Linea

I’m scared. Well, maybe not scared, exactly. I’m nervous. My stomach keeps fluttering. It’s this vaguely nauseous mixture of excitement and fear. I really don’t know which to decide on feeling. No, that’s wrong. I know which to be. I know which I want to be. Excited. She’s not going to be mean to me. She’s not going to get angry. If she says no, well, then I’ll know at least.

I try to take deep breaths to calm myself as I sit stiffly on the edge of my bed, waiting for her to arrive. I asked her to come to my place for a change and she didn’t even hesitate. Even though the apartment I share with Mum is roughly the size of the three rooms Kim has all to herself. She always says she loves being here, says the place is so much more cosy and alive. I guess I can see where she’s coming from. I told her I wanted her help picking out pictures for a photo wall above my bed. And yes, that’s a part of it, too. But really, it’s mostly just me trying to be romantic. It’s my idea of romance.

My stomach flutters. The thought of us sitting on my bed in the twilight of the fairy lights arranged around my bed, looking through photos on my iPad, drinking hot drinks, maybe a little wine, laughing… it makes me smile an idiotically big smile.

I get up. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. The sun’s already gone down. I knew Kim would only be free after some time, I planned for it. I didn’t want to ask her in broad daylight and I didn’t want to have to wait half a day before doing it. I’m sitting on hot coals, so to speak. I only asked Wells about it the day before yesterday. I had a really hard time sleeping last night.

Kim Elizabeth Schneider, I think to myself. If only you could see what you’re doing to me.

My room is tidy but not too tidy. Kim’s room is always clinically clean and I admire that but she said she liked how cosy mine is so I try my best to keep it that way. I left the stack of books by the edge of my desk, cleaned away the used teacups but left the scattering of pencils – they’re easy enough to tidy up should we need the surface. I put away my dirty laundry but left my bathrobe hanging from the edge of my closet, not in the bathroom where it belongs. The sheets on my bed are fresh and the blanket is neatly spread and smoothed down but the pillows are somewhat scattered. Just earlier, I made sure to leave a cup of Turkish apple tea out on my desk until it had cooled down all the way – she once said she likes the smell.

It seems ridiculous, what I’m doing. Manipulative even. And what’s worse, it’s not even the first time I’m doing this.

What can I say, I want her to have the best time possible. Because when she’s having a good time, so am I.

The doorbell rings and I almost jump out of my skin. Then I check myself over in the mirror one last time, my hair still in the messy bun she once called cute, light makeup – no lipstick – my cropped hoody ending right where the leggings start. Nothing about my outfit says that I put any effort into it. It’s an art I perfected over the last two years.

Mum’s already in the kitchen as I jog along the narrow corridor to the door. The apartment smells of rice, fried vegetables and soy sauce.

I open the door and there she is. Kim, wearing the expensive felt coat her parents forced on her, perfectly matched to the large scarf, trousers, and shoes. And, of course, her hair.

“Hi,” she smiles and shuffles past me.

We don’t hug hello. We’ve never, really, even though so many others do it. I didn’t want to start it because, well, because I was in love with her and I didn’t want to force myself on her that way and then she never really started it of her own accord. And deep down I hope that she had the same reasons as I.

Sniffling a little, she takes off her coat and hangs it on the hanger. Her nose is still a little red. It’s gotten proper cold again.

“Hi, Kim!” Mum shouts over the noise of the exhaust hood and the sizzling of the food in the frying pan.

“Hi, Carla!” Kim replies cheerily as she slips out of her shoes and into our guest slippers. “The food’s smelling great!”

Together, we make our way over to the kitchen and when she sees us in the doorway, Mum says, “You’re just in time, dinner’s almost ready. You can start setting the table.”

“Alright.”

Kim knows her way around our kitchen. I don’t need to give her any directions as we set the table and then Mum carries the pan over and we sit down at the small in the living room that could never seat more than six people.

I already told Mum about Kim’s past. She was a little surprised but accepting; she loves Kim almost as much as me. And she lets it show over dinner. She keeps asking questions about Kim’s life, about all her different projects and clubs and her volunteer work, like a mother that hasn’t seen her daughter in months. Kim replies happily, the atmosphere is nice. I enjoy not having to talk too much, only every now and again Kim will toss me softball questions to include me, but I’m happy enough to listen. It’s hard enough to eat with what I’m about to tell her, even though I love Mum’s cooking.

Then we’re done eating and Kim starts to gather up the plates but Mum tells her that she’s going to do it. Just as we’re about to leave the room, Mum adds in typical Mum-fashion, “You can go play, girls.”

“MUM!” I protest but I’m not really upset.

Kim is laughing. “Right, let’s go play,” she says and takes my hand. The sensation of her hand in mine sends my heart into a frenzy.

My room still smells of apple tea and Kim stops in the middle of the room to close her eyes and take several deep breaths. I watch her from the door as I turn on the fairy lights.

“It smells so nice!” she says, turning halfway, her eyes laughing. “I should really get into the habit of drinking tea.”

I shrug. “There’s much more variety to tea than coffee, isn’t there?” Not like I’d know. I’m saying it in half to offend her.

She laughs. “Yeah, I guess so. But I’m also positively addicted to coffee.” It’s like the one thing about her that isn’t perfect, even though society probably considers it an aesthetic thing rather than an actual matter of addiction. Then again, with the amount of things she does, it’s probably impossible to avoid a dependency on some sort of caffeine product.

“I’m sure you could stop anytime should you want to.”

She raises an eyebrow. “That’s not how addictions work.”

I shrug as I sit on my bed, giving her a look. “It’s not how addictions work, it’s how you work.”

She giggles as I retrieve my iPad from my nightstand and when I look at her again, her cheeks are a little rosy.

“Right, let’s see those pictures, then,” she says and plops down on the bed next to me.

Everything is exactly the way I imagined it, now. With the pillows cushioning our backs against the wall, we lean back, right next to each other and look at the first pictures I put into the ‘potential’ folder.

“Oh my God you’re a cute kid,” Kim yells when she sees childhood pictures of me. “Talk about playing, do you still have those?” She’s referring to my old Barbies.

I shrug. “Mum might’ve kept one of them as a memento.” But it’s just as likely that not. We moved when I was eight, after Mum and Dad’s breakup, and at the time I’d been trying to act grown up. So I hadn’t brought along a lot of my old toys. My father might still have them, far as I know. We don’t talk.

“You definitely have to put that one on the wall!”

With a quick tap, I mark it for later and move on. There aren’t a lot of childhood pictures, I didn’t really intend to put up a lot. If I’m perfectly honest, I was hoping for an opportunity to tell her that I saw her childhood photos too, but that opportunity’s past now.

Most of the pictures in the folder don’t show just me. There are classmates and the occasional landscape photograph. Sunrises, sunsets, forests right after rain, the sea, our school at night with ominous lights floating on the roof…. And then there’s us. Us sitting on the floor in her room doing homework, us at breakfast, us sunbathing and reading, us at committee meetings, us on her family trip to Morocco she took me along to, in New Zealand, New York. Smiley pictures, dorky pictures of over-the-top makeup and some incredibly wild braided hairstyles.

“Wow,” she finally says after having scrolled through twenty-odd pictures of just the two of us in a row. “That’s a lot of us.”

It feels like a somewhat safe moment to lean my head against her shoulder so I do, just for a moment. “Well, we do sort of spend a lot of time together, don’t we? There are just so many cool memories!”

“I suppose we do.” When I look up, her face has gone positively red and she’s staring intently at a selfie of us from two years ago, sitting on this very bed, me grinning into the camera with braces on my teeth, her with a pink hair-slide holding back her platinum hair. We look so much younger, there. We were, too. Two years, that’s more than a tenth of my life.

“I’m so glad you’re not mad at me for not telling you earlier,” she says suddenly, sounding choked.

My brain has barely grasped the meaning of her words when I’ve already leapt at the opportunity. “I knew!” I blurt breathlessly.

For a moment she just stares at me, then she asks, “You knew?”

I nod. It’s all-in now. “Remember that time I helped you tidy up the attic? I found an old photo album and I’ve known since then.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asks a little helplessly.

“I thought you didn’t want me to know. And really, I didn’t care, so….”

Her expression is blank as she stares at me. “All this time?” For a moment I’m scared she’s gonna get mad at me but then she’s suddenly blinking away tears and scrambles to get to her knees to hug me.

But I’m still not done and I’m scared that once she’s hugging me, I’ll be too scared. So I blurt, “There’s something else I haven’t told you.”

But she hugs me anyway and says, “Yeah, same.”

And then, somehow synchronously, we say, “I love you.”

For a long moment, I can’t believe it. It feels like this is the end, somehow. In a good way. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Everything I’ve ever wanted and now I have it.

I love you.

Kim Elizabeth Schneider. In love with me?

A mad little giggle escapes my throat as I press my chin into the crook of her neck. Then she starts giggling too and from that point, it’s impossible to stop. The giggles build into laughter and soon we’re lying in my bed, howling, fighting for air.

Mum knocks at my door and I barely have the capacity to say, “Yes, come in!”

The door opens and Mum comes in with a small tray, two cups and a small plate with cookies placed on it. Immediately, I can smell the sweet scent of apple tea and I love this so much.

“Having fun, girls?” Mum asks, chuckling a little as we just keep on laughing.

“Mum, we’re gay,” I wheeze and she looks very confused for a moment, probably because she doesn’t get why that’s so funny, but then she sweeps up Kim in a crushing hug.

“I’m so happy for you!”

But she’s still able to read the room so the hug doesn’t last long. Another second and she’s on her way out, waving. “Don’t stay up too late, you have school tomorrow!” she chimes, grinning, then the door closes behind her.

Kim and I look at each other, giggles still bubbling underneath the surface.

“Wanna kiss?” Kim asks then and I nod.

And so, in my room, in the twilight of the fairy lights, enveloped by the scent of apple tea, we lean in and our lips meet, gently at first, then with more and more, ever-growing confidence and passion.

By the time we untangle, sweaty, breathless, and rosy-cheeked, the tea has gone cold and still, it’s the best drink I’ve ever had.