Chapter Text
Tilly Jackson is your secret.
It feels wrong at first. The girls in the gang are the closest thing you have to family, the closest thing you have to sisters. Karen drills into your head that there are very few good men in the world, and that women like you and her won't get lucky finding them. Mary Beth chats with you into the late hours of the night, about her latest story concept or the men who are nice to her in town. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, she’ll even let you take a peak at what she's been writing.
With Tilly, though?
There’s a difference. There’s a tension between the both of you that exists with no other, a feeling in the pit of your stomach you haven’t felt before. It isn’t hostile. No, not by any means. How could you ever act in a hostile manner towards Miss Tilly?
This tension, it lives in the pause before her finger presses to your cheek to wipe something off your face. This feeling in the pit of your stomach grows when her gaze lingers on your lips for just a second too long before she looks you in the eye again.
This tension is jealousy. This tension comes in the form of Tilly’s glare burning you when Javier sings to you as you do your camp chores. This tension appears when Tilly is inexplicably upset after a man at the saloon chats you up, buys all your drinks for the night and invites you to dance. You feel this tension when you spot Tilly across the room; a rage in her eyes not for you, but for the man gently twirling you around.
This feeling in the pit of your stomach is love. Your love for Tilly’s voice, her gentle singing to you as you sit beside her and mend clothes. This love pushes you to ignore Ms. Grimshaw’s orders for you to work instead of taking care of Tilly when she falls ill. This love urges you to wake before the sun rises, just so you may have the privacy to tenderly press your lips to Tilly’s before the camp stirs to life.
This tension is lust. This tension lingers on the evenings you’ve spent pretending to be a pair of traveling girls, seeking a room to share for the night. This tension was almost too much to bear the first time you touched each other; excited and restless, just the way girls in love are. This tension is sewn into your blouse, which Tilly had to repair the time she got just a tad too excited when undressing you.
In a way, this tension will always be alive. Even when the excitement of something new passes, the feeling in the pit of your stomach will grow when you see how stunning she looks with the sun shining on her. This tension will live in the hour of peace when you wake in a hotel room; knowing though the time isn’t long, you get to share a moment behind four walls who will never speak a word of what they witness.
Tilly Jackson will remain your secret, a tension and feeling in the pit of your stomach that lives in anything and everything.