Page 51 of Unlikely
There are a host of questions sitting between us as we drive away from the group home, but I know in time she’ll answer mine and I’ll answer hers. For now, I’m caught in between admiration of her actions and sadness over her loss. I feel it as acutely as she does, that heartache that comes with loving other people so much, their pain is yours and your pain then increases tenfold because of it.
We don’t need to fill the drive with meaningless words, her hand back on my thigh is enough to center us both. It wasn’t my intention to bring her to On The Horizon, but the second the idea popped into my mind, I couldn’t shake it. My time there is a big part of my life, and the time I spend there now even more so. And as the awkwardness on my end dissipated into nothing, I found myself wanting. Wanting to give her more of myself, wanting moreformyself.
Zara’s voice interrupts the quiet. “Thank you for taking me to see where you grew up.”
“Of course.” I curl my hand around Zara’s and lift it up off my thigh to brush my mouth against her knuckles. “Thank you for telling me about Lola.”
I didn’t know Raine had a sibling or that she had passed away at birth, and even though I wonder about all the exchanges Raine and I have had and why she hasn’t yet told me, I’m grateful to the universe for allowing it so I only heard it from Zara’s mouth.
It’s obviously such a very big part of her, and one of the reasons she needed to leave Seattle. I could read between the lines, and even if she did only divulge a very minute amount of information, it was enough. She carried a baby for nine months, for people she loves and cares about, and their baby died. Grief isn’t even an adequate enough word to what she must be feeling.
“I’ll try to keep the depressing talk to a minimum,” she says, but I find myself cutting her off before she adds anything else.
“If I wanted to talk about depressing stuff, you would let me.”
I catch the subtle roll of her eyes from the corner of my eye, kind of like,I hear your point but I don’t like it,and it makes me laugh because it’s so unexpected and childlike.
“I saw that,” I jokingly scold as I turn onto her street. “And you know I’m right.”
Smiling, she dramatically slides her hand from underneath mine. “I know no such thing.”
We pull up to the front of the house, and the air between us changes almost instantly, the lighthearted banter replaced by a thick, almost suffocating heat. It’s not like I didn’t know the possibility would present itself. Raine is out of town, and I have an overnight bag in the trunk, and we spoke about the night not ending casually at dinner. The writing is on the wall, but I could tell neither one of us wanted to assume, especially Zara.
I know her well enough to know the decision would be mine. There is never any awkwardness, pressure, or expectation—it’s what singled her out from everybody else in my life, but in this small confined space, the pull between us is undeniable.
I couldn’t walk away, even if I wanted to.
“Can I come inside?” I manage to ask with every ounce of confidence I can muster.
She bites on her bottom lip, but the smile still manages to stretch across her face. “I would love nothing more than that.”
Choosing to leave the bag inside the car, I take Zara’s hand as she leads me inside the house. Raine’s absence is more significant than I expected. Only having been here once before, and with her, it takes me a few minutes to adjust to the idea of being here without her, which makes me wonder what Zara feels when she’s alone.
“Do you miss her when she’s not here?”
Zara takes off her shoes before she walks into her kitchen, and I do the same. We place our bags on the counter and I take a seat on one of the stools tucked beneath.
“More so since we moved here, but usually, not really. I’ve been sharing her with Jesse since the day she was born.”
I watch her practically float around her kitchen as she grabs two of everything: glasses, soda cans, and cold bottled water.
“It never bothered you?” I ask. “Sharing her?”
She shakes her head as she places everything on the counter between us. “It’s not like we were ever together, and there was no animosity or bad energy,” she explains. “It’s co-parenting without the failed relationship.”
This made more sense, and was true to the person Raine is. She is a collection of good and honest qualities, her heart always open and untainted. It’s easy to see the similarities between mother and daughter this way, the pure and honest way Zara had raised her.
“And you two never wanted more?”
The question tumbles out of my mouth, the need to know every single thing about her too damn strong. Zara rounds the counter and takes a seat beside me. It’s neither uncomfortable nor comfortable, but I love her proximity to me all the same.
“Jesse and I?” she clarifies. I nod, and she sways her head from side to side. “Raine’s conception was the result of two young kids who thought all it took to be a couple was being best friends, but we’re very much platonic and always have been. And I’m sure I used him as my guinea pig to confirm whether or not I was really into girls.”
An inside look into her sexuality piques my interest. And a small sliver of envy ripples through me at people who weren’t having come-to-Jesus moments about their life, mid-orgasm, at the age of twenty-four. I feel heat rise up from my chest to my neck and settle on my cheeks as I think back to the night we met at the bar, the way we tumbled into her hotel room, her mouth stuck on mine.
“I’ve never done this before,” I whispered against her lips.
“Done what?” she asked.