When Crystal swung open the door, she was met with silence. It was unusual for her, since she was always greeted by her girlfriend. She would be sitting at the couch, watching Mean Girls for the 30th time or she would sit at the kitchen table, happily designing all sorts of dresses. This time, however, Crystal wasn't met with any of that stuff, instead the lights in the living room were dimmed and it was painfully silent. Crystal didn’t think too much of it at first, she'd had a long day and the hot weather didn't help. She assumed Gigi's day hadn't gone much better. Gigi was probably in their room with the fan on, sprawled out on their bed.
“Gigi, I'm home!” Crystal yelled, hoping she would get some sort of reaction.
When she was met with silence once again, a feeling of worry started to creep up on her. Sheet her bag fall to the floor, took of her shoes and shuffled to the bedroom she shared with her girlfriend. There she found Gigi, curled up in a fluffy blanket with the curtains closed, so that the room wasn't glowing in its usual golden light when the sun set. Crystal hurried over to the bed and sat down next to Gigi. Gigi noticed the slight shifting of the mattress and looked up. She was met with the worried gaze of Crystal.
“Oh, you’re home,” she managed to get out with a weak smile.
Crystal's gaze softened a bit, but the worry never left her eyes.
“I am, what's wrong baby?”
Gigi huffed, lowering the blanket a bit so that her flushed face became visible. With these temperatures, it was too hot to be curled up in a blanket. Crystal shifted forwards and tucked a strand of hair behind Gigi’s ear, the heat radiating from her cheeks.
“People are mean,” was the only thing Gigi said, sadness apparent in her voice.
Crystal sighed, “I know. Wanna tell me what happened?”
Gigi shrugged her shoulders, that were still wrapped up tightly in the blanket. She looked like she was melting under the fluffy piece of fabric and Crystal started to, very slowly, piece together what this was about.
Gigi never really felt ugly when she was younger. Her friends and family would always tell her how beautiful she was, with her slender figure, dark hair and light eyes. Unfortunately, people are mean, and Gigi had to find it out the hard way. When she got older, however, comments like "you're so skinny, you should eat more!"
"go eat a hamburger"
"you have nothing to complain about, you're skinny"
became more apparent, Gigi felt less and less confident about her so called "beauty". And worst of all was; she could never talk to someone about it. Whenever she tried to bring it up, everyone always sneered back with a comment like "your body is beautiful, I wish I could eat as much and never gain weight" so eventually Gigi gave up, and just gave people a tight-lipped smile whenever they said something like that.
When she met Crystal her world got turned upside down. She noticed how Crystal listened to her, how she didn't make the stupid comments everyone else made. How Crystal made her feel beautiful, how she made sure Gigi would love every inch of her body as much as she did.
"Get out of that blanket Gee, you're quite literally melting!" Crystal's voice snapped Gigi back to reality.
She let the blanket slowly fall of her shoulders and she immediately got hit with the cool air. She sighed and felt Crystal's piercing gaze. Gigi tried to avoid it and focused her attention on the hair ties on her wrist. She let them snap back on her wrist a few times. Continuously putting her finger under it, pulling it back and letting go, so that it left a red remark on her skin. It was the only thing keeping her grounded. She always fiddled with stuff whenever she was stressed or nervous, necklaces, bracelets, rings, nothing was safe. But since she was sitting in bed, still in her pajama, (she didn't really bother to get dressed today), she only had the hair tie to keep her busy.
Crystal noticed how nervous Gigi was and reached forward to her wrists to grab them, so she would stop leaving red marks on her soft skin.
"You need to tell me what's going on baby, only then I can help you," she said softly, not letting go of Gigi's wrist.
She was slowly stroking her thumb across the red marks. Gigi huffed and shifted into a more comfortable position, pulling her hands away from Crystal's soft touch. She didn't like to talk about it, because her feelings were always quickly shoved away. But she needed to remind herself that this was Crystal, and Crystal would never judge her.
"People are mean," Gigi repeated the phrase she said earlier, “I got this message from this girl I hadn’t spoken to in years.”
“Who?” Crystal interrupted.
Gigi fell silent once again. She knew that Crystal wouldn't hesitate to send threats to her. Crystal may seem all sweet and innocent but if someone would ever hurt Gigi in the slightest, she would hunt you down.
“And she kept saying how I've barely changed,” Gigi continued, ignoring Crystal's question.
Crystal nodded, pushing Gigi to tell the rest of the story.
“She kept saying how I looked even skinnier than before, and how I should eat more and all that stuff. It's so stupid, but it really hurt me Crys,” Gigi finishes, whispering the last part.
Crystal pulls Gigi in for a hug as soon as she starts to see tears pooling in Gigi's eyes. She hates it when she sees Gigi like this, so sad and fragile. She wishes she could protect her from every mean thing in the world, but she knows that's never going to happen. So instead, she just let's Gigi cry on her shoulder, whispering comforting words in her ear and drawing circles on her back until she's calmed down.
“I'm sorry baby,” Crystal whispers, “people are mean.”
Gigi sniffs and change her position, so that she's now sitting next to Crystal with her head resting on Crystal's shoulder. Gigi laces her fingers with Crystal, and with her free hand she starts tracing figures on the back of Crystal's hand. Crystal's eyes follow every movement Gigi's slender fingers make.
They fall into a comfortable silence, both not knowing what to say. Crystal sometimes just doesn't know how to help Gigi, but for Gigi knowing that Crystal is there for her, is already enough.
“You know you're perfect to me, right?” Crystal breaks the silence.
A small smile appears on Gigi's lips, “yeah, you've told me plenty of times.”
“And I'm not planning on stopping soon.”
Gigi looks up at her girlfriend and raises her eyebrows.
“Your hair is so perfect, I could run my fingers through it all day,” Crystal starts, playing with the tips of Gigi's hair before continuing. “You have the most beautiful eyes and I get lost in them every time I see them. You have the cutest and most perfect nose I've ever seen.”
Crystal’s fingers move from the tip of Gigi's nose, slowly to her lips, “you have the most perfect lips and I’ll get never tired of kissing them.”
This is how Crystal continue, moving her fingers from Gigi's lips to her jawline, neck, collarbone, shoulders, arms, hands, until she has listed off every part of Gigi's body, telling her how perfect it is. At the end of Crystal's loving rant, Gigi is furiously blushing, but the most beautiful smile has appeared on her face.
“Thank you Crys,” she whispers.
“Anytime baby,” Crystal presses her lips against Gigi's, “anytime.”