Marriage of Unconvenience

We talked all night about little things that we’d brushed off in the past as just being “really close friends.” It was so easy to do that, especially as girls. Even though I’d been out for a while and had had several girlfriends, even I lied to myself about what category my feelings for Cara fell into.

“But we’re here now. And I think the timing is a little weird, but now if we want to get married again, we can just tell everyone we’re going to renew our vows. They’ll never know this wasn’t for real. So that’s a bonus?” she said.

“I mean, it’s not the only bonus. Falling for your best friend is pretty fucking great.” I snuggled closer to her and pressed my lips to hers.

“Oh, that reminds me,” she said, pulling back. “I think we should try and take things slow. At least at first. I have no clue what I’m doing so you might have to be patient with me as I fumble through this. I looked some stuff up online.” The lights were off, but I was pretty sure she was blushing.

“Oh, you did, did you? What kind of stuff?”

“You know. Naked stuff. I’d always sort of looked at it, but I always told myself I liked it because I could relate to their bodies? The lies we tell ourselves.”

I moved my head so we were sharing a pillow.

“Did you ever like guys?” She hadn’t exactly told me that she’d picked a label, and I would set myself on fire before I would demand that of her. Labels could be important and were so individual. She never had to pick one if she didn’t want to.

“Honestly? I don’t think so. It always felt wrong, you know? That I was faking it because I wanted to be like everyone else. I told myself that when I was nervous around them that that was what I was supposed to feel like. That the sick feeling in my stomach was butterflies, not repulsion. I’m still untying so many knots, Lo.” I stroked her shoulder.

“It’s not easy, and it’s a process. Take your time. You don’t have to decide right now.” She puckered her lips for a kiss and I wanted to let myself sink into it and get lost, but she’d said she wanted to take it slow. I could totally do that, even though I had to pry myself away from her mouth.

“Thanks, Lo. That means a lot. Having you to help me through this is the best part of it. I want to figure myself out, to know myself. I can’t help wanting to make a sexuality spreadsheet, but my therapist told me to just take my time, like you said.” I laughed a little about the ‘sexuality spreadsheet.’ Only Cara would do something like that.

“As long as your sexuality includes me, that’s all I need to know,” I said.

“Oh, yes, it definitely includes you,” Cara said, stroking my face. She had touched my face a thousand times before and in a thousand ways, but her touch was electric.

“How did I delude myself for so long?” I asked, and she pressed her forehead against mine and yawned.

“I don’t know, because I was doing the same thing. All that matters is we’re together now, and figuring out what we want our future to look like.” Of course she had already thought about that. To be fair, she had had more time to think about this. I still hadn’t had a week to process everything.

“You have spreadsheets already, don’t you?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

“Yes, but they’re romantic spreadsheets.”

I didn’t think spreadsheets could be romantic, but if anyone could make them, it was Cara.

“Bring on the romantic spreadsheets,” I said through a yawn.

Twenty-two

“We’re home,” I said as we climbed the stairs to our apartment. “Wait, should we share a room now?” I set my stuff down with a loud thud. Even though we’d only been away for three days, I had somehow gone through so much laundry.

“I think we should wait on that, don’t you think? If we want to spend the night together we can, but it would be good for us to have some separation? So we’re not going from friendship immediately to marriage.” Right. Slowing down.

“That makes sense.” Even if I didn’t like it. I was already thinking about how we could have the other bedroom as an office or library or whatever we wanted. It would be nice to have that extra space down the road.