Gabriella was startled awake when she heard keys clattering from the hallway. Realizing she was very much naked and sleeping on Storm's chest, she scrambled up to put something on. This awakened Storm who went to get dressed as well, changing into something of Gabriella's. They must have been asleep for at least an hour.
"Are you home, Gabi?" Her ma called out.
She considered pretending she wasn't but promptly decided against it.
"Yeah, I'm home," she shouted back.
A knock on the door followed by her ma asking if she could come in came quickly. They were thankfully now fully clothed and looking fairly put together, so Gabriella went to unlock the door and told her she could come in.
"Is-" her ma didn't get further than that before she noticed Storm. "Oh, Storm. You're here. Lovely to see you. Everything okay with you then?"
"Yeah, everything is fine."
"Good, good." Her ma glanced between them suspiciously. "I will leave you to it...then. I'm making something to eat, it'll be ready in an hour or so."
She backed out and shut the door behind her. Gabriella buried her face in her hands and groaned, almost certain her ma knew something had gone down. Well, someone. As the supportive girlfriend she was, Storm patted her on the back.
"It's fine, Gabi. I bet she didn't suspect anything," Storm said, quite obviously lying to make Gabriella feel better, which earned her a glare.
"Shut up, you barely seem bothered."
"It's not like she caught us naked. Also, maybe I just don't have any shame."
Gabriella rolled her eyes. "I hate you."
With a cheeky smile, Storm bopped her nose and grabbed her face, smooshing it. "You know that's a lie, Gabi Dabi."
"Gabi Dabi?"
She shrugged and let go of Gabriella's face, instead sliding an arm around her face. The move made Gabriella's stomach fill with butterflies, as if they weren't just much, much closer than that.
"I couldn't think of anything else to rhyme with, sue me."
"It's okay, not everyone can be as creative as me," Gabriella teased.
Storm raised a challenging eyebrow. "Oh? Show me some of that creativity then. Rhyme my name."
She scrunched her face, her mind suddenly going blank. Slapping her shoulder playfully, she told her, "that's not fair, you're putting me on the spot! I can't think under pressure."
Laughing, Storm pecked her on the cheek. Gabriella's lips turned up into a smile. Even pretending, Gabriella couldn't be frustrated with her when she did that. Affectionate Storm was probably her favorite version of her.
"Oh, I just suddenly remembered that I'm not sure if I told you about meeting a friend of Alana's the other day," Storm said all of a sudden.
Gabriella shook her head. "Not that I recall."
"Yeah, well we decided to meet for a coffee some day along with Alana. She seemed really nice."
Only Alana, Storm, and some stranger? Gabriella had mixed feelings about that. As much as she trusted Storm, her hanging around her exes so often still bothered her. However, they'd already discussed this before, so Gabriella felt it was unnecessary to bring it up again. She could bury down her feelings for now. Yes, she could do that. Couldn't she?
"Oh? Cool."
She frowned. "You don't seem so happy about the idea."
Gabriella almost, almost, scoffed. "What? Do you want me to jump up and down and squeal about it? Of course, I'm not ecstatic that you're fucking obsessed with your exes. Would you be if I became all buddy-buddy with my exes?"
Storm winced, so did Gabriella. She hadn't meant for it to come out so harsh. Truthfully, she hadn't realized it bothered her that much until the words spilled out of her mouth. She thought she'd gotten over the jealousy issue, or at least that she could bury it.
"I'm not. It's not like that. You know that. Alana and I ended on good terms, we happened to meet at a party then I met her friend. She doesn't mean anything romantically to me. With Echo, we were friends before. I didn't want to ruin our friendship simply because we weren't compatible. We've already talked about this and you said you were okay with it, why are you acting like this? You were happy literally a second ago."
She wasn't sure either, but there was just a lot going on recently. Gabriella had thought had it all handled, yet, one little thing and it was all brimming to the surface.
"I know what I said but it doesn't feel okay. We are supposed to be girlfriends but sometimes I don't feel like we are. While I'm scared of Joey's reaction too, at least I would have the guts to fucking tell him if you asked. He's your best friend and my brother for fuck's sake! You tell him literally anything! I know you would do anything for him."
Her voice was raising, she didn't like arguing with Storm. Yet she was the one who always had to start up shit for nothing. She mentally cursed herself out, but she couldn't bring herself to calm down.
"Fuck, Gabriella. We've had this argument a million times. I will tell him, why are you in such a rush? He's been with me through everything, obviously I would do anything for him."
"Maybe it keeps getting brought up because you keep making promises that you can't keep."
"I'm not. I will tell him, that isn't a lie."
Gabriella turned around so she could only see her back. She bit back the tears and crossed her arms, willing them in.
"I just can't help that I feel like you will always mean more to me than I will to you."
Stepping forward, Storm placed a hand on her shoulder. "That is not true. I don't think I've ever cared about anyone in the way that I do about you. Especially not in such a short period of time. When will you believe that?"
Shutting her eyes briefly, Gabriella let her head droop before opening them again. A tear fell.
"Look at me, Gabi. Please."
She didn't want Storm to see her crying. Gabriella felt ridiculous. She had all this love for Storm that had been building up for years. It grew so strong that Gabriella feared it would crush her someday. Storm had hurt her unknowingly so many times over the years. Although it was no one but Gabriella's fault, she'd already suffered so many heartbreaks at the expense of Storm that her heart was already fragile.
Gabriella could not expect Storm to understand that while for her their relationship had just started, Gabriella had loved her too much before it even began. They were at different stages in the same relationship. Gabriella tried so hard not to flood her with all her feelings when Storm's feelings had just been a puddle at the start. She kept wanting Storm to love her like she did when Gabriella's feelings had years to brew and hers barely had a summer.
Gabriella knew she needed to give Storm's time to progress and grow if they ever would, yet being selfless was hurting her in the process. It wasn't just about Joey, it was about everything and Gabriella could barely put that into words. Deep down, she desperately wanted Storm to have noticed her when she noticed Storm.
But the past was already written and Gabriella didn't have the power to change how Storm viewed her. That was all up to her. Gabriella had no control over it. Albeit, Storm was here right now in the present and she was ruining it all because she loved too much.
"I can't." Her traitorous voice cracked.
"I'll tell him today. Right now if you need me to. We can do it together. Is that what you want?"
"Is it what you want?" Gabriella turned the question back to her. "I don't want you to do it just for me."
Coming a little closer, Storm hugged her from behind. "Yes, it is. I don't want this to be a secret when it's hurting us so much."
Storm meant that, she did. Seeing how she was hurting Gabriella and Joey by being too much of a coward made the heavy feeling at the bottom of her stomach grow bigger and bigger. She cared too much about them to continue hurting them.
"It's not only that."
That confused Storm. "Is it about the exes too?"
"Yes and no. It's just..." she groaned, dragging her fingers down her face, hating how she couldn't tell her. "...you don't get it."
"Get what? Make me understand."
That sent Gabriella into a rant. Everything she'd kept inside came flowing out in a jumble of words. Everything she hadn't wanted to burden her with. Everything.
"You've broken my heart so many times, Storm, it's not even funny. Yes, I'm jealous, but it's so much more. It's Joey, it's every relationship you've ever been in and it's all those stupid years I spent not being able to get you out of my head. I barely even knew I liked girls until I couldn't stop myself from thinking about your laugh, your eyes, and simply you. I tried getting over you, how I fucking tried. I made some dumb choices and hurt people because I selfishly could not stop thinking about you. Yet you had girlfriends and while you've always been so fucking nice towards me, I wanted more. I wanted to be the one you cared about like that. I wanted to kiss and I wanted you to see me like I did you. I wanted you to love me like I loved you."
"Fuck, Storm. I have loved you for so many years that my heart aches with it. I love you so much and it hurts because even when you began to show interest in me, I knew deep, deep down that it could never work. I loved you too much from the start. I already had our whole relationship built in my head before it even began and that's not fair to you or me. How could it be?"
Gabriella slipped out of Storm's grasp, desperately trying to stop the tears. Meanwhile, Storm stood behind her, mouth agape and head spinning.
"You've been in love with me for years?"
She laughed a teary laugh, nodding. "Yeah, Storm, and you never noticed."
Storm walked around Gabriella so she was in front of her. Cupping her face, she tilted it up to reveal teary eyes. Something broke inside her at that, tears formed and escaped Storm's eyes.
"I am so, so sorry."
Shaking her head, Gabriella avoided Storm's intense gaze. "Don't be. I didn't want to tell you because I don't want you to feel guilty like you are now. My feelings are not yours to carry."
"Why not? You've been keeping this inside for so long and I was too much of an idiot to ever see it. Let me carry some of that weight. Let me see you. I want to, I do. I might not have loved you for as long as you have, but I think, no, I do love you. I don't care if it's too quick or not because I love you, Gabi. I really, really love you. We'll make it work. I can't take back the past but I can make sure that we have a future. A future where you'll never question how crazy I am about you ever again. Please, Gabi. I'm so sorry for hurting you. It fucking kills me that I did."
"And you're not saying that just because I said I love you?" Gabriella asked, eyes on the floor.
Storm pressed her forehead against Gabriella's, one finger tipping her chin up gently. "Look at me, Gabi."
She obliged this time. Their eyes met, both brimming with tear drops. Storm wiped away the ones that fell with the pad of her thumb and sent her a reassuring smile.
"I would never lie about that. I love you, Gabriella Layla Hart. I truly fucking do."
"Doesn't it bother you that I've been obsessing over you for at least like five to six years?" Gabriella asked, still feeling like a fool.
"No. I mean, who wouldn't?" Storm gestured to herself, making a joke to lighten up the atmosphere. "What bothers me is that I was too wrapped up in myself to notice it. Did you tell anybody about it?"
"Well, Ziv," she admitted. "Also, I think Eiji figured it out."
Storm chuckled. "He must be the only one with eyes around here."
"I think he's always been pretty attentive, though. How is he, by the way? Have you heard from him lately?"
It wasn't her story to tell, but Storm didn't want to leave her completely out of the blue either. So she settled with giving a sort of answer without going into detail.
"Yeah, it's complicated, though. Some things happened but that's for him to reveal."
"Oh, okay. What about Joey?"
"He's okay. We haven't talked properly yet, however. Do you want to do that together? That is if we are okay?"
There was a pause before Gabriella nodded. It would be stupid for her to self-sabotage right now. Maybe it would be fine now that she'd gotten her feelings out.
"What about the ex-issue?" Storm asked, causing Gabriella to stiffen.
"Let's take it one step at a time and deal with Joey first."
"Okay. We can do that." Storm pecked her on the lips before repeating her words.
"We can do that."
Two months later and I'm finally out with another update. Quite a bit has happened since but to sum it up: Summer break started, I had a few days of peace where I hung out with friends until I started working for four weeks (yay, money), currently I'm on vacation in south of France and have also been in Germany visiting relatives and family friends for 1.5 weeks (another 1.5 weeks to go.) Basically I've been busy and umotivated (what's new?) More has of course happened but I won't bore you with the details if you bothered to read this little author's note.
Hopefully the next chapter will be out faster. We have about 5-10 left I think. I always have a sort of plan but sometimes I write and it ends up differently than I originally planned (this chapter was supposed to turn out a bit different for example.)
See you next chapter, whenever that is!