Page 35 of Love in Focus

Yeah.

She sends back an emoticon of a dog sweating nervously.

I grin.They were cool with it, don’t worry.

Another pause. And then:Were you?

I blink and swipe at my eyes, making sure I’m reading Celeste’s message correctly.

Yeah, I reply.You?

A few seconds later, Celeste says,Yeah.

I bite my lip, wondering what’ll happen the next time we’ll work together.

On Monday night, Celeste gets an email from Gemma letting her know that their next round of interviews will be on Thursday. And for the rest of the week, Celeste can’t stop thinking of her ex. It’s gotten to the point that, almost every night, after the daytime rush of shoots and admin work, she has to touch herself to fall asleep.

Celeste and Gemma barely did anything, just made out, really, but somehow the sheer memory of kissing Gemma again—and how it felt to have her hands on her breasts—is more arousing than anything she’s experienced in the last eight years.

Celeste told herself she wasn’t going to do anything with Gemma, and yet, the first moment they were alone, she couldn’t stop herself from crossing the point of no return. Impulse control had never been one of Celeste’s strong points. It’s one of the main things that got her into troublewhen she was growing up in Seoul, since she’d often kiss other girls—with their full,breathlessconsent, of course—even when she knew she wasn’t supposed to.

Most of the time, they managed to keep things a secret, but on the couple occasions they got caught, Celeste’s parents would have to move her to another school because the other parents complained, saying that she’d “turned their daughters gay.” As if that were a real thing.

Unfortunately, in the highly traditional and homophobic social circles she grew up in, people believed that shit. Which is why, by the time she was a second year in high school, she made it her life goal to go to college in another country, self-studying English as much as she could so she wouldn’t be limited to schools close to home.

Sure, it meant she had to study more than her peers, but, in retrospect, everything worked out in Celeste’s favor. She learned enough English to get into a college in Los Angeles, where she could freely be herself. And where she met Gemma, for better or for worse.

The night before she’s supposed to see Gemma again, Celeste is up late, trying to distract herself from thoughts of her ex. But even that miserably fails when she finishes watching her friends’ Instagram Stories and opens Facebook.

These days, the only reason she even still uses the social media app is to scroll through new posts on SASS, an international sapphic Asian group she’s in, and Twilight Sewerposting, a meme group with silly, often nonsensical content related to theTwilightmovies. But today, before shecan navigate to any of those pages, the first post that shows up on her feed is a throwback that reads,On this day…

Surrounded by a nostalgic frame is a cute photo collage that Gemma made of their first and only date to Disneyland. Celeste didn’t even know she still had this picture, since it never popped up on her Facebook Memories in the last eight years.

Gemma must have unblocked her from social media. The realization makes Celeste’s lips twitch with amusement.

In the Disneyland pictures, both she and Gemma are wearing Minnie Mouse ears and posing with various Disney characters. And eating things she doesn’t dare consume now because of the probable heartburn, like greasy turkey legs and giant sodas.

Celeste zooms in on the photos and is struck by how young they both look, like they could be friends with the couples they interviewed last week. In her head, college seems like it was just yesterday, but the pictures are jarringly clear evidence that it wasn’t.

Flipping through other pictures of herself and Gemma, Celeste finally drifts asleep.

When I show up to the studio for our second set of interviews, Celeste gives me a tight-lipped grin. Even with makeup on, she has visible dark circles underneath her eyes. If we were still dating, I’d ask her if she slept okay, but since we’re not, I only ask, “Hey, are you ready?”

She, in turn, only replies with “Yeah.”

“Okay, great.”

I hand her the small paper bag I’ve put her clothes in. She takes it with a small nod of thanks.

I want to ask Celeste if she’s been thinking of me as much as I’ve been thinking of her, if she still can’t get over what happened on Sunday like I can’t. But besides our unusually long message exchange on Monday, we barely talked to each other for the rest of the week. And now, she’s not even meeting my gaze.

We sit silently in the studio and wait for the couples to arrive.

Today, we’re interviewing two millennial married couples. The first one we’re supposed to interview—the Amatos—doesn’t show up for their time slot, so we decide to move on to the second couple.

Brent Thomas and Aaron Pullman are a white gay couple in their early forties who are “living the blessed childfree, and thus worry-free, life.”

“My sister, Bethany, has two kids, and being a guncle for them is fulfilling enough for me,” explains Brent. “We also have two cute little Maltipoos that keep us plenty busy.”

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