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The first thing that goes up in their dorm room is the David Beckham poster. Jess tacks it to the wall right above her bed, and sits down on Jules’s bed to admire her handiwork. “Welcome to America, Becksy,” she says.
“I’m pretty sure he’s been to America before, Jess,” Jules says.
“Yeah, but not with me. It’s right that he’s here though; it all started with him.”
“It all started with you, Jess,” Jules says, and Jess turns to smile at her, stretched out on the bed. Her t-shirt is riding up and Jess can’t help but notice the exposed strip of skin at her stomach. Her mouth goes a little dry in a way she usually only experiences in the girls’ changing room.
Jules pats the mattress next to herself, and Jess lets herself be tugged to lie down next to her. She was feeling too wired to sleep on the plane, but now that she’s lying down she can feel a wave of exhaustion crashing over her. “You’re right. It all started with me,” she says. “It all started with us.”
“Mhmm,” Jules mumbles, pressing her face into Jess’s shoulder. “Hush now. I’m knackered.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jess says. She just lies there for a while, listening to Jules’s breath even out. It’s tickling her arm, but it’s more reassuring than irritating. She can feel her eyelids getting heavy, and with a last look over at her poster, she lets jet-lag pull her under.
+
Jess wakes up to clatter and tittering voices in the hallway. The sun is shining through the curtains of their dorm room window, hitting her right in the face, so she squints a little before opening her eyes fully and taking in her surroundings. Jules’s face is smushed into the pillow, her arm slung across Jess’s middle. Jess slowly extricates herself and Jules makes a sound of protest, trying to grab at her arm as she gets out of the bed.
Jess swats away Jules’s hand with a smile. She walks to the door and peeks out into the hallway. When they arrived yesterday, the building had been sitting mostly empty because they’d flown in a little early. Now there are boxes stacked next to the doors to the other rooms and girls and parents carrying more boxes. There’s a crash as a black girl drops a vase that shatters all over the hallway.
“Close the door, Jess,” Jules whines, pulling a pillow over her face.
Jess closes the door and walks back to the bed, tugging on the blanket that Jules has burrowed into. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” she says, “everyone else is arriving!”
“Fine,” Jules grumbles, shooting Jess a glare as she emerges from underneath her pillow. She looks soft and bleary-eyed and the pillow has left creases all over her face, so it’s endearing rather than intimidating. “But let the record show that I am only getting up under protest.”
“You know training starts at 6 tomorrow, right?” Jess teases. “No more sleeping in.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be dragging me out of bed while I can still sleep.”
“If you get up, we can go have coffee at that place on campus we passed last night,” Jess says.
Jules gets up so fast she nearly collides with Jess, steadying herself with a hand on Jess’s shoulder. “Okay!” she cries, “let’s go! To the caffeine!”
+
After they’ve both taken a quick shower and changed into clothes that are less travelled and slept in, they walk across campus arm in arm. They get their coffees to go and sit on a bench in one of the many greens on campus, soaking in the California sun.
“Kind of hard to believe that this will be home for the next four years,” Jules says after draining half of her coffee in one go. She’s starting to look a little more awake, and the sun makes her hair glow.
"Yeah," Jess says. She leans forward to brush a still slightly wet curl out of Jules’s eyes. Jules looks at her coffee cup until Jess settles back in next to her. Jess thinks Jules might be blushing, but her own fingers are confusingly tingling where they touched Jules’s skin, so she doesn’t say anything.
+
By the time they get back to the dorm, most of the parents dropping off the other girls have left and the chaos has abated a little. In the hallway, they come across the black girl who dropped the vase earlier, sweeping up shards of glass.
“Hi,” Jess says.
The girl looks up at them, then scrambles to her feet. “Oh hi!” she says, a little out of breath. “I’m Meggie!”
“I’m Jules,” Jules says, sticking out her hand so Meggie can shake it. “And this is Jess. We’re in dorm 13.”
“Nice to meet you. Are you here on the soccer scholarship too?”
“I think you mean football,” Jess says in a deliberately thick London accent.
“Oh my god, I love your accent!” Meggie says. “Where are you from?”
“We’re from London,” Jess says.
“So you know each other?”
“Yeah, we came here together,” Jules says, slinging her arm across Jess’s shoulders. Jess smiles.
“Oh,” Meggie says, raising her eyebrows a little. “Anyway, you should come in and meet my roommate, Paige. Um, sorry about all the glass… mom always says I have two left hands. That’s why I play soccer,” Meggie says over shoulder as she pushes open the door to her room.
“I thought you said you were a goalie,” a girl says from where she’s lying on one of the beds in the room.
“Yeah, but they don’t have to know that. Meet Jules and Jess, they’re from gay old England. They’re in the room right across from us.”
“Wow, they let gay people room together?” Paige asks.
“No, we’re English,” Jess corrects, but Meggie is already talking a mile a minute about their training schedule. Jess shoots Jules a look, but Jules just shrugs and gives her a smile. So, Jess thinks, this is going to be home.
+
It’s easy to settle into a routine at Santa Clara. They have cardio and strength training in the morning, which Jules never fails to grumble about, then classes, and then football training in the evenings. It’s gruelling and exhausting, but Jess has never felt so alive, and when it all gets to be overwhelming, she can always count on Jules being right next to her.
She calls her parents every weekend, like she promised, and lets the endless questions about whether she’s being a good girl wash over her in her parents’ familiar accent. The truth is, she misses them, which she didn’t even think was possible before. It’s harder to find time to talk to Joe because both of their training schedules are constantly clashing, and by the time she gets in from training, all she wants to do is climb into bed. She barely has time to miss Joe, let alone talk to him. When she’s awake she’s spending most of her time with Jules, Meggie, Paige, and the other girls on the team. It’s hard to make friends outside of football since it’s more life-consuming than ever before, but Jess is content with what she has.
One day, as Jess is just hanging up with Joe, Jules walks into the room. She drops a pile of books on her desk before face-planting onto the bed.
“How was the library?” Jess asks after hanging up.
Jules groans. “I can’t see straight anymore,” she says. “Everything is French conjugations. Anything exciting going on with Joe?”
“He says his new team is a lot easier to wrangle than ours,” Jess snorts.
“He’s so full of it!” Jules says, pushing up on her elbows so she can look at Jess. “Do you miss him?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” Jess says. “I feel like I should be missing him, but I’m not. I mean, I have you.”
Jules’s face breaks into a pleased smile. “Aw, stop it.”
“No, I mean it. I don’t know what I would do without you,” Jess says. “But anyway, we don’t have to talk about this,” Jess says.
“About what? You mean Joe?”
“Yeah. I know it probably can’t be easy.”
“Oh,” Jules says. “No, it’s okay. I mean, I’m not---I’m not jealous. At least---not like that.”
“What do you mean, not like that?” Jess asks, but Jules is avoiding her gaze.
“Nothing, I---you know what, I don't think I finished my French homework,” Jules says. She gets up and snatches one of the books from her desks, flipping it open to an earmarked page, even though she just spent three hours at the library doing French homework. Jess lets her get away with it because Jess isn’t even sure there’s anything to be jealous of anymore. She likes talking to Joe, but they never talk about anything but training and it feels more like Joe is still her coach instead of her boyfriend. And there’s a confusing swirling ache in her gut every time she looks at Jules. It’s just because Jules is here and Joe isn’t, she tells herself. It’ll be different once she goes home and gets to be with Joe.
+
It’s the night before the Christmas holidays, and they’re all sitting on the floor in Meggie and Paige’s room. Jess is feeling pleasantly buzzed on cheap beer, and her head has ended up in Jules’s lap, who is playing with her hair. They’re discussing holiday plans, and Jess is tuning out the conversation, relishing how warm and comfortable and contented she feels. She’s flying back to England tomorrow; on her own this time, since Jules’s parents are flying to America to spend Christmas with Jules.
“Would you ever date a girl?” Meggie asks suddenly, piercing through the sluggish haze of Jess’s thoughts.
“Oh, for sure,” Aly says. She’s a couple of years older than them and Meggie has befriended her mostly because she can buy alcohol and sneak it into the dorms. “Have you seen girls? They’re hot.”
Meggie hums in agreement. “I guess we don’t have to ask you two lovebirds,” she says with a look at Jess and Jules.
“Haha, right,” Jess says.
“What about you, Paige?” Meggie asks.
“Are you kidding me? My parents would have a heart attack.”
“This isn’t about your parents, this is about you,” Meggie teases. “So?"
“I don’t know if I would date a girl,” Paige says, “but I’d give kissing a shot.”
“I have a great idea,” Aly says before draining her bottle of beer and putting it down on the floor. “Let’s play spin the bottle! Form a circle, I’ll start.”
Jess reluctantly extricates her head from Jules’s lap to sit up. They’re a small group, so by the time it’s Jess’s turn to spin, she’s received a peck from Paige and some tongue action from Aly, and she’s thoroughly blushing. She spins the bottle, and it lands on Jules. The others cheer.
Jess swallows nervously. She looks up at Jules who has a look on her face Jess can’t quite read. Resignation? Jess pushes forward and gives Jules a quick peck on the lips, but when she pulls back, Meggie says: “Oh, come on, lovebirds! You can do better than that!”
“That was a kiss, the turn is passed,” Jules objects, but everyone is still looking at them, and suddenly Jess needs Jules to want to kiss her, so she surges forward to kiss Jules for real. Jules gasps with surprise and opens her mouth, so Jess deepens the kiss. Her hands go up to cup Jules’s face, and she can feel Jules’s hand gripping the material of her shirt. Jules tastes like cheap beer, but Jess can’t stop kissing her, can’t stop touching her, can’t stop---
Until Jules suddenly pulls away. Her lips look a little swollen and Jess wants to kiss her again, but then the anger on Jules’s face registers. Jules gets up and storms out of the room, and Jess is left sitting there with everyone’s eyes on her.
“What was that?” Meggie asks.
“I don’t know,” Jess says. “I’d better go check on her.”
+
She finds Jules on the roof of their building after noticing that the fire door was propped open. When Jules looks up and sees it’s her, she huffs out an exasperated breath. “Go away, Jess,” she says.
“I don’t understand,” Jess says, “what’s wrong? It was just a kiss.”
“No, Jess, it was not just a kiss,” Jules replies. She lets the words hang there in the crisp night air.
“Okay, so it was two kisses. Is that what this is about?”
Jules sighs and leans against the railing along the outside of the roof, letting her gaze roam across the warmly lit campus. “Remember when I said I wasn’t jealous like that?”
“Yeah.”
“What I meant was---I’m not jealous of you. It was never you. Even back in Germany that night, I wasn’t jealous of you. I was jealous of Joe.”
“Oh,” Jess says, helpless.
“Yeah. It took me a while to figure it out, too.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” Jess asks.
“I tried,” Jules cries, throwing her hands up. “But I couldn’t, I didn’t want to lose our friendship, but you just keep making it so hard, I---”
“Hey.” Jess steps forward and grabs Jules’s hands to stop her from flailing them around wildly. “You would never lose me, Jules. Not for something like this. So you have feelings for me, what’s the big deal?”
“They’re not going away,” Jules says miserably.
“We’ll deal with it,” Jess says, trying to sound more sure than she is feeling. “We’re okay.”
She pulls Jules into a hug and tries to ignore the rapid beating of her own heart or the fact that all she wants to do is kiss Jules again. Her heart is just confused because it wants to go home.
+
When Jess leaves for England the next day, Jules is still asleep. She’s burrowed under the blanket as usual, and Jess doesn’t want to wake her. She’ll be back in two weeks anyway.
Her parents pick her up from the airport, and there’s a lot of hugs, and a lot of tugging on her clothes, and a lot of tutting about how tan Jess has become. Jess lets it happen and bites back a remark about how the scholarship unfortunately doesn’t include a parasol for football practice. She knows they mean well, and although the house feels too small, she knows that her return to freedom is only two weeks away.
Jess listens to Tony when he tells her all about coming out to his mother.
“Did she take it okay?” Jess asks.
“She only cried for a week, so I’d say yes.” Tony grins ruefully. “Then she started trying to sniff out whether we know any rich Hindu guys who could secretly be gay. I wish she would go back to crying.”
“No, you don’t,” Jess says, nudging him with her elbow.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Tony says. “So how is it going with your white disgrace of a boyfriend?
“I haven’t seen him yet,” Jess says slowly.
“But… you want to, right?”
“I don’t know. I think---I think I’m confused.”
“Confused how?” Tony asks with a frown.
“I think I---” Jess’s mouth goes dry and the following words trip over her lips quietly. “I kissed Jules. And I liked it. I want to do it again.”
Tony is quiet for a long time, and when Jess finally looks up, he is looking at her with what she can only describe as tenderness. He pulls her into a hug and doesn’t force her to talk. They just sit there together, on her small bed under her bare wall, and he holds her, squeezing her tightly, before finally dropping a kiss on the top of her head.
“It sounds like you have some figuring out to do,” he says. “I know this is hard, but whatever you figure, I will be here.”
“Thank you,” Jess says.
+
And finally, Jess sees Joe again. She kisses him, and she wishes it was Jules she was kissing. She holds his hand and wishes it was Jules’s hand. She tries to tell him all about her life at Santa Clara, but it doesn’t feel right. After another awkward pause, Jess finally says, “I don’t think this is working, Joe.”
“What do you mean? No, it is. We just have to get used to each other again. I know it’s difficult with the distance and the time difference, but we can make this work,” Joe says.
“I can’t,” Jess says.
“I understand that it’s going to be hard---”
“You don’t understand,” Jess says, and then, with sudden clarity: “I want to be with Jules.”
“You’ll see her again in two weeks.”
“No, Joe. I want to be with Jules,” she says. She sees understanding dawn on Joe’s face.
“I understand,” he says, his voice breaking a little.
“I’m sorry,” Jess says. “I really am.” Then she leaves.
+
It’s only after she says it out loud that Jess realises how true it is. She wants to be with Jules. She misses Jules. She’s in love with Jules.
The days until her flight back to the US crawl by at a torturously slow speed. Jess knows she will miss home again once she’s gone, but she can’t wait to get back to Santa Clara, to tell Jules, to kiss Jules…
On the flight back, she doesn’t sleep because she’s filled with bright nervous energy, but this time for a completely different reason than on her first flight, and the lack of Jules's presence at her sight is almost a palpable thing. She feels like she’s going to explode.
She bounds up the steps to their dorm and bursts in the room, only to find it dark and quiet and empty. Disappointed, she slumps on her bed. Jules must be out with her parents still.
Jess doesn’t know how long she sits in the dark until she hears a knock at the door. “Come in,” she yells, and Meggie peeks in her head of wild curls.
“I thought I heard you come in earlier,” Meggie says. “What are you doing sitting in the dark?”
“Um. I---tired,” Jess replies eloquently.
“Okay,” Meggie says. “I think Jules is up on the roof, if you’re looking for her.”
She closes the door softly, but Jess is immediately off the bed and out the door, brushing past Meggie on her way to the roof. “Woah, steady there! Not so tired after all, huh,” Meggie yells after her as she zips up the last flight of stairs to the roof. She pulls open the door and comes face to face with Jules who was just opening it from the other side. Jess pulls up short, breathing hard.
Jules blinks at her. “Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” Jess breathes.
“Did you… want something?” Jules asks, face spreading into a grin, and Jess realises she’s just been staring at her.
“You,” Jess says.
Jules scrunches her face up in confusion.
“I want you,” Jess says. “I figured it out, I’m sorry it’s taken me this long, I want to be with you---”
“What about Joe?” Jules asks.
“I broke up with him over Christmas.”
“Aw, poor guy,” Jules says, before pulling Jess away from the door by her wrist. It bangs shut with a deafening clang. And then Jules is grabbing Jess’s shirt and kissing her, and Jess is kissing her back, deep and hot and hungry. And Jess realises that she’s arrived. This is home.
+
They walk back to their dorm room hand in hand. Jess’s face feels like it’s going to split from grinning so much. In the hallway, they come across Meggie and Paige carrying huge mugs of hot chocolate from the kitchenette to their own room.
“Hey lovebirds,” Meggie says, “happy to be reunited? There’s more cocoa on the stove if you want some.”
“Is it that obvious?” Jess asks, shooting Jules a questioning look.
“Is what obvious?” Paige asks.
“That we just got together,” Jess says, pulling Jules closer to her.
Paige almost drops her mug. “What do you mean, you just got together? You---no, you’re---”
“Oops, our bad,” Meggie interrupts loudly. “In no way, shape, or form have we been assuming that you were in a super gay relationship with each other this entire time!”
She stirs Paige towards their room with her free hand. “Congratulations, we are so happy for you!” she calls over her shoulder.
Jules and Jess stand in the hallway for a moment before they dissolve into giggles. “I think,” Jules heaves out between bouts of laughter, “I think we may have been dating a lot longer than we were aware.”
Jess looks back on their time together here at Santa Clara, feeling warmth and happiness spread through her entire body. She remembers tugging that curl behind Jules’s ear on their first day here, and has another fit of giggles. “I think you’re right,” she says, and lets herself be pulled into another kiss.