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Pearl loved to chew gum. Not just any gum, either, it had to be Strident spearmint gum or she wouldn’t have it. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t have a pack in the bag she carried, occasionally grabbing a stick to chew.
Amethyst had talked and joked with her about it, naming it an addiction.
“Gee, Pearl, how many sticks a’ gum didya chew today? Hit 76 yet?” She’d tease, patting her back as her girlfriend set yet another one on her tongue.
Pearl would roll her eyes and smile at the teasing, deciding not to glorify it with a response.
There wasn’t a problem over the gum at all. It wasn’t a true addiction, Pearl just really, really liked it. A lot.
Every now and then, Amethyst and Pearl also argued over small things. Well, “argue” isn’t really the right word; they were matters that didn’t make sense, nor were the arguments hostile or serious in nature. They were playful, over trivial matters such as ‘who would win in a fight between a man dressed as a monkey mascot and a rabid labrador’ (Amethyst said the man would, Pearl believed in the dog, and neither could ever agree), or the way Amethyst regressed into her natural Spanish accent that would make her words sound a little strange every now and then, causing Pearl to misunderstand them and thereby causing one to tease the other.
One day, they were “arguing” over why icebergs were blue.
“Pearl, are icebergs blue cause they’re made of airplane toilet water that floated up and congregated?”
Pearl stopped everything she was doing, trying to comprehend exactly what her girlfriend had just asked and if she was understanding her correctly. After a moment, she turned around, looked at her, and uttered a single syllable,”What…?”
“Y’know, cause the chemicals in airplane toilets turn it blue or something when they eject it, y’know?”
Her thin eyebrows furrowed. “Are you serious?”
Amethyst squinted at her. “Contestas la pregunta, princesa.”
The thin woman sighed and set her laptop aside, deciding to forget the thing she was writing; she was ahead, anyway. “Darling, I love you, but icebergs are not blue because of...airplane toilet water, they’re blue because that’s the only color that reflects off of them, the rest are absorbed.”
“But that’s stupid, color doesn’t REFLECT,” she furrowed her eyebrows back, fully realizing she was totally guessing on that.
“The way we perceive color is because light hits things, and our eyes take in the wavelengths that result from it hitting the particles, so...you’re wrong,” Pearl crossed her arms. She took science a little too seriously, and Amethyst realized this. This is where the games began.
“No, no, see it’s blue because of the chemicals and how they react and stuff; haven’t you EVER heard about peeing in the pool and how it turns blue? It’s the same deal but frozen and they travel to the north and south poles.”
“How does that explain glaciers, then?”
“Glaciers aren’t blue, they’re white, and that’s because they’re filled with compacted snow!”
Pearl slowly, very slowly, propped her elbow on her knee and covered her mouth with a sideways palm, studying her girlfriend wordlessly. However, within the prolonged eye contact, she didn’t see Amethyst’s hand reaching for her bag. “Glaciers reflect blue as well, there’s often simply not enough light to transmit the blue into our retinas.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Success, she had the prize inside: Pearl’s beloved gum pack, and Pearl was none the wiser.
“It’s not bullshit, Amethyst, it’s science,” Pearl sat up straight, reaching for her laptop again,”I’ll look it up here and prove it to you.”
“You know what? I think you’re right, now that I think about it. I was bein dumb.”
Pearl looked up in shock, then suspicion. “I’m right?”
Amethyst only nodded, smiling wide, then standing. “I’m gonna go take a shower now, hasta pronto,” she said while casually walking through the doorway to their bedroom, then to their bathroom.
Pearl watched her leave, studying everything closely. Something was up.
Not long after, Amethyst got out of the shower. As she entered the room in her pajamas - a sports bra and track shorts - Pearl could hear something that made her realized just how much she’d been duped. When she looked up at her beloved, watching her jaw move up and down, a near-panic struck Pearl. She reached for her bag, looked around inside, and noticed the problem.
Her gum was gone. That JERK.
“Amethyst…?”
“Si, mis galletas?” Amethyst looked lazily back at her, eyes half lidded and a shit-eating grin plastered on her face, jaws still moving to chew.
Pearl had an idea. For a moment, she looked into Amethyst’s eyes, then she smiled. “I just wanted you to know I love you.”
Amethyst looked suddenly surprised, then she covered her demeanor with a cooler attitude. “Y te amo, mi pastel,” she spoke lightly, taking one of Pearl’s hands in her own and rubbing a thumb over the knuckles.
Her girlfriend smiled, the taller woman setting her laptop slowly aside as she leaned in carefully. Taking her hand back, she caressed each side of Amethyst’s face with love and care, looking into her eyes for a moment before shutting them and kissing her slowly, tenderly, and with great love.
Amethyst leaned into it, gently wrapping her arms around her girlfriend and pulling her close as their lips moved together. Pearl’s fingertips ghosted to her neck, thumbs still running just over her jawline as the kiss got slightly more heated.
However, before much else could happen, Pearl pulled away, kissed Amethyst’s forehead, and picked up her laptop once more, returning to work.
Amethyst frowned. “Hey, what the hell, man?”
Pearl grinned sickeningly, looked her in the eye, and chewed. “I just wanted it back.”
Now she sat, triumphantly chewing her retrieved gum directly in front of the thief. Amethyst was left to pout and watch, eventually accepting defeat and being forced to move on.
They had to admit, every second of these arguments...they wouldn’t trade them for the world.