Lily was well acquainted with awkward situations. She’d been responsible for a decent number of them, in fact. There had been that time when she’d had a panic attack in the PE locker room and had been asked to explain why. Or, back in high school, when she had tried — unsuccessfully — socializing with her peers (the girls, mostly), and the ensuing silence had been so loud it could have deafened a hamster. 

According to her expert opinion, this particular awkwardness ranked a definite eight-and-a-half out of ten. Perfect length for maximum discomfort. The clock on the wall seemed to tick more aggressively with every tock, and she tried to lower her breathing in the hope that she could just disappear into the background, or become invisible. It wasn’t working. None could hide under Amelia’s scrutinous gaze. 

Lily felt a cough coming up, and she cleared her throat. Immediately, she became aware of her mistake as both Amelia and Rachel’s attention were on her. She was going to have to break the silence, wasn’t she? It was her responsibility now.

“Rachel and I kissed,” she blurted out. Surely, there had to have been better ways to bring up that topic? Was that really the best she had? Well, it was too late now. Any minute now, Amelia would start throwing things, or she’d start yelling, or maybe she’d cry and Lily would feel her brain turn inside out from the second-hand embarrassment. 

“Well,” Amelia said, “I sure fuckin’ hope so.” Oh. Well, that wasn’t… well, to say it was unexpected wasn’t entirely fair. Amelia constantly said things Lily didn’t expect, so this was par for the course, wasn’t it? “Don’t give me that look, Lily.” Amelia looked amused. “Rachel literally invited me over tonight so she and I could talk about things.”

“But… I didn’t… I don’t….” Lily stammered, and then blinked. She had no idea what she was actually going to say. What kind of conversation had Rachel and Amelia planned to even have? “I don’t understand,” she finally managed. Yeah, that summarized things pretty well, didn’t it?

“She wants to…” Rachel started, and then petered off, staring at a point on the table somewhere. “I think she wants me to be monogamous.” Amelia’s eyebrows went up. 

“Do you want to be?” Amelia asked, and Lily heard a degree of trepidation in her voice. Sure, she was still her normal, confident self, but something about the way she shifted in her seat gave Lily the feeling that what Rachel had told her made her uncomfortable. Maybe even scared. She seemed to be worried about the answer, and Lily realized she was getting rapidly very angry with herself for having put Amelia in that position. 

“No,” Rachel said, looking Amelia resolutely in the eye, and then turned with a lot less certainty to Lily, who deflated a little. “I don’t. I can’t. I don’t want to be.” That hit like a truck, and Lily didn’t really even know why. 

“You knew this, right?” Amelia asked, looking at Lily. “Like, you knew she was nonmonogamous literally the first time we met. Why do you all of a sudden…” Amelia waved her hand around vaguely, “want her to not be?” Something about her attitude, the way she kept herself, was making Lily want to hide under her chair. She felt she was being scolded, like she’d just broken mom’s favourite vase. 

“I… I don’t know…” Lily said, panicking a little. “I just thought that… I don’t know… that this was, you know, different, you know?” she felt the words hard to find, her skin getting flush, and she resisted the urge to scratch at her scalp. 

“Different how?” Amelia asked. She crossed her arms and raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I don’t know!” Lily said. “You know… if you have like… genuine feelings… things are supposed to be different, aren’t they? Like…” Lily found herself starting to panic. What had she even done wrong? Wasn’t that how things were? If two people properly liked each other, wasn’t exclusivity a given?

“Oh boy,” Amelia said, and got up, rubbing her face. “There’s… alright, I get the feeling you’ve got some things to unpack, baby girl. First of all…” she pointed at Rachel, “you didn’t do anything wrong. You look like someone just adopted your cat out from under you.” That seemed to get her to crack a smile, at least. “We’ll figure this out, Rach. This…” she waved at Lily with a sigh, “dumbass… she’s figuring a lot of things out, but either she’s going to learn, or she won’t. And if she doesn’t, that’s her choice, okay?”

“Okay,” Rachel said, nodding. “Okay.” Lily nodded too, if only because she didn’t like being talked about like she wasn’t there, and wanted to contribute to the monologue somehow. “So now what?”

“Now,” Amelia said, “you should take some of that coffee jelly I saw you trying to smuggle in. You need to get something sweet inside you. Get you some endorphins.” She glared at Lily, who felt like she was about to be scolded again. “You too. You said something that kinda hurt Rachel, but you’re not coming from a bad place, and I hate people walking away feeling like shit, so we’re sitting down and talking you through this until you stop feeling like you’re about to lose everything for reasons you don’t understand.”

“How — how do y—”

“I’m not going to yell at you, or get mad — well, not really — or put you under fire. Do you know why?”

“Because you’re a kind person and you want what’s best for everyone?” Lily mumbled. Rachel had gotten up and was preparing a bowl for each of them. Amelia chuckled. 

“Yes, but actually no. It’s because I did the exact same thing when I’d just come out, actually.” She shook her head, then walked over to the fridge and retrieved a can of whipped cream, which she handed to Rachel. “Found a cute girl who had several partners, but I figured that, because I loved her, she would break up with her boyfriend and her girlfriend and the two of us would move to a cottage in the forest and be lesbians forever.” She paced back and forth as she told the story. 

“What happened?” Lily asked. 

“It didn’t go well,” Amelia said. “I said some stupid and frankly entitled shit, and she dropped me like a pile of bricks. We both cried a lot, and we’re only barely on speaking terms. The point is, Lily, that you aren’t actually entitled to Rachel’s feelings. You knew what she was about and you kind of expected that she’d change just for you. And you aren’t entitled to that. But you know that, right?” Lily just nodded meekly. “Thing is, neither am I.” She sat down again, just in time for Rachel to give all three of them what was technically dessert. Lily didn’t really feel like it, but she took a little bite anyway, and was pleasantly surprised that the sweet caramel-ish flavour of the jelly was able to pierce even her bad mood. It was just that all-encompassing. 

“I just… I don’t understand,” Lily said after she’d swallowed her mouthful. “Isn’t it supposed to be like… I don’t know.” She poked the bowl with her spoon. 

“Okay, let’s try this differently,” Amelia said with another slight chuckle, “I swear to god, I’m going to have to start charging you for therapy. Anyway. When you’re in a relationship, and you really love the person you’re in a relationship with, but you fall in love with someone else, what do you do?”

“I — I don’t know,” Lily said. “I’ve never… um…”

“Oh my god, you’re so baby,” Amelia said. 

“I’m baby,” Lily mumbled. 

“Okay, that does explain things a little bit. Try — try to answer my previous question.”

“I mean… if you really love that person, you don’t act on it, right?” Lily tried. 

“Exactly. In a traditional monogamous relationship, you push those feelings deep, deep down and you desperately hope that the grass maybe isn’t greener on the other side and try not to think about what you might be missing out on.” Amelia said. Lily twitched. If you put it that way, it sounded miserable. 

“That’s not fair though, is it?” Lily said. “Like, there’s so many people who stay together…” She thought again to most of her peers, with their divorced parents, people who had cheated, relationships that fell apart…

“Okay, but consider an alternative,” Amelia said, shoveling a spoonful of jelly into her mouth, “and it might not be for you, but consider it anyway. Consider being in a relationship with someone you love and then you fall in love with someone else. Now, this part is going to really cook your noodle: you get to date this new person and still love the other person.”

“But… but it doesn’t work that way,” Lily said. “Does — does it?” 

“It works that way for Rachel,” Amelia said with a shrug. “And it works that way for me.”

“And like, I like you, Lily,” Rachel said, “but that part isn’t really negotiable for me. You can choose to be monogamous, but I choose not to be. I’m not saying you can’t be monogamous. But you can’t be in a monogamous relationship with me because, well, I can’t be, y’know?”

“I think what it comes down to,” Amelia said, “is what you mentioned when you came over the other day.” Lily blinked. There was a lot to deal with, but she was doing her best not to be overwhelmed. Still, she wasn’t able to recall the entire conversation just like that. It had been an evening with a lot of realizations. “When you and I first met, you were worried you were being homophobic, right?” 

“Yeah,” Lily said with an embarrassed nod. 

“Exactly. And then maybe that you were being transphobic. Do you remember why?”

“Because I was uncomfortable with you two dating,” Lily said, almost crying. She didn’t want to add the part where that was proof of her inability to accept Rachel’s relationships as real, that she was a shit person for not being good enough.

“Well, yeah,” Amelia said. “Why?” Did Amelia really want her to say it out loud? That she was just a garbage person? 

“Because I’m not… I can’t…”

“Because you were envious, dummy,” Amelia said. “You told me so yourself. You wanted to be in my place, right?” Lily nodded. That was a much nicer way of phrasing things than she would have done herself. “Okay, so, from the top.” Amelia finished off her jelly and cleaned the bowl with a finger. “You were worried you were being homophobic because your roomate was bringing girls home.” Another nod. “But what you actually wanted was to be the girls your roommate brought home.” More nodding, this time with blushing. “Well, consider,” Amelia said, “you can be.” She looked between Lily and Rachel. “If Rachel’s still cool with it, you would still be one of the girls your roommate likes, Lily.” Amelia leaned back in her chair. “Envy and Jealousy don’t really get you anywhere. Like, don’t get me wrong, they’re normal to have, but they don’t go away if you feed them. Just… talk about them.”

“It can’t be that easy,” Lily mentioned, but the seed of doubt, of possibility, had been planted, and it was already aggressively taking root. 

“Hey, Lily… do you want to date Rachel?” 

“I really do.”

“Rachel, everything else aside, do you want to date Lily?” 

“Yeah,” Rachel said with a nod. She seemed so hopeful. 

“Now, finally, Lily, can you accept the idea that Rachel can like you and want to date you, even if she’s also dating someone else?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Could she? Lily looked down at the last of her coffee jelly and scooped it onto her spoon, then carefully tasted it. It was just a little too sweet, in that way that made her taste buds tingle for a moment. But it was also just right. She wanted to date Rachel, and Rachel wanted to date her. She believed that, too. Rachel was nothing if not honest. The insecurity… that was the scariest part of it. “I… I might… need help…” she said quietly.

“That’s not a no,” Amelia said with a smirk. “And I’m always happy to help a baby queer.”

“Then yeah,” Lily said, “I think I’d like to be one of the girls Rachel takes home.”

Rachel reached across the table, and Lily met her halfway, and took her hand. 

“I’d like that too.”

“Y’all,” Amelia said, “that’s gay.”

“Shut the fuck up, Amelia,” Rachel said with a giggle.

Elamimax

Need me an Amelia to talk me through every conflict like this.

The story is finished and the last chapter available to read right now for Patrons, who will also have exclusive content and chapters (like a smut chapter after the main one for this story), so consider checking out my Patreon, along with a lot of other as-of-yet unpublished stuff (like an entire secret in-progress story!), and even some exclusive chapters. It's not expensive, and it really does help me out a lot!

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Heck,

Ela