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My champagne felt fizzy and bitter on my tongue. I tipped the last swig down my throat and my head knocked the wall I was leaning against. My eyes swam. My lips turned downwards. I watched the guests mingle; playful gazes, great smiles and casual touches infected each of their happy persons throughout the room.
A burst of laughter erupted from the kitchen. I whipped my head around to see someone - I didn’t care who it was - leave. I slipped in after them, finding the hostess alone, dexterously chopping vegetables and tearing lettuce. She glanced up at me from heavily shadowed eyelids as I entered.
“Hey,” she said. The corner of her mouth twitched.
I swept past her to the sink and put my glass down, sniffing quietly and looking up at the ceiling. I let a few moments of silence pass.
“Lola, you okay?”
I flinched, torn between desperately wanting to tell her and achingly wanting to drown myself in my own emotion.
I hummed in response, gracefully sliding onto a barstool opposite the counter she stood behind. I tapped my heeled foot against the table.
We locked eyes. She continued to chop softly, her hands gentle and practiced. She inhaled deeply; inaudibly. I fiddled the diamond dangling down from my ear.
I cleared my throat. “You look good.”
She smiled, dropping her eyes back to her knife. Her black, ruffled blouse hung with a low plunge, exposing the shadow that hid so much from me, yet tempted me so mysteriously.
“I’m not just saying that.”
“I know.”
Silence. My brain seemed to be working in slow-motion.
“ Are you okay?” Her eyes caught mine again.
Reluctantly, I shook my head.
“What -”
“I’m in love with my best friend.”
She froze.
“And it feels like every single molecule in this world doesn’t want us together. And I just… I just can’t handle it anymore. Why does it have to be so fucking difficult?”
My hands fell limply to the tabletop, my fingers tautly held together, aching to provide one another with comfort.
“I can’t think of anything, after thinking of you. I can’t feel anything, after feeling for you. I want to share that with you. All of it. All the time.”
She swallowed, gazing at me like there weren’t another twenty people on the other side of the wall.
“What made you decide to tell me?” She asked. Her voice was level. Steady. Soft. But her knuckles were white against the knife.
I frowned. I expected more surprise, more shock. “I’m in love with you. For that to be unreciprocated... it's - it's painful. It's this dull, longing ache that compresses my chest. It's heartbreak, Charlize. And it's not fair.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “It's not unreciprocated.”
A rush sent me out of my chair and onto my feet. “What?”
“Every single person in that room next to us knows how in love we are. Everyone knows except for us because we’ve been so caught up in our own fucking heads that we haven’t even spotted it. The whole world has noticed, Lola.” She laughed, leaning her elbows on the counter and covering her face in her hands. “The whole world.”
My heart screeched to a halt. My vision became blurry with tears. I covered my mouth. My short hair stuck to my cheekbone.
“ Charlize .”
She looked up, the smile on her face as sweet and easy as it was the first time I met her.
“I’m a grown-fucking-woman. You make me feel like a giddy, lop-sided teenager, you know that?” She ran her hand through her hair as I strode up to her. I laughed, the tender touch of my hands settling on her hips.
“Why didn’t you say anything? I was so… so mad at you for being the love of my life so cluelessly.”
She ran the back of her hand over her nose with a smile, and brushed my hair away from my neck. She shook her head, shrugging. “It felt so sacred and fragile. Like saying it out loud would make us shatter into a million pieces.”
“Like no-one would understand,” I added in a whisper. My eyes roamed her face. She’d turned a little pink under her makeup. I dabbed at a tear forming in her right eye.
“I don’t think anyone does.” She wrapped her fingers around the side of my jaw.
“This feels like a dream.”
“I don’t ever want to wake up.”