“Oh my god, the smell.”

 

Helen smirked.  “Right?”

 

Lucia closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath in through her nose.  The tang of rubber and oil lit up her brain with some nostalgia she couldn’t place, but she felt like a kid and it was amazing. 

 

“This is all so cool!”

 

Helen nodded.  “Yeah, I’ve been coming to Five Stride for a few years now, ever since my last place closed down.”

 

Lucia walked along the rows of the skate shop, looking at the various displays for trucks, bearings, custom wheel designs, and a host of other things she hadn’t even known were things.  “I don’t know how I missed this sport growing up.”

 

“I didn’t find out about it until… I don’t know, maybe six years ago?”  She licked her lips, looked down, and said, “Evan introduced me to it.”

 

Lucia came to a full stop and looked back, but Helen was already trying to distract herself with something in front of her.  It seemed like there were some ways in which she could bring up Evan and it was fine, and some ways in which doing so was followed by an immediate change of subject.  This was one of the latter, and so Lucia said, “Oh I like these.”

 

Helen looked over and smiled.  “Those are outdoor wheels.  You want...”  She reached for another set on the neighboring shelf.

 

“How can you tell?”

 

“The little scale on the card is hardness,” she said, pointing.  “The soft wheels don’t grip the same.  You’d feel it if you tried to go around a corner real tight.  If you’re gonna do jamming, you want the hard ones.”

 

“Giggidy.”

 

The redhead pinched the bridge of her nose and snickered.  “Walked into that one.”

 

“We don’t know that I’m gonna be a jammer.  I only just started.”

 

“Nah,” Helen said, shaking her head.  “We’ve got a lot of blockers, and none of us are jumping to fill in as the third jammer.”

 

“So should I try to get in with… what were their names?  Amy and—”

 

“Do what Amy says,” Helen said, interrupting her sharply.  “She’s the good one.  She’ll teach you the right way to do it.”

 

“And Nanette is—”

 

“Garbage.”  Helen frowned tightly, and muttered, “You’re gonna want some Abecs, aaaand…”

 

Lucia moved around the aisles, and homed in on a black skate on display.  “Oh, this one is pretty!”

 

“Good eye,” the taller woman replied.

 

“And it’s the right kind, right?  With the low ankle support?  For mobility?”

 

Helen smiled broadly and nodded, both eyebrows rising.  “Yeah!  Very good!”

 

“I absorbed something!” she cried, and gave a little triumphant fist pump.

 

Lucia walked around the store, eyefucking everything.  Helen kept picking things up and handing them to her, but she always found a reason to put it back.  

 

After the fifth time, Helen just glared at her.  “Why do you keep doing that?” she asked, and picked up a pair of hot pink trucks that Lucia had just put down.

 

“Doing what?” Lucia replied, taking the trucks back out of her hand and setting them back on the shelf.

 

“Oh my god, did you not…”

 

“I can’t afford these right now,” Lucia said, sheepishly.  “In a couple weeks, yeah, no problem.  I can just keep using the rental ones for practice like I did last night, right?”

 

“I’m buying,” Helen said, bewildered.

 

“No you are not!”

 

The redhead blinked at her.  “Of course I’m buying.  That’s why I invited you to come with me, and didn't just give you the address to come on your own.”

 

“You can’t buy all this for me!  It’s expensive!”

 

“I know it is,” Helen insisted, “but I’d be a complete bitch if I didn’t!  There are some steep up-front costs, especially if you’re gonna go straight for jamming!”

 

“Helen!” she said, grabbing the taller woman.  “You can’t!  I can’t have you getting all this for me!”

 

“But I,” Helen responded, looking a little lost. “I want to buy you stuff.”

 

At this, Lucia balked.

 

“I mean, yeah, it’s a flimsy excuse, but…”  Helen blushed as she looked down.  “I thought this could be something I—”

 

“You want to spend money on me?”

 

Helen parted her lips to speak, which Lucia watched fervidly, but no words came out.  She just made a noise in her throat, closed her mouth, and nodded.  Then she said, “Is… Is that—”

 

Lucia rolled up on her toes and kissed her, right there in the middle of the shop.  In the middle of the day.  After a moment, Helen’s hands settled around her waist, and she felt very light.  Like she might float away in a stiff breeze.

 

“I’ll allow it,” Lucia said, lowering her voice and giving it a sing-song quality, “Capitalist, but… then I’ll owe you, and I don’t have any money.  How will I ever pay you back?”

 

Helen’s smile became very asymmetrical, very quickly.

 

***

 

Helen and Lucia sat next to each other at the bar, leaned back against it, while more than a dozen of her students were warming up.  Several of the students were casting curious, sheepish glances at the two of them, and Lucia realized that she probably didn’t give off a very gay vibe.  Certainly not before she cut her hair, anyway.  Most, if not all of them, were seeing her hang around with another woman for the first time.  She was surprised so many of them were looking, and so she leaned over just a little bit toward the redhead next to her.

 

“Yeah, they’re staring,” Helen said, before Lucia could say anything, and Lucia cackled.

 

“Would it be,” she said, very softly, so as not to be heard from more than a few feet away, “alright if we held hands?”

 

Helen turned and gave her a very wry look.  “Are you asking permission?”

 

Lucia rolled her eyes.  “I just mean, like, this would be the first time that you and me… you know… in public… do… like…”

 

“I didn’t expect the training to take hold this quickly.”

 

“Shut the fuck up,” Lucia said, as she laughed and took Helen’s hand.

 

“The kissing didn’t count?”

 

“No!”  Lucia twisted on her seat, reached across with her other arm and punched Helen’s biceps.  “Obviously.  That’s just lust stuff.  This is…”

 

For her part, Helen just shrugged, squeezed back, and suppressed a broad smile.  Lucia knew the redhead was suppressing it because she was pretty sure that, if Helen had been actually mad, she would have kept her hand limp.  It took effort, sometimes, to dig through the front Helen put up and get to how she really felt about something, but Lucia was finding that the effort was always worth it.  The trick to it was that the actions always mattered most.

 

Across the room, several of the boys warming up on guitar looked away.  One of the girls on bass did too.

 

“Looks like you should have taught them Hot for Teacher,” Helen said, to which Lucia visibly sagged.  And sighed.  And laughed.

 

Thirty minutes later, Russell’s was packed ahead of Bill’s Guitars first student recital.  The idea had come from her conversation with Gene, and it had taken a few weeks to get everyone enough time with some sheet music.  There hadn’t been a chance to have many of them practice together, but Lucia was very confident they could at least stay on the beat, and the rest was up to her.

 

There were ten students, and all of them were going to play, in some capacity, through four songs: Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters, Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl, Cracker’s Low, and the Frijid Pink legendary cover version of House of the Rising Sun.  Two of the rhythm guitarists were going to share vocal duties while Lucia herself filled in on drums, with as many as five of them playing at any given time.

 

It was chaotic, to say the least.  Each song required a lot of people unplugging and different people plugging in, and getting them all to find their pedals had required Lucia to get up each time and more or less hold their hands.  That broke the flow of it, for sure, and made it feel more like a recital than a concert.

 

But only for her.

 

As she played, she spent a lot of time watching her student’s expressions, and they were having the collective time of their lives.  For them, it was a taste of what they’d been working toward whether they knew it or not, and every one of them looked like they were loving it.  She’d written extended intros for each song, so that everyone could find their groove before coming together, and that effort paid off.  By the end of each song, and the cover of House of the Rising Sun in particular, the adhoc assemblages were firing on all cylinders.  She thought that a few of them were probably going to approach each other afterwards about playing together more regularly, and that made her heart swell.

 

Russell’s was set up to accommodate a fairly large stage presence, which had made it a pretty great fit for the type of concert she’d wanted to put on, but it wasn’t a large building by any stretch.  The stage took up almost a quarter of the space.  They had only invited friends and family, but Lucia was already looking forward to doing it again some time in the future, and putting a little bit more effort into promoting it.

 

The place wasn’t packed. Lucia couldn’t see past the stage lights, so she started to catalog most of the voices as she often did with small crowds.  There was one voice, who started chiming in near the end of Are You Gonna Be My Girl, that was less supportive than she would have liked.  A woman’s voice.  She was saying all the right things but it had a tone to it, and Lucia was having a hard time parsing that while driving the concert singlehandedly.  

 

Every concert had a heckler or two.  The good ones did, anyway; it was unavoidable.  Most importantly, though, none of her students so much as flinched.  It seemed like they were all really into it, and after a while the heckler went quiet.

 

Everything was over really quickly: much more quickly than she was ready for, she realized, which was surprising.  She hadn’t really thought about the recital as a gig, but once she was up there on stage again, feeling that rush, all her fears had felt ridiculous.  Playing live had never required her to be high.

 

Lucia always struggled with step one.  It was one thing to admit she was powerless against her addiction, and that she needed help, but it was something else entirely to submit to the idea that she was powerless to make better decisions about the company she kept.  She could have this in her life if she was careful.  If she was smart.  If she set hard boundaries and stood by them.  If she had support.  

 

That made her think about Helen, and thinking about Helen made her smile.

 

Her students, the real stars of the show, got up on stage, arm in arm, to a strong round of applause.  She tried to sneak off to the side and avoid taking any of their spotlight, but they wouldn’t let her.  She got called back, and she took a bow with them all.  Once she did make it off stage, Bill, her boss, pulled her aside.  

 

“Great job, tonight,” he said, nodding emphatically.  “Great job.  I can’t believe you pulled this off!”

 

“Thanks!”  she said, still feeling exhilarated.  “They were great!  I don’t think anyone will know that there were some mistakes cus they kept on going, just like I told ‘em to!”

 

Bill nodded, laid his hand gently on her shoulder, and pulled her a little further away from where everyone else was busy congratulating the students.  “Listen.  I wanted to hold off on saying anything about this until after the show, but I’m gonna be hiring on someone else.  For lessons.”

 

Lucia blinked.  Just like that, the wave she’d been riding dashed against the rocks and dissipated.  “Wait, what?”

 

“You’re not fired,” he said, quickly.  “I love what you’ve been doing.  I want more of it!   I just can’t have all this going through one person, you know?  I mean, what if something happens to you?”

 

“No, Bill,” she said, “I’m… I’ve been liking this!  This is good for me!”

 

“I know,” he said, “and hopefully this will bring in some more students and I’ll be able to fill your schedule right back up, but I can’t let it all rest just on your shoulders.  You know?  It’s like driving with one headlight.”

 

As Lucia stood there, absorbing what amounted to a demotion, she stared over his shoulder into the distance.  It had been an unintentional thing, averting her eyes, but it led to her accidentally meeting the gaze of the heckler.  Her heckler.

 

Delia, seated at a high top table, drinking a beer and talking to Karl (of all people).  She did not look pleased.

 

Bill said more, but Lucia missed it.  She nodded to him, suffered through a clap on the back, and before she could make it across the room she was waylaid by Gene.  Much like herself Gene was drenched in sweat, after having played on three of the four songs.  He stepped into her field of vision and planted himself there.

 

“Hey!” he said.

 

“Hey,” she replied, much more distractedly.

 

“Taylor, Beanie, and I were all really impressed.  I mean,” he said, coloring slightly, “I already knew you could play, but you really filled out our sound last week.  That was the best practice we’ve ever had.”

 

She said, “That’s good,” and leaned slightly to look past him.

 

“So, listen, the others wanted me to ask if you wanna join, like, permanently.  Or temporarily, if you’re busy or what not.  I know your schedule is pretty hectic sometimes.”

 

“Gene,” she said, suddenly making very direct eye contact with him, “can I get back to you?  I… can’t… not tonight.  I can’t right now.”

 

“Oh sure,” he said, enthusiastically.  “Yeah, sure, just let me know!”

 

She was pretty sure she said something else to him as she left, but she couldn’t remember what it was even as the words were leaving her mouth.  Goodbye?  Good luck?  Godspeed?  Something with a g.

 

It registered, dimly, that Karl was wearing a shirt that said Workers’ Rights: Ask me how!, and on any other day she would have done just that, or maybe done a cartwheel, or something that drew attention to a perfectly good assault on capitalism and wage theft, but that was not something she could do while he stood next to Delia.

 

The little brunette slugged back the rest of her beer, and, given the way her lids were drooping, that probably hadn’t been her first.  “The woman of the hour,” Delia slurred, as she approached.

 

“Welp,” Karl said, his brows drawn down in consternation, “my job here is done.”

 

“Yeah,” she said, turning back toward him like she’d forgotten he was there.  “Run along.  The children are done playing, so I can have the fucking conversation I came here to have now.  Thank you.”

 

Karl flashed her two thumbs up, but his smile was so wide-eyed that it looked like the kind of smile one gives at gunpoint.  Lucia leaned against the table directly opposite her, and crossed her arms.

 

“What is it about you?” Delia asked, peering at her like the answer was written on her skin.  “Is it those?  I don’t have those.”

 

At no point, in the half of her life where she’d had them, had Lucia felt self-conscious about her tattoos.  She loved them, and had spent dozens of hours over the years in designing them and getting them touched up, and looking just right.  She thought they were beautiful, but she readjusted how she was standing so that most of her arms were hidden below the surface of the table.  It was awkward.

 

The whole thing was awkward.

 

“Is it because you play?”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“She told me that she came down here,” Delia said, driving her index finger into the table, “just like we talked about, and she screamed at you, and she yelled at you, and she ripped you to shreds ‘like you deserve’.”  She made air quotes with her fingers, and scowled.

 

Lucia found it very hard to meet her gaze, or even look at her.  Eventually, she nodded and looked away, and was surprised when Delia’s resulting laugh was so bitter.

 

“God, it’s so obvious.”  

 

“She made it very clear,” Lucia said.  “She’s over me.  I shouldn’t have—”

 

“Over you?” Delia shouted.  “Did Vivian sound like someone who had processed her emotions, at all, like a big girl, or did that sound like someone who is still hurting, deeply, and is maybe hiding her feelings from fucking everyone?!”

 

“What?” she said, stupidly.

 

“I knew it the second she walked in the door.”  The little brunette tilted, and braced herself against the table.  “I should’ve known something was up when she wouldn’t tell me about you, or how you broke up, but I’m such a fucking bleeding heart that all I could focus on was her pain.  I wanted to make her feel better.  I do.  I do!  I do make her feel better!”  The last, delivered nearly at the top of her lungs.  “And what do you do?  You sulk, and you pout, and get to be all sexy up there on stage!  How am I supposed to compete with that?”

 

The words coming out of Delia’s mouth were in English, albeit muddled slightly, but they still made no sense.  Compete with her?

 

“She’s sleeping on the couch,” Delia said, barrelling forward with whatever rant she’d prepared.  “I am so fucking mad at her.”  Then she blinked, eyes narrowing, and said, “Why?” and when Lucia didn’t answer she asked, “What happened to end the greatest relationship in Vivian’s life?”

 

“It wasn’t the—”

 

“Why?”

 

“I don’t love her,” Lucia said, voice cracking.  “I never did.  God.  I wish that I did.  The last year would have been so much easier if I’d just felt about her the way she felt about me.”

 

“Present tense,” Delia hissed.  “The way she feels about you.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Lucia said, shaking her head.  “I—”

 

“And bullshit you don’t love her, you fucking weirdo!  You showed up at our house!”

 

Lucia groaned through gritted teeth.  “I know!  I’m sorry!  I just—”

 

“Why am I not good enough for her,” Delia sobbed.  “Why?  She’s not passionate about anything!  She’s always so flat, like a human fucking pancake, and the only thing that gets a rise out of her is you!”

 

“She didn’t used to be like that,” Lucia said, pleadingly.  “She used to be all passion.  Before the accident.  When she came back, she was completely different except when it came to me… but I was never the woman she wanted me to be.  I was never as strong as she thought I was.  I was never… I can’t be that person.  I’m not that person.  I never was.  She fell in love with a lie.

 

“I tried to break her heart,” Lucia sobbed.  “I tried to make it hurt too much to hold on to, so she’d forget about me and move on.  I abandoned a woman who could barely get up and down the stairs to go get high.  Because I’m weak.”

 

As much as she hated step one, Lucia was a pro at step five.  Once she started, it was hard to stop.

 

“I strung her along,” she said.  “I knew I was playing with fire.  I tried to keep her at just the right distance so that she could get what she wanted and I could get what I wanted… but it was really just about getting what I wanted.

 

“I care about her.  I do.”  She had to pause to sniffle, because her nose was doing that ugly thing it did when she ugly cried.  She felt the words building up inside of her, words she’d never even admitted to herself, and knew it was the truth even before it arrived.  “I don’t love her, not like that, but I… I liked the way she made me feel.  I used her.  God… and when you only have one person in your life who cares about you, it’s—”

 

“I’m the one that cares about her,” Delia shouted, lurching to her feet.  “I’m the one who holds her when she wakes up screaming!  I’m the one who takes her to therapy, and is there for her!  I’m the one!  I’m the one!!”

 

“I know,” Lucia said, “and I’m sorry!”

 

And then, suddenly, Delia regained some of her composure.  Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she was swaying, but she looked more like herself: unruffled, albeit grim.  She said, with an empty smile, “Every time she thinks about the first time I told her that I love her, she’s going to think of you.”

 

Lucia took one step backwards, arms wrapped tightly around herself, and then another.  In her peripheral vision Karl appeared, politely asking if Delia wanted him to call a cab for her, and Lucia used that diversion to turn. 

 

And there was Helen.  Putting her arm around Lucia.  Herding her to the back.  Where they could be alone.  

 

As soon as the door was closed, Lucia looked up at her.  She sniffed hard, trying to wish away the tears, and pressed her hands to Helen’s chest.  “If I asked you to make it hurt, would you…”

 

Helen blinked, folded her lips between her teeth for a moment, and shook her head.  “No, not…”  Then she shook her head more emphatically.  “After th—No.  God!”

 

But when Lucia collapsed into tears, Helen collapsed with her, and they shared a space on the floor, against the wall, in the stairwell, for a long, long time.