Page 44 of Once Bitten, Twice Fried
“No no no! Don’t feel bad. I was just… thinking.” Julie swallowed. Zoe’s dark eyes were almost shining. There were no sounds except for the wind bristling in the trees. For a moment, she wished she could’ve just stolen a kiss from Zoe right there, right now, just to remember what it felt like. She focused back, staring straight at Zoe.
“No, I had no idea.” She took a breath. “You kinda left me hanging after that night.” Julie rubbed the back of her neck. “You left without a word. I thought you’d made an embarrassing mistake and just wanted to forget about it.”
Zoe looked at her in horror. “Oh no.” She shook her head. “No no no no.” She sighed. “I had to leave because the sink backat our apartment was blocked and Yasmine had told me the plumber was dropping by that morning. She didn’t want to be alone dealing with him.”
“Oh.” Julie digested this information. It seemed ridiculous, that something that had caused her so much anguish could be so ordinary. Still, it rang true. It was like Yas to worry about something like that. And it was so like Zoe to keep her promise to her friend to be there.
“Why didn’t you tell me at the time?” Julie’s heart tugged, remembering how quickly Zoe had left that morning, barely saying goodbye to her.
“I don’t know… I panicked. This-” Zoe waved her hands around. “This was all new for me and I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know if it meant anything to you, I didn’t want to bethatgirl.” Zoe touched Julie’s hand. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea you thought that… If anything, I thought you were embarrassed, that you weren’t really into me and you didn’t know how to turn me down without hurting me.”
“Oh god, Zoe. I was head over heels for you.” Julie spoke before her brain could fully process what she was saying. “And I had been for months at that point.” She blushed furiously.
Zoe chuckled. “Months… We only knew each other for a year.” She stopped. Probably realising what that meant.
“Please don’t think that I was only friends with you because of that.” Julie pleaded in a whisper. The warmth in her cheeks was only getting hotter. She was confessing a crush from ten years ago, but it was one she still held close to her heart.
Zoe gripped Julie’s wrist. “It’s alright… I know you weren’t.” She stepped closer to Julie. “I don’t even know when it started for me. It was the first time I felt something like that for another girl.” She paused. “The first time it was that intense, at least.” Zoe had her hands on both Julie’s wrists now. “It could’ve been months, it could’ve been at the start of the year. I don’t know.To be fair, I hadn’t even understood the full extent of it until recently. I just knew I cared more about you than about anyone else.”
Julie couldn’t move any more. Her body was frozen in place, struck by Zoe’s straightforward confession.
Zoe spoke again, her eyes shifting down. “The first night of the hen do… I was so excited to see you again, and you were just weird. You weren’t the Julie I remembered. It made me sad.”
The soft pull of Zoe’s hands on her arms sent a shiver through her entire body. Of course she‘d made Zoe sad. She’d acted awfully that entire evening. Julie hated herself for her behaviour, but at the same time, if she had kept up that routine, maybe they wouldn’t be in this non-ideal situation now.
“I’m sorry.” Julie murmured. “I panicked… You seemed to have moved on. You looked so successful and you were engaged to a famous guy. I was your college friend who had a dumb crush on you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Well, again, the dumb crush was mutual.” Zoe smiled. “You keep thinking I don’t care about you. I don’t know why.”
“I don’t know either.”
Zoe was way too close. Julie felt one of Zoe’s hands run up her arm to her shoulder, then a finger lightly tracing along her collarbone. Julie looked at it, then back at Zoe’s face. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she knew for certain that if she closed the distance between Zoe and her right now, things would be ruined forever. They were not ten years ago. It was not a drunken college party night. They were adults, with adult consequences. But still, the urge was just too much. To hold Zoe’s face and kiss her into oblivion. To start again where they left ten years ago.
Julie suddenly felt vibrations coming from her jacket pocket.
Zoe swiftly removed her hands from Julie as if the spell was suddenly broken.
“Oh shit.” Julie looked at the screen. “It’s Yasmine. She must be wondering where we are.”
“She was on the phone with Adam when I left the hou-”
“Hey Yas!” Julie automatically switched to French, and somehow that reinforced that the spell was broken, that they were in the here and now.
“Where are you? And is Zoe with you? I can’t find either of you inside or outside the house. Did anArdennaiscannibal chainsaw-wielding serial killer kidnap you?”
“Nope, we’re still alive and we have all our flesh on us. We went to get shears from the shed.” Zoe gave her a bemused look, which Julie answered with a wink.
“In the dark? That’s how ninety percent of people in horror movies get murdered,” Yasmine admonished.
“You’re the one who picked this place to get married!”
“I’m not getting married at night, outside in the dark! Anyway, do you girls want to come back and chill in front of some bad TV?”
“Sounds great, we’ll be back, right away.”
“Great. Make sure you’re not followed by any axe murderers.”
“We’ll try our best. See you soon!”
