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For people like Carla Furiani, love– in all its palpable and strange forms– is a foreign concept. She finds absurdity in how easy other people embrace love, because doing so in her case is not normal. She doesn’t look at it with abomination– no – but only with a sheer sense of skepticism. It’s laborious to love, she thinks. It takes effort to get to know, form trust, and repair the same trust with someone. Even her biological parents resented each other. If love was indeed special, she wouldn’t need to go through the process of finding out she’s Mrs. Latour’s long-lost daughter. The choice to give up a baby should and could never spring from a place of love. So that’s about it. It’s a jump to an endless pit that made her blood boil and her stomach revolt.
To love means having to trust. To love means having to constantly learn.
It’s a lot of work, she thinks.
So, love is not for her.
Love is not her.
The only time she would let herself admit she felt love was at the same time she had lost it.
Her unborn baby. Who, in the four months she’d kept him alive in her womb, had managed to teach her feelings she hadn’t had the time to learn before.
Guilt. Fear. Grief. Love .
It’s a thing she still carries to this day, and one of the clauses about it is the fact that the cliche saying “you only understand love once you’ve lost it” is true. And Carla hates it. Hates that she had to lose the only– rather first – thing to make her realize what love is to learn it.
So, if losing is a lurking possibility in the shadows everytime people love someone, why should Carla risk it? Why bother reliving the pain? And so she stuck by these. Held onto these thoughts like a muscle memory.
Until Berenice LeBlond.
The process of realizing she was enamored by Berenice was not linear. It was not a spontaneous moment just like she once thought when she was a kid from all the stupid romantic movies she’s watched while sat on the enormous couch of her adoptive parents’ mansion. To pinpoint the exact moment she felt it is a hopeless thing to do.
It was laid down in bits and pieces. Bits and pieces she had to string together to make them make sense. In bits and pieces, like how Berenice was just this awkward student she bumped into, who could not tie three words together to finish a goddamn sentence. In bits and pieces, like how Berenice’s oddities and weird sensibilities plucked the right amount of curiosity in Carla’s head. In bits and pieces, like how she barely noticed the changes in Berenice’s moods when she talked about her escapades with men like Livio. In bits and pieces, like when Berenice confessed, and Carla, who rarely goes speechless, had only gone quiet because there’s no way Berenice’s words were true. There’s no way Berenice would be that brave to casually say she was in love with someone– with her best friend , no less.
If Carla had to map it down, she supposes she’d come up with a graph of where platonic love borders romantic love. It’s that thin line separated by both sensible and nonsensical things. Because, if you already have platonic love, why would you be stupid enough to cross a line that only runs one way? No take-backs, just a forward fall to either something good or something terribly bad.
It was a slow, agonizing chronicle of how she pieced together those little things, and how the pieced-up carnage of her heart got too heavy to let Berenice go.
And so, she sealed it with a kiss. Words refused to come out of her mouth, and she hated it. Because Carla Furiani never runs out of things to say– never backs down from an argument. But not with Berenice. Because arguments with Berenice have always left her feeling empty, and she didn't know why that was the case before. Not until Berenice became braver for the two of them and jumped headfirst.
I understand you don’t feel the same way for me, and that’s fine. But–
Those words filled her with the same rush of panic and impending loss she felt once in her life. There she was again, on the brink of losing something she knew she was capable of loving, but was too proud to take the leap.
For once, her body acted faster than her head– faster than the rationalization and doubts she knew were coming.
All she had to do was kiss Berenice. To shut her up. To make her understand that somewhere when lines started to blur, it wasn’t just happening on Berenice’s side of things. That they weren’t like the Earth, glowing on just one side while the other sleeps soundly in darkness at every moment.
Love used to be a foreign concept. It still is– at least some parts of it. Parts she hadn’t bared to Berenice just yet. But Carla is understanding it better. Her grasp isn’t as loose as it once was. Quite the opposite, really.
She fears it still, but she reads it better.
She read it loudly in her head when the fear of disappointing Berenice with her lack of experience took over and overwhelmed her.
She sang it to herself when Berenice would unconsciously reach for her hand during their morning walks to the Institute.
She hummed it softly, with dying chords on her tongue, when Berenice stood up for herself and proved Anais wrong that day she refused to let Berenice into her team.
She’s felt it in ways she understood and didn’t. Berenice made her feel safe. Happy. Scared . Proud.
And these things grew bigger and bigger each day, with leaps farther than she could ever imagine when Berenice touched her the first time. Carla could truly laugh at her old self. Of how she posed herself as someone who knew sex and intimacy like the back of her hand. But there was nothing like kissing Berenice’s lips while coming down from her high. Nothing like hearing Berenice assure her and whisper “It’s okay, I’m here” to her ear as she tried to make sense of what she was feeling.
It was beautiful. Eye-opening, to say the least, to be touched in ways she didn’t think were possible.
And Carla knew then she was growing more and more sure. Surer than she’d ever be.
“What are you doing here?”
Those words and that soft voice knocked Carla out of the trance she was in. She comes back to her senses and realizes she’s walked inside the greenhouse where Berenice is working. It’s an amusing effect Berenice had on her– make her space out and think of things that she once repelled.
“Can’t a grown woman stroll into a greenhouse and admire whatever you’re… planting here?”
“A grown woman can, unless she’s you.”
“You’ve grown too confident and wise for my comfort.”
Berenice laughs, and Carla hates to be like those people who think they’re walking on the precipice of heavens when the people they love do something as unremarkable as laughing, but she might as well be.
“Seriously, why are you here? Don’t you have classes with Souleymane?”
“No, and everyone is apparently at home and I don’t wanna see their stupid faces” she says, rolling her eyes before smiling softly at Berenice, “I’d rather watch yours.”
“I’m all sweaty and dirty, if you prefer me this way” Berenice claims, putting down the hand shovel she was using just a minute ago.
“Well…” Carla quips as images of Berenice panting on her bed from some nights ago flash in her head. Her smile grows mischievous and Berenice easily catches up on what she’s thinking.
“Carla!”
Carla laughs then, and to anyone else who could be watching this very scene, it would be an unusual sight to say the least. But it’s one of the things Carla likes about what they have. How Berenice could elicit such responses without even trying too much. The old her would be disgusted. But she sees Berenice beam in front of her and Carla realizes she doesn’t give a damn how weird and atypical this makes her look.
“We didn’t get to have dinner last week because someone injured herself rollerskating” Carla quips with a mocking tone, “or whatever it was you were doing.”
“Ah, need I remind you we did something more meaningful after that?”
Carla could curse herself then as she feels her body react to Berenice’s words before her mind could. She feels the heat rush to her cheeks, but she tries her best to mask it with a raise of her brow. These warm flutters she could downplay, but she’ll be damned if ever tried to deny the effect Berenice had on her.
“Whatever. Are you up for it or not?” Carla tries to add a tone of impatience in her voice, an involuntary response that Berenice knows too well by now.
“Yeah, it sounds wonderful.”
“Of course it is, I’m the one cooking.”
“I can help you out?” Berenice proposes, taking off her gloves before placing them in her backpockets, “will it be at your place?”
“Yeah, unless you want to include your sister and her demonic husband in our date.”
Berenice snorts at the accuracy of her words, and a part of Carla feels a streak of pride at how Berenice grew from shaking at the mention of Teyssier’s name to this more confident, talented student that she is right now.
“Wouldn’t your roommates be there?”
“They won’t be back until very late tonight.”
“Please tell me you didn’t murder them to pull this off.”
“Oh, knock it off. It took a little bribing but…” Carla trails in her words, shrugging, “they all kinda agreed to it.”
Bribing which meant Carla, for the first time in her life, agreed to cleaning the shared kitchen more often in exchange for more privacy with Berenice, but no, Berenice didn’t need to know that part of the deal. That would only make her ridiculous, or worse, a wimp.
“Okay then. It’s a date.”
Berenice moves towards her and opens her arms to welcome a hug from Carla. Carla feels her chest soften at the thought of it. She could close her eyes then and think of how she could see herself doing this for a really long time. Maybe someday she’ll run her own restaurant with Berenice. Maybe someday, they’ll go home together and whisper sweet nothing to each other in the privacy of their own space. Maybe someday, she could really make something work without doubting the risks she’s taking day by day.
“You have compost all over your shirt, Berenice” she comments with a disgusted tone, but her body betrays her and she unconsciously leans in anyway. Berenice only smirks in response, now able to read between the lines of Carla’s words and body language.
Carla could live like this, she thinks. For once, love does feel a little less foreign to her being.
Berenice shows up at six in a floral dress that hugged her body in all the right places. Carla senses her grip loosening a little, and she makes up for it with a soft kiss to Berenice’s cheek the moment she steps in. Berenice smiles, and Carla feels her inhale the same old fancy perfume Carla’s worn since the first day they met.
It’s good. The night is young, but it’s looking pretty good.
Berenice brings with her a small serving of a Saint Honore she whipped up right before leaving the Teyssier home, a little similar to the one she made almost two months ago when they were still under Annabelle Cardone’s wing. There’s something to it that is uniquely hers, Carla thinks. She can’t look or taste any similar pastry and not think and compare it with anything Berenice makes. She has the hands of a goddess– with talent so organic it had to be unfair to compare with everyone else. And Carla adores this about her. This, along with a long list of other things she could spend an entire day noting.
Carla prepared the rest. Just a simple Mediterranean inspired dinner topped off with good wine she probably sneaked out of the Institute’s premises. They talk about everything unrelated to what they do, like an unspoken agreement to never talk about school or the stress it brings when it’s just the two of them. So they talk about Berenice’s pet cat she had since she was six until she was in her last year in high school. They talk about Carla’s stash of brooches that she claims to once maintain well in the Furiani household. They talk about persimmons– a key incorporation to this new recipe Berenice had made– and where Berenice thinks the best fruits are found in the South of France.
The conversations rolled the same way Berenice’s name rolled all over Carla’s tongue. Effortlessly. It was an unconscious thought to add up to what Berenice was saying. It was second nature to pay attention to the little details she says here and there. It was reflex to say something sarcastic because Carla knew it would elicit a giggle from the other girl.
Evenings like this are worth the risk, Carla fears (- fears, for no better word encompasses the way it engulfs her chest whenever she thinks of the possibility that they wouldn’t reach this point had she not risked something along the way).
Berenice laughs out loud when Carla purports she’ll do the dishes after their dinner. Carla rolls her eyes at her, lovingly so, and she goes on with her task while seemingly aware of Berenice’s presence behind her, just staring at her with a smile on her face like this version of reality isn’t something she’s ever dreamed of before.
“Didn’t Constance teach you it’s rude to stare at other people for no reason?” Carla says as she wipes down the last of the goddamned plates she had to wash.
“I have a very good reason to stare.”
Carla almost drops the dinnerware in her hands, but she manages to play it off. Moments like this, ever since Berenice grew the guts to confess and be bold in her actions, take Carla’s breath away in ways she used to hate. It fills her chest with want and need, and wants and needs didn’t use to mix up to Carla Furiani. Not until Berenice, whom she desires and gravitates to like a dog on a leash.
“Wanna cap off the night with another bottle of wine?” she asks instead, already carrying in her hands two wineglasses and a tall, unopened bottle of red from their villa’s stash.
She leads the way to the balcony, and they both sit just an arm’s length apart on the small couch overlooking the salt marshes. It’s a chilly evening, and Carla’s thankful that the slight buzz she’s feeling from the wine is keeping her body warm enough to get on. She sees the goosebumps forming on Berenice’s arm and she unconsciously runs her hand over Berenice’s skin to soothe them, much to Berenice’s pleased surprise.
“ Merci ” Berenice softly says, her voice down an octave from all the wine they were drinking.
Silence fills the thick air between them, but Carla basks in it. Her fingers unconsciously play with the short sleeve of Berenice’s dress, and Berenice’s hands clasp her wineglass softly. The shorter girl is looking down on the red liquid, seemingly lost in her thoughts that Carla wishes she could pick. She softly nudges Berenice’s shoulder, prompting the other girl to look up, her eyes deep and searching as they look back at Carla’s.
“I know it when you’re thinking, Berenice” she comments, causing a small smile to form on her paramour’s face as she turns to stare ahead at the marshes’ view.
“Do you…” Berenice starts, the hesitation in her voice a little too obvious for her own liking, “do you wonder sometimes… if– if any of this is possible had I not said anything?”
Berenice’s refusal to face her at that moment was enough for Carla to understand where this was coming. It comes from a place of insecurity. Of fear, and of Berenice’s tendency to look at the half empty side of the cup that both of them were filling in. It pains Carla to think of it. To know that she, undeniably so, is still a part of Berenice’s uncertainties no matter how things have turned out. It itches on all the wrong sides of her, how Berenice could still think less of herself because she thinks there’s no way Carla would be with her had she not taken the first step.
“Why should that matter?” Carla asks, her own fears coming undone as well, and the unconscious need to wrap herself in a bubble of nonchalance is just waiting, “we’re here now.”
She’s unsure if she’s saying the right thing at that very moment, but she might as well be certain an overthinking Berenice is a delicate being to begin with.
Berenice sighs and nods, and the forced smile on her face as she looks back up at Carla is not enough to convince Carla that they are done with this topic.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t wonder about things like this. Maybe I just need to be gratefu–”
“Stop.”
Grateful ?
Carla bites back a scoff as she leans down to put her glass on the floor. Too many things are threatening to spill at that moment. Fear, mostly. Fear that Berenice would one day realize she was better off not having confessed to Carla at all. Fear that Berenice would see herself happier with someone who was more like her, and not with this overbearing, emotionally stunted human being in the form of Carla Furiani. Fear that she might one day lose Berenice because she’s a second too late at saying what she truly feels.
It grips at her chest, and it’s aching and squeezing out feelings she never thought she’d ever feel.
Berenice deserves to be loved in ways that are loud, poetic, and real. And Carla handles feelings like they are a breeze– forever passing and quiet.
So she knows– she knows – Carla knows she has to be loud about it.
“I could have, okay? At some point I know I would have.” Carla says sternly, the shaking in her voice apparent as she feels the buzz of the alcohol disappearing in her system. She’s waking something in her that she’s held down for so long, and it’s all threatening to spill.
“Carla–”
“I don’t want you thinking this way, okay– like it was impossible for me to like you if you hadn’t told me first because I know I would have. Because how could I not?”
There are heavy breaths coming out of Berenice’s mouth, and Carla knows she could just sum everything up with a searing kiss of her own, but she had to be loud . She knew she had to make her intentions as clear as a Yosemite waterfall– loud, and as fearless as a head-first dive to her own death.
“Even when I was horrible to you. Even when I was selfish and overbearing, you were there. You could have left me then, you know? When you were watching me kiss boys and play with their feelings because alas , that’s what everyone expects Carla Furiani to do, you were still there. Anyone sensible would have walked away but you didn’t. Okay?” Carla exclaims breathlessly, seething at how vulnerable she’s allowing herself to be, “So how could I not?”
Vulnerability burns her throat like a bad alcohol, but the awestricken look on Berenice’s face washes Carla like water– neutralizing the feelings she once thought would kill her if she ever let them surface.
So this is what it’s like– to be vulnerable .
It’s like jumping off a cliff when you know the landing could kill you, but you take the plunge anyway.
“You know what I think sometimes?” Carla posits, running her tongue over her lips because the cold is getting to her and she’s talked more than she’s ever done with anyone and the old her would have wanted her to stop then, but she just couldn’t , “that people look at us and think ‘ Berenice could do better’ .”
Previous versions of herself would drown this very Carla, because to admit that losing Berenice equates to a life she’d rather not live is vulnerability at its finest.
And it’s true, she thinks. Carla believes so– that a thousand more of her will not be worthy of half of what Berenice gives so selflessly.
There are tears welling up in Berenice’s eyes that she blinks away. She takes Carla’s hand and cradles it with her own, and the delicate way she’s holding her is making Carla dizzy.
“Two months ago, this only existed in my head, so what do they know?” Berenice asks gently, her tone appreciative, because she knows this is Carla’s naked truth. Because she recognizes the strength it must have taken to be this loud and honest.
Carla thanks the heavens when Berenice closes her eyes because it’s only then that she could wipe away the stupid tears that were threatening to fall from her own. That part she knew was coming, but Carla had to be Carla the same way Berenice had to be Berenice.
“Listen,” Berenice starts again, with a renewed indulgence in her voice, “I’ve been meaning to tell you something, but I need you to know that you don’t need to say it back just becaus–”
“I love you, too.”
Whatever wind slapped Carla’s soul to have her say those words effortlessly, she herself didn’t know.
But now it’s out there, and fuck , was it so easy to say the very word she once feared.
Berenice’s mouth hangs agape, and Carla’s chest clenches because she couldn’t believe it could be this easy . But she should have known– because it’s Berenice she’s saying it to, and there’s no better word that could embrace whatever she’s feeling.
It’s love. Both calm and wild in its own right.
“It’s what you’ve been meaning to say, right? Because if it isn’t then I’m drowning myself right now.”
Berenice remains speechless, and Carla shifts from the bare and vulnerable her, to the Carla she’s gradually grown into in the few weeks she’s been openly affectionate with Berenice. The blushing kind. The wanting and needing kind.
“Don’t just look at me like that. Say something, okay!” she whines, feeling more embarrassed than ever.
Berenice laughs then, and there are fresh tears welling in her eyes but she’s glowing like crazy and Carla finds herself falling even deeper.
“God, you’re so annoying” she quips, blushing madly by the second, “I swear, Berenice, if you tell Souleymane that I said it first, I will–”
Carla finds herself unable to finish her empty threat when Berenice pulls her in for a kiss. It’s soft and sweet, and brings with it words left unsaid that Carla could spell with every move of their lips.
“I love you” Berenice whispers in between kisses, and Carla laughs in her head because she knows for a fact that Berenice will not let this die down peacefully.
She can already see it coming. The teasing she’ll get from her girlfriend (because that’s what they are– girlfriends ) for saying it first , and how Berenice would surely make up for it with kisses that say more than words ever could.
She’ll worry about those in the morning, Carla decides.
For now, she’ll just enjoy this.
.