august 19th, 2018
LITA
TW : biphobia?
"HERE WE ARE." I say softly when I stop the car. I watch as Scarlett looks around for a bit before stepping out. I gather the stuff I brought with us, take her hand in mine and guide her. We walk slowly, but carefully. It's dark outside, the sun set just a few hours ago.
"You brought me to a cemetery?!" Scarlett asks, chuckling when she notices the shape of headstones as we walk past them.
"Yeah... I– well, I want you to meet someone. Plus, no one is going to annoy us here and my sister is a great listener." She hums and continues to let me guide her. The closer we get, the more anxious I become.
We arrive at the spot and I set down the cooler I brought and our stuff... Okay now this is weird. I busy myself, I don't want to overthink my decision now. I lay down a blanket for us to sit down and kick off my shoes, I mean they're getting very uncomfortable now that we are standing on grass and cobblestones and not concrete or tile
I know Scarlett is watching me, I can see her gaze on me. I turn around and reach for her hand. I pull her to stand beside me, and here we go. I feel her squeeze my hand as I take a deep breath. I've got nothing to lose. "Eliza meet Scarlett!" I pause for a second, thinking of what to say. "Is this weird? If yes, I blame the alcohol."
She laughs, at least I'm glad I still have my sense of humour. When she comes down and is just giggling, she lays her head on my shoulder. "No, it's fine. She's important to you. Thank you for taking me here."
Phew.
I press a quick kiss on her cheek, and she unexpectedly returns the gesture. Sometimes, I feel like we're just two teenagers in love, completely hopeless and not knowing what to do. And even the smallest things make me feel all giddy.
In a desperate attempt to hide the creeping blush on my cheek and my flustered state, I let go of her hand and lay down on the blanket in front of us. She watches me with an amused smile as I try to get comfortable, but it's impossible when all that separates you from the ground is a thin hand sewn blanket. "Come here. Lay down next to me." I pat the spot next to me, and watch as she kicks off her shoes as well. She lays down next to me, as close as she can before cuddling into my side.
My focus shift towards the sky, and I take a second to look at the clear sky. It's not something you can often enjoy when you live in the city. Due to the light pollution, it's kinda hard to stargaze. I search the sky to find the two constellations I know and can recognize. Soon, I spot the bowl of the big dipper, and then the handle. From there, I'm able to find the little bear. "Hey, look! You can see the big dipper." I point out.
Scarlett lifts her head from my shoulder and follow where my finger is pointing. "Where?"
"Right there. Can you see it? Look! We can see the bowl and the handle."
I give her a couple of minutes and watch as she searches the sky. Her eyes light up when she finally spots it. "No, hang on... Oh, yes I can!"
Our excitement soon dies down, and I have to remind myself the real reasons why we're here. Finding Scarlett crying at the end of the wedding reception wasn't something I planned... well, it's not like you can plan something like this. I'm not sure if she wants to talk about it, or if she wants to forget and needed a minute. "So... Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I am." I am going to ignore this little white lie, because I know for a matter of fact that she's not.
"Scarlett." I start, but she won't even look at me. I change tactics and sit the both of us up. I lift her chin gently with my finger before continuing. "I found you crying in the kids' bedroom. We don't have to talk about it, and if you don't want to I won't push it, just please don't lie to me."
"I... I don't really know what I'm feeling. I guess the wedding brought back memories I thought I forgot. It kinda took me by surprise."
"Good memories?"
"You can say that." She pauses again, clearly hesitating. Like promised I don't push it. "When I married Rose's father... I never thought it would end like this, especially so soon."
I nudge her shoulder playfully, a part of me wants to lift the mood. "Tell me about your shitty ex, and I'll tell you about mine." I told her, wiggling my eyebrows. She looks at me for a second with a blank look on her face, as if to say 'are you fucking serious right now?!' but her act falls, and she eventually chuckles.
Yay! I made her smile!
"Deal. I mean, if we want this relationship to go further, we kinda need to talk right?"
"Yeah..." I realize that leans I have to talk about my ex... great, "Buuuuuuuut, I have ice cream and beer to help us through this though." That's when I get a real laugh out of her!
"You're the best."
I take everything out and hand Scarlett a sweater as it's getting kinda cold and windy. She slips it on, and it drowns her. That's fine because she looks cute right now, in my clothes. I do the same and put mine on, and I immediately feel better.
Reaching in my bag, I desperately look for a bottle opener and turns out I forgot it at home. Well, looks like we have to improvise. I get my keys, and rest the tooth underneath the grooves of the cap. Once it's loosened, I keep twisting the key upward and the cap suddenly flies right off.
I hold my hand out for Scarlett to do the same, and she slowly passes me her beer. "I didn't know you could open it like that." She mumbles and watches me open her bottle.
I take a sip, and let's get this pity party started. "Who first? Me or you?"
"Let's let fate decide." She grabs my bags and looks through my stuff. She takes out my wallet, finding a coin in there."Head or tail?" She asks as she makes a fist with her hand, and places the coin on top of her thumb.
"Head. No wait tail. Hang on, definitely head– Tail I mean tail." I could keep going, but Scarlett was getting impatient, playfully rolling her eyes at me being an idiot.
"You're heads I'm tail." She decided for me... fair enough. She quickly flips the coin, and caught it. She covered it before taking a look. "Fuck." She mumbles.
"What? What is it?" I lean towards her to see, but she takes her hand away.
"Head." She tells me... And for one of the best actresses, she can't lie.
"Liar." I joke but when I notice the look of pure dread on her face, I stop. I lean in to grab her hand, making her look up at me. "Like I said, if you don't want to, that's fine." She nods weakly, and hesitate before telling me her decision.
In the meantime, I get the ice cream out and spoons. What... I'm hungry!
"I need some liquid courage." She sighs before taking a long sip of her beer and steals my spoonful of ice cream. "So Rose's dad... we met at a press event in 2012 I did for... I can't remember which MCU movie that was... probably Avengers but who cares. He was sweet and charming, we hit it off almost immediately and not even a year later we were in love and engaged." She pauses and takes another sip.
"Our lives were divided between Paris and New York until I got pregnant with Rose, and we settled in New York. I gave birth in 2014, we got married two months later and we were happy. It was everything I wanted. I had my beautiful daughter and a wonderful husband." She moves to get closer to me, and I wrap my arms around her. She lays her head on my shoulder, taking a deep breath. "I guess ego got in the way. We both had busy careers, but I was the primary source of income..."
"Oh."
"Yeah." She chuckles sadly and shakes her head. "I had a similar reaction... We– We decided it would be best to separate. It was a mutual decision. With our divorce came a custody battle. He wanted to take Rose back to Paris, and I wanted Rose to stay here." She finishes, sniffling and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. I make sure to hug her a little tighter and wipe the tears flowing down her cheeks with my thumb.
"Damn." I whisper, completely stunned.
We sit in silent for a coupe of minutes. I take in everything she said. She never talked about Rose's father, in a way, the wounds are still fresh. I can't blame her, not when I can't speak about my ex as well.
"So I'm sure you've heard about Gregory."
"I've heard people mentioning this name a few times, yeah." She confirms for me. I know she heard from Erin when she tried to set me up a few months ago, then she probably heard it from my sister... or me?
"Well, he was my ex fiancé." I begin. "Like you and your ex-husband, we were very much in love. One day, he stumbled into my shop, panicked. Well, at the time it wasn't my shop, I was just some random employee working there. I was barely 21, and I just dropped out of law school." I recall with a small, tiny smile on my face. Those were hard times, but also good times.
"He was panicking and looking for flowers for his mother's birthday. I helped him, and he left. I didn't think anything of it, people come and go. The next day he came back and bought a rose before offering it to me. He came back every day for a couple of weeks after and always did the same thing every time. He bought a rose and gave it to me and then, finally, one day he asked me on a date.
I check on Scarlett, she's still actively listening and eating ice cream. She nods every once in a while and her eyes never leave me for more than a second. "That's sweet." She says.
Yes it was.
"Everyone loved him. Man, I loved him. He was basically perfect in my eyes. He was kind and patient. He was also very smart and knew how to make me laugh. He supported me in my career and when I told him about owning my own shop one day he was my number one supporter. He was also good in the kitchen." I joke, I think I'm trying to lighten the mood.
"We talked about getting married and having children together one day. We were in love. We bought an apartment together. We had a dog. I bought the shop, and he was moving up the corporate ladder. We got engaged and agreed to wait until we were financially stable before marrying and everything."
Now the tough part.
"At that point in my life, I knew I wasn't heterosexual. I knew I was attracted to women, I've known that since high school, but I never talked about it too much. Almost nobody knew, and it was starting to bother me a lot. Only Erin and my siblings, including Eliza, knew. I came out to a few of my friends, then to my parents and finally to Greg." I pause and decide on drinking a bit more. I end up finishing my beer. Oops. "I told him that my bisexuality wasn't going to change anything between us. After all, I have always been bisexual, but it meant a lot to me that he knew. He– He... I guess he was insecure that I was going to leave him for a woman, and so he ended things." I stab my ice cream with my spoon, clearly still a little angry at the reason he gave me.
I mean how stupid do you have to be to trust dumb and unfounded stereotypes more than your fiancé and throw almost seven years of relationship away.
"Oh I'm so sorry Lily." She swipes her thumb across my cheek. I didn't realize I was crying as well. Great, now we're both sad and kind of tipsy.
"He got the apartment and our dog..." I add, feeling more miserable now that I remember.
"What?!" She exclaims, dropping the spoon. Shock is evident on her face which makes me laugh.
"Yeah... I was so stunned that it took me a little while to get back on my feet. I lived with Erin for a little bit, then went up state to stay with my brother, commuting every day to work. It took me a few months, but I got better. I found an apartment I liked and Erin got me Anna, so I felt less lonely and yeah..." I shrug as if it was nothing, completely ignoring the fact that I was drowning in sorrow for months.
"What an asshole." Scarlett adds and stab the ice cream as well.
"We have terrible taste in men." I add. It just came out of my mouth so naturally and that's definitely due to the alcohol. I'm speaking before thinking. Scarlett and she bursts out laughing.
The alcohol is definitely helping me with my confidence right now, and feel like asking Scarlett something a bit more serious. Now that we have the exes out of the way, and that it's clear that the both of us want to take this relationship a bit further... maybe... maybe we should make it official. Right?
"Scarlett? What are we exactly?" The words spill out of my mouth before I can even think this through.
This isn't how it was supposed to go. First, I wanted for us to be back in New York and take her on a date. I was thinking of those pottery painting things and write it for her on a plate, that way we'd have a memory.
But I guess tipsy in a cemetery will have to do.
Scarlett lifts her head to look at me as she licks the ice cream off her spoon. "What do you mean?" She asks before going back for more.
"We go on dates, we're both clearly falling in love... But what are we? We never made it official or anything..." I sigh. Scarlett doesn't answer me, so I let it go.
It is a peaceful night, a bit cold, but it's nothing I can handle. I put my spoon away, being done with the ice cream and lay back down. I take a minute to enjoy the stars a bit more. I let the cold air hit my face, making me feel alive. I listen as the wind blows and hits the leaves of the willow tree we're next to. The branches momentarily block my view of the sky, but it is fine.
I do something I've been doing since I was a little girl and raise my hand to the branches, almost trying to catch and feel the leaves and branch against my skin even though it's not possible.
"This is a nice spot." Scarlett comments suddenly and breaks me out of my trance.
"I know. The willow tree is my favourite. It feels like she's watching over me and protecting me." She hums and shuffles closer to me. She digs in the ice cream and offers me a spoonful. "It's the last bit." She says to convince me and I can't believe we just finished a little tub of ice cream. I open my mouth and let her feed it to me. She drops the tub and the ice cream to the side and lays back down next to me. "Lita?"
"Yes Scarlett?"
"I– I think I want us to be more than friends?" I turn to face her instead of the sky and our eyes meet.
"You want to be best friends?" I exclaim, and watch as her face fell. I just burst out laughing again, the look of pure shock and confusion was just hilarious. It's a little bit mean, but I couldn't stop myself. "You should've seen your face, it was hilarious!" Scarlett huffs and pouts. I try to calm down and when I reach to hold her hand, she rolls to the other side, forcing me to face her back.
"I was trying to be serious."
"I'm sorry mon ange. Do you want to try that again?"
"Lita, I think I want us to be more than friends. I want us to be best friends." I roll my eyes as we laugh. Great, we can't even be adults and serious for two minutes.
"And here I was, thinking you wanted to be serious!"
"Hey! You did it first!" She says through her laughs. We eventually calm down, taking deep breaths so we can go on. "Let's do this properly for real this time. Lita Valentine Meyer, do you—"
"And what if I wanted to be the one to ask you?!" I interrupt her and she groans. I mean, at this point it's never gonna happen. At least we'll have a funny story to tell people later.
"Lita Valentine Meyer." Scarlett starts.
"Scarlett Ingrid Johansson." I copy.
"Will you make me the happiest woman on earth and be my girlfriend?" She finally asks.
"Yes. Will you?"
"Yes I will."
I lean in and we kiss. It was a sweet kiss at first, but it quickly turns into a little steamy and passionate, deep kiss.
Damn, this isn't how I imagined my night to go but hey, I'll take it.
AUTHORS NOTE
🤭🤭
hope you enjoyed this week's chapter!
have a good morning/afternoon/evening or night
alexis:)