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“There’s something I need to ask you about.”
Bianca leans back in her chair. She brings her mug in front of her mouth, blows at the steam. Courtney looks about to fall apart. Bianca knows how much her partner hates confrontation, so she assumes this Conversation that the curly-haired blonde is hyping up must be It. The Conversation that Bianca has been mentally preparing herself for ever since first coming out to Courtney over a year ago.
Courtney swallows hard and tosses her hair. Presses her lips together.
Bianca swallows steaming hot cocoa. “Sometime today?”
Courtney winces, her face going an even darker shade of red than before.
“Remember to breathe, babe,” Bianca says, her tone softening.
Courtney lets all her breath out at once and sits down hard into her usual place at their modest square dining table. Where they played rummy in the evenings. Where she tried to fit strings of poetry into phrasing that might someday resemble lyrics. Where Bianca tried to teach her to knit. She scrapes at a coffee stain with her fingernail. She expects another jab, another probe to get on with it, but Bianca just sips her coffee.
“Take your time,” Bianca says.
Her voice is comforting like a warm blanket. Like the blankets that still smell like Bianca when she leaves for an early shift and Courtney curls back into the residual warmth her partner left behind. The first tears make their way past her eyelashes. “I never-- I promised myself I’d never-- God, I’m an awful person!”
Bianca looks up. This is different to what she’d imagined. None of her mental scenarios involved Courtney actually doing it without asking first. But you have to remember, Bianca rationalized, she’s young, and can be rash, so it’s possible she can make dumb, rash decisions that hurt other people--
“I mean I haven’t done it yet-- and I won’t, I wouldn’t do that to you, God, why’d I say ‘yet’?!”
Bianca pauses her inner monologue. Courtney isn’t making any sense. “Courm, kid, babe.” She reaches out her hand, her girlfriend immediately taking it in both of her own.
Courtney strokes one of Bianca’s rings. “I shouldn’t want this,” she whispers. “I promised that you were enough. You are enough. You’re what I want, forever.”
“People change.” Bianca caresses the side of Courtney’s hand. “Their needs change. They may grow to want other things.”
Courtney shakes her head fervently. “I don’t need her. You’re what I need.”
Bianca reaches for Courtney’s chin with her free hand. Her cocoa would need to be reheated. “There’s no sin in wanting something different to what you’ve had before.”
Courtney’s lip quivers; her eyes flicker from one side to the other, visibly processing what her girlfriend was saying. “You’re not… wait, did you know?!”
“Did I know what?” asks Bianca.
Courtney’s eyes glisten as she hisses, “That I fancy Willam!”
Bianca rolls her eyes. “Of course I knew. The way you talk about her. It’s not how you talk about your other friends.”
Courtney’s shoulders droop. She doesn’t have any words, so Bianca heads into her pre-prepared speech. “My only request is not in the house. If you’re in the house and it’s gonna happen, just, please not in our bed.”
Courtney squints, her brows scrunching up into that little divet above her nose Bianca always found cute. “ ‘Not in our bed’ what?”
“Screw Willam,” Bianca shrugs.
Courtney’s face is still all wrinkly and confused, so Bianca gives another eyeroll and admits to herself she’ll half to hold Courtney’s hand through this conversation. “Our libidos are mismatched. We know this: mine is low, yours isn’t. You found someone you’re interested in sexually, she seems to be interested as well. I’m telling you to go for it. If that’s what you want, at least to try, you have my blessing.”
“You’re… you’re giving me the freedom to fuck other people?”
Bianca makes a dissatisfied noise and shakes her head. “Not other people, just this one person. For now, at least, it doesn’t have to be a choice between me or her. There’s a way out there for you to have a happy medium.”
Courtney lets out an astonished breath. “Okay…”
Bianca sips lukewarm, grainy cocoa. “Just tell me where you are and no lying. I’m not gonna get mad if you say you’re with her. I’m not gonna hide my feelings. Neither will you.” Courtney nods along, finally caught up with Bianca’s solution. “Something makes one of us uncomfortable, we say so.”
“Open, honest communication,” says Courtney.
“Exactly.” Bianca smiles.
Courtney leaves her seat and kneels on the floor next to her partner. She wraps her arms around Bianca’s middle and tucks her head into her girlfriend’s chest. Bianca embraces her too, resting her cheek in Courtney’s hair.