Love Off Limits: A Lesbian Mother's Best Friend Romance

ie had always been fine. She was a great spider remover. Remover, because they didn’t kill them if they didn’t have to. Most of the time Elodie just trapped them and threw them outside. Scarlet didn’t know how she would have dealt with this one. She probably would have laughed over the phone and told Scarlet to leave it alone and it would be gone by morning.

She could almost hear that advice. Almost.

Almost would have to be close enough until they got things sorted out between them. Between all of them.

Chapter 15

Neera

“Mom, you need to call her. I can’t keep walking on eggshells around here. I know you’re still mad and you’re hurt and everything else, but we need to work it out. We can’t keep feeling like this. It isn’t healthy and it isn’t good. It’s not going to stop me from going over there myself or going out with her someplace else. It’s going to happen. I’ve been putting it off for days to try and respect you and give you time, but it’s been a week, and I’m not going to put it off any longer. I want to be honest about that. I need to be honest about it.”

Elodie stood up and walked into the kitchen. Neera had just got home from her shift, and after checking her phone when she was off, she knew she needed to talk to her mom. She’d been planning what she wanted to say on the drive home, but when she walked in the door, all she could do was blurt out a string of very unpoetic, unperfect words that probably had the opposite effect. She’d planned on coaxing her mom into the conversation. Being gentle and patient.

Neera hadn’t even changed out of her scrubs yet, but she followed her mom in. Elodie took down a mug and started making tea. It was nearly eight, and Neera was starved. She opened the fridge, more to compose herself than to look for food even though her stomach was rumbling with thunder-worthy groans. There was some kind of casserole in there, and she pulled it out and set it on the counter. When she took the lid off and smelled the tuna, she nearly gagged. When she saw the gelatinous noodle, cheese, fishy nastiness, she slammed the lid back on in a hurry.

“You were at work,” Elodie said defensively. “I made it for myself. My guilty pleasure.”

“Ugh, I’m glad I missed the tuna takeover of the house.” Neera stuffed the dish back into the fridge. She bit down hard on her bottom lip before she turned around. “Scarlet texted me earlier today. She had dinner with her family. She told them everything. They basically disowned her.”

Elodie flipped the kettle’s on button down just a little bit too hard. She looked towards the kitchen window, but Neera could still see the side of her face and she knew what she’d said had registered.

“She told them that she was a lesbian, then she came totally clean and told them about us dating. Um— even though we haven’t had a real date yet. Even though we haven’t seen each other in over a week. That’s what we’re doing. Dating. I need to go over there and talk to her. She’s upset. I’d rather do it with your blessing. I’d rather you come with me and you two make up. She needs her best friend right now, probably more than she needs anything. You’re not just her bff, Mom. You’re like a sister.”

“That was before,” Elodie said sharply.

“No, it’s still true. No matter how mad, disappointed, sad, or whatever else, it’s always going to be true.”

Elodie whitened and her hand grasped the counter. “Some things change.”

Neera crossed her arms. She was losing her patience. It was apparently time for some hard love, which was strange, coming from her as the daughter.

“Scarlet was there for you at a time when people were sad, angry, disappointed, and even ashamed of you. She wasn’t even your best friend at the time, but she stuck by you. She was way closer to you than Aunt Marla was. She supported you and she loved you, even if other people were talking about you behind your back all the time. When no one else even tried to understand, she tried. She was at the hospital when you had me. She was the first person other than my grandma to hold me, and that was only because grandma had a change of heart and wanted to be your person in the room with you when you were in labor. It was all Scarlet before that, and even after things were okay between you and grandma and grandpa and Marla it was still her.”

Elodie let out a shuddering sigh. “I know all that,” she said quietly, her voice as wobbly as their kitchen table used to be before Neera’s grandpa came to fix the one leg. “I just don’t know how to reconcile the fact that Scarlet is family. She’s like a sister to me and an aunt to you, a friend to both of us. How could you fall in love with someone so close to us for so many years?”

“I know it seems kind of weird, but I think that’s the reason I did fall in love with her. There are tons of best friends who eventually fall in love with each other. There are also tons of romances that happen between people who get close, even if the world thinks that it shouldn’t. I’m not asking for your acceptance before you can truly give it. I’m just asking that you reach out and start the process because Scarlet needs you. She needs you more than anything or anyone. Right now, you’re probably the one person left in her corner. If I go over there, it’s not going to be the same without you. She’ll probably feel worse, not better. I can’t let that happen. I want to be there for her, but even more than I want that, I want us both to be there.”

“I just don’t know that I can.”

Neera walked over to her mom. She set her hand on her shoulder. “You can be mad and still love someone. You can be there for one thing and still not want to be there for another. You’ve been treating me just the same though, Mom, and I can’t say that’s right. You think that you need keep me safe and be the protector here and that the enemy is Scarlet, but that’s not the way it is. If you’re mad at her, you should be way angrier with me. Just because I’m younger shouldn’t make me immune to your wrath and your judgment and whatever shade you’re throwing at her. Some of that should land on me too. It’s not fair that she has to face it alone. I know I’m your kid and everything, but in this case, I’m equally to blame, if not more so.”

“So, I should be mad at you too? I shouldn’t speak to you. I should be disgusted with you as well?”

“Yeah.” Neera nodded. “Exactly. Or you could take a breath and let the rage fizzle out and feel a lot better for it, and then treat Scarlet like you’re treating me now.”

“That’s not possible. She’s not— she’s not you.”

“I get that. You haven’t once in this whole week been mad at me, though, and I think you need to be. It’s not healthy to pretend like I’m the innocent one, that I didn’t do anything. That’s not real. I did things. A lot of things.”

“Stop.” Elodie grabbed the kettle, lifting it off the base. She poured water into her huge unicorn mug. It was her favorite, a gift from Scarlet a few years back. Neera wondered if her mom saw the irony in that.

Neera reached for the sealed teabag on the counter and ripped open the package. She tucked the bag into the steaming water to steep. It floated on top for a few seconds before it sank down to the bottom. “It’s true. There isn’t a bit of our lives that Scarlet hasn’t touched. Trying to shut her out is like trying to stop breathing. I can’t stop breathing any more than you can. We’re just breathing in different ways now.”

Despite everything, Elodie’s lips trembled, but that waver turned into a reluctant smile. “Do you remember when you used to say that you were a nurse and not a poet? That there was a reason you did medicine and not English?”

Neera grinned. “Yup.”

“What happened these past few years then? You came back home and you’re a different person and now you’re talking like you could write a whole volume of poems.”