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Sometimes they meet up with Megan, Sue, Ash and Ali. More rarely they meet up with all the other girls as well. Mostly they meet alone, just the two of them.
They hang out at Christen's house, at the pool. Or they hang out at her house, at the field.
***
At Christen’s she cannonballs into the pool, sending light sprays at Christen that Christen chuckles merrily at. Christen takes graceful dives, then for the tenth dive, Christen revenge cannonballs, shocking her with a faceful of water, with a perfectly calculated angle for maximum splash impact directed right at her, so hard it drives her underwater. She emerges, spluttering, shaking the water out of her face, laughing violently, mirth in every twitch of her muscles. Christen looks at her, pleased, satisfaction written into the lines around her eyes. She laughs again, plunging into the water, where it’s clear and cold and blue.
They lounge by the side of the pool with orange juice and ice cubes quickly melding with the juice and the sun beaming down on them and they read quietly. Sometimes she sketches and Christen floats on the pool float, just fingers and ankles and butt skimming the cool surface of the water, the rest of Christen’s skin sun warmed, her eyes shaded behind sunglasses, her hair free. This is all she remembers. Sun, chlorine filling her nose, sticky sweet orange juice on her chapped lips, condensation coating her finger tips, the quiet flip of a page Christen turns next to her. She sketches it all in her head, what she can't sketch on paper when Christens browses her sketchpad just as often as she does. And anyway, how does she sketch the tenor of Christen’s giggle when Christen cannonballs her, and what it does to her ribs? It crackles under skin, electricity running with nowhere to be spent.
She sketches the pool, and the spray of water, how the sun glints off the puddles, the surrounding greens and stone, and they are not enough, but they hold the other memories for her, that nobody else will see, not even Christen. They are safe, even when Christen is around. Nobody has the code, is able to unlock the cipher, and she's swallowed the key, kept it next to her lungs, so when she breathes she feels it. It is a warm secret, and the ridges are familiar and comforting under her skin. Just a pool, just a puddle.
Nice drawing of my pool, Christen gushes, it looks just like the real thing, but somehow more beautiful, and Christen is smiling in her lips, her eyes, all of it, and it is almost too much.
It's a nice pool, she says placidly, the corner of her lips turning up against her will, and doesn't think about what else she couldn't sketch into it.
Christen’s sisters are lovely and sometimes they all hang out by the pool and talk about school and people at school and what they want to do next, sports and music and movies and sometimes she sketches intently while the sisters murmur on in relaxed tones, the perfect low background hum. She's half listening to them and catches drifts of conversation, drifting in and out of attention, and this is easy. Sometimes they play pick up games 2v2 by the pool, Christen always with her, with the ball landing in the pool more often than not, and she dives, not on the field but into the pool, to Christen’s ever amused peals of laughter. Sometimes she shows off a new trick she's just mastered and all the sisters laugh and clap, but mostly she's just ears out for Christen’s praises, and finds she performs tricks for Christen’s applause mostly, and it is a fact she stores away without too much examination.
There are other things she stores away, like having Christen backed up against her bedroom wall, and how their lips would meet, and her hand would curve around Christen’s waist, and ---
Things she stores away in a box, for nobody's eyes, not even her mind's eye. Once it exists she tries to lock it away so even she doesn't see it, just a silver in a box. Where it is safe, from her.
***
At her home she makes them play games in the field behind her house and Christen obliges and always, always plays along. Sometimes they practice drills and shots and passing, mostly they just have fun. Sometimes when she's trying to learn a trick by herself Christen sits on the grass and meditates and it's quiet except for the sounds of the ball lightly thudding up and down her body. She'd asked Christen once, how Christen had managed to meditate despite the surround sound of ball, of feet on grass, of feet on ball. Christen had only grinned, and said. This is soccer meditation. It's different from my usual meditation. I meditate to the sounds of you handling balls. Then had laughed again at how it'd sounded. She had raised an eyebrow at Christen and joined her laughing, ignoring the twinges under her chest. No twinges, only laughs.
At the end of games and practices and just kicking the ball around Christen likes to ground herself. She kicks off her shoes and socks and Christen peels them off precisely. Barefoot, they walk the field, just the grass and the earth under their feet. Sometimes they are completely silent and it feels like her bones settling into peace and it feels like a soothing quietly gurgling brook with clear water and smooth round pebbles to run fingers over and it feels like being at one and when she looks over the presence next to her, is Christen. Looking as peaceful as she feels.
There are grilled cheese sandwiches and mac and cheese that they take with them and lunch on the grass like a picnic and she arranges twigs to pretend she's setting up a bonfire. Christen gathers yellow and pink and orange petaled flowers to sprinkle liberally over the sticks to mimic the flames. She takes out the oven-toasted marshmallows and sticks gooey lumps back on a stick and pretends to roast them over the flowers and Christen’s laugh is the twinkle of music.
Do you know what Duchenne smiles are, Christen asks her mildly while they are lying in the fields one day, gazing at the sky together, after a vigorous competitive round of what does that cloud look like. Christen continues, Sit up now, when she doesn’t say anything, just hums. She obliges and Christen follows after into a sitting position. Then Christen’s fingers find her sides suddenly and sends her into a laughing fit which she first dodges then tries to get revenge until they're both just a giggling mess of fingers gliding everywhere and twisting bodies. Christen stops suddenly with a grin and traces fingers against the side of her eyes. These lines around your eyes here. If someone is smiling and these lines around their eyes come up, it means it's a genuine smile. A Duchenne smile. Christen falls silent, moves her hand to rest against the side of her cheek. When she checks, the lines are all out around Christen’s eyes.
This is how you tell, Christen ends in a soft huff, finally pulling her hand away, though Christen’s eye lines are still out. She wonders if everything will be written on her skin against her will, even as she's tried so hard to lock them away in the box, even as she's tried to make them not.
She does photoshoots of Christen, says it’s an excuse to use her new birthday present camera. Christen laughs merrily and twirls along obligingly and pretends to be a model, while she pretends to call out directions. Then Christen pretends to be a demanding, diva, model, and she pretends to be a bad-tempered photographer. It doesn’t last very long, neither of them can sustain it convincingly for long. They end up in fits of giggles, and end up collapsed against each other before tumbling down onto the blanket together, her camera held aloft safely with one arm stretched out into the sky while Christen giggles into her side, the vibrations passing from skin to heart, arm thrown onto her carelessly, Christen’s hair landing on her face, and she thinks she has never been so happy.
She watches Christen through the viewfinder for the rest of the afternoon, watches the sun gleam and dapple on Christen, watches Christen play with the leaves between her fingers thoughtfully, watches Christen lounge on the grass, blissful, the green in her eyes brought out by the green of the grass, watches every expression cross Christen’s face, all the lines around her eyes. She composes in her head, her eye, snaps, adjusts, snaps, no direction required.
Finally Christen says, Give me the camera.
She protests, but hands it over docilely. No photos, she protests again, halfheartedly.
Christen just gives her a look, grins, then raises the camera and snaps a quick, decisive shot before she could blink.
She feels naked under Christen’s gaze.
Christen lowers the camera slowly and behind the lens Christen looks at her the way Christen looks at the sunsets on the beach.
***
Christen wants to go to the mall and so they do and Christen has an itinerary for them, a store Christen likes, a store she likes, a store they both like, rinse and repeat. They browse thrift stores and art supplies stores and bookstores and so many clothing stores and the Nike store and shoes shoes shoes. She browses the aisles, she browses Christen browsing aisles, they pluck out things of interest and show them excitedly to each other, to warm receptions.
They end the session with heavy bags, she gallantly lugs all their bags and refuses to let Christen carry a single one. They collapse into a booth seat at the ice cream shop and she lets all the bags drop onto the seat. She gets chocolate in a cup. She watches Christen take careful licks of her ice cream cone, something fruity, eyes rolled back in pleasure. Christen steals tiny scopes of her ice cream, watching her mischievously the whole time. She pushes the ice cream cup closer to Christen and grabs kleenex for Christen when ice cream gets on her fingers. Christen licks her fingers anyway, grinning at her, and then wipes her fingers on the kleenex. She shoves a large scope of her ice cream into her mouth to keep the words from rolling off her tongue.
This is good ice cream, Christen moans happily.
Yes, she echoes, this is very good.
Ali and Ash and Megan and Sue finally arrive to pile into the booth, jostling and yelling out ice cream orders. Megan and Ash scamp off to try flavours at the counter, supervised by Sue. Ali slides into the booth opposite them, starts to chat lightly with Christen about her shopping haul, shoots her a pointed, meaningful look when Christen takes a pause. She frowns. She doesn't think she's being obvious. She checks herself surreptitiously anyway, not sure what she’s checking for, and looks up to see Ali still studying her, kind but knowing glint in her eyes. She stays silent and lets them chat around her, ice cream gliding down her throat, and wonders what exactly Ali is seeing from her, what she looks like from the outside.
It’s not her fault they’re all threatening to flow out of her, tendrils grasping at air, emptily. She’s been trying to stuff them back into the box, but the box is not locking very well, these days.
Everyone comes back with their ice creams, Ashlyn with Ali’s as well, and Ali winks at her before turning to take her ice cream from Ashlyn and finally stops looking at her.
It feels like an endorsement. She tells herself she's not sure what for.
She pushes it all out of her mind as Megan starts telling a funny and elaborate story and aided by Ashlyn providing additional interjections and occasional sound effects, visual aids by the way of hand gestures, Sue shaking her head lightly but grinning along, and everyone gets wrapped up in Megan’s story. She sneaks another peek at Christen. It’s hard to do it when everyone is there, but it’s harder to not look at Christen at all, when Christen is licking ice cream with intent, hands alive, joining in Megan’s story animatedly.
***
In the first part of summer they sometimes end up in Christen’s bedroom, Christen diligently finishing up her summer homework at her table, while she finishes up Lego sets on Christen’s bedroom floor.
At one point, Christen had looked up from her pile of notebooks. Have you finished your summer homework?
Nope, she pops her p, and frowns over where the yellow piece should fit in when all she sees is a sea of grey.
Are you going to?
Nope, she replies just as merrily, and decides, screw the instructions, she’ll just stick the yellow where she thinks it’s best aesthetically.
Okay, Christen nods, and continues with her homework.
Much better, she thinks, nodding to herself, surveying her creation, turning it this way and that, once she’d completely disregarded the instructions and just went with what she liked.
Christen pops her head up again, joins her in studying her creation. Oh, that’s a good one, Tobin.
She gives her a thumbs up.
Have you met your daily work target, Chris?
Yes…
Good job, now it’s time to play.
But maybe I should get started on tomorrow's as well…?
She stands up, takes Christen's meticulous and filled planner out of her hands gently and closes it firmly, sets it down firmly on the table.
Nope, she tosses out again, and pushes Christen out of the bedroom.
The sun is calling, she reminds Christen, and Christen can't argue with that.
She too, needs a dose of her own sunshine, essential vitamins, and she’ll prefer to get it outdoors, even if her sun is luminous anywhere, even bend over her desk doing her homework.
***
On the last day of summer, before they’re due back at school, she finds herself at the beach with Christen, one last time, sprawled on the blanket, too full of tacos and fries and lemonade, slides slipped off and tossed to the side, toes buried deep in warm sand, sunglasses firmly on.
The sun is setting and Christen wants to watch one last sunset, together.
They watch the sky get set ablaze in swathes of pink, white, and orange, colours running and blending like waterpaints, the light slowly dimming around them, the sky alive above them, the surf crashing softly, receding away from them, softer and softer, neither of them saying a word.
Then, without looking at her at all, Christen reaches out slowly and takes her hand, gently, hesitantly.
She stops breathing, but without turning to Christen curls her hand around Christen’s hand, firming her grip so they’re holding hands properly.
She sneaks a subtle peek at Christen’s side profile. Christen is trying to hide a small smile, but the lines around her eyes give her away. She squeezes Christen’s fingers once, quickly, and focuses her attention back to the sky.
They watch the sun with finality, watch it dip under the horizon until the glowing embers die out completely, Christen’s hand cool in her warm one.
When darkness starts to fall around them, Christen turns to her, her face close. In the fading light she can still see her features, thinks she has memorised them so thoroughly, she can see her completely even without light, map all of it out in her mind.
Christen bites her lip, looks at her eyes, her lips, in turn, before making eye contact with her again, a question in her intense gaze.
She closes the gap, and kisses Christen.
Christen is soft and warm under her lips, she lets her eyes fall shut, and everything narrows to one point, the singular connection pressed between their lips.
She feels the connection with Christen complete the circuit, mind, heart, body. The circuit had already been started, and is just finishing the final piece to fulfill the circle. Electricity crackles in her blood, flows through her and between them, no break, a complete loop, completing the round, fulfilled.
It was all there, all along. It had just rounded the circle, Christen meeting her around the bend, showing her there was no bend after all, just an infinity loop.
When they finally break apart, breathless, she catches her breath for a few seconds. Then she murmurs.
Chris, be my girlfriend.
Christen throws her head back and laughs, her favourite sound, she can openly inform her brain now.
Then Christen turns to look at her, and now that she can see properly, can bring herself to look fully and not shy away, she can see that whatever was in her eyes, is fully reflected in Christen's, mirroring each other in an infinite feedback loop in intensity and reciprocity of emotion and thought. Christen says, seemingly lightly.
I already am yours, Tobin.
Me too, she admits.
You are yours too? Christen teases.
She throws her arms around Christen and buries her face in Christen’s shoulder.
Christen’s arms come up around her at once and envelope her, catching her, completing.
***
That night, Christen lounging easily on her bed, she sketches Christen openly, on her sketchpad, for the first time.