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By the time the sound of the door slamming open registered, Heather had already swept her way into the room.
“Congratulations, Silver,” she said, setting her bag down on the end table in the entryway and already texting frantically while Sasha was still busy startling and blinking at her sudden entrance. “You’re marrying above your station.”
Sasha had been working on an essay — her last semester of college, ever, because God only knew grad school would probably kill her if she even tried, and she was so close to freedom, and still her professors kept assigning more work than she had previously imagined possible; granted, she’d known that would be true before she even applied to Columbia, let alone before she enrolled, but still — and so it took her even longer than it normally would have to process whatever the hell Heather was getting at. Really, Sasha thought, Heather should know better than to spring nonsense like this on her during the week. This seemed like weekend drama for sure.
“Please tell me you didn’t get me engaged to someone without me knowing about it,” Sasha replied, setting aside her laptop and sitting up from where she’d been burrowed under every blanket she owned on the couch. It was barely March, so the city was definitely still warming up, and her apartment held heat about as well as an iceberg. “I’m pretty sure best friend code states that you at least have to warn me about it.”
“One, no one else has talked about best friend code since the tenth grade, please get with the times,” Heather said. She didn’t cross over to the couch, instead hovering in the kitchenette, not quite entering the apartment fully, like she was ready to bolt again. “Two, that kind of thing only applies to men. Obviously, you’re marrying me.”
Okay, Sasha told herself. There’s probably at least a halfway reasonable explanation for this. Then she took another look at Heather, who was still texting furiously, only occasionally glancing over the top of her screen to look at Sasha, and reconsidered.
The worst part, maybe, was that some deep, shameful corner of Sasha’s psyche had daydreamed about this before. Well, not this this, not Heather a little wild-eyed and in full Fox mode, wielding her phone like a weapon and alternating between shifty eyes and piercing eye contact, but — Heather just asked me to marry her, she thought, testing out the way the words sat in her mind, and frankly, Sasha was very proud of herself for managing to even think it without combusting.
It wasn’t even true, anyway; Heather hadn’t asked. She had more just… stated, which, in hindsight, Sasha probably should have seen coming.
“What happened?” Sasha asked, because it was the only thing she could think to ask, or at least the only thing that seemed appropriate. There was no way there wasn’t some sort of instigating event here, and whatever it was, it was probably pretty ridiculous, considering the circumstances.
“Well, I called out of work,” Heather said. Sasha glanced at the clock; sure enough, Heather should be out at the stable right now, helping with lessons — she had taken to her job out at Chesterfield, where she’d ridden even before Sasha had met her, with an unsurprising amount of determination and a slightly more surprising amount of glee; she didn’t call out except for in emergencies, usually. “And then I came here, because I realized that we have to get married.”
“And — uh, why is that, exactly?” Sasha said, trying not to sound too much like she was talking to a spooked horse, because being coddled like that was likely to make Heather explode, but also trying her best to handle this like she’d handle a spooked horse, because she’d known Heather long enough to know what worked.
“Well, you see, my parents are going to keep trying to set me up until I go insane,” Heather said, with the fake-cheerful voice she usually reserved for dinner parties with people she hated. “So the only solution is to do it myself. They didn’t take it well when I told them where to shove it, so I told them we were engaged. So now we’re engaged. Congratulations.”
“Um,” Sasha said, scrambling for anything close to a shred of logic in this situation to latch onto. There wasn’t anything. There was absolutely nothing about this that made sense, including the fact that if Heather had declared that they were engaged, Mrs. Fox should already have called to scream at Sasha at least three times by now. Besides which — oh, God. Heather had never mentioned liking girls. Heather had a boyfriend! “But what about —”
“Brooks?” Heather interrupted, her lip curling into the unpleasant smile that tended to accompany any mention of her most recent upper-crust boyfriend. Or any of the ones before him, come to think of it, which was something Sasha had been trying her very hardest not to notice for what seemed like a very long time now. “Well, that’s the problem. He proposed.”
“That’s… a problem?” Sasha repeated, a little slowly, trying not to let it sound like too much of a question when Heather had just declared it so brazenly, but also more than a little confused. Brooks was the latest in a long line of very similar and often painfully boring guys who were hand-picked by Heather’s parents, usually the sons of friends or business partners, all on track to be lawyers, doctors, lawyer-doctors, politicians, or God only knew what else. Brooks, at least, had always been perfectly friendly on the few occasions Sasha had met him; not exactly an inspired conversationalist, at least when it came to anything other than his own watch collection, and he hadn’t known the first thing about horses, but that was all right. At least he hadn’t been rude.
“We’d only been dating for five months!” Heather exploded, which was fair enough, except for how it sounded like her heart wasn’t in it. “No one should propose after five months.”
“I guess not?” Sasha replied, holding back on saying anything along the lines of ‘But you just proposed after about five seconds.’ “Still, he seemed nice. Maybe you should just give it a little more time instead of…” She gestured wordlessly toward herself, and then Heather, and then the space between them, and the whole time, she was thinking, What am I trying to talk her into? Or out of?
“No guy is that nice,” Heather shot back, crossing her arms.
“Oh, that’s not true!” Sasha protested.
“Yes it is.”
“Not it isn’t! Look, maybe Brooks wasn’t the one, and I know your parents won’t give up on all these guys, but you can find someone for yourself, you know? I mean, what about —”
“Silver.”
Sasha paused, which was just as well, because she had absolutely no idea what man she could possibly suggest who Heather wouldn’t either trample over with her stilettos, grow bored of within three days, or take down in a raging firefight. Heather bit her lip in the ensuing silence, and for the first time since she’d burst through the door, Sasha really noticed how shaken she looked, how pale.
“I think I’m a lesbian,” Heather said, and several things clicked into place.
—
“Obviously Brooks was never the most exciting guy anyway,” Heather said, a little over ten minutes later, curled around a glass of wine, feet bare, hair pulled up in a knot. “But it’s not just him. It’s all of them. I just don’t care.”
Sasha opened her mouth, waited for something to come to mind other than a high-pitched shriek or an admission that it was definitely not the time for — out-of-the-blue proposal or no, Heather was clearly in crisis mode and doing a lot of self-reflection and not in the right mental state to have a close friend reveal that she’d been more or less in love with her for an embarrassingly long time — and then closed it again, staring down at her own glass of wine and not quite managing to think around the buzzing in her head.
This was about as different from how Sasha had come out to Heather as it possibly could have been. Sasha had broken the news incredibly gently, built up to it — by their freshman year of college, she and Heather were closer than any other friendship she’d ever had, and she’d never known Heather to be a homophobe, but they still had their squabbles, and any time a potential issue came up, it was admittedly pretty hard to forget the way their relationship had started. Neither of them were seventh graders anymore, but still. Sasha had asked Heather to come out for coffee with her and her then-girlfriend — first girlfriend, and actually only girlfriend too, which maybe had a little to do with the way Heather’s eyes softened sometimes when she looked in Sasha’s direction, but that so was not the point — and there had been a lot of I hope this doesn’t change anything and I’m still the same person I’ve always been, and by the time Sasha had actually gotten around to I’m bisexual; Kate and I are dating, Heather had said she was just glad Sasha finally stopped waffling around and said what she came to say, Jesus, Silver, you never change, do you?
That wasn’t really the most important thing to be focusing on, here. Heather was still talking.
“I mean, do you remember way back — way, way back — with Ben?” Heather said, gesturing a little with her glass, just enough that the wine swirled around in the bottom.
Sasha did remember way back — way, way back — with Ben, and Julia, though she’d had her own drama going on at the time, of course (when hadn’t she?), and honestly, maybe it was a little telling that mostly what she remembered about that period of time these days was that it had been the first time she and Heather had been friends. Not really friends, not close like they were now, but kind of-sort of friends, at least, thrown together because everyone else threw them out.
Maybe not the best basis for a relationship, but it had worked out pretty well for them in the long run, hadn’t it? It got them here — here as in New York, anyway, not so much here as in Heather spilling her guts on Sasha’s shitty secondhand Ikea couch, but wasn’t as though Sasha was complaining about that part, either.
At any rate, “Yeah, I remember,” Sasha said a little belatedly, but Heather hardly even seemed to notice, her brows knitted as she stared down into her wine.
“I didn’t want him,” Heather said. “I never did. But I knew I was supposed to, and Julia certainly did, and I — I wanted what she had. I wanted to feel happy like that, but boys never…” She trailed off. Then, suddenly, she snorted, took a rather large sip of wine, and continued to fail to meet Sasha’s eyes as she added, “And then of course I was always obsessed with Jasmine.”
“That’s fair,” Sasha said, as lightly as she could. “I mean, she was a piece of work, but Jas was always gorgeous. I’m pretty sure that’s part of why she pissed me off so much at the time.” She neglected to add that the same applied to Heather, that she’d spent maybe way too much time in middle school, and even in high school, and even now, obsessing over how beautiful Heather was, how soft her skin looked, how her eyes just cut right through you. At the time, she’d convinced herself it was jealousy, but she’d known better that for a while now.
“She was gorgeous,” Heather agreed, a little wistfully, though her grin as she said it was fully Heather: sharp, steely, and almost cruel unless you knew where to look. “I was surrounded by gorgeous, talented girls. I never really stood a chance.”
“It goes without saying, but you know I’m proud of you, right?” Sasha said, scooting over a little bit until there were only a few inches of couch between them, their shoulders almost brushing. She wanted to reach out and squeeze Heather’s arm, casually, like she’d done a million times, and yet touching Heather was suddenly intimidating in a way it hadn’t been in years. “It takes a lot to come out. And I know it won’t be easy, with your parents, and everything, but I’m here for you. I always will be.”
Heather grew very still, even her breathing almost imperceptible. She looked up, very, very slowly, and Sasha didn’t know what she’d said — had she done something wrong? Heather’s face was completely unreadable, her eyes shuttered, her mouth set in a thin line, wavering just slightly.
“I know,” she said, finally, her voice so quiet that Sasha almost missed it. She had to lean in close to hear, so close that their arms brushed together. “I know, Sash.”
Heather wasn’t big on nicknames, even after nearly a decade of friendship. It probably shouldn’t have made Sasha’s stomach twist itself up in knots, but it did. It so did.
It was so simple that it was stupid: one moment, they were sitting next to each other, just barely touching, Heather’s eyes so blue that they hurt and wider than Sasha had ever seen them. In the next moment, Heather’s eyes were fluttering closed, and they were both twisting a little awkwardly in their seats to face each other, and then in the next moment Heather was kissing her with more tenderness than Sasha had ever really thought that Heather Fox could possess.
There was a beautiful, suspended moment where their lips brushed softly together, moving just slightly, and Heather brought up one hand to hover against Sasha’s jaw, and everything was like a dream; the apartment faded away, and so did the city outside, and so did Heather’s apparent gay panic and the fact that she had told her parents that she and Sasha were engaged, and all that mattered was that they were here, together, now.
And then Sasha opened her eyes — when had she closed them? — and the moment shattered.
“I’m so sorry,” Sasha blurted, leaning away as quickly as possible, half-formed thoughts tumbling out of her mouth one after the other. “That’s not — you just came out, I shouldn’t just — you need time to — you’re my best friend — I —”
“Sasha,” Heather interrupted, in a voice that permitted no argument. Sasha’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click, and she gulped in a breath, staring determinedly at a spot on the far wall because it was better than looking at Heather’s face.
Except looking at the wall instead of at Heather meant that she didn’t have any warning when Heather leaned forward to kiss her again, somehow even softer this time. Sasha shivered into it; it felt like her heart stopped beating. It felt like time froze, for just a moment, and then slowly started to crawl forward again. A large part of her still couldn’t believe that this was happening at all, let alone that it was happening in her shabby not-a-real-adult-yet apartment, on a weekday afternoon, instead of somewhere dramatic and romantic and Heather — Spring Break was in a month, Sasha thought half-hysterically. They were supposed to go to Cabo together. Couldn’t Heather have waited until then? That at least would have been a half-decent proposal.
That thought brought her back into her body a little. Heather was staring at her, expression unreadable, but clearly waiting for something.
“Are you serious about this?” Sasha whispered, because speaking any louder felt wrong, and because she wasn’t sure she had enough breath in her lungs to manage it, anyway. Everything felt tight and tense and hopeful, her heart rabbiting away in her chest.
Heather hesitated for just a moment — just long enough, actually, to give Sasha a bit of comfort, to make her believe that Heather was really considering her answer. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“I’ve always been serious about you,” she replied, her voice a little louder than Sasha’s had been, but still soft, like they were keeping this whole thing caught up between them. “It hasn’t always been good, but it’s always been serious.”
This time, it was Sasha’s turn to nod slowly. She bit her lip, but couldn’t quite manage to tamp down the smile that was bubbling over, threatening to take over her whole face. “You should probably know I’ve been into you since basically forever,” she said, and got to watch Heather startle, then blush, and then smile. God, she could make Heather Fox blush. And for good reasons — not anger or embarrassment but a happy blush, high in her cheeks and reddening the tips of her ears, too. Later — not now, but later, for sure, she’d have to experiment, see just how far down she could get it to go. But for now, there were more important things.
“I think I’ve been into you since basically forever, too,” Heather admitted, reaching out to settle a hand against Sasha’s jaw again, cupping the side of her face. “I didn’t get it for a long, long time — until today. But I think I have been all along.”
God. Sasha shivered, unable to hold back the curl of delight and excitement and wanting that danced up her spine. This was everything she’d wanted, and then tried to convince herself she hadn’t wanted, and then lived for years believing she couldn’t have. The situation was fully insane — she was still expecting Mrs. Fox to call any second, or even show up at the door and bang in like her daughter had and start her screaming in person, possibly accompanied by her husband — but, well, Sasha’s life more or less hadn’t stopped being insane since she’d met Heather. She should really expect this kind of thing by now. At least this time, the drama was working out well for her.
“I’m going to expect a long engagement,” she said, “since you basically sprung this on my with no warning, what on Earth, Heather,” and she got to watch as a soft, breathtaking smile slowly broke over Heather’s face, warming her eyes, softening her whole expression. She leaned forward until their foreheads knocked gently together.
“I think I can work with that,” Heather said, sounding full to bursting with joy. Sasha could relate. “I’ll be the best fiancee you’ve ever had. You won’t know what hit you, Silver.”
—
(A year and a half wasn’t that long of an engagement, but by that point Sasha didn’t mind. After all, she was the one who ended up convincing Heather to elope.)