Things Left Unsaid

It’s raining outside the cafe, so there aren’t many people in the building. She prefers it this way because the silence is peaceful, and it gives her time to think. She looks around and smells the familiar scent of her half-drunk coffee that she brought from home. She didn’t intend to stop at the cafe today, but after receiving a phone call from her, she knew if they were going to have this conversation anywhere, it would have to be here. So, she sits at the same table she’s sat at since she was a child in the same cushioned chair, next to the same big window she’s looked out of while going through some of the best and worst times in her life. She puts her insulated cup down on the table and decides to order a pastry to buy herself some time before she has to think about all of the things she's avoided thinking about for years. She closes her eyes while waiting for her order and reminds herself that all she has to do is breathe. She takes a deep breath and, with the darkness all around her, she can almost convince herself that she’s 15 again, sitting across from someone she once believed was the only other person in the world that mattered in that little corner of their cafe. She listens to the lo-fi music playing in the background. The coffee machine spat out all different kinds of coffee. The low hum of peaceful conversation; the clicking of keyboards and inhales once more. Her name is called, and she returns to her seat with pastry in hand, her distraction officially over. Her phone buzzes, and she knows it’s her. She’s almost here. Her next breath gets caught in her throat as she forces an exhale. The sound of the bell dinging was always a comfort to her. It was more familiar than her own front door opening. She thinks about the slight absurdity in this. The fact that she knows the workers and their families as if they were her own. That she knows how it feels to be embraced by them, more than the feeling of being embraced by her own parents. That sound had never made her nervous until today. Her stomach flips as she hears her footsteps approach, and she takes a second too long to turn around, trying to savor the moment before her past and present collide into one moment. She looks up at her from her chair, which suddenly feels hard under the weight of her. The moment she meets her eyes, she can feel the last decade crumble beneath her like ash. She feels as though she is struck with an unimaginable force. Her chest gets tighter as it reacts to the crushing weight of things left unsaid. She looks good—better than good. She looks even more beautiful than she did when they were kids, like she had grown into the version of herself she always knew she could be.

“Faye,” she says as she watches her take her seat.

“Kit,” she says in return, greeting her with a smile so warm Kit was convinced she’d never feel cold again.

They look at each other for longer than most would be comfortable with, but they never needed words to fill the silence, even after all these years. They both found themselves taken aback by each other’s presence. It felt as though no time had passed, and Kit drifted back to a time where they were still wearing ponytails with tacky headbands and mismatched socks so that they could “stand out” from the rest of the girls in their school—they felt as though they were all powerful and capable of anything. This was their own little language as they walked through the halls with their ridiculous color-specific socks that took them way too long every night to choose. But they both loved it. Loved spending hours on the phone every night plotting new ways to tear down the societal norm that was their high school. And even though they were rarely near one another in their bedrooms, it felt like they were closer to each other than they were to anyone they’d ever known. Hearing each other breathe through the silence each night as they waited for sleep to take them both, staying on the phone even when it did, they felt as though they could feel the warmth of their bodies. Kit would sometimes have to catch herself from reaching out into the dark and trying to touch the glow of Faye’s non-existent face. She would dream of the day when she could feel her body against hers without fear or distance or time stopping them. Sometimes this dream would come even when she was awake, eating dinner with her family while they spoke about conversations she didn’t feel a part of, or while a teacher droned on and on about a subject she felt she would never understand. She never stopped herself in these moments because she knew they were the only time she would ever be allowed to have them.

Kits looks across the table at Faye and wonders if she’s also being hit with the memories of their past. She wonders if she remembers it the same way Kit does. She hopes she does. She feels a sort of freedom as she thinks of them now, knowing that she no longer has to hide from the overwhelming amount of love she feels radiating from them.

“I’ve missed you,” Faye says, her voice barely a whisper.

Kit doesn’t reply with words, but she doesn’t need to. She nods, and the mutual understanding between them both is enough. They stay in that moment, trying to soak up one another for as long as they can. Finally, Kit knows it’s time, and she says what feels like her very first words.

“I’m surprised you reached out after all this time.”

“I needed…to—,” Faye shakes her head as she struggles to find the right words and then tries again.

“I needed you to know why everything happened the way that it did. That it never had anything to do with how I—It never had anything to do with you. As ridiculously cheesy as that sounds.”

Kit looks down at her untouched pastry and half-drunk coffee and tries to convince herself that she isn’t dreaming. For she has waited 10 years for the moment when she would hear her voice again. To see her cheeks blush as she fumbles with her words. To be looked at the way Faye has always looked at her. It feels odd that so much has changed between the two, that they barely know who each other is anymore. And yet, nothing has changed. She can’t help but think about all of the romance books she's read and movies she’s watched, and how they all describe love as this element you cannot control. The aspect of being controlled by something you can’t see or touch was always terrifying to her. Mostly because she understood it sooner than most. Because, for as long as she can remember, she’s been in love with Faye, and that love has undoubtedly controlled her. She remembers closing her eyes and allowing herself to be taken over by the adoration she felt for her, and she remembers how that love molded into grief when she lost her.

“So, why then?” She looks down at her coffee while she speaks, afraid that if she looks into Faye’s eyes, it will unravel her.

“Because I–”

Kit looks up then, more out of instinct from the sudden silence. Faye looks back at her desperately trying to communicate with her eyes what her words couldn’t. Kit gets lost in the depths of them, and for a moment, she is convinced she can read her mind because she understands. She once struggled to say the words out loud, too, afraid that if she did, what they had would disappear. But she knows better now. Because she knows herself better now, and she is no longer afraid of the version of herself who loves fiercely and unapologetically.

So she nods in understanding and tries her best to convey this with her eyes, the way Faye conveyed herself with hers.

“I wrote you a letter. I didn’t finish it but…” She shakes her head softly as if she’s embarrassed by her words, looks up at the ceiling, and then back at Kit with fearful eyes as she continues. “I think it’ll explain much better than I can…I’ve always been better at putting my thoughts on paper than I have been at saying them out loud.”

“I remember.” A faded smile appears on her face almost as quickly as it disappears.

She hands over the letter without another word, and Kit takes Faye’s heart in her hands for the first time in years. As she reads the carefully scripted ink on the page, she realizes these words could have been from her own lips, and she has to stop herself from gasping in astonishment. The one thing that has been ingrained into her being for as long as she can remember is her love for Faye. But in this moment, she realizes that her love is not only a real, tangible thing, but that it is reciprocated. And just like that, all of the walls Kit has built around her heart shatter as there is no longer a need for them. Tears form in her eyes as her heart takes in years of yearning and heartbreak, grief and devotion. How did I let so much time pass? She thinks. She feels overwhelmed by the entirety of Faye’s confession. They look at one another almost simultaneously as tears descend their cheeks. They both smile at one another in mutual awareness, knowing that they will never let another second pass without one another, as nothing mattered more to them than making sure they never left another thing unsaid.