Page 56 of You've Got a Place Here, Too
Audrey chooses that very moment to look over at Neese questioningly, just about giving her a heart attack.
“What is it?” Neese asks, finally unsticking herself from her dresser to cross the small room, sit beside Audrey on the bed.Audrey’s soft eyes track her progress, the room quiet, the air between them charged as they simply look at each other. Neese wonders what Audrey is seeing, making any particular note of: her square-rimmed black glasses, her puffy ponytail, does she have anything in her teeth? She’s getting ready to voice another query when Audrey is suddenly much closer, filling her vision, and then there are soft, warm lips resting against hers, a gentle press that lasts for one honeyed, eternal moment before it’s over.
Neese’s eyes don’t flutter open, because she never closed them. But when she leans back in to recapture Audrey’s mouth and Audrey responds in kind, they slip shut quite naturally, so as to enshrine the experience of their second kiss, absent superfluous senses. Every angle of their lips meeting is a revelation; Neese mourns each brief inevitable separation even as they come back together, feeling herself smiling into the kiss, Audrey’s name a rolling litany, another beating pulse. Wild and strong.
It’s hard to form thoughts, much less words; Neese surrenders to the hungry pull of pure sensation. Audrey’s soft cheek beneath the slow drag of her knuckles, mapping the glorious expanse of her jaw and neck by touch. The taste of her. Audrey’s teeth, tugging cautiously, so slowly at her lower lip—igniting another tug deep in her belly. Neese exhales a quiet moan into Audrey’s open mouth. The tacit, burning need for more, closer, the kiss deepening as Audrey swings a leg over Neese’s lap to straddle her in one smooth movement, Neese’s arms encircling her instantly, pressing her closer.
As Neese chuckles quietly, her brain unlocks long enough for her to quip, “Isaidyou were graceful.” She speaks the words into Audrey’s ear, as she’s been wanting to kiss there for months.
To her utter delight, Audrey shudders, hands clenching hardon Neese’s shoulders. “Do that again,” she orders, breathless, so Neese does, singularly attuned to her reactions, determined to coax out even more—even if it takes all night.
Neese and her parents have had a tradition since her freshman year: one visit every semester to have lunch together on campus, catch up, and see how Neese lives. But trying to plan this one meant so many postponements due to her relentless workload that they compromised with a phone call instead.
A pity, when Neese had been entertaining vague fantasies about having a long overdue conversation with her parents, in which she might finally tell them the truth. The burden of her secret is like a physical weight now.
Her mother’s initial questions remain endearingly familiar, and annoying. Is Neese sleeping enough? Eating enough? Does she need anything from home? Then her father’s deep voice crackles over the line, looking for updates on her professors and classes, feedback on her latest assignments. Lying back in her bed, the long cord of her phone coiled between her fingers, Neese finds it increasingly difficult to stay focused on the conversation, her mind a tangle of longing, suffering a visceral pull back to Bethune Annex, back to Audrey’s orbit, their heated embrace, consuming kisses. The memory, as always, comes accompanied by a swift electric current, shorting out her synapses, a brushfire of remembered want. It’s unbearable. Is Audrey thinking of her now, too?
“Alright, babygirl, I have to run,” her dad says, finally snapping her back to attention. “Giving the phone to your momma. Be good.”
“Bye, Dad,” Neese says, rolling her eyes at the outdated sign-off. As her parents shuffle the phone, her eyes fall on a pile of laundry that’s been waiting for her attention, so she reluctantly sits upright to deal with it.
“So,” her mom begins, instantly sparking suspicion. “Are you…going around with anyone special?”
Neese’s fingers still as she blinks down at the pair of socks she’s conjoining, her mouth suddenly dry. “Um. Not…um. What makes you ask that?”
There is an amused, long-suffering sigh. “You have always been such a private and mysterious child.”
“Not a child.”
“Does he make you happy?”
The pronoun chafes, as does the assumption, but Neese reasons that further denials or protestations will only invite more unanswerable questions. “It’s…early. We aren’t—” Her mind derails as she contemplates what she and Audrey arenot,so she abandons that track. “Yes, very happy.”
“Good.” The word carries a note of finality, even triumph, which hurts most of all. “I’m happy to hear that. But if that ever changes—”
“I know,” Neese interrupts, a half-truth. What does she know? Not too much, actually. She becomes aware of the growing ache in her chest as it climbs to her throat, so she says her goodbyes on autopilot, wishing with a ferocity she’s never possessed before that she could find the strength to be honest, for once, that she could confide all of her secret fears and joys to her mother, who so clearly wishes to hear them. She wonders if and when that impasse can ever be bridged. She wonders if her mother will just become more of a stranger as they both age, with such a gulf of ignorance growing between them.
After a long three-day weekend visiting home, Audrey doesn’t show up to Language and Comp. Neese thinks about going to her dorm and immediately talks herself out of it, not wanting to appear needy or desperate. When she doesn’t show up to LSA either, CeCe seems equally puzzled by her absence.
“I haven’t heard from her since Friday,” she explains as the members arrange the chairs in their usual circle, lines of concern etched between her eyebrows. “I thought she’d be back by now…I hope she’s okay.”
Before Neese can respond, the doors fly open, admitting Blue and Cyrus, who are uncharacteristically late, and by the looks of it, fuming.
“They said no!” Cyrus bursts out, eyes ablaze, bringing all conversation to a screeching halt. “The dean looked over everything we submitted—the petition, the letter of intent, all those damn signatures, which weremorethan the ten required, I hasten to add, and said he couldn’t write a letter recommending the organization.”
“What?” Aja gasps, looking to Blue for confirmation. “What does he mean, he can’t?”
“He means he won’t,” Blue says, a quiet tremor in her voice. “Of course he could. He has no reason not to.”
“Except homophobia.” Cyrus is already pacing at the front of the classroom, his movements agitated, lacking his usual mindless grace. “I knew, Iknewthis would happen, didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I?”
“Not helping,” Blue growls, sinking into an empty chair, slumping until her head is leaned back against the edge, and staring woodenly at the ceiling. “We have to appeal. The world ischanging, and it’s embarrassing that this administration doesn’t see that.”
“Okay, but how?” Rashad demands, looking from one cofounder to the other. “How do we appeal?”
“More signatures…rethink the petition, make it stronger, and march in there every damn day demanding a real reason they’ve denied us,” Cyrus says. “Or—”
“No,” Blue interjects, shaking her head. “I mean, yes. But that can’t be all. We need more numbers. They need to see that this isn’t aboutus,it isn’t just a gathering for gays.”
