Page 25 of More Than a Friend
I nod, worrying my bottom lip. “Skylar and I—” I start but shut my mouth. I feel like Rebecca’s going to get mad at me if I tell her about what we did.
Rebecca sits patiently, waiting to see if I’m going to continue.
“Skylar and I… we were…intimatea few weeks ago when the kids were at Shea’s.”
Rebecca’s thick eyebrows shoot into her hairline. “You finally confessed your feelings for her?”
“Um, no.”
“Interesting. Then how did things escalate?”
I give her a recap of our drunken sleepover and my inebriated idea. Leaving out the explicit parts, I give her a rundown of our time together.
“I can’t help but feel like I’ve ruined our friendship because of one drunken idea. But then yesterday she offered to do it again and?—”
“Wait, Skylar offered to have a sexual relationship with you?”
“Kind of? She offered to show me the things I was curious about. She said when I felt confident in myself, we’d end our arrangement, and I’d move on and date someone else. We’d go back to being just friends.”
Rebecca tilts her head and studies me for a minute before she asks what I’ve been avoiding answering. I swear she can see into my soul when she does this.
“Do youwantto go back to being just friends? And on the flipside, do you want to have a strictly physical relationship with her?”
I don’t even hesitate to answer. “No. I want… I want all of her. But what if it doesn’t work out and our friendship is ruined?”
Rebecca hums and jots something down on her notepad.
“But obviously Skylar doesn’t want the same. Otherwise, she would have said something, right?” I ask, voicing my insecurities.
“I can’t speak for Skylar since I don’t know her feelings, but do you thinkmaybeshe could be just as scared as you are to take the next step? Maybe she wants more with you but doesn’t want to risk your friendship?”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Then why would she offer to help you do something so intimate? Why would she risk your friendship? You’ve told me enough about Skylar for me to deduce she doesn’t do anything without thinking it through. It sounds like the two of you need to have a candid conversation to be on the same page.”
My mouth opens and closes once, then twice before I can finally muster a shoulder shrug.
Rebecca’s right. Skylar doesn’t do anything without thinking it through. It took her a month to decide which purse she wanted to get because she wanted to weigh all her options, find the best price, and she had a list of criteria it needed to meet.
“Why wouldn’t she say anything, then?” I ask, not really expecting Rebecca to answer. She’s doesn’t like to give me the easy answers. She likes to make me work for it.
Sure enough, she shrugs. “Why haven’tyousaid anything about your feelings for her? We’re all human, Ava. We’re all scared of rejection. Some of us are better at pretending we’re not.”
She glances at the clock and slaps her thighs. “Our session is done for today, but I’d like to give you some homework. When you get home tonight and the kids are in bed, I want you to sit ina quiet space and envision your future. I want you to think about what it is you truly want and what steps you need to take to get there. You’ve made a lot of progress over the last two years, Ava, but I still think you’re holding yourself back from being happy. Let’s meet again next week, and we can walk through what you’ve discovered.”
After scheduling a time for next week, I walk out of the office with more questions and anxiety than I came in with.
I stop and grab some Chinese food for dinner, too emotionally drained to even think about cooking. I know Gus and Zoe are always down for orange chicken, and any time I can skip the guessing game of what they’ll eat for dinner, I will.
I picked up Sky’s favorite dish, too, hoping she’ll agree to stay and eat with us. If she doesn’t want to, I’ll just send it with her as a thank you for watching the kids.
I hear Zoe’s giggles from the other side of the door when I insert my key, and I pause to listen and see if I can hear what they’re saying.
It’s too muffled, but I hear Sky’s exaggerated gasp and Zoe’s high-pitched squeal, so I assume Zoe’s telling her a dramatic tale.
When I open the door, I’m not expecting the sight before me, and I nearly drop to my knees, totally overwhelmed with emotion.
Skylar is sitting on the floor while Zoe sits in front of her with the little makeup kit she got for Christmas. It’s one of those cheap ones from the dollar store, so it’s not the best quality, which is why I’m so floored.
