Exaltation
I have a knife. I have my sword. I did not come across the world to lose you now.
- The Princess Bride
That morning, so early that dawn hadn’t quite broken across the sky, Elide lay awake. She watched the last traces of moonlight paint all the world to sliver, slipping over Manon’s still and quiet face like a sheet of soft water.
She ached. A shiver ran up her spine. The ache remained.
When the sky shifted into a pearly gray, pink at the sunrise’s edges, Manon came awake, her eyes blinking open slowly, so slowly. “Morning El,” she whispered, voice gravelly with sleep.
“Morning,” Elide whispered back, eyes tracing over every inch of Manon, the line of her jaw, the place where the curve of her waist met the blanket’s rumpled edge.
Reaching out to gently tuck a stray hair behind Elide’s ear, Manon asked, “What are you doing up?”
“Thinking.”
“You should try sleeping.”
“I can’t.” Elide replied quietly, honestly.
As her fingers trailed through Elide’s hair, Manon murmured, “What’s keeping you awake?” And at that touch, Elide’s eyes slipped closed, her entire body thrumming with an energy that she dared not name or tame.
“How jellyfish swim without a brain.”
“You’re funny.” Manon tugged lightly on a lock of hair. “What’s up? Really.”
“You won’t like it.” Elide rolled onto her back, staring into the ceiling instead of Manon’s amber eyes.
“Oh yeah? Try me,” Manon replied, shifting to prop herself up on one elbow. Almost hesitantly, she rested a palm against Elide’s ribs and the touch burned through her body like a live wire. “Anything, El,” she said softly, “we can talk about anything.”
“I – I keep wondering something.” Elide reached down and blindly pressed Manon’s hand harder against her chest, breath and muscle and bone. My heart, my heart. “The same question. Over and over. After everything I said, after everything I did …
Manon – why did you answer my call?”
And Manon took in a deep breath, one that she didn’t quite exhale. The heart is a lonely hunter and it betrays me at every turn. Pounding and pounding and pounding. Maybe, here in the dawn light, it’s time to be honest at last. “Because I love you.”
“Oh.”
+
“I think we should have just gone back to the zoo.”
“That’s one option.” Manon replied, and Elide didn’t have to see her face to know that her lips were quirked into a smile.
Nearly brushing their fingertips together, Elide came to a stop. She just … stopped. “Really. What if we went back to the zoo and never left?”
“Well, we’d get arrested. And we’d probably end up in one of those Only in Florida news segments. But again, it’s an option.” Nudging Elide’s shoulder, Manon asked, “What’s going on?”
They hadn’t talked about it.
Because I love you.
Elide’s heart stopping in her chest for a beat, the frozen terror of Manon’s body, the air turning electric between them. Nobody moved. Not until Elide’s heart kick-started back into double time and Manon pulled away and Elide grabbed her hand –
“Where are you going?”
“El, I – I don’t want to make things harder. For either of us.”
“But I don’t want you to leave.” Every inch of her body thrumming and thrumming and thrumming. “Do you?”
“No.” The longest exhale. “I don’t.”
“Then stay, please stay.”
They fell asleep like that, just inches apart, nearly breathing the same air. They hadn’t talked about it.
“I…” She stared down the tree lined street, sidewalk painted in a million flecks of light as a soft breeze blew through the leaves. It was a beautiful morning. It was beautiful day. “I shouldn’t feel terrified. It’s just Sunday brunch, you know? It’s just family."
It’s just a bruise splattered across her cheekbone like a modernist painting.
It’s just 48 hours from fucking catastrophe.
Elide curled her free hand into a fist – she didn’t want Manon to see it shaking.
“Hey,” Manon took a step closer, testing the unspoken truce that burned between them like an electrical current, “You want to get the hell out of here, we get the hell out of here. I’d joyride across all of Florida with you, Thelma and Louise style.”
Elide managed a small smile. “I’m pretty sure Thelma and Louise bolted for Mexico.”
“Now look who’s being no fun.”
“You, Blackbeak, it’s always you.”
“Damn straight.”
Take a deep breath in. “Okay.” Let a long breath out. “I got this. Sure they’re all going to freak out and Aelin will probably try to commit murder and we really will be fleeing to Mexico before sundown. But it’s totally fine. No worries."
“That’s the spirit.” Manon’s hand twitched, like she nearly reached for Elide, like her body held such restless hunger. “Fugitive is a good look on you.”
And Elide would be a liar and a sinner if she said that her eyes didn’t slip closed for a long moment, the longest breath. You make me understand why moths yearn for flame. “Right.” Her eyes flicked open, because it was that or fall to pieces. “Let’s do this. Rhoe will give me so much shit if I’m late.”
Together, they walked once more through the neighborhood of their childhood, the quiet streets and waving trees, reminiscing and laughing and the time you climbed that fence and fell and broke both your arms – you freaking idiot. Lighting fireworks in the middle of the street on Fourth of July and setting Mrs. Pugalapesci’s porch on fire. Sneaking beers into the garden at your house and laying too close and looking too long at the stars. I remember everything, everything.
Elide finally came to a stop at the driveway to Rhoe and Evalin’s home. “Well. Here we are.”
“You can do this, El. Besides, I’m scarier than Aelin and just look at us.”
Elide snorted in laughter, because pushing Manon’s buttons was the light of her life and the joy of her days. “Sure Blackbeak.”
“Ouch Lochan. That hurts.” Manon pressed hand to her heart, pretending to look wounded and only failing a little.
“Whatever. Get out of here, you drama queen.”
Manon paused, hesitating and Elide knew – because I love you, because we haven’t talked about this, because we’re dancing on the edge of a knife and that means everybody gets cut. So Elide asked what Manon maybe couldn’t dare to, not here, not now, “See you tonight?”
And Manon smiled like someone flicked on the sun inside her chest. “Who else am I going to watch The Bachelorette with?”
“Nobody else appreciates Chris Harrison the way I do.”
Giving Elide a small nod and a two-fingered salute, Manon turned and walked back down the street, the sunlight breaking through her hair like a halo.
“Thank you,” Elide murmured in reply, soft enough that only the breeze rustling in the trees could hear.
Walking up the driveway, Elide tried to set the morning to one side, tried to give herself some goddamned space, but her brain betrayed her and old memories rushed in like the tide. Suddenly, she was just a child bolting out of her Uncle Vernon’s car at the start of every summer, ready spend 3 glorious months with the Galathynius’. Suddenly she was a teenager again and the dark years came and she didn’t see Aelin’s family at all and then … it was the long night. The fire. The gunshots. That longest night.
Elide stopped dead and stared at a memory. Painted right here, in the air, in the back of her eyes, burned like a scar. Just shadows.
Just – she’d only been fifteen. On the longest night. Flame. Gunsmoke. Catastrophe. She didn’t even know how to drive. But she’d made her way here, somehow, by some miracle from a god who only ever listened once. She’d fallen out of the driver’s seat, right onto the pavement, bleeding and smiling, ignited in light when the sun came up.
She had been … “Elide!”
She turned. There stood Aelin in the doorway of her parent’s home, grinning and waving and – the grin slid off her face, splintering clean into heartbreak. “Elide?”
All in all, brunch could have gone worse. Well. Rhoe cried and Evalin literally hugged her for fifteen minutes straight and Aelin really didn’t look like she was joking when she said that she’d carve off Lorcan’s balls and Rowan went quiet, scary quiet. And then they drank mimosas and ate too many pancakes and maybe Elide started crying when Aelin pressed a kiss to her temple and maybe that was alright.
Elide held onto her sister’s hand and had faith.
“Okay you three, out of my kitchen.” Evalin fanned at her eyes (nope, not crying, definitely not crying), “Go play those videos games that rot your precious brains and leave me to criticize how Rhoe does the dishes in peace.”
They might have been nearing thirty years old, but that didn’t change the way they bolted out of there like freaking teenagers. That’s how Elide ended up annihilating Rowan at Mario Kart. After the third loss in a row, he glared at her, glared at Aelin (Hey! What did I do?), and then grumbled, “I’m going to help Rhoe in the garden.”
“Sure thing hon! Make that good impression on the parents.” Aelin called after him, grinning like the devil.
“Get married they said. It will be fun they said.” Rowan muttered in reply.
“I love you too, honey bunches!”
“Ew.” Elide threw a pillow at her head, “You’re gross.”
“Your objection is noted and ignored.”
“I don’t think that’s how being a lawyer works.”
“Whatever CSI Miami. Pick up that controller and prepare to get your ass kicked.”
Somewhere deep into the fifth game, Aelin casually asked, “So, since, you know, Friday, have you been – are you at your apartment? Because you know you can always, and I mean always, stay with me.”
Preemptively wincing, Elide cleared her throat and eventually responded, “Umm. I’ve actually been staying with … Manon.”
“Blackbeak?!”
“Yes, Aelin! Thank you for shouting that loud enough for the astronauts on the International Space Station to hear you.”
“No problem.” Aelin replied weakly, scratching at her forehead. “You. Manon. I thought …?”
“Yeah,” Elide agreed wholeheartedly with that pause, “We’re … it’s still a little messy. But we’re okay. We’re good, actually. It’s been good. With her.”
Your body twined around my body in bed. Your breath against my skin. Your heartbeat – I can feel your heart beating.
Please stay.
“Okay.” Aelin glanced at Elide from the corner of her eye and clearly bit back approximately a billion questions. One slipped through that wall of self-restraint. “Is she being nice? Because if not, I swear to god, I will – ”
“Linny!” Elide laughed, cutting Aelin off before she could make a promise that would come with the added benefit of a hefty prison sentence. “She’s – Manon is lovely. Honestly. So please no murder.”
“Alright! Alright!” Aelin held up her hands in surrender. “Chilling with the murdering. For now.”
“I heard that.” Elide shot back.
“Whatever. Wanna go make pizza rolls?”
“Oh good god yes.”
Pizza rolls turned out to be a tragic mistake. And not because Elide always managed to burn her tongue. No, this shit show comes to you courtesy of Elide shooting herself right in the goddamned metaphorical foot. Cue scene:
Evalin, entering the kitchen to give Elide her fourth hug of the day: Mhm, it’s good to see you, sweetheart. And you smell nice – is that a new perfume?
Elide, laughing: No, this is Manon’s. That’s what we get for sharing a bed.
Aelin: What?
Evalin: What?
Elide: Oh shit.
The kitchen went very quiet for a very long minute. Elide wanted to sink into the floor and possibly change her name, dye her hair, and move to a new continent. Finally, Aelin managed to find her voice, and after opening and closing her mouth a few times, said, “Are you two … sleeping together?”
“What?” Elide looked from Aelin to Evalin to Aelin, “No, no, no. I mean yes technically, but not like, no. No.”
A mother to her very core, Evalin only needed to blink rapidly a few times before pulling herself together and saying, “Well honey, I’m very happy for you. Just remember the best sex is safe sex. Don’t forget to get tested. I think I have a pamphlet from Planned Parenthood …”
“Mom!”
“Evalin!”
Both Elide and Aelin looked at her like the end of the world couldn’t come fast enough. Evalin just shrugged, riffling through a drawer. “Please girls, we’re all adults here. Sex is perfectly natural. Actually, you know what, I think that pamphlet is upstairs …” and she wandered out of the kitchen, leaving two thoroughly embarrassed grown-ass women behind her.
As soon as Evalin’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, Aelin whirled on Elide, “You’re doing it with Blackbeak?! And you didn’t tell me!”
“No! Jesus!” Her face now approximately the same color as an actual brick, Elide pinched the bridge of her nose and prayed for salvation from any god that was listening. “We’re not … having sex.” She bit those last two words out. “I’m just – I am sleeping in her bed, alright? It helps, with the nightmares and stuff. So just, chill your tits.”
We just sleep curled together. You just love me. I just begged you not to go.
Aelin, the queen of dramatics until her dying fucking day, walked over to the freezer and grabbed an ice cube, shoving it straight into her bra.
“That cannot be comfortable.”
“It’s really not. But my tits are now chilled and you are really going to enjoy the coming conversation.”
“I am?” Elide replied weakly.
“Mhmm.” Aelin pulled four beers out of the fridge. “Alright. Front porch swing, now.”
Elide was not given a choice. Elide was frog marched out to the front porch. Elide was handed a beer. Elide, having a modicum of self-preservation instincts, drank it all.
“That’s my girl.” Aelin patted her shoulder, downing her own beer like a woman one single second from losing her mind. “Okay, now I can’t believe I’m asking this – in fact, we are both going to forget that this little discussion ever happened – but like, you did just drop the conversational equivalent of bomb.”
Elide’s really witty retort consisted of starting on another beer.
Aelin, as the world’s most annoying sister, prompted her, “You know? That you’re sleeping in Manon’s bed?”
“It’s not what you think! We’re just … friends.”
“Yeah, okay, so that’s the question.” Clearing her throat, Aelin heroically found the strength within to carry on. “See – it’s not that you can’t share a bed as friends. Totally possible. Totally legitimate. I’m just … wondering. Is it just as friends? Is that you and Manon?”
“I – ” Elide opened her mouth. Elide closed her mouth. Elide remembered everything, everything.
Dancing with you the night it all ended, your palm against my spine, forever and ever amen.
You kissed my knuckles and I thought that I could drown in the sensation forever.
I woke up intertwined with you, the world gone to gold, and I couldn’t ever remember feeling so warm.
God, but I’ve missed you.
Because I love you.
My god.
“Um.” Elide scratched at her cheek. She glanced down the street. She looked hard at the porch railing. “You know this could really use a new paint job – ”
“Elide!”
“Okay, Jesus, go get another ice cube already.” When Aelin didn’t move, Elide sighed and braced her elbows against her knees, watching the wide world spin. Maybe it’s time to be honest at last. “You can’t tell this to anyone, Linny. I mean it.”
Holding out her right pinky, Aelin looked straight into Elide’s eyes. “Sister swear.” They shook on that childhood vow, an unbreakable promise.
So finally, Elide found a way to say softly, softly, “She told me that she loved me. This morning. We were laying together in bed and I asked why she answered my call and Manon said I love you. And then I asked her to stay – she went to leave and I asked her to stay.”
Leaning forward, Aelin slowly exhaled between her teeth, “Well damn.”
“Yeah.”
Nudging their shoulders together, Aelin asked, “What about you, Ellie? How do you feel?”
“You mean – do I love her?” Elide shook her head, staring out at the dying sun. “I … I don’t know what I am. But I can’t get her words out of my head. She touches me and I don’t ever want her to stop. It’s like I can’t breathe. I think …” I used to believe that I was over this, over everything, over Manon. I had you and held you and pushed you away and now I think … “I don’t ever want to lose her again.”
“Well then hold onto that. Whatever else comes next. Hold on to that.”
+
They hadn’t talked about it. They’d survived an entire episode of The Bachelorette and were halfway through a bottle of wine and they hadn’t talked about it.
Following Manon into the kitchen, Elide hopped up onto the counter. I have done everything wrong but you. We were never a mistake. Take in a breath, and, “Hey Manon?”
“Hmm?” Manon half-turned, pouring really shitty red wine into really expensive glasses. Her hair swung in a messy ponytail and she wore ratty, old sweatpants that used to be Elide’s, a thin white t-shirt hugging the line of her shoulders. For a solid moment, Elide lost her thoughts. Like, all her thoughts. A girl couldn’t be expected to breathe around a thing like this.
Good goddamn.
All night, Elide had been caught in the memories –
silvery hair and a dawn sky, amber eyes glinting in the half-light, because I love you
pressing warm hands against her chest and praying for deliverance, for exaltation
and –
Snap out of it. Come back. Return to the land of the living if you please.
Gathering herself together as best she could, Elide carried on, “About this morning.”
“Yes. About that.” Manon very carefully set the wine bottle down. Elide didn’t blame her – her hands shook too.
In a quiet sort of voice, hesitant and uncertain but fucking trying anyway, Elide said, “You told me that you love me.” The words flared to life between them once more, fire and the flame. “But Aelin loves me. And her parents love me. So what does that mean?”
“I – fuck.” Manon ran her hands through her hair. She closed her eyes. She chose her words very carefully. Hesitant. Uncertain. Fucking trying. “I don’t love you like a friend. And I don’t love you like family. I love you like …. I want you. I want to be with you,” she finally breathed out, shoulders curling in around her body.
“There’s my silver lining.” Elide whispered. Manon’s head snapped up, and something about the shock in her eyes gave Elide the heart to carry on. “I mean, I can’t lie to you Manon. I’m a mess and I … I still feel like I’m so fucking far from solid ground.” Now it was Elide’s turn to close her eyes and bow her head. I’m not the praying kind, yet here we stand.
“You’re my best friend. I think you’re a hell of a lot more than that because you light me up from the inside out and you touch me and it’s like I can’t breathe and – ” Elide pressed her knuckles to her lips, teeth against skin, and tried to inhale, “How could I treat you like a rebound? When you’re …fuck. Everything.” She gestured to the wide world, the gravity binding them together, as if that could explain anything, everything. “God, I’m sorry.”
Walking forward, Manon came to stand between Elide’s knees, her movements careful and slow. “Can I touch you?” At Elide’s nod, Manon ran knuckles down the line of her jaw and gently cupped her cheek, like cradling bone china. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
“Because I can’t say it back.” Elide bit on her lip, blindsided by the tear rolling down her cheek. “Not yet.”
“I love you.”
She nodded into Manon’s palm, and another tear fell, another and another. Pressing their foreheads together, Manon asked in a voice so quiet that only Elide could have heard it, “Do you want to? One day?”
“Yes.”
Manon’s breath turned ragged and she pressed her lips against Elide’s cheek, nearly kissing her. Nearly, nearly. “Then there’s my silver lining.”