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2009-12-21
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Painting The Chair

Summary:

Lena's first art show leads to her drawing her friends, but what cannot be hidden if she is to draw a true picture?

Notes:

Thank you to my beta reader!

Work Text:

There were letters bearing good news, and then there were the letters bearing news so good that it was hard to believe. Lena had read it, and read it again to make sure that it wasn't a dream, and then scoured it for any sign that it was a cruel joke. None had appeared. 

"Dear Ms. Kaligari,

My attention was drawn recently to your portfolio, and it was of great interest to me. In particular, I am very interested in your portrait work, and feel it may be suitable for an upcoming show we have planned for Georgetown Art Gallery in January..."

January! Only two months away. Of course, Lena's brain, always prone to over-thinking things, had provided reasons already why she should have been asked at such short notice. Someone had dropped out, there had been some kind of organisational mix-up which required pulling in anyone they could -- even someone they wouldn't usually give a second thought.

Such traitorous self-doubt, though,  was why she had best friends. Much easier to email them, let them email back and call, and between the three of them they urged the spark of nervous excitement that she hadn't quite dared allow to take hold into a burning flame. They wanted her. They wanted her. Who cared if it was because of convenience? They weren't going to ask someone who was likely to embarrass them. They had looked at her work. They had noticed her work.

They wanted her!

It was harder and easier to meet to celebrate such an accomplishment as adults than it had once been when they were girls.  Easier, because at least they weren't separate and scattered now in colleges hundreds of miles away -- distance, at least, had stopped being so much of a problem once school was over and they returned, one by one, to families and to each other. But where they had school once, now there was a long work day, and after that other commitments -- Brian for Tibby , rehearsals and babysitting for Carmen, running the children's soccer group for Bridget -- that sometimes seemed to eat up more hours than any week could have.

They had made it that Saturday for Lena though, knowing without anyone arranging it where they would go. They were more self-conscious now, huddling around Bridget as she jimmied the gym lock open -- teenagers caught breaking in could be excused as a prank, for adults it was a more serious matter -- and then hurrying up the stairs with food, blankets, music, a couple of bottles of wine, the tools of adult and childhood celebration all mixed together. For a horrifying moment,Tibby imagined someone had seen them entering, and they had collapsed in the gym in a heap of giddy excitement and relief at not being stopped.

For a sober moment, Lena had wondered how long they could carry on doing this. It was all very well for teenagers, but how would it look if the soccer coach appeared in the paper due to breaking and entering charges? How about when they were parents themselves?

It would be a bad time to say that out loud though, with Tibby putting the music on -- the same music they had in there when they were teenagers still. Updating it to move with the times would have felt too much like admitting that time had passed, moved on. Bridget was laying the food out -- ifGummi Worms, cheese-puffs and raw cookie dough could be described as such -- even as Tibby poured the wine. Why spoil the party atmosphere?


 

"To Lena, and the show!" Bridget announced a couple of moments later, and Lena grinned and raised her glass with the rest. "You know, we used to have rituals for this kind of thing. We should do something for luck."

 

"You are not concocting a ceremony for my show!" Lena protested, half-laughing. She hesitated, almost shy about voicing the idea which had come to her once she had absorbed the full impact of the letter. "I was thinking though..."

 

"Yes?" Carmen prompted, as the three of them came to attention to eye her curiously. 

 

"Well, they want portraits for the show," Lena said slowly. "And I have some, but..." But not recent ones, and, if she needed extra, who better to paint than the faces she had known and loved practically since she was born? And yet somehow it felt like an imposition, as though she were asking each one of them for something deeply personal. 

 

Odd, how that could be, when even life pictures of complete strangers didn't have that same feel to them. Knowing a person, or perhaps how you knew them, could make a difference.

 

"You want to draw us?" Tibby guessed. It seemed they didn't feel that way, not from the smiles slowly spreading as light dawned. 

 

"Where and when?" Carmen was always the practical one.

 

"Well, the show is in January so... the sooner I get started, the better," Lena admitted. "I mean, I know everyone's busy with other things, especially with Christmas coming..."

 

"I've got time," Tibby volunteered. 

 

"We all have time," Bridget said firmly, as though saying it would make it so. "Tibby first then, followed by Carmen, then me?"

 

It was a familiar order and, as the others nodded agreement, it took a moment for Lena to realise why that should be. The old Travelling Pants order, except that now, instead of sharing pants, they were sharing her.

 

"Do you need us to come to your house?" Carmen asked.

 

"No." Lena shook her head. "I'll come to you guys. You know how I draw -- it doesn't need you to sit utterly still or anything. I can just do it wherever you feel most comfortable."

 

"Come over tomorrow then," Tibby offered cheerfully.

 

And so it was.

  

***

 

Tibby

 

 It always felt different, entering Tibby's apartment. The first of the four to move in with a man, there were tiny signs of it all over the place. Not that Brian was untidy -- Lena laughed to herself at the idea, he'd scarcely have room to be amongstTibby's freerange methods of storage -- but there were men's shoes by the door, a Playstation 3 in front of the TV, and she knew that if she had to go to the bathroom there would be a razor by the sink. Just the little things that, nevertheless, shouted thatTibby wasn't alone here.

 

She wondered for a moment how that felt -- whether it was easy, or as awkward as the years when Effie had shared her room when they were tiny, the pair of them swinging freely between sisterly closeness and waspish squabbling. There was a line between going out to see someone, or having them come to see you, and never having your own space.

 

"He's gone out for a few hours," Tibby said, as though reading her mind, and smiled. "Said you'd probably work better without him wandering in and out, or distracting you by watching."

 

Lena blessed him silently for that, and looked about for the least cluttered place possible to set herself up. "Why don't you sit on the sofa?" she suggested. "And I'll sit over there and -- yes, just like that. That's fine."

 

It was hardly the first time she'd ever drawn her friend, and at first her hand seemed to work of its own accord, quickly sketching out the basic shape --Tibby's small, slender frame, her short dark hair, the metallic gleam of her nose-ring. Those things she could see almost without looking, as thoughTibby's image were inscribed indelibly on the inside of her eyelids.

 

This was to be more than just an idle sketch though, and so Lena made herself look closer, searching out the finest details and then hesitating as her hand communicated what her eyes saw to the page, scrupulously honest. The tired lines aroundTibby's eyes, the slight worried look hidden behind her smile -- was it just her imagination?

 

No. You didn't get to wipe out details just because you didn't want them to be there. You had to draw the chair. Or the worried look, in this case.

 

"Hey, Tibby." She couldn't quite hold the question back though. "You okay there?"

 

"Yeah? Am I fidgeting?" Tibby glanced at her, her expression mildly puzzled, but it was there more clearly now Lena was looking for it. The way Tibby didn't quite meet her eyes, the tenseness behind the puzzlement, like a tightly wound spring. Tibby was holding something back. 

 

Funny how you could have someone so memorised that you forgot to look at them and notice the important things. 

 

"No. You're fine," Lena told her quietly, and went back to her drawing, trying to work out how best to handle that. It was difficult withTibby . With Carmen, sooner or later, things usually came out in an explosion of temper, and Bridget was as easy to read as a book for Lena, all passion and emotion, butTibby was different. Tibby would sit on things and worry at them, refusing to talk, hiding away as though she could hibernate until some glorious spring where she reappeared and all bad things had vanished away. It needed careful handling, and Lena frowned as she worked, deftly filling in the details --  the slight quirk inTibby's eyebrows, the way her arm curved protectively around her stomach.

 

Oh. Oh.

 

Lena stared for a moment, and then put down her pencil. "Tibby," she said slowly, a suspicion slowly blooming in her mind. "Have you-- are you pregnant?" A direct way of asking, maybe, but Tibby was as likely to throw her hands up and storm off if she edged around it as if she asked directly.

 

Tibby sat as though frozen by the question for a long moment before she managed to open her mouth to speak. 

 

"No," she said. And promptly burst into tears.

 

*** 

 

Tibby had never been the most coherent of people when she was crying. She tried, but it came out as sobs, gulps, and incoherent snuffling. Lena had set her work down and moved to pull her friend's head in her lap, shushing her gently, humming to her and waiting patiently for the storm to pass. It always did in the end.

 

"I keep thinking it's my fault," she confided eventually, in a voice which sounded slightly hoarse now, her head still resting against Lena's knee. Lena petted her hair gently, looking down at the flushed tear-stained face. "Because before, when I thought I was pregnant, I didn't want to be, so..." She started to cry again, quietly this time, pressing her face against Lena's leg.

 

"Don't be silly." Lena said it lovingly though, her hand resting against the rumpled dark hair. "You said it's been what, six months? Isn't that meant to be barely any time at all?" Not that she would know, having never tried, but wasn't that what people usually said?

 

Tibby nodded, sniffing back the tears. "I just thought it would... happen, you know? Once we wanted it to?" she admitted. "And I feel so bad every time another month rolls around and... it hasn't." She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. "And Brian wants it to happen so badly. He's going to be such a good father -- you know how he is with Nicky and Katherine. And he never says anything, never implies anything, but I can see him wanting and--" She broke off, sniffing hard.

 

Lena frowned slightly. It didn't take a genius to hear what Tibby wasn't saying. "And what about you?" she asked quietly. "What do you want, Tibby?"

 

Tibby peered up, looking a little surprised, as though that had not been an expected question. "I--" she started, and then broke off.Tibby had never been able to lie really, not to her friends. "I'm scared," she admitted in a low voice.

 

"Of not being able to conceive?" The word felt odd in Lena's mouth -- an adult word, when she still didn't feel adult enough to deal with this.

 

"Of everything," Tibby confessed. "Of succeeding and screwing it up -- I'm not Brian, I'm not as patient as he is with kids. What if I have one and then don't want it any more? And birth -- I saw Carmen's mother giving birth and it hurt, and it was messy, and it was scary and I don't know if I can do that. And," she swallowed hard, "I'm scared of if it gets sick."

 

For a moment, Lena didn't understand. "Sick?"

 

"Like Bailey," Tibby said, her voice a whisper. "I don't know how I'd cope with that."

 

"Oh, Tibby." She understood then, and her arms went around her friend, as though she could embrace away the worry and fear.

 

 "What if it got sick like that and I just... did what I always do and ran away?" Tibby's voice broke. "You can't run away, can you, not if it's yours? But... what if I did? I... I don't know if I could handle someone depending on me like that to be strong, and not hide."

"You wouldn't," Lena reassured.

"How do you know?" Tibby demanded, wanting, demanding, certitude. "I don't know that, so how can you possibly know? I hid away when it was Bailey."

"You were fifteen," Lena reminded her. "And even then, you were there, at the end."

"It still doesn't mean--"

"Tibby," Lena cut her off, before she could get the argument out. "I know because, if we had to, we would make you. If we had to drag you, you'd be there. But, I don't believe we'd have to."

"Oh." And that sent her quiet, protests exhausted for a moment. Lena stroked her forehead, running her fingers along slight lines where once the skin had been smooth. Time crept up on them.

"Have you spoken to Brian about this?" she asked softly.

Tibby gave a slight, reluctant, shake of her head. "He thinks I'm upset about not conceiving but not... not the rest."

"Sweetie..." She didn't say, didn't have to, that all that worry shored up inside her might well be partly what was stopping anything from happening. "You have to talk to him."

"He wants children so badly," Tibby said. "And I do, or... I think I do, but I can't..."

"He wants a future with you so badly," Lena corrected gently. "And all that that involves. If anyone would understand, Brian would."

Tibby sighed, turning her eyes up to meet Lena's finally. "Do you think so? How do you know?"

Lena nodded, glad she could speak with complete certainty. "Because when he looks at you, there is nothing but you in his eyes," she said simply. "If I drew him, that would be all I could draw. Sometimes, it's as though there is no part of Brian which is not also Tibby."

"Oh." She was quiet a moment, and Lena marvelled again that you could live with someone, know them inside out, and yet not see that. "I'll talk to him," she agreed finally, and Lena smiled.

***

Carmen

Carmen had always insisted that the reason she had stayed at home, rather than moving out, was that her mother needed help with Ryan. The little boy was seven now, and possessed a lively curiosity and a talent for getting into as much trouble as was within his reach. Still, his parents seemed to handle him just fine on their own, and Lena suspected that Carmen's reasons had as much to do with not wanting to let go of her family just yet as they were to do with her little brother.

Still, who was she to talk? She was still living at home herself, and without so much as an excuse to offer as to why. Her father had made it plain enough that he was happy for her and Effie to stay there for as long as they wanted. Lena suspected he viewed it as an attractive alternative to either of them moving in with a guy without getting married, as Tibby had done. Still, she couldn't argue that it was comfortable there, even if she did occasionally still press up against his rules and restrictions -- annoying for an adult. She suspected it would not be much longer before Effie spread her wings and flew the coop -- would she follow? Or...

"Hi, Lena." The opening of the door broke through her thoughts, and Carmen smiled at her. She looked... ruffled, dark curls sticking up every which way, felt-tip pen marking her cheek. "Sorry, another day at the zoo here. Come on in, and I'll try to neaten myself up a bit before you start."

By the time she returned, Ryan was sitting on the couch with Lena, demanding that she view and comment on his pictures and artwork. There was much of Carmen and her mother in the little boy -- the same dark skin and hair, though his fell flat and straight where Carmen's was wildly curly. Perhaps one day Lena would return to draw him, if anyone could ever convince him to stay in one place for long enough.

"Ready," Carmen offered, pulling a chair out to sit on. The pen had been washed away, and the curls tamed for now, but she still glanced over at Ryan a little warily. "Ryan, do you want to go play while Lena works."

"No!" The little boy shook his head. "Lena said I could watch!"

Carmen sighed, but the sigh came with a smile. "Do you mind, Lena?"

"Not so long as he sits still." She turned a warning look on him, half-teasing, and Ryan giggled and nodded.

"I'll be still!"

It was a promise that, doubtlessly, would be forgotten inside ten minutes, but Lena didn't say that, focusing instead on her work. Ryan stared over her shoulder as she started to sketch, looking up to study the sister who was so quickly forming on paper.

"It's a shame we don't still have the pants," Carmen said lightly, after a few minutes had passed in silence. "Then you could have a theme for the pictures."

Lena laughed. "If I drew them, no one would ever believe that the same pants could look so good on four such different people," she commented. "Besides, I'm not sure anyone could do them justice. You can't draw magic like that. It just is."

"I suppose." Carmen looked thoughtful, and Lena sketched that expression in quickly before it could change and be lost forever -- the way Carmen's eyebrows drew together sharply, the way she stared off into space as though studying something both fascinating and invisible. "You know, I still miss them sometimes."

"The pants?" Lena looked up, surprised. The more years that passed, the harder it was for her to pass them off as more than a piece of fond childhood whimsy. "Maybe it was for the best. We could hardly have continued wearing the same pair of unwashed pants forever. Sooner or later, the magic would have faded."

"I know." She didn't look as though she did though, even if she spoke the words. "They did such a good job though, of holding us together when we needed it."

"But we don't need to be held together any more," Lena pointed out. "Everyone's home now -- it's not as though we're scattered to the four winds at university. And heaven knows, it's not as though any of us can afford to go away for any great period. I never thought adulthood would be so expensive." She might be at home still, but there was rent to pay, and she knew Carmen did the same, reluctant to allow her mother to support her. And then there were bills to contribute to, food to take your turn buying, clothes which seemed to wear out in no time at all. She'd thought poverty would be a thing of the past once she finished college, but no. There might be noramen in her near-future, but there were certainly no long trips either.

You forgot to notice how much your parents supported you until they stopped.

"I suppose not," Carmen agreed, but there was something wrong with the way she said it, a slight frown that she couldn't quite hide. Lena didn't get time to wonder about that before Ryan chipped in, breaking from his unaccustomed stillness to stare at Carmen accusingly.

"But you are going away! You told Mom!"

Carmen flushed, looking away, suddenly awkward. "I said maybe. Nothing's certain yet, and I probably won't."

"Carmen?" Lena said questioningly, but her friend wouldn't meet her eyes. Lena stared at her, then back down at her sketchpad. "Maybe it's time for a break."

***

"It's a theater troupe. You know -- they travel the country performing," Carmen explained, once coffee had been made, and Ryan had been shooed away. She looked uncomfortable, fiddling with her hair. "I probably won't get in anyway. They're professional -- it's not like I've acted in anything more than amateur other than that one time."

"You haven't tried out for anything more than amateur," Lena pointed out, and then reconsidered. If she hadn't known about this, then what else hadn't she known about? "Have you?"

Carmen shook her head. "I wouldn't even have tried out for this one," she admitted. "But Andrew sent me a note about the auditions -- you remember Andrew?"

Lena nodded. Andrew had acted with Carmen in that first play which had shown her what she was capable of, and had stayed in contact ever since through occasional emails and letters. Carmen insisted the relationship was like having a big brother, though she had wondered. They all had wondered.

"He's involved in it. The auditions aren't too far off and he asked I try out -- pretty much insisted actually." Carmen nibbled her lower lip. "I've made it to callbacks."

"Carma, that's great!" Lena said enthusiastically. "So, what's all this talk about not being good enough? Clearly he thinks you're good enough."

"He hasn't seen me act in six years!" Carmen protested, and hesitated. "Besides.. I'm not sure I want to go."

"But you love acting. And you're a natural." Lena studied her a moment before she reached to touch her friend's arm. "What's really wrong, Carma?"

Carmen ducked her head, letting her hair fall over her face. "It means going away for a year," she said in a small voice. "A whole year come February, without getting to stop or even really come back and visit. And it's not... I'm not good at making friends."

"You'll know Andrew," Lena pointed out, "And Carmen... people love you, as long as you let them. You just have to stop being scared of them."

Carmen was quiet, staring at her coffee.

"Carmen?" Lena prompted again.

"It means leaving everyone, all over again," Carmen said quietly. "Ryan and my mom and... And you guys."

"That's why you missed the pants," Lena said, suddenly understanding.

Carmen nodded unhappily. "What if I go away, and we all... fall apart and forget each other again?" she asked. "Before, we had the pants, but..."

"But now we have each other," Lena offered. "We don't need a pair of pants to keep us together anymore, Carmabelle. We haven't for a long, long time." She patted her friend's hand gently. "You can go, or you can stay, but we won't love you any less whichever you choose. You should know that." She glanced to the stairs, to where the whooping and thumping about meant that Ryan was happily at play. "Nor will Ryan or your mother." She laughed suddenly. "If all we tried as teenagers didn't lead our mothers to disown us, a year away certainly won't!"

Carmen managed a smile, though it was a slightly wobbly one. "I'll think about it," she promised, and it seemed that was as much as Lena was getting for now.

Well then, she would just have to work on that. "Good," she said briskly, and drained her coffee cup, setting it back down on the counter. "Now, shall we go back to this portrait?"

***

Bridget

Bridget's apartment was tiny, but then it hardly needed to be bigger. Between visiting her friends' houses, and checking in on her father and brother, Lena doubted Bridget ever spent more than three nights at a time there -- certainly, she seemed to spend at least a night a week at her house. Some things never changed, and Bridget still needed people more than anything. This little place wasn't much more than a place to unwind between visits.

Today, Lena caught her at the door to her apartment, returning from soccer practice, mud still clumped around her boots. She looked surprised to see Lena, and then light seemed to dawn and she glanced at her watch guiltily. "Was the drawing thing now? I thought it was later. Do you want me to change?"

Lena considered her thoughtfully -- loose top and dirt-spattered shorts, fair hair pulled up into a ponytail to keep it out of the way. It wasn't perfect, perhaps, but the picture was just so... so Bee, energy just barely contained, that it was difficult to hide a smile. "I think you're good as you are," she decided. A portrait drawn like that would contain more of Bridget than any neat and tidy picture with clean clothes and brushed hair. She glanced up at the sky -- the bright blue of a fine winter's day. "Why don't we do it outside?"

"If you want to." Bridget looked surprised, but sat down obediently on the steps, pulling one knee up to rest her chin on. "Is this okay?"

Lena studied the comfortable, angular pose, sunlight falling on Bridget in such a way that it made her pale hair look almost white, and nodded, sitting down on the ground opposite her. "That's just perfect."

Bridget grinned and relaxed, watching as Lena turned to her work. "You've done the other two already?"

"Mmhm." And it would be a rush to finish this last one with January just around the corner, and Christmas getting in the way, but she would manage somehow.

"Good job, with Carmen getting ready to go away now," Bridget commented, and Lena smiled. Carmen had come out and told them all about the audition only a week after they all visited, and no one but Carmen herself had been surprised when she got a part. Not a large part, not yet, but it paid well, and would give her the exposure she needed. Now her life was a mad blur of rehearsals and packing.

"Looks as though she'll just get to see the show before she goes," she commented. "I'm glad." Glad, not just for her own selfish reasons, but because maybe that event would maybe show Carmen that the four of them wouldn't stop functioning as a unit just because she was going away.

"We'll have to scrape the money together to fly out and see her perform too," Bridget commented, and Lena nodded, wishing briefly for the days when parents granted access to seemingly bottomless credit cards.

"And Tibby told Brian she wanted to wait a while before kids," Bridget added, and Lena's head snapped up because that, that was news.

"She did?" she asked, and Bridget nodded. "What did Brian say?"

Bridget shrugged. "He's Brian," she said, as though that were obvious. "He'd wait forever and a day if she asked. It's only Tibby who doesn't see that."

It was true enough. "You know," Lena said thoughtfully. "I thought life, decisions, everything -- I thought it would be easier once we stopped being teenagers. I thought we'd be more certain of things by now."

"I guess it's at least a little less dramatic?" Bridget offered. "Little things stopped looking so big. It was just that actual big things were waiting for us right behind them, for when we got our brains in order." She made a face. "Being an adult is hard. Who would have thought?"

"I wonder if these ones will look little some day too," Lena mused, glancing up and then back down as she sketched the feathery fronds of Bridget's hair. "I guess you did at least stop trying to date your father."

Bridget grimaced at her, raising a warning finger. "Quit with the psychological analysis, you, or I'll think you're turning into Carmen," she threatened.

"No, but seriously," Lena said, more gently this time. "I'm glad. Once you were getting on better with your father, you stopped going after older guys who just happened to be in charge of you. We were worried about you, Bee."

"And look where it landed me; young, free, and regrettably single," Bridget grouched, but it was done in good humour. "Anyway, what about you andKostas?"

Lena made a horrified face at her at that. "I think I eventually realised he was maybe not going to be the love of my life when I got that phone call from the girl he married," she admitted. "You know, up until then breaking into her house to steal the ring just seemed incredibly romantic. I forgot she was an actual person too."

"Who was getting a restraining order out on him, and had actually been pregnant, and was heartbroken that he and her sister had been spreading rumors to the contrary," Bridget added, having heard the story a hundred times before. "Don't we just know how to pick them?"

It drew a laugh from Lena. "We were teenagers. Those are allowed to be stupid. It's like a law." And it should surprise nobody that a girl with a father who barely spoke to her would do anything to get those in authority to like her, just as it was likely unsurprising that one with a strict father should build a fantasy figure out of a man she had barely had time to get to know.

"Something like that," Bridget agreed. She seemed distracted, fidgeting with the moss at the edge of the step. "Hey, Lena?"

"Mmm?" Lena considered asking her to be still, and decided against it. She could draw that hand in when Bridget settled again.

"I always thought -- well, when I'd quit trying to go for guys who weren't meant to be dating me anyway -- that the ideal person to fall for would be... well. Like one of you guys." That Bridget's voice was tentative was enough to draw Lena's attention. Bridget was never tentative, not when it was about emotional stuff. She was more the type to throw emotions right at your face and then look surprised if you fell over. "Someone who you didn't have to work for approval from because they loved you, no matter what, you know? Had always loved you. Would always love you."

Lena sat frozen for a minute, her mind going into overdrive as she tried to process that because it certainly couldn't be what it had sounded like. Bridget was just speaking before she thought again, just as she always had. "That would be... good," she agreed cautiously. "If you could find someone like that."

"And I thought... I just... you... oh, crap!" Whatever Bridget thought, she apparently couldn't get the words out, and she growled in sudden frustration, plucking viciously at the moss.

Lena hummed, a low reassuring note, ready to let her take her time to say what she needed to, and glanced up again, studying Bridget's expression as her hand hovered over the paper.

But that was the thing about art, wasn't it? You couldn't draw what wasn't there, but if you wanted to draw a truly good picture, it had to be an honest one. And that meant looking to see what was there, underneath the familiar face you had known and loved every day of your life.

And what was on Bridget's face, underneath the frustration, was the most poignant expression of love and longing Lena had ever seen. There was nothing there to guard her from that, no mental filter to let her talk herself out of believing it was there. She choked, pencil dropping from suddenly slack fingers, staring.

She was still staring when Bridget got up, having apparently decided that actions came more easily than words, and came to kneel beside her. She didn't resist Bridget's embrace, didn't resist when her friend drew her into a sweetly hesitant kiss and then, when she didn't pull away, into a deeper one. Some things there was no need to over-analyse but how long, how long had she been looking without seeing this?

"Forever," Bridget said, as though hearing that unspoken thought. "Sometimes I'd see you almost thinking it, and then talking yourself out of it, and I never had the words to tell you otherwise." She smiled, half-shy suddenly, reaching to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Lena's ear. "I was always better at doing than talking about it. Guess that's how I always got myself into so much trouble."

The picture would wait until later, deadlines or no. Maybe, Lena decided suddenly, being an adult wasn't so hard after all.