"Why are you coming here so much?" Jackie asked me one evening.
We were lying on her bed, our legs tangled, reading magazines from a pile Jackie had hoarded. It was closer to December and rumours that it was snow for the whole month had spread.
By then, I was already thinking of Christmas gifts for my dad and for Jackie - and for Mio too. I was planning for a gift that would not only say 'Merry Christmas' and 'thank you' for my birthday. Every time I got undressed to shower or swim, I gazed at the necklace laid against my skin, just above the valley of my breasts, and thought of how I could one-up the lovely gift. Not that it was a competition, but I'd never felt gratitude like I had when Mio gifted me the necklace. I wanted her to feel that too. And have something that made her think of me whenever she looked at it.
But I didn't have much money, nor a job, and no knowledge on what thirty-six-year-old women like as gifts. Assuming all their tastes were quite similar. From that thought, I had an idea. I already knew a woman in her thirties I could ask. Ms. Bisset.
"Because I love you of course." I told Jackie, flicking through the magazine I was holding, looking for the outfit pages. I liked imagining myself in the model's bodies and having those kinds of clothes in my wardrobe at home.
"Good answer."
"Jacks, when do you think you're gonna get a job?" I asked.
She groaned. "Oh don't, you sound like my parents"
"Come on, tell me." I placed my magazine flat down on my chest.
"I dunno, next year maybe? In the summer or something." She shrugged.
"Then me too."
"Stalker."
I sighed loudly. "I just want money."
"Don't we all?"
"Are we gonna buy each other Christmas presents?" I said, turning to look at her. "That's something I'll need money for, won't I?"
"Thinking of me always, hmm?" Jackie grinned.
Yeah, and your mother.
"But, yeah, I've got some ideas for Christmas presents already." Jackie massaged her fingers into my hair, rubbing the top of my head, flipping the next page of her mag with her other hand.
"I have none." I sighed, letting my eyes droop comfortably as she threaded her fingers into my hair. "I'm rubbish at getting presents."
"Don't worry, you've still got a month. And I'll be happy with anything you get me." Jackie said.
"I know you will." I mumbled. Except, it's not you I'm worried about.
"Have you spoken to Gi since the party?" She asked.
"Not really. She hasn't texted me, or come looking for me. She's probably embarrassed." I chewed on my bottom lip.
Jackie hummed in agreement. "Probably. What a shame."
We stayed like that for a few hours, flicking through magazines and chatting aimlessly. As the hours ticked closer to night though, I felt myself brimming with strange emotion - like a glass filled too close to the top. My heart went through spells of hammering hard to then being calm and rhythmic as normal. What it meant then was beyond me.
Around the usual time, Jackie cleared the bed, switched off the lights and dragged me down onto the mattress - lying that night with her arms secured around my waist. With her head so close to my chest, I thought she would catch the random moments that my heart began to pound. But she'd dozed off too soon. I lay there awake though, staring at the ceiling. I always gave it a set amount of time - thirty minutes - before I went to leave the room. But, with Jackie so attached to my body, I lay there a little longer, listening to her soft snores and feeling the heat from her head against my stomach.
At some point, Mio must've left her bedroom. I watched a shadow of no shape pass under the door gap. Jackie shifted her head groggily then, a few strands of her hair slithering under my bed shirt and brushing my warm, rosy skin. The house was hot, and I could feel myself blushing in the heat. Slowly, I pressed my fingers into Jackie's shoulder, trying carefully to edge her off of me to make my escape to see Mio easier. She barely stirred when poked and I took advantage of her deep sleep by pushing her gently again and laying her head against the mattress. The wick of her mouth glistened in the dark with saliva.
Once I was assured she was deeply asleep and comfortable in the new position I'd shifted her into, I slid off the bed onto the carpet and got to my feet. In the corridor, there was little light but enough to see that the veins in my hands had risen under my skin. I wondered who'd turned the heat up so high. It felt more like a July night than one in late November.
The middle step on the stairs groaned under my weight and I paused for an anxious second. There was nothing. I thanked God graciously that Jackie and her dad were such heavy sleepers. And that Mio wasn't.
I thought for a moment about another timeline where Mio hadn't been downstairs, or that I hadn't been close enough with Jackie to stay so much. Would these feelings still have formed? Or was it just with these strange events that I'd realised? What if I had never realised at all? How different would it all be?
Mio wasn't sitting on the loveseat as I'd usually see her, instead she was to my left in the kitchen, running the tap over a tall glass. The moonlight spilling in through the window above her head made silver rings of shine form against her silky hair. Her figure was cloaked under her robe and her feet were bare against the cool tiling of the kitchen floor. Admiring for just a moment did no harm. I watched as her hand brought the glass rim up to her pink lips, her wedding ring gleaming against the light of the moon. Her throat bobbed, her lips moistened, her eyelashes fluttered. Something in me throbbed warmly. We were both women, but she was more of one than I was. Everything about her was feminine; her smooth voice, the shape of her thin fingers, her lips, her body, her attitude. I was entranced, like I was standing down the aisle.
Her face turned and her eyes saw me and I smiled, instantly moving towards her as if I had been before she looked.
"Good night." I said quietly, leaning my lower back against the counter side.
She laughed softly. "Good night, Norah."
I watched her set her glass back down and rest her hip against the counter. Though appearing calm, my heart was ridiculously loud. It was beating far too eagerly as if it was trying to burst through my ribcage. Something was different about the night, and it wasn't just our change in room. It was something more.
"You know," she started, and my eyes flicked from her fingers to her mouth, "I never asked you what you want to do at college. Do you have a plan?"
"I only really have two options - sports with a scholarship or something to do with art." I told her. Rain drummed against the window pane, raising a rhythmic background patter behind our words.
"You do art?" A smile formed on her face, obviously surprised that I didn't just base my life around swimming. I liked her knowing that.
I nodded. "I've been painting and drawing since I was really young."
"I'd love to see what you can do - that's if you're comfortable with showing me." She said kindly, clasping her hands together like she was proud or pleased with me. I didn't think my heart could beat any harder, but it did.
"Of course. I'll find a time to show you when I've got something good." I said quietly, my cheeks getting hot. I was glad we were mostly in the dark, or my blush might have revealed how pathetic I was being. "Did you have a career path you wanted when you were younger?"
"I was a nurse actually." She revealed, and my mind went wild.
I thought I would faint if she was my nurse, that I'd feign sickness just to stay longer in her company. I'd end up faking it every day. I imagined her in scrubs or a blouse and white coat, and swallowed.
"Not anymore?" I said.
"Not anymore. Eddie said I didn't need to, and he was right. His job was good enough to support us alone, so I left that job." She said, then smiled to humour me. "My job is staying at home now."
I shook my head. "You should've stayed on at that job if you liked it. It should've been about what you wanted."
She looked at me, paused and laughed softly like she knew there wasn't much that was funny in our conversation. "Yeah. Well, it doesn't matter anymore."
Through the window to the left of her head, I saw the glass had been streaked with nimble beads of winter rain. They reflected darkly in spotted shadows against Mio's face by the light of the silver moon. Even in the dark, I could see how pink her bottom lip was and how thick her lashes were. A mystery to all but the lucky man laying upstairs with a matching wedding ring tight around his fourth finger on his manly hand. Though, I liked to think I knew her a little bit too. Through her body language and her expressions and our midnight meetings.
"How are things with that girl?" She asked innocently.
"In a way, I guess I turned her down recently."
"Was it at the party?"
"It was."
"It is because you still don't understand things?"
"It was that." I paused and pursed my lips, then said, "now it's something else."
Instead of replying with a question I knew I'd leap to answer without any forethought, she lifted her half empty glass of water to her mouth. I admired her drinking again. She didn't close her eyes that time, and as she lowered her glass, her eyes met mine slowly, studying my face with lips parted. Her hand was rested on the counter side, the nail of her index finger tapping silently against the surface.
"Do you want a drink?" She asked, and I nodded.
Suddenly, we were quite close. Her form grew closer and she extended her arm up beside my head to reach into a cupboard. There were only a few centimetres between our breasts and our knees, and the comfortable warmth radiating from her body made me think of my birthday. I wanted to be hugged by her again. But then, while so close, I wanted more than to be held. I wanted her to kiss me. I wanted to kiss her softer than Jackie had kissed me, in a way that would make it the only kiss that mattered.
I gazed at her face, at her mouth in particular, seeing through my peripheral that she'd pulled back her arm with a glass in hand. But she didn't move away from my body. She was looking right back at me.
Is this a romantic cue? I asked myself , is this a follow-your-heart moment? I thought these things anxiously, all while my head was moving slowly, tilting my chin towards her lips. Slowly, testingly, cautiously. I didn't want to frighten her. I kept my eyes narrowed but open, watching her reactions. Her lashes fluttered as she looked from my eyes to my lips, where they then remained. My heart drummed as I saw her head near me.
But, her eyes closed, her mouth closed and she turned her face away from me. I saw her hesitance, and I watched it overtake her.
She whispered with a sigh, "we can't do something like that."
I said nothing. Maybe because I knew it was true, but didn't want to know. Upstairs, was a man sleeping that loved her.
She moved to the sink, and began to fill my glass with water, keeping the pressure low. She was gripping the cup tightly. She was thinking - about a lot of things perhaps - and I wanted to hear those thoughts.
"I think," I started gently, "the things I know the least about are now the most important."
She didn't look at me, but said: "What?"
"I think I now know what it means to want a woman."
She did look at me then, head whipping with speed and in complete shock. I saw that shock in her wide eyes and clenched jaw. She seemed like she would start shaking.
"Norah... Why?"
"I don't know." I whispered, swallowing hard against my dry throat. "But it's choked me not to--"
"Stop it. Please. Stop it now." Her words were shaking faintly then, but even in the dark, I saw that her cheeks were red.
Being scolded by her made me shut up quickly. I remained silent and rigid as she set her glass down on the counter side, and still as she hurried out of the kitchen. The silence made my ears throb. I realised how lonely the dark was when someone wasn't standing beside me. It had stopped raining, I thought.
For a few minutes, I couldn't really move even if I tried. My feet were glued to the tiling with the numbness that had kept me from really reacting to the situation. I couldn't tell what from who. Had I been rejected or pushed away for our own good? Because, I knew, I knew it was in our best interest to not be involved, not at all, perhaps not even as friends. But it was painful to not be. Was this the emotion Giana was feeling that had made her so desperate? I thought of Giana's snivelling sad face that loved me oh so much and rubbed my brow, groaning.
After I sipped from the water Mio poured for me, tipped the rest down the sink and thought some more, I crept back upstairs. The door to Mio's bedroom was closed and the room seemed as still as a stone. Jackie's seemed the same, but when I opened it, I gasped sharply at the sight of her sitting up in bed.
I stood against the door, holding my breath. She was staring through the dark at me, but she wasn't saying anything. I thought of a million things I could say as an excuse. I wondered if she'd been awake since I left the room - what if she'd been awake every night?
She rubbed her eyes then with a closed fist, and I sighed, realising she was half asleep. "Where were you?" She mumbled.
I walked over to the bed, getting back under the covers and gently pulling Jackie back down next to me. "In the washroom."
I exhaled. The rest of my life continued.