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Violet danced with some boys, and Susie, her best friend from school, chatted with everyone, laughing and giggling and having the best night of her life.
But eventually the night wound down, the last of the guests leaving just after two in the morning. Bob carried Jack Jack and Dash up to bed. Violet sat on the couch, listening to music turned down low. Helen and Karen picked at the accumulated debris of the party, pretending to clean, and not doing a very good job of it. Finally Helen yawned and announced, “Leave it Karen, we’re all too tired. We can finish in the morning.”
Karen smiled at her, hoping she didn’t look as tired as she felt. “It’s okay. Just let me get the dishes in the sink to soak.”
She opened a portal in the table that exited into the sink, then swiped it around, depositing the piles of cups and glasses and dishes, then reached through and turned on the water.
“Handy,” Helen laughed. She turned to her daughter. “Good night Violet. Don’t stay up too late.”
“Good night, Mom. Thank you. Love you.”
“Love you too. Good night Karen.”
“Good night.” Karen turned off the tap.
Her heart pounded in her chest. A very small, dim part of her yelled warnings of doom and gloom and forecasts of peril and woe, but the entire rest of her ganged up on it, tied it up and stuffed a sock in its mouth.
She turned and faced Violet. Even half asleep, exhausted, in stocking feet, curled up on the couch, listening to music and not paying attention to pretty much anything, Violet was easily the most beautiful girl Karen had ever seen.
Just once, Karen thought. One dance, together, no more hiding and lying, no more running from the truth. She knows how I feel, I know how she feels, we both want this, just once. Just tonight.
Karen walked across the living room and went to the Hi Fi, making a big deal of pretending to look for a record to play next when she knew exactly what record to play. She picked it up and waited for Paul Anka’s Diana to stop playing, then switched the record.
As the guitars began to play, she walked to Violet and held out her hand.
Violet was almost asleep, but smiled as Karen approached.
“Angel?” Karen asked quietly.
“Mmm?” Violet asked, her sleepy smile widening.
“Dance with me?”
Violet’s eyes snapped open, completely awake. “Really?”
“It’s just like heaven, being here with you,” Rosie Hamlin sang.
Karen nodded, and Violet took her hand. Karen led her to the middle of the living room, pulled her close, closer than ever before, pressed together, body to body, curve to curve, face to face, eye to eye. Without her heels, Violet was back to being just shorter than Karen, their bodies fitting together perfectly, effortlessly, naturally. Violet took a long, slow breath, and wrapped her arms around Karen’s body. Karen barely dared breathe.
“You’re like an angel, too good to be true,” Rosie continued in her sweet soprano voice.
Karen pressed her cheekbone to Violet’s temple, her lips near her ear, skin to her skin, both of them sweaty from a night of dancing, a heady, dizzying scent. Karen breathed Violet in, trying to imprint this moment in her memories forever, wanting it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.
Violet’s breath moved over Karen’s neck, and she shivered.
“But after all, I love you, I do,” Rosie sang.
“Angel,” Karen whispered in her ear.
“Baby,” Violet answered.
“My angel baby,” the singer sang.
They danced for another verse in silence. Violet lifted her mouth to Karen’s ear. “You’re shivering.”
Karen nodded, not wanting to break the spell, not wanting to face reality.
“Are you cold?”
Karen shook her head. Cold? She was on fire, electric, a lightning bolt in a human shell. She drew in a long, shuddering breath… and the spell was broken, and reality crashed in, and the tears came. She buried her face in Violet’s neck, in her hair, hiding in her scent and her touch and her love.
“Baby, are you… Why are you crying?” Violet pulled her even closer somehow, tighter.
“I do love you,” Karen whispered, unable to escape, unwilling to even try. “I do. I do!”
Violet’s hand slid to Karen’s neck, resting against the curve of Karen’s jaw. “And I love you, baby, so, so much.”
“I know you do,” Karen said, eyes held tightly shut, moving by touch to put her forehead against Violet’s. “I know! But it can’t work Violet. It can’t, and I’m not strong enough to fight it any more. I can’t, I’m too weak, I’m too selfish…”
“Shh baby, shh, don’t.” Violet placed a finger over Karen’s lips. “Don’t you dare. No one trash-talks my baby, not even you.”
“You don’t understand. My parents were right, I am selfish. When there’s something I want, there’s nothing I won’t do to have it. And I. Want. You.”
Violet felt a shock of electricity jolt through her and she shivered. Karen never spoke about her parents, at least, not to Violet, and a tiny part of her brain filed that fact away, but in the more immediate sense, her brain wasn’t working very well, having been completely overridden by Karen’s words and very real, very present... presence. Their lips were so close, their breath mingled, their breathing matching each other’s…
Karen shook her head, almost a shiver, nearly a twitch. “I can’t, angel. If I do I’ll never stop.”
“Why would you want to? I don’t want you to. Stop, I mean.”
“Violet… please don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Dimly, distantly, they were aware of the song ending, and the record player resetting, but neither stopped dancing, neither wanted to let go.
“I want… so many things for you, angel,” Karen breathed. “Things you won’t see coming, things you won’t even think about, if we were together. You need to live your life for you, not for… us.” Her whisper became so quiet Violet nearly missed what Karen said next: “Not for me.”
“I don’t want anything if I can’t have you, too,” Violet answered, moving her other hand to the other side of Karen’s face. “You’re everything I want in this entire world.”
Karen shook her head and let out a sob. “Please don’t say that, please. You deserve so much better than me.”
“There is no one better than you,” Violet argued. “Not for me.”
Karen just shook her head again, recognizing an argument she wouldn’t win. She said nothing, instead, letting herself cry, letting herself be held by this amazing, wonderful, incredible girl. Violet smoothed her hair and whispered soothing sounds into her ear, and Karen, selfish coward that she felt herself to be, let her.
Just once, she thought with deep, mocking, guilt. What an idiot I am.
“How about this?” Violet said suddenly. “If you kiss me, once, just once, like you mean it, like you really mean it, and still think we can’t make it work, then… I won’t say another word about it.”
Just once. It was a hopeless, naive, innocent offer, and so very Violet. As though a kiss could solve anything.
But oh, she wanted so very badly to kiss her.
“Violet… angel…”
“Baby… kiss me.”
And weak as she was, Karen kissed her.
Her lips were soft, yielding, strong, hungry. Karen’s matched hers, unwilling to lose control, letting the younger girl take charge. Violet’s lips parted, just slightly; a testing flicker of her tongue.
Karen forgot how to breath, her heart stopped beating, the world began and ended in their kiss. Her lips parted in reply, a surrender, a damnation.
Violet felt connected to the entire universe, charged with cosmic power, alive to the very tips of her toes, every cell, every nerve ending on fire.
Karen felt her cheeks grow wet again, felt a deep black hole open up inside her, drag her down, down, away from Violet, away from light and life and love.
Violet’s hands moved down from Karen’s face, down her sides to reach around to the small of her back and pull her closer.
But Karen pulled away. “I can’t,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. You’re everything I could ever want… but I can’t.”
A portal opened up under Karen’s feet and she fell away, weeping, disappearing into the night.