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Ven. Te grito entre la tempestad, entre la sombra,
entre esta resurrección nocturna del sonido,
porque la casa entera tiembla
y si tú no vienes
mañana solo habrá la historia de una casa.
Tormenta; Luz Machado (1947/1965)
Sophia doesn't know what she’s doing.
Not when she’s booking a plane ticket to Zürich, not when she’s going through customs, not when she’s turning on her rental and certainly not when she’s calling Manon at 9 in the evening for her to open her family home’s front door after driving 45 minutes in a foreign country.
She should have booked a hotel just in case, she does know that, at least. And still, all those hours of doubt and anxiety crumble down when the phone picks up.
“Sophia?” Manon sounds confused through the phone, and Sophia tries to not pay attention to the metaphorical tongs probing at her heart. Because there had been a time when her name would be called playfully, lovingly.
“Hey, Manz…” She replies, scratching her nape at the slightly cold breeze that caresses her skin. “Uh, quick question. Are you home?”
Sophia can practically feel the furrow in Manon’s impossibly straight eyebrows. “Home? Like Switzerland, home?’
“Yes..?” Sophia closes her eyes, fisting her hands and doing a mini tantrum at how awkward she feels in the moment. She shouldn't have done this, Manon was probably tanning on a brazilian beach or something.
“I mean, yes. Why?”
“Um. Because I’m at your front door?”
“What?!” Her scream surpasses Sophia’s phone speaker, and resonates throughout the two-story house. The leader can’t imagine her Swiss neighbours will be happy. A clicking sound draws her attention, and sure enough, there’s Meret Manon Bannerman, perched on a window like she’s a Shakespearean princess.
A Shakespearean princess in a oversized hoodie and braids, maybe; but a princess nevertheless.
She sees the gasp before she hears it and waves a hand at Manon, the soft smile that she always guards only for her tugging the corners of her lips.
“What in the loving hell are you doing here?” She scream-whispers down at her. Sophia shrugs, feeling small when she speaks again.
“I just miss you.” She tells her, raw and full of emotion.
Manon closes the window to which Sophia assumes is her bedroom, so she just lets her shoulders drop on her way to the black, indescriptive rental car. She’s actively restraining herself from crying one evening in Lucerne as she turns the key on the driver’s side when the unmistakable sound of footsteps freezes her in place.
“Turn around.” Manon says to her, like she’s Eurydice and Sophia is Orpheus and they are main characters of the Greek tragedy they now call fame. But Sophia knows how their story ends if she turns around.
Eurydice stays in the underworld, knowing she’s loved by her partner, only to never touch him again. Even if he finds her everywhere, from how the birds sing to the chords he plays.
“Sophia, turn around.”
Sophia shakes her head as much as the hand that envelopes her, determined to not look back. But Manon wraps one hand around her shoulder, impossibly warm to be a ghost of Sophia’s imaginarium. She does turn around, and when she does, then Sophia knows. She knew all along, perhaps; as she sees Manon’s doe eyes filled with tears of regret and joy and something else entirely theirs.
Sophia embraces Manon as hard as she can without causing her any physical harm and the Swiss sobs into Sophia’s overcoat so hard that she shakes her too.
“I miss you too, Soph.” She cries. “I miss all of you, every day.”
Sophia also sobs into Manon’s hair, her tropical fragrance doesn't linger anymore, replaced by mint and chamomile.
When their sobs subsided into hiccups, Sophia took Manon’s face in her hands and ran her thumb across the galaxy of freckles that illuminated the bridge of the other woman’s nose. She happens to look down at their feet, where Sophia’s pointed boots leverage her over Manon’s bare feet.
“You are going to get sick, baby.”
“I don’t care.” She says, muzzling her face in the crevice between Sophia’s collarbone and neck. “I have already been sick without you and there’s no worse disease than that.” It makes Sophia cry some more while they hug for another couple of minutes, before Manon drags her by the hand, the pull barely there; more of a quiet reminder that they were real, and they were there.
Still hand in hand, Manon opens the door to her childhood home and it feels like she’s giving Sophia another chance inside her heart.
The filipina takes off her boots by the door, because old habits die hard and that makes Manon laugh quietly like she did when they snuck out during the documentary days. It causes something molten to settle between her ribs, destroying everything in its way.
The walk to Manon’s room is quiet, a buzz surrounding them when they reach the door filled with so many stickers that there was almost no wood left to show.
There’s a double bed and a desk beside it, stuck in Manon’s adolescent days. With the fairy lights and the fake ivy coiling around the corners.
“There’s clothes in the closet and my duffel there.” She points softly at the two places. “You can pick whatever.”
Sophia goes for the closet, picking up a pair of pink tartan briefs that she was sure once belonged to her and a tank top.
She changes in front of Manon, who was sitting still and pretty over her sage green comforter, watching Sophia’s back intently. Forcing her legs to go up to Manon, Sophia stood right by the feet of her bed looking down at her.
“Hi.” Sophia whispers.
“Hi.” Manon whispers back. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
The leader chuckled at that. “Me neither. I honestly was an automatic pilot until I reached your door.”
Manon smiled and scooted further up on the mattress, patting the space beside her. Sophia climbed up the bed, sitting in a similar position until she gave in to her urges and tackled Manon in a hug.
The other giggled, resting her face in Sophia’s chest, smelling the new perfume the woman was wearing.
“Did you change your perfume?”
Sophia retracted her body a little. “I wouldn’t say change.” She sighed. “More like, it reminded me of you and I had to buy it.”
“Oh.” It’s all she was capable of getting out the lump in her throat.
Manon reaches out for her, no longer wanting to feel Sophia out of her reach and locked their lips together. She was as sweet as ever, a hand on Manon’s hip tracing idle circles there.
“I’m sorry, my love.” She tells her, faces so close their breath mingled with the other.
“For what, baby?” Manon inquires, taking one of Sophia’s hands between her own.
“Not reaching out earlier. Ignoring the issue. I just- I’m really sorry.”
Manon lets out a breath, “You know it’s not your fault, Sophi. You are legally obligated not to.”
“Maybe online. But I still could visit you.” She hugged her harder, speaking in the same hushed tones as Manon. “Instead of letting all this consume me until there was no more to eat from.”
“Ah, ma chérie. That is bad.” She told her, running a manicured hand through her long black hair. “You know you can call me too? You don’t need to make a grand gesture for me to listen and see you.”
“I know.”
“Well, then you know you just, say the word and I’ll be right on your doorstep.”
Sophia blinks the desperado tears away, kissing Manon again. “I love you, Manz.”
Manon smiles. “I love you too, Sophi.”
She played with the hand still encased between Manon’s. Furrowing her brows.
“Wait, what are you going to tell your Mom tomorrow?” She asked.
“That my charming girl came to rescue me from this lonely summer spell, of course.” She answers, like it's obvious. And it kind of is.
“I’m still your girl?” She looked at the doe eyed beauty, eyes starry with hope.
“Sophia, you will always be my girl."