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“I hated fighting with you,” Fatou says. It’s barely audible, just a murmur in a room robbed of sensory indicators— nearly pitch black, with a white noise fan to the left of the bed, a radiator pumping heat in the diagonal, perched between a bookshelf and a closet. Fatou wonders if it’s intentional, meant to drown out the sounds; if Kieu My’s parents are home, if they know anything about her. That’s a question for another time.
“I forgot what we were even fighting about after a while.”
Kieu My doesn’t react, not right away, but Fatou knows she hears her both times she speaks. Tonight, she’s heard her more than ever, perhaps more than anyone ever has, and Fatou is hoping, praying, willing with all of her might that that statement alone will remain true for a long time to come.
Kieu My’s heartbeat is steady against Fatou’s ear, slow; her chest smooth, heated, bare. When Fatou nods, mostly to herself, Kieu My feels it, her chin bobbing with the movement of Fatou’s head beneath it.
“But I think at the time, we needed to be on our own, to process things. A lot was happening, you know?”
Kieu My chews her lower lip, looks up at the ceiling. Fatou doesn’t have to look at her to know this. She sees it even when she closes her eyes, lets the darkness of the room blend into the blank shield her eyelids provide, so similar that when she opens them, there’s no way to even tell the difference. Kieu My is all new, rapturous, something to be discovered, but just the same, Fatou knows her well. She wonders, distantly, if Kieu My knows her tics and habits too, if she can predict minute reactions seconds before they happen, almost like second nature. A part of her doesn’t want to know the answer; another part of her wants Kieu My to know every single piece of her, every ounce of spirit and soul, chopped up and served for her observation alone, her entertainment.
“But not anymore,” Fatou finishes, and it’s palpable: Kieu My’s exhale. Her relief.
It takes some maneuvering, some twisting of blankets and bedsheets and a shove of a pillow that somehow got caught under her armpit, but then Fatou is on her stomach, a leg slung across Kieu My’s splayed thighs. She keeps her eyes on her, watching, and Kieu My is reluctant, wavering, when she responds, “I was afraid you didn’t want me anymore.”
Fatou frowns. Doesn’t know how to react, what to do, except spit out the only truth she knows: “I always wanted you.”
Fatou isn’t sure what time it is. Two AM, maybe, maybe earlier or maybe far later. Time is bending in Kieu My’s room, becoming a clandestine oasis, defying physics, shifting just for them. She’s thankful for it, knows it’s working in her favor either way, especially when Kieu My hums beside her. Fatou knows what that means, can interpret it like broken English that’s slowly finding its way into a pile of knowledge in her brain marked “I get this”: Kieu My is thankful, honored, a little bit indignantly disbelieving.
“It’s true,” Fatou says. She tightens the hook of her knee, her ankle around Kieu My’s legs. Irritation brews in the pit of her stomach, primarily directed at herself because Kieu My doesn’t get it, Kieu My doesn’t know—
“I wanted you from the day I met you.”
This time, from this position, Fatou can see it happen as Kieu My worries her lower lip, twists minutely under Fatou’s weight. Not protesting, not leaving, just reacting.
Fatou’s hand breaks away from its position, sandwiched between the two of them and now dangerously close to being encompassed by pins and needles, falling asleep. She finds Kieu My’s face, turns it toward her. Kieu My doesn’t protest, not this time.
“Really,” Fatou tells her, and she wonders how many times she’s going to have to say it for Kieu My to get it, how many old texts between her the Cash Queens are going to have to be dug up, displayed as half-ashamed, half-victorious evidence of her infatuation. “You were the only one on my mind, all the time. From the very beginning.”
“You were too, you know,” Kieu My says.
It surprises Fatou. It’s not the kind of conversational turn that she was expecting— Kieu My’s hand is pressed against the arch of her spine, snaking up the lower seam of her bralette— and suddenly the fan in the corner seems ten times louder, almost deafening.
Fatou doesn’t mean to sound so meek when she replies, “really?”
Kieu My laughs, full-on and vibrant, and Fatou can’t help it, she’s sitting upright, wide awake and giving Kieu My a glare she won’t be able to decipher. Damn the dark, Fatou thinks, why doesn’t Kieu My own a nightlight or something, because she wants to see this now, wants to see everything. She could before, back when the moon was lower in the sky and traffic passed by consistently. Now, she finds Kieu My’s knee under her clasped hands, an unintentional touch but certainly not one she’s going to pull away from under any circumstances, and uses her imagination to see everything she wants to, everything she knows is there.
In the heavy seconds that follow— it can’t be more than six, but Fatou swears it feels like sixty— she’s almost expecting Kieu My to abandon the idea she’d brought up altogether, to give up talking and kiss Fatou until she’s dizzy instead.
(Or maybe rush off to the bathroom, come back with water and snacks— two things that she had done earlier when Fatou had asked, love-drunk, if Ismail had ever brought up the top or bottom discourse to her as well. To be fair, Kieu My had proved the question to be rather invalid moments before, so she’d giggled, skipped the whole way to the sink, almost tripping on the rug in her effervescent haste.)
“You really didn’t notice?” Kieu My asks. She sounds small again. She’s shifting, ever-changing, maybe more like a chameleon than a turtle, and Fatou marvels, reaches out again. She strokes her thumb atop Kieu My’s shin and Kieu My finds her fingertips in the dark, holds on tight.
“It was always you for me, too,” she admits. “I was just…” she trails off, turning to look the other way— Fatou only knows because she hears the swish of her hair against her tank top, the creak of the bedframe beneath her— “...I wasn’t sure you’d ever go for someone like me.”
“Serious?” Fatou replies. She can’t help the way it comes out a bit like a laugh, one that shatters the sanctity of the moment between them, or at least transforms it into something of a different breed. Something lighter, fuller, sanctified for the hundredth time in one evening. “You are so my type.”
Kieu My laughs then, too. Fatou feels herself breathe, relax again, become giddy in that way that she’s only ever known as love love oh scheiße I’m in love. This time, somehow it’s better, different, stronger than ever before. This time, it feels like it’ll last.
“Like, you’re completely my type. One hundred percent, in every way. How did you not get that?”
Kieu My gasps out another chuckle, slings her arm around Fatou’s neck. She finds her lips in the dark, Fatou’s eyes closed long before she gets there. “Well, I know that now.”