our secret moments

This is an unchronological tale that switches from past to present; glimpses of a happy relationship that slowly, slowly starts to lapse. In the past Lena takes a job in the city, Kara starts working for the Gand family, and they spend less time together.

In the present, Lena has to organize a funeral and handle all her father’s outstanding debts. She spends most of her evenings with a glass of scotch and no company beyond the whistle of wind through every hollowed crack in the walls.

Back to the past—Lena is too in her own head to understand she is the one to blame for the distance. Because Kara tries. She is the one who organizes dates to go stargazing in the back of her truck, the one who brings flowers to Lena’s study every week, the one who stays up waiting until Lena makes it back home every night after a two-hour commute just to make sure Lena is safe. And eventually, Lena gets a place out in the city without telling Kara, with the idea that Kara will go with her.

Six years forward and Lena finds out Kara has taken over her father’s mortgage completely. They sit in his house—the one which seems to just be falling apart—and they’re supposed to be going over the numbers, but all Lena can do is think about how Kara looks the same. How she smiles the same, even if it’s more subdued. How her forehead still crinkles when she’s faced with a trying task, and lighting Lionel Luthor’s untouched fireplace is one of them.

“How have you been sleeping at night? Did you even turn the heat on?” Kara fusses like she always does, still trying to fix anything she probably can, even if she’s undoubtedly unqualified. “Your dad always—” She pauses. “He always would need me to make the walk to the circuit breaker.”

They put everything aside for the night and Kara insists that Lena come stay in the guest house; her heat isn’t working if Lena’s isn’t, but her fireplace is. This, much to Lena’s dismay, means they also have to share the sofa bed in the living room for the night.

When they broke up six years ago, Lena had asked Kara to go with her. And Kara had let Lena talk about the life they could have in the city, let Lena go on and on about how happier they’d be. But once Lena had presented her case, Kara didn’t even respond. She didn’t need to; Kara had gently brushed flyaway hair behind Lena’s ear, her fingertips warm against Lena’s ice-cold skin, and her thumb had settled right on the apple of Lena’s cheek. Her eyes had been so sad, and Lena knew in that instant what she was going to say.

In the present, Lena can’t imagine any scenario where Kara being in the same bed with her—huddling for warmth of all things—is a good idea. Kara has always been infuriatingly warm during Midvale winters when everyone else is freezing, and Lena has to all but bury herself into her arms now in order to get any sleep.

But even then, they can’t fall asleep. And Kara’s breathing is even, but nervous. Lena traces her finger idly on Kara’s wrist, feels Kara’s breath catch underneath her ear.

“I don’t understand you,” Lena says, after a moment. “You didn’t need to bring me here. I know you hate me—”

“I don’t hate you, Lena,” Kara cuts her off, and it feels like a secret and a revelation all the same. “God, why would I hate you?”

To say it out loud, because I broke your heart, sounds cheap. So Lena doesn’t say it. “I would hate me,” she says instead, “if I was you.” Kara has a hair tie around her wrist, and Lena feels it bump underneath her fingers. Kara does not move her hand away.

They stay up all night and talk—about what they are doing now, about their families, about their jobs. And the whole time, Lena clings onto the sound of Kara’s heartbeat, of the warmth of their tangled legs together, of the scent of the smoking embers of the fire as it dies.