the other side of someday

It’s quieter in Savannah.

Not that Athens is loud, but the bustle of students and locals always more than fills the quiet. There's a balm over the small city when the bus rolls onto cobblestone streets, and Sterling leans forward to see through the foggy glass window. 

It's been ages since she's been in Savannah—her parents had brought her and Blair for a few weekends for some good food and clear, sunny days by the giant steel bridge in the harbor. She sees it in the distance now, sweeping cables peeking over the tops of brick roofs. 

The bus squeals to a stop in front of a tall building, sleek and modern and unfitting amongst the old-fashioned architecture of the surrounding square. Dr. Sherman, her Ethics professor and the coordinator of debate club, stands right away, clapping her hands together. 

“Alright y’all, we’re here! Grab your bags and let's get moving.”

She is easily the most excited out of the small group in the bus. Most of her clubmates had slept the whole way, fighting hangovers from a rather wild Thirsty Thursday to start off a three-day weekend. They rub their eyes blearily and moan as they shuffle down the center aisle, some clutching their bags like life rafts in the nauseous vortex of reality. 

The rest of campus would be nursing their wounds till the next party kicks off, but the 6 of them had made the bus ride to old Savannah for the Georgia State College Debate Championship. Sterling had pre-gamed with her friends the night before, but turned in early because of the trip. The nerves had set in days ago and were only getting worse with every passing hour—she probably felt just as puke-y as everyone else walking off the bus. 

Why does she do this to herself? Why does she let all this stress and horror and pain into her life when she could just—

“Hey, defending champ! Let's go!” Dr. Sherman’s head peaks over the edge of the front bench from out the doors. 

Ah. That’s why. 

She snags her duffel from the compartment above and steps off the bus, pausing for a moment as the fresh, cool breeze skitters through her hair. 

Autumn had finally begun its descent into Georgia, sweeping away the stifling heat of yet another scorching summer. This is always Sterling’s favorite time of year, which okay, is very white-girl of her, but with the leaves changing color and the sky shifting to a different shade of blue, can you blame her?

She goes to join the little circle her clubmates had made around Dr. Sherman, who holds a stack of hotel key cards in her hand. 

“Alright gang, y’all know the drill. We’re gonna make the rules review a team activity to make sure we’re all on the same page. Sam, start us out.”

Sam, in the midst of tying up her bright red hair, sighs from her nose. “Tournament days are 9AM to 5PM. The time outside of that is ours, but we have to be ready and downstairs an hour before kickoff.”

Jeanette, standing to Sam’s right, continues the sound off. 

“First two rounds are tomorrow, another two rounds Sunday, then the semi-final and final on Monday.”

“No bars if you're under 21.”

“No breaking the law unless you want to walk back to Athens.”

“Curfew is midnight.”

“Sterling gets her own room because debating makes her psycho.”

She, Jeannette and Dr. Sherman all throw a “hey!” at Danny at the same time. He throws his hands up in mock surrender, but winks at Sterling. 

Ugh. Gross. 

“Sterling,” Dr. Sherman starts, walking over to throw an arm around her shoulders, “gets her own room because she needs space to find her zen and be the badass debating champion she is.” She holds a silver keycard sleeve up for her to take, and she slides it into the outside pocket of her duffel. 

“Last rule, Sterl?”

She smiles. 

“Take no prisoners.”

The group whoops in response and they all laugh as they turn to head in through the double doors. 

Gentle music filters through the air as they shuffle into the lobby. The wide walls and tall ceiling envelop the open space, letting echoes of low voices and the click of shoes on marble reverberate through the space. 

They pass gaggles of students chatting amongst themselves and a giant bulletin board welcoming all the colleges to the tournament. Everyone files to the elevators, her friends most likely desperate to draw the curtains for darkness and curl up in bed, but Sterling stays behind to read all the flyers pinned up on the cork. Jeanette juts a chin forward as if asking if she's coming with a hand on the elevator doors, but Sterling shakes her head. She’s too jittery to be cooped up in a room. 

She turns to the papers as the lift dings closed and scans for anything of interest. There's a list of tournament rules, but they're old hat for her. Flyers for local restaurants and cool spots to see, snapshots of last year’s event in Macon. She spots a picture of herself holding the trophy in the top corner of the board and smiles. 

It had been a nerve-wracking four days, but the familiarity of debating was comforting amidst the chaos of her first year away from home. She had joined the debate club as soon as she started school, hoping for something old within all of the new.

She had been the first ever freshman to win the tournament. Her parents were ecstatic and drove over to Athens to buy her and Blair dinner to celebrate. Sterling was a little embarrassed with all their excitement, but the fact that her sister was louder than the two of them combined made it much easier to handle. 

Her eyes keep scanning till she spots what she’s looking for. The master list of all the possible debate topics. It’s egregiously long and unspecific, which is done on purpose to make sure no group or individual is too prepared and formal in the delivery of their arguments. Thorough prep would be impossible, but Sterling Wesley would still try. 

She snaps a picture with her phone, zooming into it afterwards to make sure it's legible. 

Her eyes spot the corner of a flyer that had gotten caught in the frame of the photo. It’s a fragment of a list of last names for a school that's competing. It wouldn't be anything of interest except for the name at the very top. 

Stevens, A. 

Her eyes shoot up to the board, looking for the actual paper pinned next to the master list. The school in bold reads “Emory University Debate Fraternity” and Sterling forgets to breathe for a second. 

She knows an A. Stevens who goes to Emory. She knows an A. Stevens who went through a year and a half of high school without speaking more than five words to her at a time, who graduated and moved away and left behind a strange pocket of space in Sterling that never had healed over properly. 

She hadn't thought about April in ages. 

Could it be her? Maybe there’s an entire world of A. Stevens out there. Adams and Abbeys and Annabelles and—

“Sterling?”

She freezes. Not that she was moving before, but something inside her chest seizes like a deer in headlights. With a small breath, she turns. 

“April.”

“Hey.”

They both stand in silence, sizing each other up. It had been all of two years since they lived and existed on the same streets—it was both no time and a lifetime since they had last seen each other. 

Sterling knows she’s different. Her hair is a little wavier, her nose and jawline more pronounced with age. She’s an inch or two taller, a shade or two tanner, but it pales in comparison to how much April has changed. 

She stands different than before—tall but relaxed, as if she doesn't need to prove herself. She’s wearing jeans and a light knit sweater, hair shorter than Sterling remembers and sitting in a soft, loose braid over one shoulder.

Her face looks older, but not entirely so. She had always been beyond her years, and now it seems like the rest of her had finally caught up. She is wholly and incredibly April who had grown into the spaces she'd always fought to fill. 

“Um, hi. I—I didn't know you'd be here.”

April considers her for a moment. She lets the barest hint of a smile touch her lips before looking down. 

“Well, I knew you'd be here. I looked up all the past winners when our chair said we’d be coming this year.”

Of course. 

“Checking out the competition?”

April’s smile turns earnest. 

“Something like that.”

There is an ease that radiates off of her—something Sterling had never expected to see in the perpetually high-strung achiever she had known since they were kids. April’s lips rise into the smile like it's nothing at all, as if she’s comfortable with being comfortable and there is nothing to seeing the girl whose heart she had once broken cleanly in two. 

Something boils low and thick in Sterling’s stomach. Its heat flares and catches her off guard in its suddenness. 

Her mouth turns downwards and she looks away from her. She doesn't know this person anymore.

“Well yeah, I'm here. I’ll—Bye.”

She makes a beeline for the elevators, not looking back but knowing April is watching her. 

“Wait!”

She whips around, ready to fight, only to see her rushing over with a keycard in hand. 

“You dropped this, Sterling.” It's her roomkey. 

She takes it and holds it against her chest. Darn it. 

“Thank you.”

With as much calmness she can muster, she presses the up button of the elevator and gets in when it opens. She jabs the little 6 and tries, but fails to keep herself from looking up. 

She sees the light filtering through the glass doors and windows and people milling around in the busy rush of the lobby. She sees shadows shimmering as the setting sun creeps lower and lower in the sky, and April Stevens, arms crossed and lips pursed, watching her as the doors close between them. 

//

There’s a spot on the ceiling that’s shaped like Florida and Sterling is splayed out atop the tucked sheets of her hotel bed, tracing the shape of the stain over and over as she rounds the loop of thoughts she can’t escape.

What were the odds? What were the freakin’ odds that this would happen?

Sure, they were both dynamite in forensics and were likely in similar majors because they always excelled in the same subjects. Yeah, they both go to big schools in Georgia and had overlapping interests, but—

The same event? The same hotel?

Dear God, please let this weekend pass without me exploding into a million pieces.

She sighs and lets herself prod at the strange feelings that had overcome her in the lobby.

She is angry, and surprisingly so. April’s devastating 180 had steamrolled her young heart, but the rapid sequence of nuclear bombs dropped on the quiet grange of her life definitely kept her preoccupied for a while. She and Blair had needed therapy by the truckload to deal with the fallout of Dana’s reveal, not to mention Sterling getting kidnapped and held for ransom. The community reeled from the drama, bombarding them with both vulturous and well-meaning attention until the news of John Stevens’ stunning return took over the gossip cycle and the town moved onto the next story. 

Even through the haze of everything that had happened to her, Sterling had wondered at times how April was doing. Both girls had kept their distance from the other, so she knew nothing more than the tired look on April’s face that she would spot at times.

She and Blair had been horrified about the inevitability of Mr. Stevens getting back at them, but almost as quickly as he appeared, he vanished, leaving a trail of rumors of being swept away in handcuffs and a large black SUV with federal license plates. Blair had been ecstatic, celebrating their victory and relief with a fervor that Sterling just couldn’t mirror because all she could settle on was the thought of a girl in a giant house who had just lost her father again.

The residual pain had burned like candlelight in a quiet corner of her chest for ages. Suffice to say there had been enough on her mind for a long while, but when she finally had the space and time to process the non-breakup breakup, her heart had already been wrung out to dry. 

She folded April Stevens and the halo of pain that sat around her as small as she could and tucked it away. There would be no reckoning, no closure. She had just wanted to forget.

And now. Cheese and crackers, now.

She is here, living and breathing and existing in the same square footage as her. It was like she had fallen out of a plane upon seeing April for the first time in years and the unprocessed feelings burst out like a parachute. No warning, no rip cord. Just a jerk and the unfurling of everything she had left behind.

She sighs, throwing an arm over her eyes. 

April broke her heart. Sterling lived past it. Sterling just saw April, and she looks...fantastic? No.

She stands up abruptly, feeling like she is going to buzz straight out of her skin. She wonders for a moment if this is what Blair feels like when she’s on one of her adrenaline kicks.

Her watch beeps softly, signaling the change of the hour. 3 PM. She looks around the room, hands on her hips and tries to gather herself.

Sterling Wesley is here on a mission—to defend her title. And knowing that there is a certain A. Stevens in the pool of competitors means she’ll have to be at the top of her game. 

She pulls out her laptop and sits down, rolling her neck and cracking her knuckles before getting down to business.

There’s a tournament to win.

//

Light bends and grows in the small hotel room as the afternoon bleeds into evening. Sterling has a little crick in her back from being bent over her computer for so long, hyper-focused on the giant Google doc she had put together with all the information she’d need in her potential stances.

She’s been through her notes a hundred times, but she forces herself to cycle through the document, mentally reciting key points to make sure she has them down pat.

Her stomach grumbles.

She sighs, rolling the idea of an early dinner around in her head as she gets up for a stretch. Dark-yellow sunlight filters through the sheer curtains and goosebumps tingle across her skin as she crosses into its warmth.

Her brain latches onto the thought of a hot slice of pizza and she moves on auto-pilot, grabbing her wallet and phone before pulling on a thin jacket. She’s always cold so it’s better safe than sorry. 

Tucking her keycard between her teeth, she starts gathering her hair to tie it up, knowing it probably looks a mess after hours of hands raking through it in concentration. Her phone buzzes then, the short staccato beat she had assigned specifically to Blair.

say hi to the bridge for me

She smiles, glad that her sister remembers the old trips here, too. She pulls the door handle with one hand, typing out a quick response with the other when she runs right into someone standing outside her room.

“Oh! Sorry—”

“Crap—”

Sterling looks up and almost drops everything in her hands when she sees who it is.

"April."

“Hi! Hey.” 

Sterling is frozen, brain on overdrive as she tries to process the fact that she had been waiting at her door, looking just as surprised as she feels and maybe twice as nervous.

“Uh, hi.” She doesn’t know if she can venture beyond single syllables.

“Hi. Yes, hi. I don’t mean to be creepy and apologize if I surprised you.”

Sterling is still waiting for her brain to process what’s happening.

“I—How did you know what room I’m in?”

“You dropped your little keycard thing earlier. I didn’t mean to actually read the number, but it was right there and I’ve got fast eyes. So,” she clears her throat. “I’m here.”

“You’re here,” Sterling repeats. 

She’s here. In front of her once more and her heart thuds in her chest, harder and faster by the second. This girl is seriously activating her fight or flight response, and honestly if it wasn’t for the trophy waiting at the end of the tunnel, she would have skipped town by now.

“Yes, I am here and I wanted to,” she breathes out, “talk.”

“You want to talk.”

She should probably stop just repeating everything being said, but with how much of her mind is occupied by a giant neon sign in her head flashing DANGER, there isn’t much else she can do.

“Can we?”

“I don’t—April, I don’t know.” 

She finally has the wherewithal to nudge past her into the hallway. The door thuds closed behind them and Sterling turns back to her, crossing her arms. 

“Look, I know this isn’t what you were expecting and I don’t want this affecting either of us in competition this weekend. I just want to clear the air.” April looks up at her expectantly, but falters in the next moment. “Unless this was a horrible decision and I’ve made things way worse.”

Sterling considers the bottom line of her words. She’s right—there would be no way she can go into the tournament with a clear mind knowing that the object of her high school heartbreak is existing in the same space. Jeez, what if they had to face each other? She’d lose before she even stepped up to the podium. 

“No,” she sighs. “It’ll be best to get this past us before tomorrow.” 

April smiles then, small and satisfied. 

“Good. I—yes, good. Want to go for a walk?”

“Lead the way.”

//

They’re quiet as they make their way downstairs and out the large front doors. Quiet in contemplation, both girls let the sound of their steps fill the silence and because it seems like April knows exactly where she’s going, Sterling just follows.

They cross a few streets and walk past the lush expanse of a golf course when Sterling starts hearing the soft lap of water in the distance. April had led them to a small clearing by the river, where green grass gives way to rocky sand and small boulders before meeting the grey ripples of Savannah Harbor. 

Sterling sneaks small glances at the girl next to her, wondering almost desperately what she is thinking, what she wants to say. The last thing Sterling wants is to dig up and face all the pain she had so carefully buried, but if everything that happened in the last few years and a truly incredible amount of therapy had taught her anything, it’s that the truth has to see the light.

She braces herself inside for what’s to come, taking careful breaths as April slows down, their shoes digging into the soft give of the pebbles below. 

Unable to stay still, Sterling walks right up to the edge of the water and crouches to dip her fingers in. It’s cold, but refreshingly so. She stands and turns back.

“You knew exactly where you were going.”

April nods.

“Yeah, my family used to come here when I was young.”

“Oh, uh—mine too.”

“Look, I don’t want to waste your time so let’s jump right—”

She stops, a sneeze interrupting her. She sniffles a little and her shoulders jump light and quick in a shiver. 

“Are you sick?” Sterling despises how the question just falls out of her, how she feels a pulse of worry somewhere deep inside. 

“No. I don’t get sick. I just didn’t anticipate it being a little chilly.” She pulls down the sleeves of her sweater over her hands and crosses her arms. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

Sterling knows what she’s about to do and truly, it is a battle of self-loathing and surrender to how much this girl can get under her skin. It doesn’t take a second thought before she is shrugging off her windbreaker and passing it to April. 

“I said I’m fine—”

“April,” she says, low and firm. “Take it.”

A beat of, jeez, something as they look at each other for a moment. She accepts the jacket and slides her arms in, zipping it up and visibly relaxing into the warmth.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

It comes out gruffer than Sterling intended, but she can’t help it. There is so much rumbling and warring inside her and the closer she exists to April, the worse it gets. She doesn’t even know where to start or how to parse through the mess of everything that this girl made her feel.

Makes her feel.

“So where should we begin?” April says, squatting to sit on a big, flat rock by the water.

Sterling turns to look at her. She sits there, fingers twiddling with the edges of her favorite jacket and teeth gently chewing on her bottom lip. There is a calmness that rests like an aura around her that’s been evident since the first moment they saw each other again. A calmness that makes something bubble up from the very bottom of Sterling’s feet and rise to settle in the center of her chest.

“Maybe how you completely stomped on my feelings?”

April’s head whips up, eyes surprised but sharp as they look straight into her.

“Wow okay, jumping right in.”

“Or maybe how your first target to beard yourself out of your feelings was my ex-boyfriend? Or how you totally ignored me for the rest of high school?”

“Sterling—” She tugs gently at the neckline of her sweater.

“You don’t get to be all nonchalant about all this. You do not get to act like it was nothing.”

April glares at her then, anger rising in her face.

“Who said I think it’s nothing?”

“You don’t have to say it, it’s written all over you,” she says, waving a hand over the general vicinity of April.

“That is totally unfair and you know it.”

“Do you know how much I—”

“Sterling, you have only referenced yourself in all of this! Have you stopped to consider it from my perspective?”

“Your perspective? You chose to—I don’t...April, you broke my heart!”

“And you gave me an impossible choice!” She shouts right back, anger and pain laced in her words.

Sterling just looks at her, eyebrows furrowed and mouth open. 

“An impossible choi—Was it that terrible to consider everyone knowing about you and me?”

“You haven’t even tried to think about how hard it would have been for me?” She brings a heavy hand to her forehead. “Sterling, I told you over and over again that my parents were horrible. They’re bigots. If they knew I liked girls, it would have been hell on Earth. I was terrified of what they would do, what my dad would do.” 

“You can’t—”

“I didn’t feel safe!”

The words suck all the air out of Sterling’s lungs.

April stands from her seat on the rock, facing out towards the water and crossing her arms to bring the jacket tighter around her. She sighs once, sad and low.

“Sterling, you lived in a home with unconditional love and parents who wanted to know every part of you. You don’t understand.”

All of the burning anger drains from her in an instant. She had been so blinded by how April was unwilling to do her part in their being together. Sterling knows how scary John Stevens can be, but had never considered that terror from inside the house April lived in. 

She feels like an idiot. Selfish and blind and so young in her hurt. She gets up and goes to stand next to her.

“Fuck.” She breathes out. “I’m sorry. Then help me understand. Tell me.” All she can do now is listen and finally fill in the blanks of the story.

April looks up at her, her lips still in a tight line of anger but eyes impossibly soft. She sighs, chest moving in its slow in and out. Her bottom lip pulls in between her teeth as she turns back to the water. Sterling could almost feel something deep and tense unwinding inside the girl next to her.

“When my dad came back right before the lock-in, I just—I panicked. In the time since he’d been arrested, I forgot how stifling he was under that roof. There was something different about him. He seemed sharper somehow. More jagged.” 

She’s stock still as she speaks. It could be from anger or pain or a distant detachment that only time can bring.

“That week before he was taken again was awful. He would rant for hours about sin and false prophets and justice and how the only person he had to answer to was God. It was...horrifying. But then something happened and he was taken by federal agents and I haven’t let myself be hurt by him since.”

“April,” she breathes. “You can’t expect to just forget about your dad.”

“Of course not. God bless therapy.” She lets a small smile slip through. 

“Amen to that.” She considers her words carefully, overwhelmed suddenly by how uncompromising she had been in her blame. It had been binary—Sterling was right, April was wrong. Sterling wanted love and April didn’t.

She sees now that there had been so much more to the decision of sharing that side of themselves with the world. 

“I’m sorry. I was selfish and dumb. You had so much riding on it, and all I wanted to do was scream it from the rooftops. I didn’t think enough about what I was asking you to do.” 

“It’s okay. It was just...a lot to carry back then. I lashed out and tried to run the opposite direction, but it was all to survive, Sterling. It wasn’t you. It was everything else.”

The words placate something deep inside her. She had wondered in the latest of nights if maybe it hadn’t been enough for April, if Sterling hadn’t been enough for her to take the leap.

She watches April, looking for any shift in her face, but turns away when she sees a single tear fall. She looks out to the water and realizes that she’s crying, too.

She clears her throat and swipes a quick hand across her cheeks.

“I—thank you for telling me that.”

“And I’m sorry about what happened with your family,” April says, taking the smallest step towards her. “I never got to say anything or help you at all, but I just couldn’t bring myself to come to you after what happened. I thought it’d just be extra helping of pain for everyone, so I kept my distance.”

“Well, I stayed away too so that’s on both of us.”

April hums in response. Sterling hadn’t planned on opening this door, but it swings wide in a kind of honesty that feels familiar.

“What’d you hear about what happened with my family?” she asks, wondering how much of the truth had actually reached April years ago.

The shorter girl thinks for a moment.

“That your aunt tried to get money out of your family by threatening you. I was terrified when I found out, but everyone was saying how an undercover cop saved you before anything could happen.”

Sterling chuckles. Every rumor is born from a bit of the real thing, and the idea of Bowser hearing that everyone thought he is truly an undercover cop brought some light into the situation. She should call him, it’s been too long since they last caught up.

“That’s, well, kinda true. A lot of stuff went down that night. I got kidnapped for real, there was a gun fight—”

“What?! ”

“But,” she says quickly, wanting to placate April’s shock, “Blair and our friend tracked me down. My parents got there in time and my mom—”

Her voice catches in her throat. April turns to her then, as if sensing how hard it is to say the words out loud. She breathes, steeling herself. 

“That aunt you heard about is actually my biological mom. My mama took me in when her sister got in trouble with the law and my parents raised me. But I’ve made my peace. I’m their daughter through and through.”

It had taken so long, but she feels safe in the truth. She hadn’t been planning on telling her—she’d never told anyone outside her family, but it had been so easy to let it out in the space between the harbor and the girl standing next to her. 

It’s quiet, but she can almost hear the gears winding in April’s head, undoubtedly processing everything at once and trying to figure out what to say. Her mouth opens and closes—once, twice, three times as she weighs her words, but in the end, April just rests a warm hand on her arm.

“Oh, Sterling.”

The spot tingles and goosebumps rise just like when she had stepped into the patch of sunlight in her room, and it reels her back to the space inside her skin.

“I’m sorry. That must have been so hard to deal with.”

Sterling turns to her slightly, feeling a sad smile rise.

“Guess we both had enough on our plates back then.”

April sighs thoughtfully.

“You know, it’s funny.” She takes an impossibly small step towards Sterling. “I would think about it all the time. Just standing up in the auditorium and yelling for everyone to hear.”

“How dramatic. Very you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

A watery laugh cuts through her, the image both fitting and so strange. 

Is it enough? To consider that April had regretted the end of them—had imagined telling the world just for her, only to fear the repercussions in the moments after? 

Sterling would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about it too, and oscillated between wishing things had been different and knowing the past couldn’t change. But it’s three years later and in the space between then and now, between her and April on the shore of Savannah Harbor, maybe it is enough.

“We should head back.”

The slow lap of water in front of them starts to throw flashes of light from the rising moon and Sterling realizes suddenly that they’re standing in the dark. Night had fallen without them knowing.

“Yeah, we should.”

April shifts and goes to take her jacket off.

“No, don’t worry. You’re cold. We’re going back to the same place anyway.”

Her hands stall on the edges as she considers Sterling carefully. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

Sterling’s lips tuck into a small grin.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

April pulls her phone out to check the time, the screen illuminating her face. 

“Hm. How about you surprise me while we grab something to eat? I’m hungry.”

She looks up at her, eyes calm but expectant.

Sterling doesn’t have to think twice.

“Yeah, I could eat.”

“Great. I scouted out this cool little Italian place two blocks from the hotel. They have immaculate reviews on Yelp.”

“Y’know, maybe you’re the one who hasn’t changed a bit.”

April laughs, a smile overtaking her face. She shakes her head once before turning on a heel up the small dirt path towards the street.

Sterling watches for a moment, considering the sight before her. This girl, hands tucked into the pockets of her own jacket, walking away and down the street once more.

She follows.

//

Dinner does end up being, as April so succinctly put it, immaculate. They share a bowl of pasta, a small pizza, and stories both funny and horribly embarrassing. Sterling almost makes April snort Diet Coke out of her nose with her frat bro stories, but April makes Sterling full-on choke on bread when she talks about an ex-girlfriend.

Food turns into dessert, and dessert turns into a slow walk around town because they can’t stop talking, can’t stop catching up and sharing everything that had happened once the world opened up to them.

There’s a voice in the back of Sterling’s head, urging her to step back because everything is moving too fast, but she truly cannot hear it past April’s laugh. 

That is a problem for future Sterling, and present Sterling is inching closer and closer into April’s orbit.

They eventually make their way to the hotel and enter the glass doors when Jean rushes up to Sterling in a frenzy.

“My god, there you are! You haven’t been answering your phone and I was getting worried!”

Sterling blinks in surprise, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. Seven texts and a missed call from ol’ JJ and she hadn’t even realized. She pouts apologetically at her.

“I’m sorry. Totally fine, I promise. April and I grabbed food and lost track of time.”

Jean looks over to the shorter girl, eyes darting to the jacket Sterling had lent her. Something strange passes over her expression.

“Well, the guys and I are going for a late night snack. Wanna come?” Jean takes her hand and tugs on it, and Sterling can almost feel April’s eyes following every move. 

“I’m honestly beat. And I need to get some rest before tomorrow.”

“You sure?” She frowns a little.

“Yeah. Have fun, babe, I’ll see you later.”

“Fine. But only because you’re gonna clean house for us this week.” Disappointment apparent, Jean waves a hand and walks out around them.

“She seems nice,” April says, the edge of something strange curling the end of her words. Sterling whirls around to her.

“What do you mean?”

“Your girlfriend. She seems nice.”

“What? Jean? No, we’re not—” She is so taken aback. “We’re just friends.”

April looks confused, eyes bouncing back and forth between her and the door Jean had just walked out of.

“You guys aren't together?”

“No!” she almost shrieks. Why the heck is her voice so shrill?

“Does she know that?” April says, jutting a thumb behind her.

“What are you talking about?”

“Sterling, she is very clearly and obviously into you. It took two minutes of just existing next to you to make that very apparent.”

“She….Her? What—”

“That was quite the death glare she gave me when she saw I’m wearing your jacket. And the subtle physical touch? Elementary.”

The spot on Sterling’s arm where April had placed a soft hand earlier tingles for a moment.

“Stop. You can’t be serious.”

“That girl is in love with you, babe.” The absolute shit-eating grin on April’s face is almost too much. Sterling pinches the bridge of her nose. 

“Okay, okay I get it. Jeez, this is really just. Inconvenient.”

“Yeah, must be tough being amazing and having girls fall left and right for you.”

Sterling turns to her, head cocking in surprise at the words. It’s her turn to smirk at April, whose grin immediately falls away.

“Not a word.”

“You think I’m—”

“I said, not a word.” She points a finger at Sterling’s nose.

“Mmm, you’re not the boss of me.”

April lifts a perfect eyebrow, the corner hiding behind a lock of hair that had swept into her forehead.

Before she realizes what she’s doing, Sterling lifts a hand to tuck it behind her ear. 

The air around them pulses for a moment as April’s breath hitches in her chest. 

It should feel like a victory, except Sterling herself isn’t breathing either.

“It’s uh, it’s getting late,” April says, so low that she can barely hear her.

“Yeah, I should head to bed.”

“Me too.”

They walk over to the elevators and Sterling presses up. She tries her hardest to calm down the heartbeat that had risen to her throat, unbelievably sure that April could hear it from where she stands.

She doors ding and a crowd of people shuffle out, unaware and unassuming as they cut a path between the two of them. There’s an awkward look and a two-step as they both enter the elevator and suddenly, they are alone again.

Sterling had never realized how small the space inside an elevator is. Like so small. So small that she can feel the heat of April’s hand right next to hers, can hear her breathing and smell her perfume and the unmistakable something that could only be April.

Jesus, help me.

They don’t say a word as the little arrow above the door ticks upwards to 6 and stops with a small bell. It isn’t till the doors open that she realizes only one button had been pressed.

“You’re on this floor, too?”

April sticks a hand out to hold the doors open and nods. 

“They uh, put all the girls on one floor.”

“Huh. How heteronormative.”

“Sometimes being the ignored gay minority has its benefits.”

Sterling sees a shot and takes it.

“You looking to benefit on this floor?” She peeks at April out of the corner of her eye, who immediately blushes.

“I—”

“I’m kidding, relax.” She starts walking down the hallway and smiles as she hears her padding along behind.

She stops at her room and pulls the keycard out from her back pocket. With a swipe and a small beep, she opens the handle and turns to say goodnight to April, only to see that she had done the very same thing at the door right next to her.

“Night, neighbor,” she says with a smile, eyes only lingering for a moment before disappearing into her room with a click of the door shutting.

Sterling stands there, speechless and truly confounded by the order of this universe. She looks up at the ceiling, unable to put a name on what she is feeling. 

Master plan, much?  

She enters her room and turns the deadbolt. It’s quiet as she gathers her things in the bathroom, and it stays that way through a hot shower and her nighttime routine. She can’t help the swirling thoughts that loop around everything she and April had talked about that night.

The revelation of what had truly happened between them, the feelings that had been buried for the sake of reality, the choices they both had made. 

She feels as if a giant burden had been lifted, but a different one has appeared in its place. 

What now?

She flicks the lights off and crawls into bed, pulling out the corners of the tucked sheets and getting comfortable in the giant pillows. She breathes, letting herself settle into the noises of the night. Cars roll along the cobblestone streets outside her window and a ship’s foghorn bellows in the distance. The sheets rustle as she turns on her side.

She lets her mind wander about the girl next door and feels the edges of sleep ebb over her when she hears something. 

The soft murmuring of music playing on the other side of the wall. 

Sterling strains to place the song as if it would take her an inch closer to April and her thoughts.

Her chest leaps as the melody dips, as the whisper of lyrics and a strumming guitar bring back the memory of crowded hallways, of flashing neon in a dark room, of quiet kisses and backseats. 

I’m alright with a slow burn.

April is listening to their song.