✫A night ago, pt.2:
"It's an amazing couch, for real! What was your excuse for not giving it to me, again?"
Every time Cassie wanted to talk without having any members of her family around, or whenever she was too annoyed to handle her mom, Selena and her would go to the brunette's place.
It wasn't a very common situation, but it's not that they had something against the idea. The Howard house had just become a regular hangout for pretty much every ocassion.
Whenever anyone got to go to Selena's home it automatically was an experience.
It was probably the feeling of foreignness; the sense of adventure, even slight nervousness, at anything that hasn't been properly explored and discovered before. Still not knowing exactly what to expect, still not extremely familiar.
The Howard's place had lost the chance of something unexpected happening. They knew it all well already, which was something to say since the variation of possibilities with that family was vast enough.
Nevertheless, Selena's small place was pretty peaceful, and even though there wasn't much to expect, the strangeness of it was still there.
The remanent shyness in the interactions with someone you just met and still is sort of a stranger to you. That at the moment makes you want to slap yourself at how clumsy you are being, but at the same time, in a corner of your brain causes amusement and enjoyment at the freshness and thrill of feeling something remotely different than what you're used to feeling.
The first time Cassie was at the place she specifically noticed the triplet of settees; two of them black, and a red one. It was different than the other ones, though. It didn't seem to go there.
There was no other hint of red or something to match with it on any visible parts of the empty looking new space. It didn't seem in such a good state, or at least not as much as every other piece of furniture. Everything seemed new and in harmony but that one part.
It was an afternoon and they were supposed to do an assignment. It was afterschool hours so Lexi had to tag along with her, Selena was still the new girl so Maddy had to want to explore some of a new life instead of going to Cassie's. She sat at the red sofa uncounsciously, and Selena sat by her side, since it was the most aproximable seat for her.
They ended up procrastinating the work for hours, product of Maddy's questions at the girl sitting beside her, and the surprisingly amusing and funny answers.
Months later, by the time they were actually friends, Cassie asked about it and learned Selena had found it in a thrift store at a very small price, and it was tradition that she chose at least one item for the room furnishing.
Since her uncle was a bit of a control obsessive guy, she liked to choose something that would fuck up all the previously thought aesthetic and would take all the attention. Using the power of a single item to take down everything else. She knew it was effective.
She also learned Selena wasn't much of a dependent person, or at least she didn't enjoy to seem like one. Her only family member was at work ninety percent of the few times she visited.
She chose the red couch to ruin something her uncle had put effort on, which would seem like a revengeful act, but Selena liked that it was noticeable, that it stood up. Something that would take anyone's attention away from everything else to her piece of contribution.
Maybe she felt lonely and that was her way to feel like she gets attention, Cassie thought at first. And she kept believing that theory for a few moments, only until Selena started telling a different kind of joke or described situations already described distinctly, like the variation of her answers for the settee situation every time she asked.
She seemed to be in constant change.
Maybe it was intentional, maybe she changed to avoid people figuring her out.
Still, Selena seemed like a person that would silently be wishing for someone to figure her out but wouldn't want to help out or admit it. She seemed to be the kind of person to answer 'no' wishing you would keep asking her, and wanting to say 'yes' but not doing it because it would seem weak, but also becuase she wouldn't have you asking her anymore.
"It's all yours, blonde"
"Really? I'll pick it up tomorrow then" Cassie was consistent to ask for the couch, sometimes getting rotund no's and sometimes even getting whole plans to transport it. It never actually happened.
She wished she could figure out when would Selena finally stop being afraid to give her a proper serious answer to anything.
"It's yours, but it's staying here" Selena reformed her sentence, yet again showing her prominent undecisive side.
"Let me have it, Sel! I want it in my room" The blonde whined, genuinely trying to get the couch from her. She just felt so comfortable. She had spent ocassions crying with Selena by her side, and the couch could keep her comfortable through long times of tears, and reassuring words, or even silence.
The red couch kept track of Selena, kept Cassie comfortable, and it also kept memories.
"No can do"
"What if I got you a new one?" She suggested, ignoring the lack of space for a couch or any other piece of furniture on her crowded room, and blindly wanting to get the couch almost as if it was a matter of pride.
"Mmmh, no" Selena was not making any favors to her pride, or desire, whatever it was.
Cassie changed her position from staring at the ceiling with her legs on Selena's lap, to sitting up facing her, but maybe a little to quickly since the girl's features seemed to be all over her face for a few seconds. If she aimed for a forehead kiss right now she might just kiss her nose, or her lips. "Why though?" She asked, squinting her eyes afterwards, recovering her normal vision.
"Cause if the couch stays here you'll keep coming. You take it and you won't have any more reasons to come, so you will stop visiting me" She enjoyed having the blonde at her house, it felt like a ray of sunshine somehow combined with rainbows in the middle of her living room. It was intense, and sometimes blinding, but it felt good to have it every once in a while.
"Oh don't worry about that silly! You're uncle's pretty cool, I'll come visit him" The brunette tried to keep a straight upset face but failed quickly. Cassie seemed funnier, too, Selena noticed.
"Shut up" She mumbled with a smile on her face.
"You're pretty cool too" Facing the wall in front of her, Selena could hear the grin on Cassie's words. As she turned her head to see her she found the bright white smile. It shone just like sun does. And diamonds.
"Yeah, you cool too" Sunshines, rainbows and diamonds.
"Although I do prefer the couch" Cassie joked. They both laughed but Selena didn't care to answer, too busy observing the person beside her. "See, right now I'm here to check up on you. The couch's an extra" Cassie reassured her seriously this time. Rainbows and diamonds, and sun. Cherry lipgloss, strawberry lips, cotton candy eyes. Or ocean. Gold, ice, lemon, roses, petals of roses, and sun, rainbows and diamonds.
Stunned, Selena dragged herself out of Cassie's pool as if she was a mermaid and her thoughts were an unexpert body underwater that seemed to be deeper and more lost by the time. What would happen if she didn't rescue herself and drowned there? Would she mind?
She took Cassie's words in and answered, in an even slower tone."Okay, yeah... Why check up on me?"
"I worry about you... Is it wrong?" Cassie asked carefully, trying to test Selena somehow. She wasn't trying to upset her. If Selena actually wanted anyone to take care of her she most definitely wouldn't show it.
"Yeah I guess not, but you don't have to. I'm the worried one in most of the cases, you know? I take care of you because I want to, you guys shouldn't worry"
"We love you, Sel, don't be stupid of course we worry."
"Okay but you shouldn't, you have way too dramatic lives to care about mine- Oh and I do drugs, rule number one is not to care too much about a junkie it could die at any point" She talked, words coming out faster than any other sentence spoken that evening, her high slowly decreasing. "And I love you too"
Cassie sighed, disapointed and overwhelmed at Selena's words, but only getting to process half of them. She didn't have much to say, she felt her brain melting like an ice cream in summertime, but that still felt refreshing running through her hand.
She noticed Selena taking another pill from the pocket of her too oversized jeans and swallowing it. No water. "You love me?" She finally asked, focusing on the last given statement. She smiled batting her eyelashes playfully.
"Yeah for sure. You're like, the best part of this weird town" Selena answered sincerely, using the same cheesy line she's said to many of her friends there. The cliché sounded nice. She meant it all of the times, howbeit.
"I love you too" Cassie answered back with an inevitable grin on her lips, and without even giving it a second thought, she brought the latina in for a hug.
Selena wrapped her arms around her waist loosely, taken aback but mostly still in her head. She could swim much better on her own thoughts, even if sometimes the depths of the water seemed darker.
However, being this close to Cassie felt as if their minds were being somehow shared.
How stupid, she was just high. It was just her mind, but all she could think about was her.
Then all she could feel was her touch, and the warmth of her skin, all she could smell was strawberry and vanilla and an undertone of fresh coffee. Was it the clothes? A fragrance? A shampoo? Everything.
Nothing. It all came from her. Every part of Cassie felt authentic, it all seemed to be product of her, and it all fitted her perfectly. To Selena, if the blonde was wearing any cologne, she didn't smell like it, the cologne had her scent.
All she could hear was her soft voice and her pure laugh. All she could see was her beautiful eyes. It was all a thought but it still felt as real as her touch on her. She wondered if she could ever recreate all of that feeling with a simple accidental touch of a hand.
Cassie unattached her arms from Selena's shoulders only after a few seconds, incognizant to what she had caused and how long it felt like for her friend.
But as Selena lost her touch, she found her eyes. The pair of blue shiny orbs that seemed to say everything that could ever matter without a word. She got to see her glossy lips, and her long eyelashes covered with mascara, and the way they tenderly caressed the skin of her face everytime her eyelids closed, for a second.
What she would give to. What she would give to touch her as often.
What would she give to? It was just Cassie. She gets to touch her every time they hug, whenever they hold hands.
What was that desire? Did it matter?
Cassie was special, it made sense. Who wouldn't want her? The sweet blonde girl. The one that was nice to her on her first day. The girl that took her to her house as easily as she took her to her heart. The girl that found a way to make everything disappear and prove without even trying that all that matters at that point is her.
She would never have to do anything to prove it. Selena knew it because nothing else would ever matter as much as a person that is able to love blindly, to break infinite barriers, to be nice enough to break them carefully so that to not hurt you, because no one would ever be able to transport anyone to what felt like a different dimension as Cassie does.
But everyone thought that, so it was okay.
And her lips. Glossy, or red, or pink, or just flesh. Caught between her teeth, grazed by her tongue, or at someone else's mouth.
Has she been watching her?
Yes. Yes, she has. Sometimes shamelessly.
Oh, but it was not love. She loved her of course, but, not that kind of love.
Admiration. She's capable of admiring her.
She didn't want Cassie. She just wanted to be in her world. At every second. Because it's comforting, like an umbrella on a rainy night. Maybe it was just survival, yeah.
The way her lips moved. She was talking but not saying anything in particular. She seemed confused, it made sense. And she was trying to talk to Selena.
Laughing, but not genuinely. She was uncomfortable, under her graze and at the silence, Cassie's awkward sometimes too, even when on drugs.
And if Selena didn't do something she would be out of the high in a matter of seconds, and back to boring complicated world.
No. not the real world, Cassie. Someplace else.
As Selena moved closer to her face, Cassie felt paralyzed. They had kissed before, is this what's going on? Some kind of game? A dare?
She felt Selena's delicate grasp on her jaw, as she tried to puzzle her dark eyes. Nothing. Her brain seemed to be unable to even try and decipher, rather formulating any thought that made sense.
Her eyes didn't seem to tell anything. Nor her lips.
The lips that made her laugh with stupid jokes, hugged her with sweet words, sang with her at cheesy songs. They seemed as confusing as every other part of Selena.
As she took a deep, sleepy breath, she felt her body give up and lean closer and closer to her friend's. And she couldn't seem to control it, like tiny magnet in comparison to the one she was leaning into, she had no strength to even try and move a muscle.
It only took a second. McKay.
Selena's lips met Cassie's cheek, as a wave of relief and sobriety hit the blonde girl.
Soon Selena felt awaken like with a bucket of cold water.
"Okay thanks for coming Cass! I'll send you the couch myself yeah?"
Baby Zendaya won! 🎉