Chapter Text
“They laugh until laughing makes them kiss.
They kiss until kissing makes them laugh."
-- Sarah Ruhl, The Clean House
As soon as they start to kiss, Lola swears the entire universe slows down.
She’s distantly aware of outside movement and sound, but all of it seems fuzzy, muted. It’s as if everyone and everything else that’s ever existed has merely been a distraction in the lead up to what’s standing right in front of her, where she’s cradling Maya in her hands.
That’s why she opens her eyes. Now that she has this again, she endeavours to savour every single moment: the flutter of Maya’s eyelashes, the gentle bump of their chins, or – possibly her favorite, but she’ll need to conduct more research – the way they reluctantly pull away every few seconds because neither of them can stop smiling.
(Smiling, as it turns out, isn’t conducive to kissing. They’ll work on it.)
The last one is an exciting revelation. She wasn’t lying when she said her old modus operandi consisted entirely of drunk hook-ups with complete strangers before scurrying away the next morning, planning to avoid said person for the rest of her life. It was a tried and trusted method, and whilst it never actually helped to fill that permeating emptiness inside of her, it was a familiar routine amongst all the chaos, and one she held onto like a lifeboat.
But this? Practically tasting the happiness on both of their lips? Being able to tangle her fingers in Maya’s hair and feel Maya respond with a similar enthusiasm?
It’s everything she never thought she’d get to have, which is precisely why she’s decided here and now that she’ll never let go again.
Of course, something then happens to cause exactly that.
A metallic thunk reverberates from nearby, and they both jump back in surprise. Almost immediately, the bubble they’ve crafted for themselves pops, and the world left behind returns in a dizzying rush of fluorescent lights and electronic beeps. (Not to mention the absolutely terrible song playing from the store’s speakers; the music swelling in her head when she ran back to leap over the counter was much more cinematic.)
When Lola’s finished blinking herself out the kiss-induced stupor, she finds the source of the disruption: a large can of peaches has rolled down the conveyor belt and smacked into the cash register. Maya scrambles to grab it but quickly pauses, torn between scanning it or giving it back to –
(The thing about making out with your girlfriend in the middle of a supermarket is that it doesn’t matter how cinematic you feel: you’re still literally making out in the middle of a supermarket.)
The old lady standing behind Lola in the queue is, shockingly, not glaring daggers at either of them. Even more surprisingly is that her expression seems to fall somewhere closer to happy than angry, albeit a little bittersweet. Lola’s confusion must be obvious because the woman chuckles when stretching over to steal her peaches back.
“I was young once. I know how it is,” she smiles again before busying herself with the handful of groceries on the belt, pointedly looking away.
Gradually starting to learn that you can’t always look a gift horse in the mouth, Lola silently thanks the woman before turning back to Maya, who has started to tap her nails against the counter. A nervous tic maybe, or simply impatience. Lola isn’t yet fluent in the nuances of Maya’s body language, but she wants to be.
So she reaches a hand out, waits for Maya to meet her halfway and intertwine their fingers. When she does, Lola feels golden. They’ve never really done this before: they’ve hugged, kissed, slept together, and broken up – pretty much the entire relationship cycle – but somehow avoided ever holding hands.
There was some semblance of it during their first and only official date, which took time to even get started. After she and Maya looked over those photos, Basile had burst back into the living room, gesturing wildly with two spoons. He wouldn’t let them leave without taste-testing what he’d cooked, and when Maya politely declined on the basis of her vegetarianism, he’d scampered back into the kitchen, insistent on whipping up something she could try. Lola had mostly stayed silent, amused at the scene playing in front of her, and a little bit enamoured too: she was watching on, but it didn’t feel like she was a spectator in her own life with no control as to what happened. She was present, this was real, and it felt good.
When she caught onto the distress signals Maya was frantically sending, she finally stepped in and gripped Basile’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of dinners together in the future.”
She mostly said it to get him to stop before he burned the kitchen down, but the words nonetheless spurred a surge of warmth across her sternum as soon as she said them. The mere thought of the possibility of more nights like this with Daphné and Basile and Maya, La Mif and Eliott and Lucas, and hell, maybe even the rest of their gang too – it was indescribable.
Afterwards, in the elevator, they’d both reached for the button at the same time, allowing their fingers to brush. With anyone else, Lola might have automatically pulled back, but something intrinsic caused her to linger, and their eyes met. It continued like that for the rest of the date: a bite to eat followed by an evening stroll with gelato in the park, watching the sunset together. Maya rubbing her thumb over Lola’s palm whilst they studied the menu; Lola linking their pinkies on the park bench as they stared up at the sky, blue fading into streaky pink before a speckle of stars.
But never actually holding hands. Retroactively she’s not sure why, but she supposes it doesn’t really matter now: this isn’t just her second chance, it’s theirs too, and they’ve got all the time in the world stretched out before them to tick things off the relationship bucket list.
(And maybe they can invent some of their own as well – abusing your access to a supermarket’s loudspeaker system to publicly announce that your girlfriend needs to immediately kiss you is a fantastic start, Lola believes.)
“Hey.”
Tugged out of those thoughts by the girlfriend in question, Lola looks down again to see Maya gazing right back up, smiling expectantly.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“You said that already.”
When Maya laughs, it’s sparkling and bright. “No, I said hey.”
Lola quickly forces the smile off her face. Once Maya starts to look concerned at the abrupt change in mood, she leans in to cup her cheeks, brings their foreheads together. This close, every detail of Maya’s face is clear – especially the extra dots of eyeliner, which Lola feels a sudden desire to run over with her thumb and smudge. It’s a gentle territorial urge to mark Maya in some way, mess up her makeup and then be the one to fix it.
Instead, she makes sure they’re maintaining eye contact and, in her best dramatic voice, whispers: “Hey.”
Maya rolls her eyes, but Lola can see the softness there. She wants to see more, and brushes a stray lock of hair behind Maya’s ear. “What time does your shift end?”
“Seven. I’ll be home by eight.”
“I’ll be free by eight.”
“Interesting coincidence,” Maya furrows her brow.
Lola taps her chin. “Hmm. Absolutely.” Before she can jokingly ask Maya if she wants to meet up next week, another thought strikes, and she looks over at the bag she’d dropped earlier, the groceries Daphné had requested strewn across the ground. She still needs to come up with a reason as to why the pasta ingredients have been graffitied.
“I should go get my…” she trails off, half-heartedly motioning towards the bag. She’s too caught up in trying to tear her eyes away from Maya to focus on anything else.
“Yeah, I’m – I’m at work, so.” Maya starts, before dissolving into quiet, almost shy laughter.
Lola can’t help it. She leans in again. It’s only meant to be a quick peck, but her hands instantly gravitate towards the back of Maya’s neck, and when their foreheads meet, she knows they’ll be lingering for a while, other customers be dammed.
“I know.”
Whether the words are referring to the fact that yeah, they’re literally doing this in the middle of Maya’s workplace, or something else – an I know this is probably not what you imagined, I know this is kinda insane, I know we still have a lot to talk about – Lola isn’t even sure herself. It just tumbles out of her mouth, an easy reassurance. Everything with Maya feels that way: simultaneously simple and difficult. Simple, because the feelings behind the words are as natural and true as breathing; she loves Maya and wants this second chance so badly her entire body thrums with it. Just the thought of having her there on the other side of what the next few months will bring makes Lola feel even better about her decision to stay at the hospital again. She knows that professional help was the right choice, the logical next step in healing, but this nonetheless aids in cushioning some of her fear.
But the words themselves are hard, too, because she’s never been in a real relationship before, yet she already knows she wants this to be a serious, long-term thing. And she knows achieving that will require conversations of the awkward-at-best, exhausting-at-worst variety.
It’s slightly scary, but she finds herself wanting to put the effort in. They both deserve it.
Lola decides to take advantage of the fact that Maya's still staring at the dropped bag. When she steals another kiss, Maya gasps in surprise, and soon they’re both laughing into each other’s mouths.
The world melts away again, almost like it was never there at all.
Two weeks ago, she’d left the supermarket under vastly different circumstances.
She’d remained standing there for a while after Maya had stalked off to meet Char’s friends. Rejection still stings whether it’s the first or fiftieth time, and some petty, cruel part of her had therefore secretly hoped that Char’s group was filled with massive freaks, or fellow snobby assholes, ones whose politics Maya would feel enraged by but would otherwise be too polite to sneak away from.
But then she thought about the slight upwards curve of Maya’s mouth when offered a platonic olive branch, and forced herself to swallow the bitterness down. It’s why she hadn’t immediately scurried home: she needed time to convince the mean, ugly temptations that this was okay, that Maya was allowed – and deserved – to find happiness with whomever she desired. In any other situation, Lola would have bolted away to mope, but the rational side of her brain knew that she needed to cleanse herself of everything before the movie shoot on Friday. Eliott deserved that at least, given that he certainly wasn’t going to receive an Oscar-winning performance from her.
So she’d spent the entire bus ride back to the apartment allowing herself to grieve, and grieving meant almost draining her phone battery as she scoured the #purple and #sad sunset tags on Pinterest. It began as a private mourning, just a way to visually reminisce about the what ifs and what might have beens before finally letting go, but then she’d made the mistake of opening Instagram.
A fresh wave of self-hatred had rolled over her: maybe if she were an approachable, social person who followed more than five people, then the app’s stupid non-linear algorithm wouldn’t fuck her over and show nothing but the selfie Maya posted a week ago.
It’d been an overwhelming sight at the time, seared like salt in the wound, and she’d ended up giving in to the rising resentment in her gut. She selected Prince’s Purple Rain for her story, a purple-tinted sunset for her page. No captions necessary. She imagined Maya discreetly checking Insta during the gathering, seeking a break from Char’s gang of weirdos, and seeing Lola’s not-so-subtle message.
Some part of her hoped the guilt, if it existed, would burn. Another part – the phantasmic, childlike one that grew up watching Hollywood romances with Daphné – wondered if Maya would escape from the party and run through the streets in a desperate, love-crazed bid to find Lola.
(Mostly she had just wanted all of it – her feelings for Maya, her beef with Tiff, the brittle truce between she and her father – to be over. Prince was right: I never meant to cause you any sorrow, I never meant to cause you any pain.)
The song hits different now. Everything does. Her phone buzzes in her hand, a new notification looming on the screen. She used to dread those vibrations; all they ever represented was an appointment with her therapist or the drug clinic, or worse, increasingly concerned texts from Daphné serving as a reminder of how fractured their relationship had become.
But not anymore. She taps her password in, indulging in the warmth that comes from simple things like texting with someone who cares about you. Literal digital evidence of love, affection, effort.
She’s never wanted – needed – a bus trip to end faster.
From: Maya 🐳 [5:23pm]
In staff breakroom right now, my coworkers hate me !! 🥴😝
To: Maya 🐳 [5:23pm]
well how often do you do this kinda thing??
From: Maya 🐳 [5:24pm]
Not often. Only with girls I really like…
From: Maya 🐳 [5:24pm]
…And you 💜
To: Maya 🐳 [5:26pm]
you don’t like me? 😲
From: Maya 🐳 [5:27pm]
See you soon, dummy. Miss you already xx