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Rosalie clung tighter, as always chasing her as soon as she stepped back.
“This is your room,” Rosalie reminded her.
Kinsey blinked. “Oh.”
“Are you asking me to go?” Rosalie asked, her voice soft and Kinsey absolutely could not say yes to that.
She was already kissing Rosalie’s throat, nuzzling into her soft skin, inhaling her scent and Rosalie was pulling her back to kiss her mouth. The kiss moved from soft and sweet to hungry and desperate. Before anyone could leave anyone, they were fucking again.
Kinsey awoke with a small jump. The lamp was still on. She had no idea how much time had passed, just that they’d spent hours swept away by the intensity of the heat between them. Every time it seemed they were ready to let go, a second of prolonged eye contact or the brush of a finger would push them back to the precipice again.
And then, clearly, they’d passed out.
Rosalie lay in Kinsey’s arms, Kinsey holding her close even in her sleep. She had no idea how to navigate this now. If she hadn’t been in her own room she would tiptoe out, quite sure Rosalie needed to wake up alone. But she was hardly going to kick her out; that was a whole other level of cold, and Kinsey did not feel remotely cold.
This was exactly what she wanted: Rosalie desperate for her, letting endearments slip, not wanting to let go. Rosalie snuggling her in her sleep like some kind of deeply sexy, cuddly lover.
It made her feel the opposite of what Rosalie had said she wanted… just sex, secrecy, and no future.
Kinsey looked down at the beautiful woman sleeping in her arms. She reached one hand out and switched off the light.
Danger signs flared in her mind.
Before
College was a whole new world. Rosalie had been a studious kid at a good school, but here, everyone was smart. There were students from all over the country - all over the world, in fact - and she found herself embarrassed by her Tennessee accent after more than one person giggled at her when she asked a question in class. Y’all they’d say, making a face like they thought she was cute or dumb or both. Her roommate Ellie, who was from Michigan, made a thing about calling her Scarlett O’Hara, “You know, cos of your hair and your accent.”
“Funny,” said Rosalie, staring out the window at the California sky. She’d always thought she was a city girl, but this was something else altogether. Everything was busy and crowded, no open spaces. She went to orientation week parties, swept up with all the other eighteen-year-olds fresh from home and out of high school. She ate in the cafeteria, happy not to have to avoid her parents’ eyes. But she missed driving around with Savannah in the evenings, hanging around the diner, talking about the whole world… just being so known by someone. Here, everyone was a stranger.
Her classes though, were wonderful. She’d made up her mind, in the aftermath of Rachel’s disappearance, that she was going to find a way to help other kids like her sister. Kids like Savannah and Daria, all those kids whose parents had chosen ignorance and hatred, or social and religious pressures over their own damn children. She wasn’t sure yet, exactly what that would look like, but qualifying as a social worker seemed like a pretty good first step.
At first, she and Savannah texted and called each other all the time. Savannah talked about Coral a lot, and it made Rosalie weirdly jealous. The two of them were spending practically all their time together, between their shared apartment and her parents’ diner. Coral’s band was starting to get small gigs around the place and Savannah was hanging with them a lot too. The guitarist sounded like he had the hots for Savannah and was helping her learn a few chords on the guitar Rosalie had given her.
“It sounds good,” Rosalie said, a little wistfully.
It took a while, but she started making friends: an aspiring drag queen called Matt and a straight girl called Priya, the three of them becoming tight, hanging out in Rosalie’s dorm room every other night. Then, in one of her classes she met Abigail. Abigail was kind of hard to miss, not just because she was so pretty but because she had bright pink hair and always gave extremely precise insightful answers anytime she was asked.
“You know, you kind of stare at me a lot,” Abigail told her one afternoon as they were bumped out into the same crowded corridor after class. Rosalie tried not to blush.
“I’m sorry.” Rosalie twisted her hair feeling exposed and embarrassed, but Abigail just smiled.
“I stare at you too, though. That’s how I know.”
Abigail’s roommate was staying over at her boyfriend’s apartment and Rosalie didn’t get home to her own dorm until the next morning, faintly hungover, a solid hickey on her neck and already halfway in love.
“She sounds great,” said Savannah, down the phone, but she sounded distracted. “Hey, I gotta go, the band are here, but call me again soon.” She’d already hung up the phone by the time Rosalie said goodbye.
Rosalie didn’t go home for Thanksgiving, but when classes finished for the year she reluctantly accepted a plane ticket home from her parents. Her dad picked her up from the airport.
“I know how angry you are,” he said during the car ride home, after she’d tolerated his hug of greeting like he had rabies. “I know you think we’re responsible for your brother’s disappearance, but-”
“Until you and mom can call her by her real name I literally can’t have this conversation with you,” Rosalie said through gritted teeth. Her dad drove on in silence.
“I know you’re a smart girl and you’re learning a lot out there,” her father said eventually, “but there’s still a lot you don’t understand about the world. It’ll make more sense to you as you get older.”
“I know you’re a middle-aged white man, so our patriarchal, late-capitalist, white supremacist society has conspired to make you think you know it all,” Rosalie retorted, “but there’s a lot you don’t understand about the world. I hope to God you figure it out one day.”
When they arrived home she tolerated a similar speech from her mom as the three of them struggled through a miserable family dinner. She missed Abigail, she missed her friends, she missed LA. As soon as they were done eating, she fled to her childhood bedroom just like old days. When a horn beeped from the street she raced out the door.