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It feels as if the entire world is taking a deep breath in sync. Two girls standing at a crosswalk shaded by trees, their leaves glowing bright emerald with rain, neither holding an umbrella.
"He stood me up," she explains, shrugging. "It's no big deal. I didn't even like him that much anyway."
Her downturned face says otherwise, the watery shimmer in her grey-blue eyes.
It's getting late, a few half hours shy of dinnertime. The clouds are gloomy and dark. Rain drips from the suspended tree branches, the drops stretching and extending before pattering down to earth. It would be a horrible day for a date, anyway. She doesn't say that, though, because she never again wants to see her best friend cry.
"It's okay." She reaches out. Surprise fills the other's gaze as their hands interlock, hands warm and delicate as her own are cold and clammy. "I'll go on the date with you."
Briefly, the look in her eyes turns indecipherable before it warms. Her hair is damp and mussed with rain, rivulets staining her school uniform. "Would you?" she says. "Really?"
"Of course," is her answer, as it always is when it comes to this, when it comes to this girl. "What are friends for?" as her heart fractures.
She is the first student in the entire school, and the glossy screens of the computer lab shimmer at her enticingly. She shoots a surreptitious glance around, just in case. The janitors work fast and walk on silent feet.
Satisfied by the emptiness, she powers the computer on. Its screen flickers from black to a light blue as its lagging browser begins to load. She lifts the delicate lavender purse off her shoulder, a gift after their fake date, and drapes it carefully across the back of the chair, making sure it doesn't even graze the dirty carpet.
On the screen, the cursor blinks at her slowly from the search bar, flickering in and out, reminiscent somehow of how the world spins. She remembers sunshine, and yesterday's rain, drops of it caught in both their eyelashes. She remembers shared cupcakes and lollipops and smoothies, a million unsaid words, a million glances across crowded high school corridors with textbooks in hand.
What does it mean to want someone so much it feels like everything is shifting on its axis?
"Hey."
It's dark in the room, all too dark, the only glow a sliver of moonlight sliding in underneath the windowsill. It's late, she knows, and especially, it's quiet, filled only with the quiet snores of the other girls and that soft, probing whisper. "Are you awake?"
She bites her lip, tempted to not reply. To close her eyes and go spinning away with the wind, caught in the deliriously heady delight of it. A brush of vanilla-scented hair against her neck, the sound of her shifting in her sleeping bag, turning toward her. Her breath catches around the heart beating desperately in her throat.
She says, "I'm here." She says, "What do you need?" and hopes that it disguises the pitiful wounded part of herself that shrivels back in fear of reaching out. It reminds her of flowers climbing over poised castle walls. Her breath rushes out her lungs and into the quiet, into the dark, the shocking vulnerability of such a mundane moment, and she thinks that this carousel is going to kill her someday, she really, truly does.
She doesn't say anything more, and neither does the other girl. She just chuckles and burrows closer, until their shoulders touch and their arms and their legs through the blankets and sleeping bag.
Neither of them say anything about 'love'.
Do you ever wonder if you're falling in love too fast? Because she does. It's almost effortless, now that she thinks about it, the few months it took for her to become enamoured with that girl, with her best friend. With how the strobe lights of the Valentines' Day party gild her hair into a million different hues at once. With how she's standing there at the centre of the roiling crowd, her glass of hot pink fruit punch perched between nimble pianist's fingers, laughing and chattering with what feels like everyone, the glowing cynosure.
She casts a glance over her shoulder and sees her, standing alone and unsociable in the corner, and she begins to push her way through the crowd. "Aren't you lonely?" she chirps, bounding over, her face a brilliant masterpiece of joy and glee. The multicoloured stars they had inked on her forearms earlier are still there, clear as day - blue, pink, a fainter constellation of orange. "Loosen up," she says, her eyes like an entire universe. "Let's have some alcohol."
She is everything, she is the sun and the stars and the galaxy and the whole universe, she is everything and how does one say no to a goddess?
"I think I've loved you all my life," she admits into the silence. It's so, so quiet now. They're naked in the grass, limbs and hair and hearts splayed askew and vulnerable and open, bodies a mess of tingles and bruises. The other girl chuckles, rolls over to face her and cradles the side of her face with those gloriously long fingers, a soft stroke against her cheekbone that melts every bone in her body.
"I didn't think you even knew what love was," she jokes. "No offence."
"I didn't," she answers simply, thinking of the glowing screen in the computer lab. The stars are spinning again, but it's so gentle, gentle enough to lull her to sleep. She wants to fall asleep here and wake up just the same, seeing the sunrise through her best friend's eyelashes and rousing her with a soft shake on the shoulder, kissing her peacefully shut eyelids and gathering up her clothes from the grass.
"Oh," the other girl gapes, grinning. "No way."
"You're just a lover girl, aren't you?" she teases. "Always pretending to be so stiff and sullen."
It coaxes a smile from her, like her girlfriend's gentle ribbing is often wont to do. "I'm not that soft," she protests, directly contrasted by the girl whose face is buried in the crook of her neck, inhaling the smell of her hair.
"Yeah, right," is the muffled reply, hot breath against her shoulder. She shivers, almost imperceptibly. "Do you even remember all the gifts you've given me?"
She considers, pensive. They've been together for about a month now, and the need to make gift after gift is growing constant. Her allowance will be permanently dented if she does not stop soon. "Some candles, flowers, a plush cat, and blueberry muffins," she lists off easily. "Tell me again you're not a lover girl."