Homecoming (Lesbian)

CHAPTER 5

I spent a full three days in bed. I couldn't lay on my back, I had to take showers very carefully and I couldn't pick up something heavy because I needed the muscles on my back for that and it was agony.

Faye came by after school every day. My dad didn't let her in, but my mom did. She didn't blame Faye for what had happened, neither did I. Plus, good news, she slapped Landon the moment he approached her at school to apologize. The guy was history, a very short one. Faye stayed with me every day until eight, gave me my homework, massaged my back to help with the pain, and put ice on the inflammation, she also told me how her day was to keep me busy. There wasn't really much to do in my room.

"How is that?" she asked while massaging my back.

"Great, just don't do it so hard."

"Sorry. What about... what about Rosie? She must be worried."

"She is. On Monday she called seven times to make sure I didn't need anything. She made a joke about getting on her car and fast-and-the-furious her way here."

Faye gave me short, sad smile and said "She really loves you."

I got nervous when Faye said that word. It had been almost five months and neither of us had said it. I didn't even know what love was supposed to feel like, so I didn't quite know if Rosie was it.

"I don't know about that. I mean, how do you know if you love someone?"

"Well... I guess when you meet the right person, and you look at them and they smile at you... you just know it."

That Saturday night, Rosie came visit me. Since my parents didn't really know her, they made us sit on the living room. I offered her coffee or tea, she refused both.

"How do you feel?" she asked as she sat down on the sofa. I sat next to her.

"A lot better. It looked worse than it really was, but I'm not gonna lie, I love having everyone care so much for me."

"So you can stand? Walk?"

"Yeah, why?"

She pursed her lips "Come walk with me."

We went to the park near my house, where people went jogging and owners let their dogs go do their business. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know how wrong until I reached out to take her hand and she pulled away. She sat on a bench and gestured me to sit next to her.

"What is it?" I asked.

She looked sad, abashed even, but the only thing she wasn't was confused. She breathed in, as if piling up strength inside of her "I think we should break up."

It hit me like a bucket of cold water. A horrible emptiness filled my body from head to toe and I thought I heard her wrong, but her eyes told another story "You... you're not serious, right?"

"Riley, look... I care about you. A lot. But I can't keep pretending I didn't see the way you and Faye looked at each other before paintball."

"Faye? What does Faye have to do with anything?"

At the beginning she looked at me the way you look at someone you don't trust in. Then her expression changed. She frowned and added "You really don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

Rosie pressed her hands on my cheeks and pulled my face closer to kiss me. It was soft, gentle and filled with nostalgia. "I like you, so much, but I'm not getting myself hurt. You're an amazing girl and you deserve to be happy. But so do I."

"What are you talking about, Rosie?"

"You need to talk to Faye. You might not know, but she definitely does. Talk to her."

She was about to stand up and leave but I grabbed her by the arm, refusing to accept this, to just give up without any kind of a heads-up. "What did I do? I thought... I thought we were happy."

She took my face again, getting rid of the tears that started to fall down my cheeks. "We were, but this is best." She kissed me again and said the last sentence. The sentence that told me there was no going back "We can still be friends."

After you've heard that, it is Game Over and you should know better than keep on fighting. Rosie was about to cry, too, and I knew it wasn't that she didn't care about me, that she didn't love me. It was just that she knew this would save us a lot of pain on the long run. I still thank her for breaking up with me that day.

We hugged under the moonlight. We also agreed on taking a time off from each other to heal some wounds, and that we would be friends no matter what, that this wasn't the end. It wasn't. Rosie and I are closer as friends than we were while we dated. She was my rock when I had no one else to talk to, when I isolated myself and pushed everyone else away, she would be there to lend me a shoulder to cry on when I had nobody. But again, I'm jumping ahead of myself.

After Rosie left, I called Faye, told her I needed her and nothing more, because Faye needed nothing more to come running, just knowing I needed her was enough.

I told her about Rosie, told her I was sad but at the same time, I knew it would be for the best. I didn't mention the 'Talk to Faye' part. It wasn't time and I didn't care much to make sense of it. I cried for about an hour. It was my first real relationship and my first break up so I was crushed. My heart sank and my head hurt from the sobbing. Faye let me cry on her shoulder with patience. After half an hour of tear, when I was done, she made me a Sunday and forced me to watch bad movies with her. Why bad movies, you might be asking yourself. Have you ever watched a movie that was so bad that made you laugh? That was why. Faye and I made a hobby out of it when we were fourteen. A movie with ridiculous dialogue, pathetic plot and actors that really shouldn't have quiet school. We even had a competition about who could find the worst movie. She said Alone in the Dark was worse than The Last Airbender. Let's be clear; nothing is worse than The Last Airbender, but I must give it to her; Alone in the Dark was an insult to everything that is good and pure in this world.

We watched the movie, laughed at the corny dialogue and threw popcorn at the TV when the guy said something absurd or goofy, which was all the time.

By the end of the night, I didn't feel sad anymore. I was relieved, maybe even a bit hopeful. Rosie was the first person I ever cared for in such an intense way, but she wouldn't be the last, and I had my life ahead of me to find someone who would make me feel the way you are supposed to feel when you're in love. Everything.