THE KISS SERENA DIDN’T GIVE ME

Serena’s phone kept vibrating between us as none of us moved.

Claire’s name flashed across Serena’s phone screen for the third time, bright enough to make my stomach tighten. Serena’s gaze stared at it, then at me, and something in her expression made me forget how to breathe.

She soon faced the phone down on the table and leaned back, rubbing her thumb towards the edge of her coffee cup. “I’m not answering that tonight,” Serena murmured. There was this relief that came through me which embarrassed me just almost as much as the jealousy that caused it.

I soon folded my arms, making myself look calmer than I felt. “You don’t have to avoid her because I am here.”

Serena’s mouth tightened as she stared at me. “Maya, I’m not avoiding her because you’re here. I am avoiding a conversation I should have had before you came home.”

Her answer somehow should have satisfied me, but it only made my curiosity worse. 

I picked at a particular loose thread on my sleeve while Serena stared toward her SUV window, and for the first time, she had looked less like the woman everyone wanted and now more like someone who had no idea what to do with her own feelings. 

“Is Claire your girlfriend?” I finally asked Serena how small my voice had sounded. 

Serena then gave a short breath that almost turned to a laugh. “No.”

Those single words landed harder than I could have expected because I had spent the last few days convincing myself that a woman was standing between us. Serena moved forward, resting her forearms on her knees. She gave me that look again, this time, with her eyes steady.

“We’ve had something on and off,” she admitted, while tracing a thumb over her knuckle. “But it stopped being what it was supposed to be a while ago.”

I swallowed. “Then why does she keep calling you?”

“Maybe Velvet, and then also because something doesn’t always make the other person ready to let it go.”

There was no cruelty in her voice, and for some reason, that had made me like Claire less than I might have and now understand her more. I stared down at my hands and got ashamed of how easily I had turned another woman into an enemy just because Serena had smiled at her. 

Serena got across the little space that was between us and tapped my wrist with two of her fingers. “And before you start blaming yourself, don’t.”

I soon lifted my eyes. “Why should I be blaming myself?”

“For changing the way I look at my life.”

My heart stumbled immediately. She pulled her hand back before I could decide whether I wanted to hold it. “If I wanted Claire, Maya, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you at midnight.”

Her words warmed me, just as they also frightened me because they sounded so close to an answer none of us was ready to ask for. I forced myself to smile even though my chest felt really tight. “You make everything sound so simple.”

Serena shook her head while brushing a strand of hair away from her cheek. “It isn’t simple. That’s exactly why I keep stopping myself.”

“From what?”

I met her eyes as they clearly drooped briefly to my mouth before returning to mine. “You know.”

I did. There was silence that stretched between us, but didn’t feel empty. She stood up, picked up her jacket, and her gaze met me with that same uncertain softness that had been on her face since I came home.

“I should leave before something reckless happens,” she whispered, sliding one arm into her sleeve.  

I stood almost quickly and nearly knocked my chair backward. “Serena.”

She soon caught the chair before it fell and then smiled. “What?”

I wanted to ask her to stay and maybe spend the night on my bed. Instead, I folded my hands together and shook my head. “Nothing.”

Serena’s smile disappeared. She studied me for another second, and then walked toward the door. “Goodnight, my love.”

The same nickname followed me long after the door closed. 

By morning. I almost convinced myself that the night had been a misunderstanding and maybe not something that deep.

I walked into the kitchen and found my mother, while waiting for what she was cooking to be done, holding a photograph she had pulled from the mail pile.

My mother looked up at me with an old little smile. “This came in for Serena.”

I took the photograph without thinking what it was.

It showed Serena standing right beside Claire near the lake, with both of them younger, laughing beneath the same old wooden sign I had seen Serena take me toward a good number of times. My finger suddenly tightened around the edges as the recognition hit me.

It was that lake. It was the place Serena had always called ours when we were younger.

I stared right at the photograph again, with my stomach sinking for an entirely different reason. Claire had not just been another woman Serena dated. She had memories with Serena in a place I had always believed belonged to us.

I tried to give my mother the picture back, but my mother held it for a short moment, studying me instead of staring at the photograph. “Claire brought it over yesterday,” my mum explained, setting it beside the fruit bowl. “She said Serena might want her things returned, but she forgot this one.”

What my mum said should have made the picture ordinary, but it didn’t.

I remembered Serena’s face when Claire leaned against her at the club, remembered the way she had told me they had gone on dates, and every little detail became heavier. I really hated that I wanted to ask questions Serena might not be ready to answer, but I even hated more that I wanted to know everything.

My phone buzzed before my mother could ask anything else. It was Serena. 

I picked it up immediately, putting the phone towards my ear as my pulse jumped. “Hi.”

Her voice stirred up warm and low through the speaker. “Are you free this afternoon?”

I looked at the photograph still sitting on the counter. “Yes,” I answered, even though a new ache had already settled beneath my ribs. 

“Good,” Serena replied, and I heard the smile in her voice. “Claire wants to have a discussion.”

I closed my eyes. She was taking me out to see Claire.