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“Fuck this heat wave, honestly,” she groans, collapsing into her apartment with relief. Sutton and Jane shove their way past her, and Jane opts to immediately sprawl herself across the cool floor.
“I’m moving in,” Sutton announces. “God bless your bourgie loft with A/C. And your gigantic bed that you’ll so generously be sharing with us later.”
Kat rolls her eyes and opens her freezer, sticks her head inside to feel the cold blast until the air conditioning kicks on and cools things off.
“You’re gonna make me cancel my date, aren’t you?” she says, already knowing the answer. She stares at the ice cube tray for several seconds, seriously contemplates dropping some ice down her shirt.
“You mean your orgasm appointment?” Sutton answers and Kat laughs, shuts the freezer. “Yes. She’s probably just screwing you for your air conditioning.”
She scoffs, offended. “Pretty sure it’s for my tongue—"
“Gross.”
“Cool it, tiny Jane.”
“I’m trying…” she groans, smushing her face into the kitchen tile.
Kat laughs, doesn’t even bother feigning irritation. Yeah she’d love to get off later and Erika is hot as fuck, but she’s also down to get drunk on ice cold rosè with her best friends. There are worse ways to spend a summer evening.
She peels off her tank top, drops down on the tile in her bra and jean shorts next to Jane. “Oh, you’re a genius,” she sighs with relief, and Sutton crawls over to join them.
Just as she’s getting comfortable, her phone starts ringing across the room. There’s no way she’s moving right now. Plus, who even calls anymore? The only people who make actual phone calls to her are work, and the two women laying on either side of her.
“Prob’ly just a sales call,” she hums, stretching her arms over her head.
“So…sleepover?”
“Fine, but you owe me pizza.”
She forgets about the phone call. But twenty minutes later, she’s finally cooled off and when she checks her phone there’s a voicemail notification from a number she doesn’t recognize.
She doesn’t think much of it, probably just an appointment reminder or something, until she presses play and—
“Hi, Kat…it’s me. Adena.” Kat freezes, hand to raised to her mouth in shock, nerves pooling in her stomach the moment she hears that accent, that voice, wrap around her name for the first time in months. “I uh…wow, this is even harder than I thought it would be...I’m here. In town, I mean. I’m…I’m in Brooklyn. I—"
She drops her phone. Well, more like throws it. Away. Away from her ear. She can’t bear to hear whatever comes next. Is too shocked and anxious and longing to hear whatever comes next. Her phone clatters across the floor.
“Kat?” Jane looks up, confused, but it’s Sutton that sees the expression on her face first.
“Oh god, what’s wrong?” Sutton rushes, and then she’s there in front of Kat, and she’s blurry, tears clouding her vision. “Kat, honey, what’s wrong?” she says, already pulling Kat into a hug.
Her arms flail at her sides for a moment before she reaches up and clings to Sutton like a lifeline. “It’s Adena,” she whispers, insides already twisting at saying her name again when she hasn’t dared to in weeks. “It was Adena that called.”
“Oh, fuck,” Sutton sighs, and Kat squeezes her eyes shut, burrowing into her friend’s arms. “What’d she say?” Sutton sounds wary, already defensive and protective, and Kat can’t blame her.
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I can’t do it. I can’t listen to the whole thing.”
“I’ll do it,” Jane says, eyeing Kat’s phone on the ground. They both turn to stare at her. “I’ll screen the voicemail, find out what she wants. If you want me to.” Jane looks calm but Kat can see flecks of anger storming in her eyes.
She hates that even now, after all these months, her first instinct is to defend Adena.
She never managed the frustration and resentment that her best friends did. She directed it all inward, searched out places to blame herself for why she left Paris single. For why she faced the ugly pain of heartbreak all winter and into spring.
She wasn’t experienced enough. She kissed another woman. The boringness of her routine, her life, made Adena feel stuck and uninspired. She was selfish. She was incapable of staying on Adena’s level. She wasn’t steady enough in who she is. She should’ve seen it all coming.
“No,” she shakes her head. “No, I need to do this,” she says, steeling herself and taking a shaky breath. “I just…I just need a minute.”
Sutton and Jane exchange a concerned glance before Sutton nods. “Okay. We’ll be right here though, okay? We’re right here.”
She wipes at her eyes, clearing her vision, and blinks up at the ceiling for several seconds until she can feel the rhythm of her lungs again, until staccato breathing fades to a dull aching pressure in her chest.
“I need some space,” she admits. She picks her phone up from the ground. “I’m gonna go in the bathroom.”
Jane looks like she’s about to protest, but Kat turns and walks away before she can try to stop her.
She tucks her knees into her chest, back to the bathtub while she sits on the tile floor. In the quiet solitude of her bathroom, she doesn’t have to conceal the truth from her friends. She doesn’t have to try to hide the fact that, despite all the nerves and the aching pressure in her chest, she still thinks Adena’s voice is beautiful and she’s fucking missed it. She doesn’t have to hide how pathetic that makes her feel.
She takes one final breath then restarts the voicemail, presses play and raises her phone to her ear.
“Hi, Kat…it’s me. Adena. I uh…wow, this is even harder than I thought it would be...I’m here. In town, I mean. I’m…I’m in Brooklyn. I…perhaps it’s rather reckless of me to say but, I’ve missed you. Maybe I don’t even have the right to say that. But is the truth. I’ve missed you… and I have so much I want to tell you, if you’ll let me. I’m doing a show here, if…if you’re wondering why I’m back. I would love to see you, to meet somewhere to talk, catch up. I understand that’s a lot to ask but…I hope you’ll say yes anyway. Call me? Or, text me? Okay. Khodafez. Bye.”
It takes her a few seconds after the speaker goes silent to realize that she’s crying. She clutches her phone between her hands, trembling, and rests her forehead on her knees.
Adena is in town. Adena wants to see her, wants to talk to her.
Adena’s voice can still undo her in an instant, and every hook-up and casual date of the past few months fades to nothing.
‘I miss you too,’ she thinks. ‘And I hate myself for it.’
She presses play on the voicemail again, lets it play on speaker this time. “Hi, Kat…it’s me.” Pause. Re-start. Repeat. “Hi, Kat…it’s me.” Pause. Re-start. Repeat. Just to hear the way that Adena says her name, after all this time.
“Well, fuck.”
She doesn’t call Adena back that night.
She eats pizza and drinks three glasses of rosè instead before she cuts herself off, because she won’t trust herself with her phone after a fourth.
She’s wedged between Jane and Sutton on her bed, like they all want to believe they can cuddle that voicemail out of existence, until all that remains is joy and friendship and Netflix reruns.
“I still miss her,” she finally admits, a whisper as they’re all drifting off to sleep.
“We know you do,” Sutton murmurs, holding her tighter, and she feels something release in her chest at no longer having to pretend.
She doesn’t call Adena back the next day either. It’s just too much.
Every time she imagines dialing, imagines Adena actually answering, she gets this awful twisting feeling in her stomach. The past few months of healing and moving on blur into Paris, into slow dancing with Adena at the Scarlet fashion week party and knowing in her bones that Adena would leave her. It blurs into the moment where she did.
She wonders when thinking about Adena became synonymous with feeling awful about herself.
She knows what this feeling is, this anxious deflated feeling in her stomach that makes her want to cry. It’s rejection. It’s the darkest shadows of insecurity.
She refuses to feel this way again, to let the memory of Adena rob her of the confidence she’s worked so hard to rebuild.
So she doesn’t call.
She won’t give Adena that power over her again.
She still fucking misses her, and two days later she can’t bear the thought that Adena is here right now, somewhere in Brooklyn. Accessible and wanting to see her.
Wanting her.
Does Adena still want her? Does she even want Adena to still want her?
Who is she fucking kidding—
Of course she does.
She thinks about pulling out her phone, sending off a text.
I hate that I still want you to want me. I hate that I’m wondering if you do.
She keeps her phone firmly tucked away in her purse.
She caves and googles Adena’s name on Wednesday, along with the city of Brooklyn, and it takes all of two minutes to find out where Adena’s show is.
The opening reception is tomorrow night, at a small gallery in Red Hook.
Adena’s latest work is called 100 Sunsets. It looks like it’s mostly landscape photography. Kat knows there has to be more to the series than meets the eye.
There always is.
It’s 6pm. She could’ve gone home an hour and a half ago. She stares blankly at the twitter feed on her computer screen, until Sutton swivels her chair around.
“Shit, you scared me,” she laughs, shaking herself out of it. “I didn’t know you were still here.”
Sutton grins, plops herself down on Kat’s desk before narrowing her eyes. She gets quiet suddenly.
“What?” Kat asks, nudging her.
“You’re gonna go to her show, aren’t you?”
“How’d y—”
Sutton has this quiet concerned look on her face and Kat blinks, guilty.
“I always know. I looked her up as soon as you told me she was back.”
Kat swallows and stares down at her lap for a few seconds before meeting her friend’s eyes.
She sighs. “I don’t know if I’m going,” she admits.
“Yes you do,” Sutton says, and Kat stares. There’s a sympathetic smile on her face. “You knew as soon as you got that voicemail.”
Kat groans and tips back in her chair. “I’m so fucked, aren’t I?”
“It happens to the best of us.” Sutton hops down from the desk and leans forward to put her hands on Kat’s shoulders. “Take care of yourself.” Then, “I love you, and you better call me about this later.”
She feels like she’s going to throw up by the time her uber rounds the block to the gallery.
She doesn’t know why she’s here. She doesn’t.
She can’t explain why she’s showing up at this gallery when she couldn’t even manage to make a phone call.
Except that, she found Adena through her art, and maybe that’s the only way she can bear to find her way back. She can’t call Adena, but she wants to see the sunsets, and doesn’t that make her an idiot?
It doesn’t hit her, until she’s on the sidewalk approaching the entrance—
She can’t bear to try to talk to Adena until she sees the art that’s been birthed in her absence.
The gallery is crowded, and she’s purposefully a little late. She can only hope to be as invisible as possible.
The first thing that she notices is that there are quite literally a hundred sunsets on display, of varying photograph sizes. The second thing she notices is that there is Farsi script written in the sky of each, sometimes tucked away in the corners and sometimes taking up large swaths of space.
She doesn’t know what any of it says, but she’s sure that it’s Adena’s handwriting, layered into the photos somehow, and there’s something achingly intimate about it.
The first photo that she gets close to is of an ordinary dusk, over a cityscape that she doesn’t recognize. Adena’s writing curves around the edges of buildings. She stares and takes in the quiet beauty of it for several seconds, then dips her eyes down to read the small placard next to it.
#41
trans. I am craving an ordinary morning with you, and I will wake up without you.
Wait, what?
She stares at the placard, willing her eyes to see something different, but it doesn’t change. There’s this anxious buzzing beneath her skin and she needs to quell it, so she moves on to the next photograph. She looks at the placard before she’s barely glanced at the picture.
They’re not in order.
#76
trans. Inshallah, some day you will see this skyline with me, and my heart will know peace.
This picture is much larger than the one next to it, one of the largest in the collection, and several other people are admiring it alongside her.
She doesn’t know what it all means, but there are hot tears stinging at her eyes, registering what her brain is unwilling to accept.
That these photographs are about her, somehow.
She can’t prove it but for the fact that everyone else is smiling or quietly admiring while the intimacy of it all crashes down on her and leaves her trembling.
The next photograph is smaller but glowing with orange and pink hues and littered with writing.
#12
trans. I had a dream last night, that we lived in that airport lounge. We were having hot sex, hardly like the timid firsts that happened there, and I woke up desperate for you. I’m sorry.
“Oh my god,” she breathes, eyes wide and brimming with fresh tears.
“Yeah, this is incredible,” the woman next to her says, startling Kat our of her reverie. “I’ve never seen anyone do something quite like this, make landscapes so reflective and personal.”
She nods, not really able to form words, and she looks around the gallery.
“E-excuse me,” she says, walking away.
She stumbles closer to the middle of the room, trying to search out the exit. She needs space. She can’t be in this room with all of these people, staring at the same photos that are unraveling her while they sip wine and observe and make small talk.
She wipes at her eyes, still trembling as she pulls her phone from her purse to call Sutton.
“Kat?”
She whips her head around at the sound of her name, at the sound of—
Adena is standing there, just a few feet away, eyes wide with shock at the sight of her.
But there is also so much emotion in her eyes, and Adena is here and Kat can see her face and she’s surrounded by a hundred sunsets. She holds her hand to her mouth to guard the sob that bursts out of her.
She can’t stop staring at Adena but she’s also acutely aware that she’s crying in the middle of a crowd, and the embarrassment and unwanted attention of it is enough to force her into motion. She turns and she pushes her way toward the exit, trusting that Adena will follow her.
“Kat!” Adena calls her name. “Kat, wait!”
If Adena only knew how completely incapable she is of running away right now.
She stops on the sidewalk, leaning back against the building as she wipes at her eyes again and tries in vain to get her breathing under control. It’s a useless effort. Her heart is pounding, stomach fluttering with anxiety, and Adena’s eyes lock with hers as soon as she makes it past the people smoking by the entrance.
She slows down after that, approaching slowly, and Kat swallows past a huge knot in her throat.
“Hey.”
Adena’s lips quirk in a small smile at her greeting and there are tears on her cheeks. Adena waits until she’s standing right in front of Kat, able to fully take her in, and Kat watches as her eyes flicker across her face before she answers.
“Hi,” Adena says, breathless.
“I got your voicemail.”
It’s the only thing she can manage that won’t be a complete mess of words.
Adena smiles, blinking up at her, and she is so so fucked.
“Thank you for coming.”
Kat swallows again and tries not to lose herself in Adena’s gaze. She fails miserably.
The air is heavy between them, charged, and it’s so dangerous.
Because it’s like all the rejection and the heartbreak never happened and there’s just Adena, back in her orbit again.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she mutters, feeling all control slip through her grasp.
Adena blinks, leaning back a little, but her gaze never falters.
“Like what?” she asks.
“You know.”
She stares down at the concrete, no longer able to bear the intensity and openness of it all. Adena’s eyes are so expressive and they’re saying everything that Kat is afraid to believe.
Adena is quiet and Kat can feel her pulse in her throat, heart beating so fast and loud she thinks her knees might give out soon. Then there’s a hand, a tentative ghost of a touch against her elbow, and her eyes are closed but it doesn’t matter because she can smell Adena’s perfume and the memory of it washes over her.
She leans into the touch before she can stop herself and Adena’s hand becomes more solid, steady, against her arm.
“Kat,” Adena whispers. Her voice is laced with longing, but her hand doesn’t move, patient.
Kat’s eyes are closed but all she can sense is Adena and all she sees behind her eyelids are sunsets. She wants to read every single one, wrap herself in Adena’s words and the possibilities they hold. Like every little placard is a salve to the deep cut of not being enough. Like maybe a hundred sunsets tell a new story, one where Adena needed time but was always going to find her way back to her.
“Why New York?” she dares, steeling herself before she opens her eyes, blinking past the tears clinging to her lashes. Adena is so close, so beautiful, purple hijab shimmering in the glow of the streetlight, and Kat searches her face. “Of all the cities in the world. Why’d you do the show in New York?”
Adena’s smile is soft, just for her, and she reaches up to brush Kat’s cheek with a tentative hand. Her movement is slow, agonizingly so, giving Kat ample time to deflect, to brush her away. When Adena reaches her, thumb gently brushing past a tear, the fluttering anxiety in her chest fades to warmth. She releases a shaky breath, reveling in her touch.
Her reaction seems to be all the answer Adena needs before she replies, truth laid bare.
“Because New York is where you are, and this collection is yours.”
Kat stares, and the warm touch against her cheek is her only anchor. All the self-doubt, the resentment, the insecurities of the past few months surround her like a flood, threatening to pull her under. Hope is a risky fickle thing, capable of ruining her, and she needs to stay intact this time. She has to.
Adena searches her face, and Kat watches as her eyes flicker with doubt, with worry. Kat isn’t smiling. She’s trembling and trying so hard not to cry, and fuck, why does this hurt so much?
It heals and it hurts, and she can’t handle this right now but she thinks she might collapse if Adena steps away. She doesn’t have the words for this, can’t figure out how to name everything that’s storming through her right now, doesn’t know how to explain that her stomach is in knots but her heart feels full to bursting while her thoughts betray her.
Adena falters, unsure, and pulls her hand away.
No.
Kat shakes her head, desperate, then reaches her arm out with reckless abandon, curves it around Adena’s waist and pulls her close.
The moment Adena’s body connects with hers, the tightrope of emotions inside her falls slack and Kat buries her face in Adena’s neck, crying freely while Adena holds her.
“I’m so sorry,” Adena whispers through tears, clutching her close, arms wrapped tight around her. It feels warm, safe. It feels like coming home. “I’m so sorry, for everything.”
She has no idea how long they stand there, crying and hugging on the sidewalk outside the gallery. Long enough that someone comes looking for Adena, finds her outside and says something about interested buyers. Long enough for her to say she’s not taking offers on any pieces tonight, while still holding her close.
But eventually, finally, she sniffles, releasing her grip and stepping back to wipe at her eyes. It’s useless. She’s a sniffling disaster of half-dried tears and she needs a tissue or several.
“I’m such a mess,” she laughs through her remaining tears. Adena shakes her head and looks at her with a love that steals her breath.
“You’re beautiful.” The intensity of Adena’s gaze makes her blush and she shrugs, glancing down. Adena steps forward again, traces the curve of her ear with her thumb. “When’d you get braids?”
She realizes Adena is seeing her like this for the first time. “About a month ago.”
“They’re gorgeous on you.”
Kat can tell by the look in her eyes that she means it. She smiles, sniffling again.
“Thanks.”
She can tell Adena is about to say more, that she wants to keep talking. But Kat really does feel like a mess, and she knows there’s a lot of people waiting for Adena inside. So she holds her hand instead, pulls her back toward the gallery entrance.
“Show me where the bathroom is?”
Adena tries to stay with her, to wait for her, but Kat insists it’s okay.
“I’ve got like, 96 more sunsets to look at still,” she smiles, squeezing her hand. “Go, mingle. I won’t leave without you.”
“Promise?” Adena searches, biting her lip.
Kat stares at her mouth, thinks about pressing Adena into a bathroom stall instead and kissing her senseless.
“Promise.”
“Okay,” Adena smiles, shy. She squeezes Kat’s hand back and then leaves her in the hallway by the bathrooms.
The sunsets make her cry. They make her blush. They make her frown with sadness. And through all the landscapes, a portrait emerges. Of Adena, missing Kat but determined to find herself first. Determined to figure out why she had to leave, so that she could find her way back.
She takes her time, and she’s made it through about sixty of them when she feels gentle hands holds her waist from behind.
“Hi.”
Kat feels a surge of want pool deep in her gut.
“Hey,” she answers, and Adena lets go to stand beside her. “So, what made you decide to do this as a project?”
Adena smiles and they share a glance before they both turn back to face a few of the photographs. “That’s the question of the evening, it seems.” Kat quirks her eyebrow in question. “That’s what everyone keeps asking me.”
Kat nods, biting her lip as she stares at mountaintops she doesn’t recognize. “Give me the real answer.”
“The day I left, in Paris, I felt so lost.” Kat swallows against the knot forming in her stomach. “I wandered, and I ended up hiking the steps of the Sacrè-Cour. It was nearly sunset, and it was so beautiful and all I could think about was you. I took a picture. It became…like, a ritual of sorts. To take a picture at the end of the day. It was always at the end of the day, and every time you were on my mind. I did this while I pursued actual projects,” Adena laughs at herself, “while I tried to center myself again. I was also journaling every day. It took me two and a half months before I realized that this was the real project. That something artistically important was happening.”
Her heart is buzzing with warmth, with the desire to pull Adena close, and she knows now, that there’s only one way this will go. That no matter how much her heart hurts from not so old wounds, the only future she wants is one where Adena is in her life. And no amount of fear of what might happen if things fall apart again can stop the inevitable.
She stares at the sun fading behind mountains and an elegant script that crests the shadows of treetops. “Do you still want me?”
She has to know.
She hears Adena inhale beside her, feels her staring at her profile.
“Yes.” Her voice is quiet and sure. Kat turns to meet her eyes.
There’s a smile on Adena’s lips, barely restrained passion in her eyes, and Kat fidgets.
“I’m not naïve though,” she continues, when Kat is quiet. “I know I’ve hurt you. And you deserve answers. They’re yours, if you’d like to hear them.”
Kat swallows, nods. She’s aware again, that they’re in the middle of a still-crowded room, and this isn’t the time or space.
“C-can we go somewhere for a minute?” she asks, glancing around. “Somewhere more private? I-I can’t—”
“Of course, here,” Adena weaves their fingers together, holds her hand as she steers them toward the back of the gallery, toward a staircase she hadn’t noticed. There’s only a short hallway at the top, door on either side, and Adena turns the handle on one, flicks on the light of a storage and prep space, littered with canvases propped against the wall.
She shuts the door behind them, and she knows the ball is in her court now, that Adena will wait in silence for as long as she needs.
But the words don’t come. She’s always sucked at them, and she wonders if Adena anticipated this. If she guessed that this would lead to nowhere but them standing inches apart, Kat staring at her mouth.
She leans in slowly, just to see if Adena will stop her. Instead there’s a gentle hand at the back of her neck, and Adena’s nose brushes against hers. It’s coy and it’s flirtatious and it’s electric with the chemistry between them. It’s everything she’s missed.
She surges forward, claiming Adena’s lips and guiding them until Adena’s back is to the door. Adena whimpers into her mouth, lips parting to meet her tongue, and it’s so fucking good. It’s perfect. She’s perfect.
Kat kisses her with all the energy born of six months apart, needy and desperate, feels the pleasure radiate and run white hot through her veins.
Do you still want me?
Yes.
Adena wants and wants and wants, and it’s intoxicating. Kat can feel it in the press of her body, in the way her grip tightens and whines escape her mouth, unbidden.
They break apart for air, and Kat ducks down to kiss and suck at her neck.
Adena moans quietly, whispers her name. Then—
“We’re not doing this here,” she groans, breathless. “Not now. Not like this.”
Kat stops, words cutting through the lust taking over her brain.
“Yeah,” she breathes into her neck. She hates it and she doesn’t want to move, but Adena is right. “Sorry.”
Adena hums, rubbing her back and kissing the side of her head. “Don’t apologize.”
Kat lifts her head, and fuck Adena’s eyes are still dark with desire, eyes following her mouth before she looks up to meet her gaze.
“Have breakfast with me,” Adena murmurs.
It’s not at all what she’s expecting.
“Hm?”
“Tomorrow. Have breakfast with me?”
Maybe it’s because she’s too turned on to care, to hide anymore. But she smiles, a real hopeful smile that’s all for Adena.
“Okay. Okay, yeah. Breakfast. Where?”
Adena reaches up, traces her jaw with her thumb.
“Wherever you want.”
It feels like starting over.
Like sunrise.