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Gloria doesn't pray.
Being raised in the eyes of someone else’s image…praying to a faceless being in the sky.
It never appealed to her. Praying…the word leaves an interesting taste.
She remembers the fights she had with her mother on religion, the rosary…the Hail Marys she whispered under her breath when fussing got too overwhelming just when they were going to walk to church.
Gloria promised herself that it wouldn’t be that way. Not with Sasha, Sasha would have choices, Sasha would explore. It was an unspoken rule. Any question could be asked. About the world, about emotions, about herself.
But Gloria was more than full of questions.
Sasha was too.
“Are you finally going to ask her?” It’s Gloria’s day to pick Sash up from school. She loved the matching casual wear that the high schooler picked. A lavender tank top and cargo jeans, Gloria wears the blazer her daughter picked like a badge of honor.
“Ask her what?”
“To stay? Here? With us?” Sasha’s brazen and sharp, it’s unusual. Gloria pauses as she hits a red-light. “Do you want her to? “She makes me pancakes and helps me with homework. We argue and watch movies.” A green light emerges. “ I don’t see why it isn’t official”
“Her staying…has to be her choice, as much as you-”
“Do you want to go back home?” Sasha jumps as high as she can to that absurd question.
“No! I’m not saying that…I’m just saying, as much as we love her I don’t think we can just ask her to stay and she feels obligated to. “
Sasha blinks…”We?”
“We”
-
The conversation sinks in her mind. It’s not like the woman was going to propose-not anytime soon. But she remembers the beach, the garden they made together.
The moments were beautiful, she was beautiful , but for how long until she decides that-?
No. No...choices.
Barbie’s individuality was an ever changing spectrum. Her humanity was growing just as much as Barbie was, and gloria would be damned if she took that away…
“We can’t lose her mom…”
Gloria doesn’t intend to.
She starts with a day off. Barbie is confused when the brunette is still in bed, but always happy to see more of Gloria she goes back to sleep in her beds. The rain patters against the window like a soft melody.
Gloria was if nothing else, a planner. What better way to observe (and mildly convince) the object of her greatest affections to stay in her home by giving her more.
It was Barbie’s choice. To do whatever she wanted. It didn’t matter if she even had to be in the mud or to cook whatever the blondee desires.
“Did you break something?” Barbie’s confusion rises when she sees Sasha in the kitchen making pancakes. “It’s okay if you broke a heel?”
“I wouldn’t touch heels with a ten foot pole. We just wanna show how much we…appreciate you.”
Barbie doesn’t question the shared look on the duo. Only devouring the blueberry pancakes.
“What would you like to do today corazón?”
Barbie blushes…”Bridgerton”
Bridgerton, a couch and three girls curled up with more than enough blankets. They’re comfortable, and safe, and Barbie just had to pick the episode where Kate has to go home and Anthony just….can’t.
Gloria can’t understand.
“Why?”
“Because he’s a dense man who can’t communicate he wants her to stay” And Babrie just lives for the drama of it all.
It feels almost like a punishment, Anthonys confession, how easy it is to just…say it.
Barbie asks if Gloria feels okay, a stomach bug maybe based on how the white paints the twos face. Sasha excuses herself to go to the bathroom. And Gloria smiles through her own mental crisis and wants to strangle her daughter for leaving.
There’s a quiet that Barbie can’t genuinely explain.
“Okay”
-
She decides not to let the day go to waste, more food, more tv, more laughing, more constipated looks of nervousness from Sasha as she genuinely tries not to blurt out the question. Glorias keeping composed unleashes an everlasting frustration on the youngest.
“What do you think about changing curtains?” Gloria inquires
“I guess in the spring…But-“
Sasha points in on Barbies weakness. “Wanna make a new food?”
“How about next week?” She’s still full.
“How about furniture shopping?”
“Soon?” The furniture fine…? “Lets take a nap”
“YES!” Barbie’s head spins at the questions and barely has a sentence in before something else comes up that’s a future project.
Barbie’s exhausted after a day of everything and nothing. Laying face down on the sheets. She needs a minute, and Gloria thinks she broke the blondee, and can’t help but think back..
“We have time for all of the things…”
She opens a window, before settling into bed. She can’t breathe. God she feels like she could throw up. Why is it so hard to just say it? Just open your mouth and-
“Gloria?”
She blinks, her questions cease and she feels the familiarity of her comforter, and the soft voice she’d grown to love.
“Everything ok-“
She still can’t breathe. But for a different reason all together.
Her body moves on her own, it’s instinctive. The cool night air blows in the distance as her lips presses the blondes. Calloused hands from endless nights of drawing find a place on Barbies exposed back like it’s home.
Is this what it feels like? Home?
Gloria thinks too much. Barbie can’t help but giggle at the reappearance of her furrowed brow.
“What’s up?” Her smile…her laugh…Gloria clings to it. “You’ve been acting weird all day….and is Sasha sick?”
“Stay” She whispers. It’s reverent, forever soft and vulnerable. “I’ll make you breakfast, I’ll let you use my shampoo. I’ll come home to you and make dinner”
“Glor-“
“Please…tell me” She doesn’t stop. Her words feel heavy. “…what can I do?”
Barbie blinks quietly. She opens her mouth, then closes, then tries again. “Slow down.” “Sasha’s sick of wondering, I can’t think of you being gone, I can’t breathe when you look at me like that”
“I can…not look?” This is entirely new territory, seeing Gloria frustrated, upset?
“NO! I mean- no. that’s not what I meant.” Breathe Gloria…
“Hey…its okay”
“It’s not…” “Why?”
“Because we don’t know…I- I don’t know if you’re going to be a forever or if I’m going to have to prepare to lose you again.”
It makes sense…just a little bit more.
Gloria is sweaty and nervous and not entirely sure as to why? Her pajamas feel like the heaviest thing ever and her mouth can’t form the words until barbie suggests charades. And Gloria doesn’t think she can show yearning through sweating.
Barbie sees the symptoms, just like the ones she had when she had the same desire.
“Just say it…it’s okay. I won’t be mad. It’s okay to just get it ou-“
Gloria holds Barbies face, careful, sure, brave.
“I want you….Here. with me. Every day. Spring, summer, fall, winter. Here. With us, at movie nights, date nights, us nights….Here.”
Barbie smiles.
“I’m already here…”
“More here.”
“How much-“ Another kiss, soft, warm, gentle. It says everything gloria can’t for some reason. Reverence….love.
“Here…” Gloria begs. “With me”
Barbie kisses back, just as much, if not more. She can’t help but feel warm inside. She declares it, loud enough for Gloria tonight and more for her darling Sasha in a few more moments.
“Here…always.”