Page 104 of Holly Jolly July

We’d met on the first day of orientation. I was immediately attracted to her. And god, she was actually quite similar to Ellie, now that I scrape away the mind blocks I’d put up for myself in some vain attempt to remove Jess from my memory. She’d been from the country—a cute brunette girl, innocent eyes, but soft, round, and so,sopretty. We’d become fast friends since we were seated beside one another and were both new to Vancouver. My crush on her was immediate, but I could tell she only saw me as a friend. Back then, I hadn’t been hurt before. I was living my new life as my authentic self and was ready and willing to chase down anything and everything I always wanted but could never have, including a girlfriend. I courted Jess all year, being her best platonic girlfriend, picking out clothes with her to go to the club, dancing with her until she’d find a guy she’d rather dance with, holding her hair back at the end of the night as she emptied the contents of her stomach in a back alley, cleaning her up and snuggling her back to health until morning.

As our friendship grew, so did my love for her. I was there for her whenever she needed, giving up all my spare time for her, worshipping the ground she walked on, to be told I was “such a good friend.” And Iwasa good friend. I loved her like a friend, but also in so many other ways that I didn’t know how to explain, but thought if I’d just give her more time maybe she’d see it, maybe she’d seemein a new way.

Finally, one day, we were on the couch in our PJ’s, watching the firstPirates of the Caribbeanfilm randomly because it was on TV and we didn’t feel like watching anything else.

“Keira Knightley is so hot,” I’d said.

Jess agreed with a nod. “Yeah, I wish I was her.”

Quiet and shy, I ventured, “You know, you kind of look like her.”

She smiled that radiant, dimpled smile of hers. “Aw, you think?”

And when she looked at me, she saw, for the first time, the fire in my eyes I’d never once tried to conceal. I leaned in and kissed her. She kissed me back.

And fuck, that kiss, it had been everything and so much more. Years of yearning—not just for Jess, but for everyone I’d ever wanted—was all pent up in that kiss, in that moment. I kept it going, and going, and going, until we were naked on the couch and I was on top of her and she was moaning and then crying out, and I found my own release against my hand as she found hers on my mouth. That had been the most beautiful moment of my life.

I held her in my arms after, feeling more whole than I ever had, so happy that, finally, things would be the way they were supposed to be between us. I was in love. So, so, in love. The kind of love you have before you’ve ever been hurt, when your whole heart jumps with both feet, cannonballing into the dark depths below, not knowing there are sharks in the water.

Unfortunately, that love was unreciprocated.

I’d told Jess how I felt. She wanted things to go back to theway they were before, for me to keep being her best friend. She asked me not to tell anyone. She told me that she’d been curious, but now it was over. She wanted me to keep wing-womaning her at the club to get men back to her bed.

I told her to go fuck herself.

And I promised myself, after that day, I would never be someone’s curiosity experiment ever again. I wouldn’t open myself up to someone unless they were sure about what we were doing, about who they were and what it meant.

Yet here I am, falling for another woman who doesn’t know what she wants, and hasn’t even considered being with a woman before.

And I’m torn on whether to tell her.

Ellie had opened up to me, told me something painful about her past. She’d trusted me. Part of me knows I can trust her, that she would take my past and accept it.

But the other part of me doesn’t want to put pressure on her when she’s only just discovered an important facet of her identity. And another, deeper part of me, the one focused on preserving my heart after it had been beaten so bruised and bloody before, doesn’t want to show my cards just yet. We’ve only known each other a few days, only shared our bodies minutes ago, our first kiss an hour before that. I shouldn’t be having all these intrusive, annoyingfeelingsfor her—I don’t normally after a one-night stand with a person, regardless of gender. But here I am, slipping further and further in love with Ellie with every contented sigh she breathes against my cheek.

I don’t want this to end.

If I say something, it might.

With Jess, I’d told her I wanted her right away. I’d told her I wanted to be her girlfriend, to hold her hand at school and kiss her whenever I wanted, that I didn’t want to share her with anyone else. It scared her away. Our relationship never began, and our friendship had ended. If I’d waited, if I’d let her come around, maybe things between us would have been different.

Or maybe they’d be the same, but I wouldn’t have hurt my own feelings so much when we came to our eventual conclusion.

Either way, I’m going to let whatever this is between Ellie and I simply be; I’m not going to direct it one way or another. I’ll let Ellie lead. I’ll be there for her however she wants, as a friend, as more than that, while she figures out what she wants.

By the time filming is finished I’ll have a better idea of Ellie’s feelings toward me. If things between us progress we can talk about it then. And if it’s not meant to be, then it isn’t. We’ll go on with our separate lives, and our time together will be a beautiful blip in history... even though it will hurt to let her go.

I’ve recovered from a broken heart before.

I can do it again.

Though, as we drift off to sleep, feeling Ellie’s body against mine, how her leg wraps over my torso while her fingers trail soft circles over my skin, how my heart wants to leap from my body into hers, I hope I don’t have to.

The following morning passes in blissful domesticity. Ellie and I manoeuvre around the small, homey kitchen as if we’ve had years of practice doing so. She makes the toast, I pour the coffee. She cracks the eggs, I salt and pepper them. We share a peaceful breakfast while sitting hip to hip at the peninsula, me quietly listening to Ellie’s morning chatter as if she were a bird singing outside my window.

We get dressed—me in my various shades of black, Ellie in green-and-red-striped leggings with her ridiculous Rudolph sweater—and I drive us into town, the windows rolled down to let in the early-morning breeze. Ellie talks away about everything and nothing; she’s my new favourite radio station.

As we approach the set, neither of us talk about how we’re going to act in front of everyone else. I let Ellie lead, curious about what she’ll do, reading into everything she does like clues in a scavenger hunt. She didn’t hold my hand when wewalked to the set, but she opened the door and let me up the stairs first. She hasn’t kissed me this morning, but she hasn’t been uncomfortably evading me, either.

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