Honey, Forever

I get to class first; I always get to class first, compelled by some unknowable force that makes it absolutely unbearable for me to be anywhere that isn’t also where Alice is. I pretend I have some sort of compulsion to be places exceedingly early so she has no reason to believe that my decisions have anything to do with her. I like the 15 minutes before class to read, I told her once. And since then, she will always walk in with a sensible 5-3 minutes to spare and find me reading a book. I have to stay faithful to the vision I once painted of myself for her. She likes people who read instead of people who waste precious moments of their lives online - I’ve taken careful note. Today I read Oh Pioneers! after she suggested it last week, shocked that I hadn’t yet read Willa Cather. I probably would have enjoyed this book if I had found it of my own volition at the bookstore across from our favorite coffee shop, but knowing that it means something to her gives it weight. I read closely, giving meaning to themes and scenes in the context of her life and our friendship. I picture her hair in a long braid, her skirts mimicking the sound of wheat swishing in Western wind. She walks in the room, locks eyes with me, and smiles. I smile back, as if I could help it, and close the book. She drops into the seat directly beside me, smelling of the same perfume she’s worn everyday since I met her, clean and bright blue if bright blue had a scent.

“How is it?” she grabs my arm as she asks about the book. I revel in the contact but don’t let it show.

“It’s amazing” I flit to a quote that moved me and read it out loud. She closes her eyes as I read, nods her head and hums at a particularly beautiful line “ugh wow.”

“Wow, I know.”

It’s comforting to know we find the same things beautiful.

Over Christmas break I come home with Alice to spend a few days with her family before going on to my own in North Carolina. I find holidays deeply distressing and Alice knows this. She offers up her family to me at any opportunity throughout the year as an alternative, saying “but you are family.” She will never know what that means to me. Alice’s family is large, their house sprawling and warm. When we come in through the side door, her mother greets us barefoot and apologizes immediately for the mess. Recipes, receipts, hand painted coffee mugs that seem to be a day-old cover the countertop in a way that endears her to me completely. She has the same smile as Alice, or Alice has hers, the same lines that crease the outside of her green eyes. It hurts somewhere deep to know her family, to see the ways that they are alike, the mirrored traits and ways of being that echo between them. I’ve been to Alice’s home before this, so it’s not a total surprise, but being enveloped in the space that witnessed her entire childhood gives me new pangs. I want this all to be mine, I want all of her to be mine. We chit chat casually about the holidays, the weather, what offhand comment Uncle Mark made at the dinner table last night with Grandma present. I laugh like I know each character of the story personally.

That night, Alice and I sleep in her childhood bed, the room still painted the shade of pink she chose when her mother asked what color room she’d like when she was 8 years old. The bedding has been dutifully replaced though, a creamy cotton sheet and duvet set from a homewares brand I’ve never heard of and likely will never afford. We dress for bed modestly given that both of us grew up going to summer camp and that we now live in dorms that offer little to no privacy. I know what each of my friends’ breasts look like except for hers. It never occurred to me to care what my friends’ breasts looked like until I met Alice. Maybe it’s the fact that she seems shy about her body that piques my interest that much more. She turns her back to me and tugs off the winter thermal for a worn t-shirt that I’ve seen a thousand times. Before putting on her pajama shorts, I get a glimpse of her black cotton underwear, bunched slightly to reveal her right butt cheek. My heart clenches. Alice is an athlete, a devoted tennis player, and it shows in every muscle on her body. I feel myself staring and hurry into my own pajamas.

We both grab our respective books and crawl into bed. I feel like a little girl again, sleeping over at my friend’s house on a Saturday night, giddy about the disruption in routine, humming with the closeness of another body. Instead of opening our books, Alice turns to me “what should we do tomorrow?”

“What can we do tomorrow?”

“Well we could wake up early, read a little, bike down to the farm and grab some breakfast, maybe a little hike OR if the weather is nice, a drive up to the ridge.”

Alice always has a plan despite pretending like she’s go with the flow. I’m the one who will bend, not just to her.

“That’s perfect” - anything with her would be.

“Yay” she smiles with satisfaction and curls her knees up to meet her chest “I’m so happy you’re here.” She looks at me as she lays her left cheek on her knee “parting is such sweet sorrow.” We laugh at the same moment.

“Imagine how I feel” I raise my eyebrows, picturing the family gloom I’ll soon sink into when I leave Alice.

“Well, I need you more, so I certainly can.”

I smile at this and shake my head. She couldn’t possibly, but I leave it at that. We open our books and read beside each other until she turns to me, heavy-lidded, and says “I’m goin’ to sleep.”

“Me too.”

“Sweet dreams little.”

“Sweet dreams.”

These little dollops of affection we pass between each other seem ordinary, we say them so often. A shared vernacular that to others might sound sickly sweet and over the top. But to us, it all feels genuine and earnest. Back at school when I enter a room she’s in and cry “well hey there honey!” in an exaggerated southern lilt, I really do mean that she is my honey. Golden and sweet and sticking to every part of me. She might be able to pass it off as satire, us playing the parts of two old married people who say things like “pass the butter sweetie pie” or “my day’s better now that I’m with you” but I am becoming the part I am playing. The devoted partner, the adoring husband, especially knowing that because we are both girls, and best friends at that, there is no chance it will ever come true. I feel safe expressing my need for her because of that. Because she will always fall head over heels for men, and our friendship will remain intact. As long as I maintain that imaginary boundary, I will never lose her.