Chapter Text
Sterling unlocked the door to the apartment she’d been calling home for the last eleven months and stepped through. Finding a decent place in NYC was a nightmare, so she was thankful she had this little place, even if she wished the heating worked better.
Once inside she could hear her roommate working diligently in the kitchen, preparing their dinner while singing to herself. Sterling smiled, finding comfort in this little slice of everyday domesticity, something normal among the abnormality of living in this crazy world.
“Hey, Lindsey, I’m home!” she called out before tossing her coat across the seat of the chair and started unlacing her boots. She was beyond thankful for Lindsey, roommate extraordinaire; scarily smart Lindsey Kalan, microbiologist; Linds, her most recent girlfriend. Whose voice rang out from the kitchen, calling to Sterling.
“Hey there. How was work? Okay, I hope?” Not one to wait for an answer to simple pleasantries, Lindsey moved right on. ‘Dinner’s gonna be ready in twenty. Oh, there’s another letter from the reunion committee on your desk.”
Sterling sighed, not at all eager to face this today. The original letter was stuffed away in a desk drawer, still unopened. It’s not like she didn’t know what it would say: Dear students of Willingham Academy, can you believe it’s been nearly ten years… Ten years. No, Sterling could not believe that.
Ten years was a lifetime ago, and all she wanted to remember from those years she had made sure to bring with her as she moved away, moved on. So what if people were trying to make a reunion happen? She’d ignored the first letter and she’d ignore this one too.
Walking through their apartment, she started shedding the layers of her worklife, until she was just Sterl again. She moved into her bedroom, grabbed the letter from the glass-topped desk and shoved it down into the drawer next to the other one. Seriously, whoever decided reunions were a thing again could burn . “Linds, what’s for dinner?”
“Why don’t you come find out for yourself?”
She walked into the kitchen and slung an arm around Lindsey’s shoulders from behind, craning her neck to sneak a peek at the pot puttering away on the stove. The smells wafting up from the stove made her mouth water. “Whatever it is, it smells great,” Sterling said, giving Linds a grateful squeeze.
“Mushroom bourguignon.” Lindsey indicated with a wooden spoon stained a deep red by the juices. “And mashed potatoes.”
“Bourguignon? What’s that?”
“Stew” Lindsey stuck her tongue out. “With mushrooms.”
“Thanks a lot, Martha.”
“You know I’m more partial to Rachel Ray.”
“What about Nigella?”
“Oooh, you’re right. She’s a goddess .”
“No, you’re a goddess. Cooking for little ol’ me? I mean, what?” With a laugh, Sterling tousled Lindsey’s short black hair. She remembered when she met up with Linds for the first time after she had her long hair sheared and turned into an adorable, uneven undercut pixie style. She’d not been a fan, but now she could barely picture the woman she was holding with hair halfway down her back. What a difference only a year could make.
Sterling licked her lips before wolfing down another spoonful of the musty stew, smacking happily until she realized her plate was clear. With a dissatisfied groan, she used a piece of Lindsey’s homemade sourdough to fastidiously soak up the last drops of sauce off her plate. “Did I already say great?”
“‘Smells great.’ Those were your exact words.” Lindsey shook her head at the ridiculous pout on Sterling’s face.
“I meant divine. I could eat that every day.” Sterling leapt out of her chair and moved towards the stove. “The taste was divine. How? Seriously, how?”
Lindsey turned her head to laugh at the frustration Sterling displayed when she realized the pot was empty. “Uh, I know how to read?”
Sterling deadpanned,“Funny girl.”
“We have this newfangled thing here in the future. They’re called recipes. R-E-C-I—” she was interrupted by Sterling yanking her chair back hard enough that she nearly tipped over.
“Oops.” Sterling laughed and pushed her back upright. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to give it that much welly.”
“We-well-welly? Wha-what-whatever do you mean? Why don’t you speak English, girl?”
“I am. The Queen’s English in fact,” Sterling said brightly. “She’s a girl too, y’know.”
Lindsey just shook her head despondently. “Oh God. Please, no. Not this again.” She stood up and grabbed Sterling by the shoulders, staring straight at her. “Is this going to be like when you discovered the britcom channel and spent the next week and a half doing the most god-awful British accent? Is this a relapse? ”
“R-E-L,” Sterling broke out in a wide grin before she could finish spelling the word.
“You brat. Don’t make me put you over my knee and spank you.”
“You wouldn’t!” Sterling said with an exaggerated gasp, eyes wide.
“Have done and will do again.”
“Wouldn’t be the same.”
“Damn straight it wouldn’t. This time around you wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much.” Lindsey gave her backside a smack for good measure. “Why don’t you move your ass to the couch and pick something for us to watch while I prepare dessert.”
“Dessert?” Sterling’s face lit up.
“Nothing fancy. It’s just, ya know, it’s Friday night and I know you’ve had a long week.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“No, seriously. I L-O-V-E you.”
“You managed to spell a four-letter word correctly. Well done, you.”
Sterling stretched while the credits rolled on what must’ve been the longest movie ever. “If I ever suggest watching anything to do with epic fantasy again, you have my permission to slap me.”
Lindsey just laughed and took one last sip from her wine glass. “Hey, Sterling, what was that letter about?”
“You know, reunion stuff,” Sterling said with a dismissive shrug.
“So what is it really about?”
“You know.”
“I do,” Lindsey nodded knowingly.
“So why do you ask?”
“Because you never mentioned it after the first letter. Like, at all .” When Sterling remained quiet, she pushed on. “I know growing up in a conservative and deeply religious—”
“Biggotted. They were almost all bigots and racists or just plain hateful towards anyone that weren’t exactly like them.”
“Everything that was good about growing up there, I still have. My parents, Blair, Ellen. Bowser and Yolanda. I keep meaning to check in with them, but—”
“What about the rest of your classmates?”
“We weren’t that close.”
“So what do you have to lose? Visit your folks, get drunk with those friends of yours that remain. You’ve probably not met face-to-face for years. Does that really sound bad?”
Sterling curled up on the couch, saying nothing.
“Sterl. Talk to me. Would it actually bring about anything bad?”
“She might be there.”
“Who?” Lindsey was confused for a second before she realized what this was all about. “Oh, she-who-must-not-be-named.”
“Exactly.”
“The evil ex.”
“I don’t call her that anymore.”
“Sterling.”
“Not that often, at least.”
“So you went to school together. Huh. I figured that whole thing happened a lot closer to when we first got to know each other.”
“It did.” Sterling really didn’t want to get into this, but Lindsey already knew the highlights and she deserved the deep background. But first she had to make sure it wouldn’t ruin their relationship. “You know that I love you, right? You’re like my best friend.”
“I think Blair might slap you if she was here.”
“Bestest non-twin best friend.” Sterling stopped and seemed to give it a lot more thought than necessary. “Uh, that’s a lot of best in one very short sentence. Anyway. Best friend.”
“Are you sure you got it right this time?”
“In the whole world! Not just NYC!”
“Of course,” Lindsey chuckled. “And same. It’s not like I make a habit of cohabiting with ex-girlfriends. Or calling them my best friend. I’m down for the occasional hang-out, sure, but...”
“Good thing too, because this place is barely big enough for the two of us. We’d have to stack your exes floor-to-ceiling to fit them all in.”
“Very droll.”
“Thank you. Imagining all the Amandas, Tashas, and Leahs like that made me laugh.”
“I don’t date that much,” Lindsey huffed.
“Maybe the Container Store has some stackable boxes fit for exes. Ex-boxes.”
“Okay, Sterl, not so cute any more, that’s… disturbing. That’s half-way to serial killer.” Lindsey reached out for Sterling. “Why won’t you just tell me what’s on your mind?”
Sterling sat back down and took Lindsey’s hand in her own. “What I started saying was, I love you. I loved you. Was in love with you. There was nothing fake about what we had.”
“Mmhmm.”
“But…”
“Yes?”
“It was different with her. It just was...” Sterling struggled to find the appropriate words. “More. It was just more. It was more of everything. More intense. More passionate. More joyous. More… heartbreaking.”
“Why is it that you’re telling me this now?”
“It’s not like I could tell my girlfriend-at-the-time that I’d had my heart broken, over and over, by the same girl since I was sixteen. That makes me sound like some kind of no self-esteem loser.”
“Sterling, no…”
“Or the kind of psycho-girlfriend that refuses to let go and ends up fracturing her tucchus after falling out of a tree because she was trying to spy on her ex.“
“Tucchus?”
“Yeah, I’ve been watching old SNL clips on YouTube. Who knew Mike Myers used to be funny? Huh.”
Lindsey laughed and gave Sterling a quick hug. “I hate to break it to you, honey, but you’re not special.”
“Did I not mention the no self-esteem loser part?” Sterling’s pout disappeared under Lindsey’s loving gaze.
“At least not when it comes to this. Sterling, we’ve all been there. To some degree or other. Everybody has someone they thought was their soulmate or some such nonsense. Usually their first love, because it’s amazing and new and precious and special. But it’s not. It’s just love.”
“You make that sound like such a mundane thing.”
“I did, and yet it’s not. My point is that every time you fall in love it’s all those things. And yes, sometimes more .”
“I like, really, really, really loved her. Even after she broke my heart. Every time. Even when she tore it from my chest and threw it into a mulcher.”
“By the sound of things, you guys didn’t just fall back together. It was more like a head-on collision at maximum speed.” Lindsey looked closely at Sterling, searching for something. “Do you still have feelings for her?”
“Anger, resentment, hatred. Those are feelings.”
“Do you love her?”
“How would I even know? At this point, everything about her is a huge, tangled mess.”
“When did you last see her?”
“It’s been three years, just like I told you. I wrote her that letter and haven’t heard a thing since. Not one peep. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about it. We,” she sighed, “we weren’t good for each other. I don’t want that back.”
Lindsey rubbed her friend’s back. “Understandable. From what you’ve told me, you’ve been to hell and back together. But, what I want to know is, do you want her to be there?”
“I-I don’t know.” Sterling took a deep breath and straightened her back. “No, it’s been three years and what happened then, that, that was the straw—”
“That broke the camel’s back?” Lindsey tittered.
Sterling narrowed her eyes. “Are you comparing my boobs to a camel’s humps?”
Lindsey started singing: Your humps, your humpas, your humps
Sterlings shot her a withering glare.
Your lovely lady lumps
Yeah, she was really thankful she had Lindsey in her life. Off-key singing notwithstanding.