings I didn’t understand, and the feelings I was supposed to have didn’t make any sense to me. What I wanted wasn’t what everyone else wanted, and I couldn’t get it, you know?
“But then you came along. And you’re smart, caring, incredible, funny, pretty, and so, so sweet. You have a huge heart and you had powers, too! And I thought - no, I knew - that we would be friends. That we would be able to relate, really jive together. Because you would know what I was going through, being a super and a teenaged girl.
“And then you came to live with us, and I got to know you even better, and I knew I was right. But the biggest thing of all was when you told me that girls can like girls, which never even occurred to me before! Like, I was so surrounded by girls that liked boys and boys that liked girls that it never even crossed my mind that girls could like other girls. Not just best friends, but real, romantic love.
“And suddenly, everything made sense. Everything I knew about me, about you, about my feelings, about my life made perfect sense. And you gave me that.”
Karen looked away and blinked back tears.
Violet reached out and touched Karen’s chin, turning her head to face her. “You did that, Karen. That’s why I say you can never break my heart. You gave me my heart, helped me find it in a bramble bush of confusion. And now, I’m giving it to you.”
Karen felt her will weakening. All she wanted to do was say the same to Violet, to be strong enough to hurt her now before things got out of hand. She leaned into Violet’s hand, still on her chin, savoring the sensation of her touch, the thrill and warmth of Violet’s hand on her skin.
Violet was leaning forward again, lips pursing, eyes closing…
A knock at the door interrupted them, and Karen reached for the doorknob.
“Yes?” she asked Violet’s friend, Susie. Sue? Karen’s brain wasn’t working properly.
“Um, Violet?” Sue asked, looking around Karen. “We want to play some slow dances, but your brother keeps playing surf music.”
“Ugh,” Violet groaned. “I’ll be right there.”
“What were you two doing, anyway?” Sue asked as Violet passed Karen, trailing her fingers down Karen’s arm. Karen shivered, unable to control that all-too-pleasurable reaction and keep from saying something she might regret.
“Oh, I had something in my eye, but Karen helped me out.”
“She’s so great,” Sue said, heading down the stairs.
Violet stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back at Karen, who was still standing in Violet’s doorway.
“She really is,” Violet replied, then mouthed ‘I love you’ to Karen and blew her a kiss. Then with a soft, happy smile, she headed back to her party.
Karen went into the bathroom, locked the door, and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs, forehead resting on her knees. After a few minutes of utterly hopeless confusion, she got up, and returned to the party, focussing on her duties as assistant hostess, avoiding Violet’s loving gaze which she knew followed her around the room, burning into her soul like one of Jack Jack’s eye-lasers.