I Need Her
Ezri looked at the phone suspiciously as she picked it up. It was a bit late for a social call, but she was answering, so maybe it wasn’t. “Hello?”
“Hey,” Jen said, and something sounded off.
“Hey.”
Quiet.
“Something… wrong?”
“I… didn’t know who else to call. I’ve… never been very good at friends. Like, call at 9 PM friends.”
"You're not sober, are you?"
"No," Jen laughed.
“Okay. So, tell me what you didn’t know who to call about.” She liked Jen, really—they didn’t know each other very well in the grand scheme of things, but Ezri wasn’t sure whom she'd call slightly late and slightly drunk either. Probably Clara. Maybe Jen. Maybe Ezri was bad at certain types of friends, too. Maybe they deserved each other.
“I need her,” Jen said quietly; “Clara.”
“I… have a lot of paperwork and money that says you have her.” That was logistics and a joke, though. What made her know Jen had Clara was the way Clara obviously worshipped her and spoke of her like she put the stars in the sky.
“No; no, you don’t get it; I don’t… need people.”
“Ah.”
“Like, a lot of people say things, right—unconditional love, CNC, whatever you wanna call it—”
Ezri laughed; that sure was a comparison.
“—But like, the, ‘I love you no matter what,’ people say it, and then Clara just… does.”
“Love you unconditionally?”
“Yeah. And I didn’t know people—did that. Without conditions. Without limits. She just—whatever I do—she stays and stays and stays.”
“And your worry is…?”
“What—if something happened to her—what do I do?” Pause. “I don’t know if you’re… the one to call about this.”
“No, it’s—I dunno. Queer culture. You’re fine,” she laughed. “She’s a healthy thirty something. I think her biggest risk factor is you and your… interests.”
Jen laughed. “Yeah, there’s that. But that’s one thing I need her for, isn’t it?”