Work Text:
2004
The first time Emily saw Andrea again after her resignation from Runway, she thought she had changed.
No heels.
No designer clothes.
Just her hair tied up in a messy bun and a bag full of notes.
She looked like the same girl Emily had mocked during her first weeks at Runway.
Too bad Emily no longer looked at her the same way.
She waited for Andrea to leave her new workplace.
“Finally, I was freezing.”
“Emily? What are you doing here?”
Emily studied her for a few seconds.
“I came to thank you… for the clothes from Paris.”
“Did you hit your head?”
“You know I called you?”
“When?”
“About three months ago… three days after you resigned. I wanted to be your friend.”
“Aww, you’ve softened up over these months.”
Andrea laughed, and a faint smile appeared on Emily’s face too.
“Want to grab a drink?” Andrea asked.
“Sure, but I pick the place.”
2006
The following months passed with Andrea texting and Emily replying three hours later.
Friday dinners.
Sundays spent watching movies in Emily’s apartment.
Andrea’s birthday.
Everything was incredibly simple.
Maybe too simple.
2010
Emily handed in her resignation and started working for Dior France.
Of course, she told Andrea first.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Accept it.”
“But…”
“Em, no buts. I know you. I know working for Dior is your dream, so accept it.”
Months passed and, strangely, the distance changed nothing.
Andrea kept calling her late at night.
Emily kept sending her photos of the city.
Andrea would fly to Paris whenever she could.
Emily always found an excuse to go back to New York.
And people around them started to think they were a couple.
2012
One night in 2012, Emily’s building lost power.
Emily lit a few candles and placed them on the table where they were having dinner.
They drank too much wine.
Talked about everything.
Andrea told her about a colleague who had asked her out.
Emily told her about her two new assistants driving her crazy.
About what they would do if they didn’t work in fashion.
“I’d probably open a bakery,” Andrea said, sipping yet another glass of wine.
“I’d be a doctor.”
“You’re terrified of blood, and the last time you got blood tests I had to hold your hand.”
“Exactly why I didn’t become a doctor.”
They laughed.
Emily thought Andrea was beautiful.
She always had been.
But that night she was different.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, do I have something on my face?”
“No. You’re… beautiful.”
Andrea froze, then smiled.
She leaned in.
But Emily kissed her first.
The kiss lasted briefly.
Too briefly for both of them.
The next morning Emily made coffee.
Andrea flipped French toast.
“So…” Andrea asked.
“Wine’s fault.”
The following weeks were strange.
For the first time in years, neither of them knew how to act.
Andrea would start typing a message and delete it.
Emily replied with her usual sarcasm, but took minutes rereading every word.
When they finally met again, they talked about work.
About the rain.
About a new restaurant in SoHo.
About everything.
Except that kiss.
And yet, sometimes, their eyes lingered a few seconds too long.
In the years that followed, it happened again.
One night they left a cinema in the Village.
It was cold.
Andrea had her hands in her coat pockets.
Emily was criticizing the film with the precision of a former Miranda assistant when Andrea burst out laughing.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because when you’re snobby, you’re adorable.”
“I’m not adorable.”
“No.”
Andrea casually tucked a strand of hair behind Emily’s ear.
“Worse.”
For a second neither of them moved.
Then Emily kissed her.
It lasted only a few moments.
When they pulled apart, they just kept walking.
As if nothing had happened.
A hand held under a restaurant table in Paris.
A night together.
But then they went back to being what they were before.
Whatever that was.
2015
Andrea started dating a lawyer.
She was the perfect woman, or at least that’s how people around her described her: “someone to spend the rest of your life with.”
But she wasn’t her.
Careful—she looked very similar to Emily physically, but she didn’t make her smile the way a certain redhead did.
Around the same time, Emily was dating a French model.
It was a stable relationship.
She was happy… I think.
One night they were cooking dinner together when the model snapped:
“Can you stop mentioning Andrea in every sentence?”
That night their relationship ended.
2017
The only real fight happened in 2017.
And it was stupid.
Andrea had returned to Paris for the weekend.
Emily had booked a table at their favorite restaurant.
When she arrived, Andrea found her already seated.
With a man.
They were laughing.
Emily stood up as soon as she saw her.
“Andy! This is Julien, the creative director I told you about on the phone.”
Andrea shook his hand politely.
She smiled.
Throughout the dinner, she kept smiling.
She asked questions.
Laughed at jokes.
Seemed perfectly at ease.
Only Emily noticed her smile never reached her eyes.
When Julien left, Andrea put on her coat.
“I have to go back.”
“So soon?”
“Yes.”
Emily followed her outside.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Andy.”
“Nothing, Emily.”
Emily crossed her arms.
“I know you.”
“Then you tell me.”
Emily stayed silent.
“I thought this was a dinner for us.”
“It was.”
“With a man I’d never met.”
“He’s a colleague.”
“Sure.”
Emily scoffed.
“Are you jealous?”
Andrea laughed.
A short laugh.
Bitter.
“I don’t have the right to be.”
Those words hit Emily harder than any shout.
“Andy…”
“No.”
Andrea took a step back.
“Goodnight, Emily.”
It was the first time in thirteen years Andrea left without hugging her.
For almost two weeks, they didn’t speak.
Emily picked up her phone.
Typed.
Deleted.
Andrea did the same.
In the end, it was Emily who showed up at Andrea’s apartment door in New York.
With two coffees and a bag of croissants.
Andrea opened the door.
Looked at her.
“You flew almost six thousand kilometers just to apologize?”
Emily handed her one of the coffees.
“No.”
Andrea raised an eyebrow.
“I came because I can’t stand it when you’re mad at me.”
Andrea tried to hold it in.
She failed.
She burst out laughing.
“You’re impossible.”
“I know.”
They stood in silence.
Then Andrea took the coffee from her hands.
“Come in.”
Emily walked in.
Neither of them ever spoke about Julien again.
Or about why that name had hurt so much.
And they continued loving each other.
Silently.
2020
The moment Emily realized her feelings for Andrea was when Andrea was hospitalized.
Nothing serious.
But enough to scare Emily to death.
She took the first flight, leaving everyone surprised.
During the trip she couldn’t work.
She opened her laptop at least four times.
Closed it immediately.
Tried to read a magazine.
After two pages she realized she hadn’t understood a single word.
She kept telling herself Andrea was fine.
That it wasn’t serious.
And yet her heart refused to believe it.
She entered Andrea’s room and saw her asleep.
With a bruise on her forehead and her arm in a cast.
She sat on the chair beside the bed.
Took her hand.
Started crying.
Andrea woke up a few hours later.
“Emily?”
“Hey. You’re awake.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you.”
“Were you crying?”
“No, it’s allergies.”
“Liar.”
When Andrea was discharged, Emily stayed in New York for a few more days.
Slept on the couch.
Made lunch.
Went to her check-ups.
Complained every time Andrea tried to do anything with one arm.
“Can you stop acting like my mother?” Andrea protested.
“No.”
“Emily…”
“No.”
Andrea laughed.
“You’re unbearable.”
“I know.”
They never said out loud how much that fear had changed things.
But from that day on, Emily started calling her even more often.
As if hearing her voice had become a necessity.
2025
Five years passed since that hospital day.
Five years of dinners.
Christmases.
Birthdays.
Sunday lunches at Andrea’s parents’ house.
Movies on the floor.
Occasional kisses.
And… love.
A few months earlier they had been invited to a former Runway colleague’s wedding.
They spent the whole evening together.
Danced.
Laughed.
Even shared dessert.
At the reception, a woman approached them smiling.
“How long have you been together?”
Emily and Andrea froze.
“We’re… not together,” Andrea said.
“We’re just friends,” Emily added.
The woman studied them for a few seconds.
Then smiled knowingly.
“If you say so.”
For the entire ride home, neither of them dared to speak about it.
One afternoon in Paris, Emily was tired.
She was 45.
And she had spent over 20 years loving the same person.
She had tried to move on, to forget her, but she had failed.
Andrea was lying on Emily’s sofa, her head on her lap.
“Emily.”
“Mm?”
“I’m tired.”
“And you know what the problem is?” Emily continued.
“I can’t remember a time when you weren’t by my side. Even when I treated you badly at the beginning, you were there.”
Andrea stayed still.
Emily continued.
“When something good happens, I want to call you. When something bad happens, I want your hug. Every time I buy something, I buy something for you too. I even learned to like carbs because we always share them.”
Her voice broke.
“And it’s absurd because you don’t live with me, you’re not my partner, nor my wife.”
She looked down.
“And yet you’re the only person I want beside me forever.”
Andrea had tears in her eyes.
But she said nothing.
Emily started panicking.
“I’m sorry…”
She pulled away.
“No. Don’t you dare apologize.”
Emily looked up.
Andrea was crying.
“Don’t you dare apologize, because if you do I swear I’ll get angry.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“You’re stupid because you just said exactly how I’ve felt for 20 years.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Andrea smiled and continued.
“When I go into a bookstore, I buy a book I think you’d like. When people ask why I’m not married yet, I always say it’s because I haven’t found the right person.”
A lie.
“I did.”
“I just thought she had never chosen me.”
And suddenly everything made sense.
They had been in love with each other the entire time.
At the same time.
In silence.
Andrea leaned in again.
Now they were so close Emily could feel her breath.
“Can I tell you something?”
Emily nodded.
“Everyone knew.”
Emily laughed through tears.
“A few weeks ago I ran into Serena and she asked how long we’d been together. I said we were just friends, but she didn’t believe me. She said she didn’t understand why I was at your cousin’s wedding with you.”
“We’re such idiots.”
“For 20 years we lived like a couple but never had the courage to say it out loud.”
Andrea nodded.
Emily’s voice trembled.
“I love you.”
Three words.
After 20 years.
“I love you so much, Em.”
Emily kissed her.
No rush.
No wine.
Just twenty years of unspoken love.
When they separated, they stayed forehead to forehead.
Emily laughed softly.
“There’s something I need to ask you.”
Andrea smiled.
“Go ahead.”
“After twenty years of situationship…”
She pretended to think.
“…would you like to go out with me?”
Andrea burst out laughing so hard she had to wipe her tears.
“Emily Charlton…”
“Mm?”
“You are probably the most romantic and simultaneously most ridiculous woman I’ve ever met.”
“So?”
Andrea gave her another kiss, short and sweet.
“So yes.”
“Just yes?”
“No.”
She took both her hands.
“So stay.”
“For how long?”
Andrea smiled.
“For the rest of your life.”