Where You Are

Although she could very well understand heartbreak, given her own form of it over the past few weeks, Vivien chose not to badger the younger woman with her shit. “Where’d you fly in from?” she asked with a raise of her dark brow, studying the other’s expression as she did before lower her gaze to her arms which had crossed over her torso. Glancing back up, the agent checked just in case, “Something you need to get off your chest? I hear I’m not that bad of a listener. Don’t talk much anyways.”

The girl sat up to look at the woman who had entered the room. She licked her full lips before answering, “Seattle. Really far from home but it’s not really home.” she said with a shrug. “Thanks but I don’t want to burden you with my issues. They’re pretty boring anyways,” she added with a chuckle.

  This is how Leonie had always been, that voice reassuring Leni that all of her fears were unnecessary. That life didn’t have to be such a constant lump in her throat. That it could be breathed with ease, and refreshing to her pores. The brunette had always stood her firm ground to make sure that Leni didn’t run wild with her emotions. She hated how easily the girl could read her, maybe that’s why at times Leni found pushing the girl away to be the right thing. Letting people close to her wasn’t something that came easy as she didn’t quite know exactly where she stood in life. -or who she was. Though she had more of a sense once her husband had died, and even though it was more of a relief to the woman..it was still the man she once fell in love with..had children with. A child, her two eldest had actually been from someone else, but it wasn’t something her children knew. Only she, and her husband. “Come here..” The space between them was thick of air. Her lungs couldn’t process it through, so her arms found a comfort, even if it was brief. She wrapped her arms around the younger woman’s neck and pulled her close. She instantly remembered how petite the girl had felt in her arms. The discussion would be at rest, at least for Leni. “It is good to see you..” She softened her words into the crook of Leonie’s neck. Her chin brushed against the girls skin and Leni picked up on the familiar floral perfume. For a moment she just held it in. “It’ll all be okay.”

If there was one thing Leonie did was never give up on the ones she cared for. She’d fight til the death for those that meant the world to her and Leni was one of those people. She felt her heart stop beating for a few seconds when she was pulled into a hug. The younger woman stood there quietly, frozen, unsure of what to do. She then quickly burrowed her face in Leni’s neck and wrapped her arms around her, holding her tightly as her tears finally escaped from her eyes. It had been so long since anyone had hugged her, she had gone through days and weeks of horrible things happening and she was always alone, to finally feel the warmth of another hug was all that she had been missing, and the fact that it was Leni made it better. “Please don’t let go, don’t leave me again, please...” her words were weak, she didn’t have much strength left for she had to use all of it the past few years to be there for her family.

  There had been time occupied in their lives since they had last seen each other. Surely, Leonie had other people involved intimately with her, even mindless little crushes. There had to be someone other than this older woman who had made it clear of the void. Silent fell her lips. Leni was conflicted. Life seemed so much more complicated than the other girl was making it sound. There wasn’t a thing such as happy endings in Leni’s eyes. She wasn’t even sure if she had ever believed in such a thing. Happiness just all seemed too temporary in this world. “Keep it.” her tongue slipped through her lips to dampen them. They had been dry from the looming silence above her. Seeing Leonie just wasn’t something she had expected in her near future, certainly not here. Leni reached her hands to grab the girls, and she wrapped the brunette’s fingers around the camera. She knew the girl had a very deep passion, and no part of it should be let go, not for Leni. “You’ll find a muse, in time.” Quietly, she reassured.

There were many people Leonie had been with since separating from Leni, but it wasn’t the same. They were just fun, nothing was real, not like the real she had with the blonde. Leonie looked up at Leni, tears forming in her own eyes when their hands touched. She grabbed the older woman’s hands tightly and bit her lip, “I don’t want to find a new muse, it doesn’t work that way,” she muttered. “Please don’t push me away...we’re going to have to see each other all the time in this house, at least try to be my friend, try to be cordial with me...I can’t just not have you as a part of my life, especially knowing that you’re three doors down. Please...” her hands didn’t let go of Leni’s and her eyes didn’t pull away from hers either.

  Her mind hated to dodge in the direction, but Leni couldn’t help but feel like she was talking to one of her children stuck in their highly stubborn teenage years. Just rebelling against all adult guidance. That nothing Leni could say was going to change the girls mind who stood in front of her with such a reckless determined mind. “Please,” the blond felt her bones melt inside of her body at the touch of the younger girls light touch. It had been a while, and Leonie was right, they were ore than what she had spoken about. Leni had tucked many sex partners in her life since she found out her husband had been cheating, and it had become a pattern of women, but none of them kept her wrapped around them like the brunette before her had. Leni hated something about it, maybe because the girl was so young, or the fact that she had been her close friends daughter. The blond had a way of caring what people thought, she didn’t quite understand why. Maybe because she had pretended so long to be something she wasn’t just to make those around her content. Turning away from the girls touch, Leni pushed back her shoulder tucking in her pride. “We can’t do this. It won’t work out,” Her voice had softened now. “You need to live your life with people your own age, to be young and free. I can’t be what you want from me. I can’t give that to you.”

“I know...” she whispered, “You’re scared,” she added. The younger woman always knew how stubborn Leni was. It was always an argument, Leonie being so young and being the daughter of Leni’s friends, but they hadn’t done anything until she was an adult and as an adult Leonie could make her own choices. “The only reason it didn’t or won’t work out is because you’re scared. You’re scared of what the world might say but who cares? People are always going to have something to say, and you signed up to judged by the entire world by being on this show. Someone is always going to say something, so why not just follow your heart and go with what you truly know is right,” she told her before shaking her head. “You out of all people should know that I am not the kind of person to be ‘young and free’. I don’t want to party and drink until I pass out, I want to study, have a beautiful relationship with a beautiful woman and build something together. I was hoping that, that woman would be you, but it’s obvious that you’re not ready to admit your feelings for me so....I guess there’s no more use for my camera, not if my muse refuses to speak to me.”

     ❝I DIDN’T THINK YOU WERE, BUT WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT, SOUNDS KIND OF WORST. Totally kidding. Sorry.” Camille wasn’t one to interfere in other people’s business, but seeing the girl who clearly seemed to mourn a broken heart made her want to reach out. “Anything I can do? Ice cream and cheesy movies always seems to help? Or maybe burning photos, something like that. I’m just going what I see off the movies. Vodka also helps, for the heartbreak and jet lag.” She asked, never even knowing the girl Leonie was harboring after was her very roommate, Leni. What did she know about how to handle heartbreak? When Tammy and her broke up, she left and that was that. She tore out every piece of the girl and shut herself down since it was the easiest thing to do at the time. She never got closure, so perhaps that is why she was here? Or maybe a reconciliation would be in order? Though it seemed like both their exes just came here to have a good time without them. 

She let out a chuckle, “Well aren’t you glad I’m not,” she joked. The girl raised a brow and nodded, “Ice cream and cheesy movies don’t sound too bad actually. I’ve already burned the photos, well ripped them up...” she muttered with a shrug.  Although she had gotten rid of the physical copies, the digital ones remained in her camera. She couldn’t bring herself to delete them forever. The photos held years of memories between them, when they were content and when they weren’t, each photo meant the world to Leonie and she wouldn’t rid of them that easily.

Glad that her pizza finally arrived, Toni found a sitting room that she thought was empty – until she heard a voice and jumped slightly. “Well…. I’m glad you’re not dead” She said with a crinkle of her nose. Looking over at the other woman – she tried to put a name to the face before realizing she hadn’t seen the other woman around before. “Do you want some pizza? I know it doesn’t heal a broken heart completely but…. it helps.”

Leonie sat up and tucked a strand of her long dark hair behind her ear before smiling, “Thanks, I could use a slice,” she said as she moved closer to the other woman. “Pizza, mac and cheese and then a big bowl of chocolate ice cream heal a broken heart,” she said with a nod, “For maybe an hour or two,” she added with a chuckle. “I’m Leonie, thanks for the pizza.”

  “Haven’t I made it clear?” Leni bit back disliking the fact that she had to be harsh with the girl. Leonie saw through her like a broken window stuck in denial of what was really there. Now, Leni’s arms were folded to her chest. It was a body language of shielding herself for the girl’s words and actions to come, and to cover her body up that was clad in a nylon nightgown. It felt all too personal around the brunette. It was hard enough, to see the sight of her former lover to bite her lip to withhold those pained emotions. A part of Leni just wanted to wrap the girl in her arms, to smooth her thumb over that bitten lip and take her in…but it couldn’t turn out that way. The blond wouldn’t allow it, this was her friends daughter, a girl much younger who had once been set up to date one of Leni’s son’s. It wasn’t supposed to switch over to this. Especially not on such public light. “This is why I can’t be involved with you,” Her hand laid flat in the air holding the ripped pieces of photograph. She couldn’t curl her fingers around them afraid that she may feel weak to the captured memory. “You’re too unstable. Too youthfully emotional. You sleep with someone and think it’s love. Grow up, Leonie.” It was harsh, perhaps too cold, but the emotions were rising in Leni’s eyes. You could see the water bed of tears rimming her eye sockets, and her breath was uneasy upon her chest. 

Leonie wasn’t stupid, she knew how the woman really felt. She scoffed as she grabbed the rest of the box, filled with photos of things, places, none of any person in particular. “This is why? Because I’m person with feelings? A person who is hurt?” she questioned shaking her head. “Oh please Leni, I may be young but at least I’m not constantly lying to myself. Let’s be honest here, the only one between the two of us that needs to grow up is you. You may be older and have kids, but mentally and emotionally, you’re like a teenager. Pushing away the ones who care about you the most because you’re scared you’ll get hurt. What we had wasn’t just sex and you know it, it was years of emotional and mental bonding, it was love. You may frustrate me until the end of time but those feelings don’t just go away because I ripped up a few pictures. I still love you and I always will, when you pull your head out of your ass and stop being in denial about something you shouldn’t even be ashamed of feeling in the first place, then come find me.” She saw the tears building in Leni’s eyes, reaching up she wiped one away as it fell, “You can’t tell me you’re crying over me ripping paper and ‘killing trees’, we both why you’re shedding tears and I hope in time you can come to terms with that.”

“If ye were rottin’ up in here, I’d be a wee concerned,” Shannon humored gently, leaning against the frame of the door as she did. She had heard of the new guests coming onto the show and thought to welcome them - perhaps more out of her sake due to boredom. Inhaling deeply to force herself not to be as off-kilter as usual, the redhead ventured, “Jetlagged and heartbroken? Sounds like a mighty problem, lass. Doubt I could fix anythin’ less ye’d want to chat? Or I could go get a bottle of scotch and we could down our worries together. What’s that sayin’? Misery loves company. Somethin’ like that, anyway.”

“Come to think of it, I think you’d be able to smell it too,” she said as she sat up to face the other woman. Leonie bit her lip, “You know what, I’d be happy to grab that bottle of scotch and just go at it.” She wasn’t the one to drink so heavily, but her anger had been building up deep inside of her since the argument with Leni and she wasn’t one to lash out at others either. “I don’t start classes until next week so we can have as many drinks as we want,” she said as she walked over to the other, “I’m Leonie by the way, thanks for getting me out of that bed.”

“I, uh — it’s not what it looks like?” Rosie cracked a cheesy, awkward smile as the other woman walked into the kitchen to find her surrounded (there was absolutely no other way to put it) by boxes of Chinese take out. “I swear, it didn’t seem like that much on the menu. They say the eye is bigger than the stomach, and all of that.” She quickly tried to explain, a faint pink blush rising to her cheeks in embarrassment; laughing though, of course. “I’m jetlagged, cut me some slack! Oh, and take whatever you want. Dinner is bloody on me.” 

“Really because it’s kind of hard to make up a story for all that food,” Leonie teased as she leaned against the kitchen counter. “If you can eat all that, I’m sure you’d make it into some kind of world record book.” She sat beside the girl and smiled, “Thanks, but I think I should introduce myself before I take any of your food. Don’t you think? I’m Leonie,”

  The weight of this all being a bad idea was tipping the scale now. She had tried so long to pull herself out of the gravity of Leonie. It was a mess in the making from the start and the older woman had written a million and one reasons why getting involved with each other would never be a good idea. The girl had began to hysterically lift them from her chest and spit them out in the air to Leni. Her pride was too strong, to far sucked into the shell of who she was good at pretending to be. Leonie was just a reminder of her stage life. She couldn’t admit all of her raw emotions out into the open, not youthfully like the girl before her had done so recklessly. “Would it bother you if I was having fun? Having sex with someone?” It was vicious, Leni’s words. She was too far coated into a masking of her feelings that her tongue almost pierced a harshness. Her exterior began to crack as the specific photograph was pulled from the slammed stack. Leni had seen the girl as the epitome of beautiful. Every natural definition of the word sprawled across her bed, tangled in sheets that they had once warmed. Gulping down it all, she pushed her words out. “If you can’t handle digesting what I had told you before then we can’t continue on this conversation or any further one. I needed you to let it go, to not be so wrapped up into someone who isn’t available to you as you’d like them to be. If you have a problem with me living my life apart from you, then please, go. If you can’t handle it, leave. I told you it was a mistake. It should have never happened.” Each word was sharp of edges. “I’m sorry that you are still hurting over this, but it’s done.”

“That’s not the point. You’re an adult, the point is you told me you didn’t want that and now you’re here willing to do exactly that in front of everyone in the entire world. I know I’m not the most beautiful person in existence but I didn’t think I was that atrocious,” she snapped back. Leonie bit down on her bottom lip as Leni’s words took sharp stabs at her heart, but she didn’t cry. Crying wouldn’t help, it wouldn’t solve anything. All she did was take a deep breath, drop the box in front of her and pull out the pictures she had treasured for all those years, ripping them slowly in front of the blonde, “ Nunca encontrarás el amor,” she said before scoffing and handing Leni the scraps of the picture.

  Leni lifted a hand, brushing her rushed fingers through her dyed blond hair. (something she once wished would grab more attention from her husband riding herself from her brunette naturality.) She couldn’t argue, she hadn’t stayed much in contact with either of Leonie’s mothers. Not since the two of them had fallen in some sort of fling..it made dinner, outings, even phone calls all too hard for Leni to digest.. “School. Right.” Her lips were pulled tightly. Did she believe it was such a coincidence, her tone said no. There was an emotional rollercoaster beginning, and Leni did not want to be a passenger. She couldn’t handle it, just being on this show seemed ridiculous. She was too old for all of this– so she reminded her head. Fingers shook as she reached behind her back to pull up the zipper of her dress not feeling the need to be unzipped while around such young, unstable emotions. “We aren’t doing this…” Leni’s head shook. This wasn’t a topic she could dabble within, not since they last saw each other and she practically shooed Leonie dramatically out of her life. “Just please…” Her eyes shifted downward to the carpet. Anything to take her eyes away from the vulnerably open girl. “I told you how things were when I last saw you—that’s just how it is.”

Leonie’s grip on the photographs grew tighter, her anger building as the woman continued to push her away. “No!” she yelled, slamming the box on the ground. “No...you don’t get to do this,” she told her, trying to calm herself. “You don’t get to stand there and pretend that there was nothing between us. You don’t get to tell me that we couldn’t work because I’m too young or because I’m a woman or whatever other excuse you want to create to mask your feelings for me. You don’t get to tell me you don’t love me and shoo me away and then come on this show. Why are you here? For fun? For sex? For exactly what we had before you kicked me to the curb?” Leonie’s hands quivered, her words were harder to form as the lump in her throat grew. She picked up the photos and pulled each one out, “I kept these because they were the only thing I had left of you, the only memory of how you looked...I’ve been thrown to the curb by everyone Leni...everyone, I never thought you’d do the same. I thought you were different.” she shook her head and ran her hands through her long dark hair, “Even though I had a feeling you were still lying to yourself about the reason you left...but I didn’t think you’d continue to lie about how you felt about us,” she said as she pulled out a photo Leni had taken of her while she had been sleeping.

  It was well over seven-thousand miles from where Leni had traveled from and here she was struck with a familiar voice. It was spoken in pained tones that often had vibrated in her head when her mind was buzzing too much to sleep at night. Tossing and turning, tossing and turning. No matter the missing that crept for the girl inside of her chest, Leni couldn’t step in that direction. The older woman went to speak the girls name, but it was stolen from her. Distracted from the box dropping, Leni quickly turned. Her motherly instincts had kicked in to help pick up the fallen mess. It all spread along her floor, memories, captured and printed right there in color. Jesus. Picking them up, Leni’s thumb slowly caressed a certain photograph, one she had taken herself of the girl…”Here..” Her voice sunk within her throat at the image. “–what are you doing here? Do your mothers know you’re out here?” Surely this couldn’t be a coincidence, not to her. There had to be a reason. 

Leonie felt stuck, she couldn’t move. Out of all the places the two could have been at this moment they were together. The younger woman’s lip quivered as her eyes flickered down to the photographs that had fallen out of her hands. She couldn’t even bring herself to thank the older woman, not after what she had down, how she had left. Her eyebrows furrowed at the question, “I’m 21, my mothers don’t have to know anything but yes they do. I’m studying out here, joining the show would help with expenses.” she muttered as she gripped onto the photos. “I’ve missed you...a lot more than you can imagine.”

    What was she doing here? This was a place that was so open and public with its contestants sexuality, when Leni wasn’t quite sure where she stood. She stood in front of the overly large mirror, ribboned with beautifully carved architecture looking at her reflection that played differently than the face she normally put on. “Oh—pardon me..” The widow caught a glimpse of another body in her reflection. Her voice was posed as gently startled, but it was the door that had been cracked open for a reason. Just opened enough for someone to watch her change. It was her subtle way of being alluring with her sexuality. God, she loved women. She had been with women, but there came a time in Leni’s life where she had forgotten who she really was, made up by who she had pretended to be. 

Leonie had been going back and forth from her room, carrying the small boxes she brought to London with her. She gripped tightly onto the last one, it was filled with the most important photos she had ever taken with her camera. Photos of someone so dear to her she shed tears at the simple thought of the night they went their separate ways. She hummed a song as she made her way through the halls, stopping when she saw a door cracked open. Curiosity struck and as she peeked in her brown eyes grew wide at who she saw. The grip on her box loosened, allowing the cardboard container to fall, the photos spreading everywhere. “Leni?” she muttered.