You Go Down Smooth

From Eden

(( 7 Missed Calls ))

(( 3 New Voicemails ))

11:45pm - Y/n: Normani. Please answer your phone.

11:57pm - Y/n: I don't know what to do. I don't know what I did.

11:58pm - Y/n: I don't understand how the conversation ended like that.

12:05am - Y/n: Answer your goddamn phone, Normani.

She saw them. She saw them all.

Normani watched them as they popped up on her phone screen. Sitting on her couch watching the Lion King with Dinah, she pushed back the tears that stung her eyes. She fought the urge to answer - each text, every missed call. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Why did she say that?? She and Y/n had never fought before. And even this didn't feel like a fight. It felt more like Normani walking out. It felt oddly reminiscent of how things ended with Arin.

No, Y/n was not Arin. But this was how Normani handled these things. And that became very evident to her in this moment. How she'd internalized everything for months, how she'd refused to confront him about it - knowing he'd never come right out and say it - and how she'd eventually just walked out. Left everything. She was so done with him, and so done with being complacent, certain. Even the last time she'd been to his apartment, the night they'd fought and Dinah had to come get her, they'd argued because he still had her stuff there and he'd told her she should just come back to him, move in, because everything was already there - it was ready and waiting for her.

But he was a cheater and a liar and worse, he truly believed she was stupid. That part was also evident to her. He'd left everything for her to find. Like he was testing her to see how long she'd stay quiet. Like he was seeing how much he could pile onto her, how great a load she could carry, before she fell and let it crush her. She hadn't told Dinah and Lo about all of it. She told herself it was because she didn't want to look stupid. But it was more because she didn't care anymore. She knew he was an ass. She was sure he wasn't worth her time. And she was sure that she could have stayed there forever completely content because she was fed, and clothed, and covered, and she had someone. Even if he wasn't 'the one'. So she kept quiet. She was kind of glad about that after the fact, knowing that it would have really made going back to him for sex look even more deplorable.

If she hadn't done that, if she hadn't continued to fall into his bed, would she have ever met Y/n? Would she ever have smiled to herself the way she did when Y/n said her name? Would she ever have felt her heart beat the way it did when Y/n told her it was okay to want to be in love, that it was okay for her to want more than what she had with Arin? It always felt, to her, like Y/n was telling her, in her own way, that she felt the connection too. And Normani wasn't alone in her want.

Had she read too much into it? Had she been the only one? What if this was just fun for Y/n? Just someone to talk to? What if this was just another way for Y/n to compartmentalize? Was Normani the same as...Benefits girl? Was she the emotional intimacy without the actual responsibility of a relationship the same way that Benefits girl was sex without commitment? Did Y/n think that she didn't want more? Was she another 'pleasure without the problems'??

***

She woke up on the couch the next morning. Dinah must have tucked her in because she didn't remember grabbing the blanket before she sat down and she didn't remember ever getting up. The night felt like a blur and her heart hurt thinking how hard she'd cried when Simba lost Mufasa, again. It must have been the ten-thousandth time she watched it, but it always pained her just as much as it did the first time. She wouldn't admit that those same tears had been fused with tears for Y/n. Tears of uncertainty. And tears of embarrassment. Not because she had let herself feel for her; the girl was irresistible conversation wise. Normani couldn't have seen this going any other way, really.
It was the way she had launched out with that 'So I'm bad for you??', rather, and the fact that she had allowed herself to take the step she'd never even contemplated taking with Arin. And it was the most debilitating fear that perhaps, this could have been the real deal. That maybe, even without realizing how fucking deep it really went, she had become so madly in love with this faceless portrait of a lover she'd created for herself.