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Vilde isn’t quite sure why she can’t stop crying.
Story of your life, her brain unhelpfully supplies, always antagonizing her, always making her the villain, and she wonders how she’s supposed to say that out loud to the wonderful girl beside her, the only person who’s ever made her feel like who she really is and who she wants to be can meet in the middle, can coexist— can exist, period.
Vilde doesn’t think she can say that to her. Or even worse, that she’s not even surprised this is happening right now, that of course she can’t handle this; she’s set off, spiraling again because her brain has never allowed her happiness the same way her body has never been soft enough to match her heart, or maybe sometimes too soft to handle the full-throttle sharpness that bundles up as a package deal to her ambition. She’s a juxtaposition, too many things she can barely even keep track of herself, so of course, bringing someone else into the equation would just make things messier.
She’s a mess.
(And Sonja, always put-together, always prepared, always flawless, is not.)
She feels the ghost of Sonja’s lips on her neck, her hips against her own, the firmness of a gentle hand that’s not her own and not a boy’s between her legs, underneath the hem of her underwear. It’s just what she wants, and Christ, did it take her a long time to get here, to know that, to be okay with it, to allow herself to want it— and she’s not uncertain, not at all. Nothing has ever felt more right.
But somehow, it’s too much, at least for right this very minute.
And Vilde hates herself for it. Downright loathes herself.
“I want you,” she says in between choked out sobs against Sonja’s shoulder. “I really, really want you.”
She’s dampening Sonja’s bra strap with her tears, her pretty lilac colored lace bra strap that Vilde’s sure she wore just for her, just for tonight. She pulls away to wipe her tears— her useless, useless tears— on the back of her hand instead, and tries not to feel Sonja watching her. Surely monitoring her, her eyes careful and calculated and unsure, probably planning an escape. Whether it’s for tonight or tomorrow or next week or next year, they’re always planning an escape.
(William did. Magnus did. The fact that she wanted them to doesn’t matter, not in situations like this when it all comes hurtling back, turning her into a shell of a person she was only pretending to be.
And anyways, she can’t blame them. She’d escape herself if she could.)
Vilde hiccups against the back of Sonja’s hand, trailing through her hair, brushing against her cheek, soothing. It’s so gentle, it’s not even fair. It almost makes it worse.
“I want you,” Vilde says, trying again to be more coherent, less wheezy, less of a fucking disaster. “I want you so bad, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Vilde’s hands circle Sonja’s waist, an involuntarily move that feels so natural after all this time together— five whole months!— but she’s acutely aware of the way she’s trying to keep Sonja here. The way she feels even more like an asshole, like something no one needs, especially not perfect Sonja— and she’s not trying to be self-pitying but it’s really, honest-to-god, truly how she feels: not smart enough, not pretty enough, not good enough, not stable enough.
“Hey,” Sonja says, voice hushed, and Vilde isn’t sure if it’s been ten seconds or ten hours since the first tear sunk down her cheek. Sonja’s finger on her chin coaxes her gaze upwards, brings her back to earth, traps her in her line vision. Sonja looks at her the same she always has, completely unaffected.
Not planning an escape, probably. At least not right now.
(Later, she will. By the end of the night. Vilde’s sure of it.)
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, okay? I’m so glad you want me, and I know you do, and I want you, too. But there’s no deadlines to these kinds of things, you know? We can do this anytime, there’s no rush.”
And just like she can read Vilde’s mind, she adds, “and I’m not going anywhere, you haven’t scared me away.”
Her eyebrows raise, teasing, as she adds, “as long as I haven’t scared you away.” It’s meant to be sweet, a gesture of relation between the two of them, commonality, but it shocks Vilde to her core because Sonja is everything she’s ever wanted, perfect in every way Vilde’s been terrified of, and she’d honestly never really figured until now that she had any insecurities at all.
When she says as much, Sonja hugs her so hard they fall back into the bed again, her lips tangled in the yellow-white of Vilde’s hair.
(Vilde gives it a 50/50 chance that Sonja’s out the door by midnight.)
(Later comes. Sonja hasn’t left. Granted, it's her own house. But still. Vilde expected to be packing her own things up by now.)
“Can I try again?” Vilde asks, voice so quiet it’s barely even audible. 3 AM is quiet in Sonja’s bedroom, cold anywhere that isn’t in her arms, in her bed, her cheek flush against the sweatshirt covering her chest. Her own shirt stays somewhere on the floor, discarded from earlier.
Vilde’s been watching the flickering of the fairy lights above the bed frame, draped around the perimeter of the room is effortless loops. Sonja’s been talking about buying new ones that plug into the outlet and don’t need to be replaced as often. The battery’s almost dead on these ones, reducing the brightness to a dull glow. Still, when Vilde closes her eyes, she sees the shape of the bulbs, ghosting amidst muted black.
“We can try again, yeah,” Sonja says. Her lips are on Vilde’s cheek, her voice reverberating against Vilde’s chest when she speaks again, near her heart with its gradually accelerating pulse.
“But we don’t have to. We can wait until tomorrow, or next week or next month or never—”
Vilde kisses her before she can say anything more. She wonders if Sonja can feel her blood rush; feel her come alive. She hopes she does.
(She thinks she does.)
The fairy lights last the rest of the winter, and only get taken down to be replaced with new ones Vilde buys her for their one year anniversary.