Chapter Text
"Can you reach it?" Holding her breath, Leyla watches closely as Lauren climbs a chair to get her old hiking boots from the top shelf.
Lauren stretches her body as far as she can. "Almost," she pants, "I just, I might need to…" Standing on her toes she can feel one of the laces against the tip of her finger, though just for a second. She moves forward, just an inch… yet an inch too much.
She goes down with a scream, but Leyla saves her from hurting herself. The moment she catches her, Lauren feels the familiar electricity she's only ever felt with Leyla. After all this weeks, months even, it's still there.
"You okay?" Leyla's voice is warm with concern.
"Y- Yeah, I'm fine," Lauren answers, highly aware that Leyla is still holding her. Clearing her throat, she takes a step back. "Forget about it, I just buy some new ones. Sorry I bothered you."
Leyla smiles at her. "Don't be weird. This is still your apartment."
"Yeah," Lauren mumbles once again, though more to herself this time. She looks around her. Everything is the same, Leyla didn't change anything since she left. "So uh, where's… what's her name again?"
"Don't know," Leyla shrugs, "At home, I guess."
As Lauren narrows her eyes, a frown creases her forehead. "She doesn’t live here?!"
Her question as well as her genuine confusion draws a laugh from Leyla, amused, maybe even endeared by Lauren's premature conclusion.
"Of course not," she chuckles, closing the gap between them with a small step forward. When she lightly rests her hand on Lauren's upper arm, just long enough to make her look at her, she goes on without laughter, "I would never let anyone live here. It's not my place. Besides, Bix and I just met. We've been on three dates. Number four starting in…" She checks her watch. "…two hours."
Lauren barely hears her. She can still feel Leyla's touch, even though she let go of her already - something she only knows for sure by actually checking. And when she looks up to meet her eyes again she instantly finds herself drowning in the calm of them, like so often before.
"Don't go," she hears herself say. "Don't go on that date."
Leyla tilts her head, her easy smile suddenly no longer there. "Why?"
"You know why."
Shaking her head, Leyla crosses her arms. "Say it."
Lauren opens her mouth, but no words come out. And when she catches the tremble in her bottom lip, she quickly closes it again.
"Lauren, you walked away from this. From me," Leyla reminds her - as if she really needs to.
"Because I'm an idiot!" Lauren blurts out, embarrassed but glad that she at least found her voice back. "Don't you know that by know? Don't you know that I'm the biggest screw-up out there? I am! I- I'm a clueless mess."
"No," Leyla cuts off her rant, slowly shaking her head again, "When you ended this, you broke my heart. But you weren't clueless. You were wise, and you were right."
"Then why does it feel wrong?"
Leyla takes in a deep breath, before taking Lauren's hand into her own. "Because this, this feeling right here, it's not just in your head. And it's not just in mine." She swallows. "It's real. And maybe one day it will be enough, enough to forget everything else."
Fighting the urge to avert her eyes, Lauren blinks a tear away, then squares her shoulders trying to collect herself.
"And in the meantime we go on dates? With people called Bix?!"
"In the meantime we live. We stay happy, and healthy. And then, when we meet again, we don't have to save each other." Leyla forces herself to smile. "We can just be."
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