126.)

Neither of us knew what to say when it came to the whole kissing thing. Sometimes I got anxious, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I wanted to kiss, sometimes I didn't. I felt like both of us were trying independently to solve the puzzle, because we had failed so spectacularly at solving it together. But maybe there wasn't really an answer. Maybe there wasn't really a puzzle. Maybe humans are just complicated and stupid.

So after a bit of small talk, I finally said something about it. Because I'm good at two things, and one of them is apologizing.

"Earlier..." I mumbled, sitting on the chaise in my usual spot. Blossom was getting up and down a lot, and I wondered if she was anxious too. "Earlier, I didn't mean to... I mean, I'm sorry that I said what I said. About you. And how you feel. I shouldn't be projecting stuff like that on you..."

Blossom had a kind of side-eyed expression of curiosity, and the wheels in her head tried to spin fast enough to parse exactly why Amy was apologizing. As far as Blossom was concerned, Amy didn't have anything to be apologizing for, but she also knew that - much like gift-giving - often the apology was for the person giving it.

"Oh cupcake, you don't need to worry about that stuff."

"Well, you got mad at me," I said more casually than when I'd been repeating it over and over inside my head. "And I think you've only been mad at me one other time. So, I do think it matters."

Blossom didn't want to debate the differences in her feelings of back then and now, or the merits of anger versus frustration or whatever else that meant, because honestly the difference didn't really mean anything right now. So Blossom nodded once and smiled a little awkwardly for her.

"I'm sorry for getting mad at you, cupcake. I didn't handle my frustrations very well, huh?"

"No, it was warranted. That's what I'm trying to say." She sure was making apologizing difficult. "It's just really hard for me to imagine what people see in me, you know? And wanting to kiss me... it didn't make sense. It doesn't make sense." I sighed and sunk into the couch a little. "But I had no right telling you how you felt, even if it doesn't make sense to me. You know?"

"I forgive you, Amy." It seemed the appropriate first thing to say, before adding anything else. "I think there's a lot about me that you don't understand, and I legit get that. From your perspective, I'm probably just some ditzy popular college girl with bottle blonde hair and loose morals. I think that's what most people think about me."

"I don't think that exactly," I mumbled. "I mean, I used to. And I still think that's a part of you, the ditzy popular college girl. But I know a lot more about you too. I think I know you okay?" Then again, the way she talked to me earlier... the things she said about me. Maybe I didn't understand her at all. Or maybe I just didn't understand her and me.

"I think I'm just... a blind spot. I just don't get it." I faked a smile.

"Then let me help? I think you've been doing great, honestly. Because all things considered, I don't know that I'd have been so open-minded to someone if they treated me the way I treated you in high school. So what's got you feeling blindsided right now, babes? Do we need a Blossom Brixley AMA?"

Okay then.

"Do you love me?"

"What?" Blossom was awestruck by the question.

"You said it in the car. That you love me enough to let your spheres touch." After a moment's pause, I decided to add: "It's okay if it was just a slip of the tongue. Like, calling your teacher Mom? Or, uh. Dad maybe, for you? I dunno." I was trying to be funny, diffuse the tension, but I couldn't quite look at Blossom.

Blossom did say that. Although a big part of Blossom Brixley wanted to argue about the merits of the word love and how it caused so many problems - because it was a word that literally meant something different to almost everyone - she knew that she'd have more time to handle that kind of pontification at a later occasion. Amy asking her that question in the first place had shown a shockingly large amount of vulnerability, and Blossom didn't want to take that for granted or make her feel foolish for having done so.

So, she answered simply.

"I think I do, yeah. How's that make you feel?"

"Confused," I admitted with a laugh. "I guess love can mean a lot of things, right? Like in Academy Works. Ai has to say all those things she loves about being a baby? And she says she loves Nana. And she loves her stuffed bunny. And I know, like... a lot of that is coerced, so it doesn't count. I just mean... it's a complicated word."

"It sure is. Like, I love my Dad. I love Becky. I love the stuff I study. And yeah, I love you. And I don't think any of those mean the same thing as one another, and like... it's just a word, right? But people end whole relationships over not saying it right, or at the right time, or in the right way. It's no wonder people get so bent up out of shape over the ritual of saying it. There's all this made-up pressure because when I say it to convey a feeling, are you hearing the same feeling? Who knows, right?"

"That's a good point..." I asked her if she loved me and she said yes, but that didn't really clear anything up at all. If anything, it made it more complicated.

"So, what are you trying to convey? I want to hear the right thing..." Or I wanted confirmation that I was more so in the "love my Dad" and "love the things I study" camp than the "love Becky" or the "love diapers" camp. The more I knew, the less I could use to torture myself.

"I am trying to convey..." A breathy pause followed, while Blossom figured out the right words. "I am trying to convey that I would like to be dating you, Amanda."

Amanda. Not Amy, not cupcake, not babes, or any other diminutive. These were serious feelings right here.

Woah, okay. So we were well and truly out of the campground. We were in fucking space. We were setting up tents on another fucking planet.

I went to say something, but it was like typing up dialogue on my computer. I wrote a few words, then I deleted them. Over and over. Until the silence went on so long that it was awkward and I still hadn't pressed Enter.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make things weird for you." Blossom's tones indicated a sense of retreat, like she'd put herself out there and then not felt great about the way she'd been received. It was one of those moments where someone might have tried to say "haha jk" to save face. But despite the desire to, Blossom refrained from trying to save face. She let her feelings stay there, out in the open, in the silence.

"No, I just..."

Okay, real talk. I didn't know a fucking thing about Blossom's private life. I knew she hooked up with a lot of people. I knew she made out with Becky. But other than the casual rumblings of "I got with Blossom Brixley last night" - which happened very rarely in college - I didn't know a damn thing about her relationships.

She wanted to be dating me? Maybe this was a prank after all and she really went for the long con. But she looked so damn serious...

"I don't think... that word means the same thing to you as it does to me," I finally said. It was like we were speaking two entirely different languages. She said "penguin" and I thought she meant "flamingo."

"Then tell me what you're hearing when I say it, and tell me what it means to you if you said it, and then I'll tell you which of the two I'm actually saying."

Spoken like an engineer.

"This feels like a very revealing way of handling this problem," I said with a touch of annoyance, but that was annoyance with undertones of fear. A lot of fear.

"Well I said I love you," Blossom countered. "So..."

True. If we were playing a game of withholding our feelings, Blossom Brixley flipped the fucking table.

"I think... I don't know. Dating to me is like, going out on dates and... seeing if you're... like... good for being..."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was really anxious. I reached into my coat pocket for those little magnet things, but I wasn't wearing my coat anymore. So I squeezed my fingers instead.

"I think dating is... kind of like a relationship, right? Or maybe it's a precursor? But like, a romantic relationship. Not just a friend relationship."

"And me?" Blossom asked. "What do you think I'm saying?"

"Uh... that you want to kiss more, I guess." I sulked and squeezed my fingers a little tighter. "Other stuff. Sex. Playing around. I dunno."

Blossom nodded her head along with the two descriptions, because Amy had said pretty much exactly what she'd thought she would, and for a moment, Blossom wished she had some gum. Nobody ever looked nervous when chewing gum. And she felt awfully nervous.

"I don't often date. I don't often have relationships. I love to play with people; you're right. I love sex, that's true too. But none of that is mutually exclusive with wanting a relationship either. And do you want to be dating me? By your own definition?"

"This is not how I thought today would go," I said, more so under my breath than to Blossom directly. But if we were being honest… "I don't know? I like you... I mean, I think I do. If I was writing our lives as a story, I would say my character likes your character."

Oh there we go! Something grounding. What if we were characters in a story? It was a lot easier to reconcile my feelings when they weren't my feelings.

"And does your character... think my character is good enough for her? My character's been a bit of a shit in the past, after all. Honestly, she's still a bit of a shit."

"No, I think your character is fine. I think the story would probably start that day on the train. Everything before that isn't relevant. I think the lingering feelings, the consequences of those unwritten actions... those are relevant. But it was a long time ago. My character is dealing with ghosts, not monsters."

Wow, I was getting poetic. That's what I get for turning my life into a story.

Blossom nodded, flashing a little happy smile when she did, and then furthered her line of questioning for the metaphor.

"Well, my character is pretty into yours, and is telling her that she wants to be dating her. And maybe that means going on dates, maybe it means being in a relationship that's more than friends. Maybe it means diapering one another, and doing sexy roleplays and crossing horizons and experimenting with one another. Trying new things, taking what works well in print and seeing how it goes in person. Maybe it just means spending weekends curled up together, watching Bluey. Or maybe it's all of that, or none of that, or some of that? But that's what my character wants."

"Well... I guess... my character would want to know what the difference is between that and all the stuff they already do? Because to her, I guess... it sounds like the only things added on are kissing and sex. Which..." Are terrifying. No... "Which terrify my character."

"Well... my character is pretty brave, and would love to share her courage with yours. Maybe she can help your character see that those things don't have to be scary?"

"So it would just be like, mostly the same thing? For them, I mean?" I don't know why, but that thought made me kind of sad. I mean, I wasn't really a romantic. I wrote good romances. But my pessimism knocked my romance score down quite a ways. Nonetheless, the idea of everything being the same... wasn't a relationship supposed to be more than that?

"Mmm… is college mostly the same thing as kindergarten? There's teachers, there's learning, there's friends… there's mid-afternoon naps too. But elementary school builds on kindergarten and middle school builds on elementary school and high school builds on that, and college on top of that. It's iterative; it's the same, but also different because there's more things added. And I'm... my character isn't good at this emotional vulnerability thing and she is absolutely scared of doing something wrong or ruining it."

"Ha..." I looked away from Blossom - though I wasn't really looking at her anyway - and down at my hands in my lap. If anyone was going to ruin anything, it was going to be me.

"I'm not really sure what makes something romantic," Blossom admitted. "I feel more romance in our roleplays than I've ever felt, and that's not even a dating thing."

"So if a relationship isn't romance, it's sex?" I volunteered. I wasn't sure why we were dissecting the ingredients of a relationship, like wine tasters trying to guess the vintage. Was it going to make a difference?

"No, I've had a lot of sex without dating," Blossom laughed. "Or, my character has." She wasn't sure if they were still on that metaphor.

"Exclusivity?" I offered. But the idea of being the only person Blossom fucked or Blossom kissed felt like a whole lot of pressure. It felt like putting me in front of a chalkboard with a gun to my head and demanding I solve faster than light travel.

"How about instead of us trying to figure out what a relationship would mean for our characters, we instead ask ourselves what it would mean to them?" It was a sappy line, for sure.

"I really don't know..." I answered, without giving it much thought. But the more I thought about it, the less I knew. In the story of my life, what was Amanda Pearson's happy ending? What did she truly want with Blossom Brixley? It was too big a question, bigger than one story could ever answer. What was the real point of a relationship?

"Amy. I..."

Wanna kiss you. Wanna be physical with you. Wanna date you.

But that wasn't going to take her down the right path here, because sharing what she wanted wasn't the issue. Amy already knew what she wanted because when it came to expressing her wants and desires, Blossom Brixley was great at that.

What she wasn't good at was expressing her fears. Her weaknesses. Her worries.

"I'm terrified of commitment to people. Usually. Stuff gets real and I get gone. It knots my stomach. And with you... I don't feel that way, I guess? And that's kind of how I know I love you. I'm not afraid of commitment... with you."

Maybe it was that simple. Could it be? That a relationship was just a pinky promise? That it's the adult version of your mom telling you "if you want a pet, you have to take care of it"? It's what the fox told the little prince: you become forever responsible for what you've tamed.

Maybe forever is a long time, but maybe forever is just too short. Maybe we have a dozen forevers in our lives, or a hundred. When we say forever, do we mean it? Of course. Does it always come true? No, it doesn't. But we mean it, we really do.

A promise of forever isn't a promise that lasts until the end of time, but a promise that you hope it does.

As for Blossom Brixley... well, I feared she couldn't be tamed. I feared there was never a hope of me being responsible for her, because she didn't need it. But here she was, wanting it.

"So if you make me a promise, and I make you one back... then... is that enough?"

"I mean, I think that's what commitment means, right? A promise?"

Blossom wasn't sure the right words for it, or the right promise to make, but she held up her pinky finger without a hesitation to show her willingness to make it all the same.

I laughed a little and felt tears in my eyes. I wasn't sure why I was crying, because I wasn't sad or angry or even that emotional. I think I wasn't feeling enough and my body was reminding me that I still could. Even if feelings were far away, I still had them.

"Don't promise not to sleep with other people," I told her. "I think that's what commitment usually means, but I really don't think I can handle that kind of pressure. Promise something else."

It took Blossom a few moments to figure out what to promise. If not that, then what? And it was good for her too, because honestly… she really did like sleeping with people. It was like playing a sport with them, or studying with them, or even interviewing them. She liked sex, and she liked it as a social convention. She wasn't even sure she could promise to be sexually exclusive, although she could have tried.

What she promised, instead, was much bigger than that.

"I promise to keep you at the center of my spheres, so you'll always be welcome and a part of my life, no matter which part it is."

"Wow." It wasn't lost on me how serious that was. It meant I could meet her Dad. It meant I could go to any party. Not that I particularly wanted either of those things, but I knew it was more than she'd probably ever given anyone in her adult life. So I raised my pinky to hers.

"I promise to keep writing you Academy Works?" I said, as a joke. But she gave me a sharp look and I regretted it. "I don't know. What do you want? I don't have a lot."

"Promise not to write yourself out of my life, thinking you're doing me a favor. If you wanna leave, you can leave, but do it for you and not because you think it's best for me."

I sighed. Yeah, that was a tall order. I had tried once already to write myself out of her story, but she pulled me back in anyway. And I was happy she did. Maybe my promise had to be a little selfish. Hers was, wasn't it? It was hard, but it was good.

"I promise to talk to you before running away..." It was vague, but it was the best I could do. If I got any more descriptive, I'd find loopholes. I'd rationalize a way out of it. But with a statement like this, I had to stick to the spirit of the promise.

And I put my pinky out again.

"Deal."

Blossom linked her pinky with Amy's, and she twisted it to ensure it was locked. And then, without letting go, she put her other hand on Amy's cheek and leaned across the linked fingers to kiss Amy firmly on the lips.

"Once," I said, when she took her lips off mine. My cheeks were hot and I felt a little dizzy. She leaned back with that dumb mischievous smile, like she had all the secrets of the universe just behind her lips. This time, she shared one with me.

Love isn't being yourself and waiting for someone to find you. And love isn't changing who you are so you're easier to find. To only ever be one thing in a moment; there's no love in that.

Love is being yourself, and then, when it matters, being different. Doing something against your character, something discordant to the law of You, for the sake of someone else. Doing something against your character, something discordant to the law of You, for the sake of your own happiness.

In one promise, I loved Blossom and I loved myself. I wasn't sure I had ever loved either before.