𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙚 | ✓

x

"Hey Akanke." The curly-haired girl looks up from the TV remote and sees Lila standing in the doorway. She's wearing a tight tank top that pulls against her stomach, which isn't small as her baggy clothes would lead you to believe. Akanke finds this quite adorable.

"Hi."

Lila crosses the room and sits down on the bed in the spot where she should be sleeping. The bed creaks and Akanke sits up, looking at her. The TV volume is muted and the room suddenly becomes awkwardly silent.

"What's up?"

The girl under the blankets considers making small talk first, building up to the heavy stuff, but is too impatient for that. "I was wondering about something. Why aren't you out?" Okay so it wasn't the question she'd been intending to ask, but a little building up wouldn't hurt anyone. "I mean, you don't have to answer that if you want, it's kinda personal and I get that. I guess I'm just. Curious."

Lila thinks for a moment before pulling her legs onto the bed, sitting cross-legged. "I've really never had a reason I guess. Maybe it's because..." She trails off and breathes in deeply, "Maybe it's because I'm scared. Of what, I'm not really sure. Probably the rumors and stuff that would come out of it. I think about you and how everyone knows you're bi and how that kinda defines you in a lot of people's minds and I don't really want to be like that." She closes her eyes and takes another deep breath. In. Out.

"Wow," Akanke says. She's never thought of it like that and has no idea how to respond. "I mean, it makes sense, but I've never really realized that that is how people probably see me. That's, wow, that's really confusing." After a moment of thinking on it in comfortable silence, she decides to drop the question we've all been waiting for. "So I've been wondering about something else too, for a while now. Why didn't you want to sleep with me? Why was I so bad that you used a pass?"

There's a long pause in the conversation. Lila looks over and meets Akanke's eyes again for the second time that night. It's like they're both holding their breath, waiting for the response. Finally, Lila gives it and this time it's the real one.

"I saw you. With that Sophomore girl in the bathroom two days ago. I saw it and I realized that our relationship, if you can even call it that, wasn't special and that I wasn't actually being loved by you. My brain was fixated on you for the longest time and I decided right then and there, in that bathroom, that I wasn't going to waste any more time on you and dumb things like love."

She's sniffling now and wipes one of her eyes but refuses to break eye contact with Akanke. "I tried so hard to give you up. I wanted to get you out of here but at the same time I wanted to get back with you and pretend I was feeling loved for real, but that part of me was shut out and I denied you on the dare because of it. I realize now that you aren't like that. I think you are a good person, but someone with some confusing shit going on." A tear rolls down her freckled cheek and Lila can't help but laugh. "That sounds so fucking lame, but it's the truth. All of it."

Akanke has tears of her own threatening to spill and she does nothing to stop them. "You're the first person who's ever said that, the thing about me being a good person, not the lame thing, and here I am sobbing over it. Lila, I'm really sorry. The hook-ups are an issue and I guess I do them for a lot of shitty personal reasons, but I want them to stop too. I want to be able to love someone for real." She can't help but notice how the light from the TV makes Lila's eyes even bluer. It seems to add a whole other dimension to them and Akanke smiles. "That might sound fucking lame, but it's also the truth." There's a pause and she closes her eyes, breaking the contact. "And there's another truth too."

Lila scoots over and pulls the blanket over her legs, stretching them out. "Whatever it is, I want to know." She wipes away a tear and the eyes meet again.

"There's only one person I want to be with now and I think that person is you, Lila Burleigh."

Lila's eyes widen. The tears return and prick at the corners of them. She moves closer and gives her friend a hug, crying into her shoulder and whispering, "I want to be with you too, if that wasn't already clear."

At one point, the crying ends and the TV is turned off. Sometime in there, they both fall asleep.

Akanke is stretched out over Lila, her leg resting over the other girl's. Lila's arms around Akanke's waist and she's close enough to feel the breathing of her friend (girlfriend? Friend-with-benefits? The titles are endless and no one knows which one they'll use). It's a peaceful night and both sleep well.