“You were with someone else! You were in love with her!”
“I was with someone else, and I did try to love her, but I couldn’t fully love her, and maybe that’s why things didn’t work out. Maybe it really was truly all my fault. Not how it ended, but that it did end, that she had to look for that in someone else because I couldn’t give her all of me when it’s always been with you.”
Scarlet’s breath caught. She felt dizzy, but the room didn’t spin around her. Everything solidified into a clear arrow that was aimed directly at her chest. She tried to say something, but all that came out was a gasp.
What could she possibly say in the face of such an admission? She’d tried to tell herself that what Neera felt was just a passing thing, a crush, something surface level that was purely physical. The excitement of doing something she shouldn’t with someone she shouldn’t because she was young and that’s what she thought she wanted. That wasn’t it at all.
Neera wasn’t going into this with her eyes shut, with the intent of charging ahead because she was young and reckless and didn’t understand the terrible consequences of her actions. This wasn’t some surface cut that ached because it had nicked a nerve. This was the kind of wound that a person bled out from because it was that deep and it couldn’t be stitched up or repaired.
Scarlet slapped a hand over her mouth to keep in the sob that threatened to escape. She was scared. she was staring down not the Neera who she thought she knew, but a completely unexpected grown, gorgeous, determined woman who knew what she wanted. Her legs felt watery, and she had to take a step forward and grasp the desk with the hand she didn’t have thrown over her mouth.
She didn’t know what she could say and the only other option that seemed left to her was escape. She tried to move past the desk, tried to take a step forward and flee the room, just to give herself space to breathe, but as soon as she let go of the desk, her body betrayed her, her legs became water, and she stumbled.
Neera was up in an instant, her arms coming around Scarlet, bracketing her before she could fall. For someone who was curvy, but also slight, Neera was strong. She’d had practice moving, lifting, even carrying patients as a nurse, but there was probably also a good amount of adrenaline backing her movements, adding to her strength.
Scarlet collapsed against Neera, her hands on her shoulders as Neera lowered her down to the floor. She looked into Neera’s eyes as her back was suddenly against the wall, shimmying down inch by inch, and she felt like she was drowning in that sea of honeyed amber.
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“Whoa,” Neera said gently. “Let’s just sit down and breathe.”
Scarlet’s ass hit the floor. Her heels and legs tucked up under her, folded neatly. Neera’s arms stayed around her shoulders and her hand smoothed small circles over Scarlet’s back. She’d worn a particularly flowy dress, which was easy to sit in, but the fabric was so sheer it felt like it wasn’t there at all, and the heat of Neera’s palm, of her body, of her closeness, radiated through Scarlet.
She took in the glorious beauty that was all Neera’s, and she just couldn’t believe that she could ever have done anything to have the love of a woman like her. Neera might be young, but Scarlet believed her now. She believed that what she called love was indeed love. It made her breathless, the impact of that knowing, the same way it would have knocked her windless if she’d fallen to the floor in her office.
“Let me talk to my mom.” Neera’s breath was warm against Scarlet’s ear, and she shivered. “We don’t have to ruin anything. There’s a good chance she’d be happy.”
“Happy?” Scarlet choked. “What if we did pursue this and then we broke up? She’d be right in the middle between her best friend and her daughter. She’d always be in the middle anyway.”
“That middle doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
“It might not be such a good thing either.”
Neera curled her arm instinctively around Scarlet’s shoulder and Scarlet couldn’t stop herself from wanting to draw comfort from that touch. Neera smelled sweet— not like perfume, but like honey and apricots. Natural scents that were sweet and gentle. Scarlet dragged in another wavering breath and in the next instant, Neera was cupping her face with her warm, small hands. Hands that had helped save lives. Hands that knew how to love. Her fingertips splayed over Scarlet’s cheeks, holding her prisoner in the loosest of touches.
“Yes, if we did this, we might get some criticism. Some people who only see the age gap and wouldn’t understand. Yes, it might be hurtful, but I’ve also encountered that my whole life. I know this journey is kind of brand-new for you, but being a lesbian isn’t always easy in and of itself. You get a lot of people who find it easier to misunderstand and to straight up hate than to try and be kind. People are really complicated always. We’ll have some good and some bad. That might include what my mom thinks, but I do know that she loves us both and if we were happy, she’d be happy. She might need an adjustment period and okay, she might even be angry or annoyed, and she might lash out and tell you that she doesn’t want to be friends, but I know that if we could ride out the storms and stay strong, it would even out. Turbulence only lasts for so long, and that’s just life.”
Scarlet opened her mouth, but still, no words would come.
“You know the one thing I’ve learned, over and over again, as an ER nurse? Sometimes I’m the one with people in their last moments. That’s the reality of my job, even if it’s a brutal one and not the outcome we ever want. The one thing I’ve learned is that life is the one thing there is never enough of. Time. It’s precious. People, in their last moments, if they can speak, they talk about their loved ones. Or they talk about their regrets. Usually love, but the regrets are the hardest to hear. I know I’m young, but I’ve had a crash course in growing up through work and through my experiences, and I’ve always felt like an old soul. My mom never told me that I had to fit in so that I could be accepted or loved. She taught me that I could love myself even if I never fit what someone wanted to think about me. I’ve had that engrained in me. Everything over my whole life has made me tough. I’m not giving up, because I can tell that you want this too.”
“Just because I reacted physically doesn’t mean—”
“Okay, tell me it’s just physical then.” Neera didn’t let go of Scarlet’s face, and she didn’t try to pull away. They blinked at each other slowly, measuring one another. Scarlet knew she couldn’t lie, so she was the one who turned her eyes down to the floor and said nothing.
She wasn’t sure what it was. She was still in shock, but she was anything but numb. Just because she couldn’t define or organize what she felt didn’t mean that it wasn’t there and it didn’t mean that she could say it was just physical, because that was the one thing she was sure wasn’t true.
“We’re going to cause a lot of pain if we do this and it works out,” she whispered. “Pain can be the toughest thing for a person to handle. Sometimes, there is no forgiveness and no coming back from it. Sometimes it takes a long time. Don’t expect everyone to come around in a neat and tidy timeframe.”
“So, you’re not saying no?”
Scarlet wanted to cry. She wanted to say no. She wanted to be tough and deny herself, but Neera was so right when she said the one thing that everyone needed was to be loved. Loved for who they were. Loved properly.
Scarlet had spent a lot of years married to someone who couldn’t love her the way she needed and that wasn’t entirely his fault. She’d spent a lot of years being dishonest about who she was as well, and what she really needed. She’d used the boutique as a way to cope with her own unhappiness. The one other thing Neera was right about? Regret.
It would be so, so much easier if Scarlet really did feel nothing at all when she was with Neera. When she wasn’t with her. When she thought of her. When she’d kissed her. If there had been nothing there but the pleasant experience of a good kiss. It was more. She didn’t know how much more or how to define it exactly, but she knew that it was always going to be more.
“I’m going to cry.” The ache in Scarlet’s throat and the sting pricking her eyes made it obvious.