--marella redek--

I follow Linh to her room. She has already unpacked, her suitcase in the corner of the room. She has decorated her bed with a light blue blanket and a dark green stuffed cat with a top hat.

"Who's this?" I ask, patting the cat on the head. Linh introduced me to all her stuffed animals a few months ago, but I don't recognize this one.

Linh smiles. "You noticed. She's new. Her name is Celery. Tam bought her for me yesterday in a human shop."

"I thought he wasn't gonna buy you any more stuffed animals," I say. Tam strongly disapproves of Linh's collection, but I disagree with him. Linh's stuffed animals are always the cutest- like her, and I like watching Linh's eyes light up when she tells me what each one has been up to in their life.

"He wasn't. But he ate the last of the batch of butterblasts Fitz made for us, so he wanted to make it up to me." Linh grinned at Celery. "Apology accepted."

"Hobbies?" I walk over to Linh's closet while talking to her as I realize I'm still in my bathing suit and take out a pair of boyish gym shorts. Linh has a traditionally feminine style, but she wears boy shorts when she wants to be comfortable. We are not the same clothing size, but the elastic band snaps around my hips easily. Linh and I agreed that we could use each other's clothing, and I don't feel like going to my room to get my own clothes.

Linh's eyes stray to my hips for a fleeting second as I slip on the shorts, but she looks away before I can catch her eye, her cheeks tinted pink. I pretend not to notice even though my heartbeat has picked up and flop onto her bed.

"Oh! Um, Celery likes to garden," Linh answers finally, grabbing her laptop from her nightstand. She pauses and smiles at me.

"Like Fintan," we say together and chuckle at ourselves.

"Celery likes to journal and send letters to her friend Ophelia, who lives across the prairie."

"Long distance relationship?"

"Long distance relationship." Linh continues. "Oh, and she loves to pull pranks on her grumpy old man neighbor who say he hates her but secretly enjoys her company. Celery grows apples for the old man and gives him a basket every Christmas."

My heart melts a little at the story. "What's the old man's name?"

"Trevor," Linh answers very matter-of-factly.

"Does he have any family of his own?" I ask.

"No. His kids abandoned him because they didn't want to deal with the poor guy. Trevor's parents have died years ago."

"What kind of animal is Trevor?"

"Also a cat, but the light brown kind."

We continue talking about Trevor and Celery for a while, Star Wars playing in the background. Linh tells me about Celery's childhood and her secret magical powers. My gaze occasionally drifts to Linh's soft pink lips, but I don't think she notices.

As time passes, Linh needs to take more deep breaths in between talking until she stops listing the personality traits of Celery's cousins and flops onto one of the pillows, silver hair sprawled out like an angel's halo around her. She yawns and I lie down beside her, taking her hand in mine.

"Mel?" she whispers, her voice a gentle hum in the quiet room, a warm, sweet melody flowing from her chapped but perfect lips in the late afternoon light. She gently takes her hand from mine and I whine at the loss of her touch, only to feel her hand cup my cheek. She scoots closer and I can feel the pulse of her heart against my chest.

"Yes?" I try to say, but it comes out breathless, desperate for the feel of her lips. I can feel her heart beat faster and faster, feel her cool breath on my lips, and the anticipation is too much for me to bear, so I look up into her eyes and see her as flushed pink as I am, and the sight of her flustered face sends a jolt of elation through me.

"Please." She whispers.

I press her lips against mine and intoxicate myself with the taste of her lips, the taste of her tongue, the taste of her. She is everything I've waited for all my life and so, so much more. She is the reason I don't feel like a worthless monster of bones and skin, but instead someone who maybe, just maybe, has a future full of more than street rats and scornful looks. Someone who deserves more.

And right now, I feel like the future might be okay for me. For us.

Linh pulls away, flushed bright with rosy pink. She grins breathlessly and leans her forehead against mine.

"I love you, Mel."

"I love you too, Linh." I don't want to ask her what this makes us, because I don't want to spoil the moment or wake up and realize this was all a dream. If I wake up, I don't know if I never want to go back to the real world ever again.

I fall asleep next to her, cradled in her arms.

---

"Marella." I am being shaken awake. Linh's urgent face is bathed in the same afternoon light. I sit up.

"Linh." I remember the kiss we shared earlier. "Was that-"

"We did." Linh's eyes were filled with tears. "Marella, if that was just a one-time thing-" Her voice breaks and my eyes widen. I entwine my fingers with her and look into her eyes.

"No." I feel a wave of shame wash over me as I look at Linh's pained expression, cursing myself for making her think what we did was a... Argh. I want to slap myself.

"Linh, I seriously do love you, and if you wanted to be more than best friends, than I-" A tear falls onto the pillow below me and I fumble with my words. "I...I want you."

"Seriously?" Linh is smiling now, her face disbelieving. "I want you too, Mel."

She pulls me into a warm embrace and I sink into her like she is the ocean and I am a lonely, stranded ship, long abandoned.