It's Not Love! 18+ (GirlxGirl)

Chapter 10

The heat swells the room, expanding fibres in wood, resting on the carpet, it's oppressive and when I wake I can feel the weight of the atmosphere on my body. I throw a leg off the bed and search with it for the ground, once found, I glide my toe along and rest it in rough nook in the floorboards. Amandla sleeps beside me and I wonder if I can creep out undetected, not for any reason other than convenience. Slowly, I sit myself up, grimacing a little as my tender core is called to play a part in my general movement - last night's activities haven't done the best for my recovery. I pull my clothes onto my sticky body, and with my shoes hooked on the fingers of my left hand, I tiptoe out of the room.

"See you," the woken Amandla farewells sleepily, seemingly unfazed about my attempted disappearance.

I turn and smile lightly at them. "I hope you don't mind..."

They shake their head with a smile in place. "No, you're a busy lady."

"Well, I just didn't want to be convinced to stay because I would have if you just said the word."

They lower their eyes and smile sheepishly. "You're very smooth."

I let my arm drop to my side under the weight of my shoes and don't say anything, the light smile stuck in place.

"I'll see you another time, then?" they ask, a micro amount of eagerness in their tone.

"If there's a party worth being at, I'm there."

I continue my exit, slipping my shoes on at the door and retrieving my backpack from it's hiding spot before stepping out in the already sweltering morning. My phone rings as I walk along, I look at the caller id and answer, slowly lifting it to my ear.

"Hi, Tess," I greet blandly.

"Hi," she says on the end of the line, I can hear in her voice that she yearns to say something but has controlled herself. I wait for her to hold up the conversation, my breath jolting back at me with each step I take. There's a small moment of silence. "Are you ok?" she finally asks, deflating into the question.

"I don't know," I reply, cruelly casually,  "I feel like in the whole time we were together you might have mentioned that your cousin is not only in the mafia, but one of the top guys."

"I don't talk about it, I don't even think about it."

"It didn't even come to mind when you found out, 'hey, my friend is a drug dealer, she should meet Michael, he also deals drugs among other illegal things!'"

"Alex..." she begins, but she trails off. My name stands on the line between us, her form of a frail warning of her own frailty when it comes to riffs. 

"It... it was just a shock," I arrive upon. "I'm sorry." I stop walking and pinch the bridge of my nose, if I stand in this pose for a moment maybe the right things to say will come to me. "It's just..." it doesn't work - I keep walking again, trying to make it up as I go along. "I'll glad you were there, and thank you."

"I wish I did tell you, that's all I've been thinking these past weeks."

"It's ok, Tessa, I was being unfair, I don't expect to know your family tree."

She's silent and my insides clamp together in suspension for what is coming. "I wanted you to know my family tree," she whispers sadly.

I lean against a tree on the naturestrip, the contents of my backpack nestling into my back, protecting me from the knots in the trunk. I shuffle down to the base, sitting on the root lifted earth. I look up through the branches and sigh, Tess remains silent on the other end. Before, when I said that things naturally petered out, it only happened because I didn't want anything more than what we had.