Delphinium

SNAPSHOT #1

It’s been a while. Twenty years to be exact. I know, right? Life doesn’t feel real at times. Kaiser and Ness are 43, you are 41. Life is… mundane. Domestic. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s everything you three have always wanted.

Tonight, it’s quiet in the house. Rain falls gently against the window and the scent of herbal tea moves through the air. Ness hums softly as she flips through a book, curled up on the couch. Kaiser is in the kitchen, standing on her tiptoes to reach the mugs from the top shelf, grumbling about how the years have made her back stiff. You laugh, walking up behind her to grab them effortlessly, earning a playful shove and a fond roll of her eyes.

And that’s when it hits you.

This is your life. This is what forever looks like.

After Kaiser’s 23rd birthday, that damned Christmas morning, everything changed. Some for the better, some for the worse. Your bed was always occupied, but by your two beautiful girlfriends, something you would never trade for the world. Your clothes and makeup were constantly missing, but in exchange, you could borrow theirs. So, really, it was fair.

Not everyone understood this. Why three women chose to love each other, to stay together for decades, confused many. The idea that you could be just girlfriends from your twenties into your forties seemed absurd to some. But you never cared. People will talk no matter what. What mattered was that you three knew the truth. Marriage, legality, a piece of paper, it didn’t define you. You were already bound in every way that mattered.

With the three of you retired, life has slowed down. There are separate friends, different hobbies, individual moments. But what matters most is coming home. Your home. The warmth of their presence, the way Ness mumbles in her sleep, how Kaiser always forgets where she put her glasses. The way your bodies still find each other at night, a tangle of limbs, soft kisses, warmth that has never faded.

You watch Kaiser now as she hands you a mug, her fingers brushing against yours. Ness glances up from her book, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. And in this quiet moment, in the soft glow of your living room, you think…

Yeah, you wouldn’t mind an eternity of this.

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SNAPSHOT #2

It feels cold. The herbal tea doesn’t taste the same anymore. It’s more like a colored, tasteless water, a ghost of the tea you once loved. Even its scent has faded, weaker, distant, as if time itself was erasing it from existence. The books have been laid untouched, unmoved since the last time Ness held them in her hands. The air in the house feels stale, thick with the weight of absence. Everything is so… still. So monochrome.

If you had asked a younger Kaiser if she expected this, she would have scoffed, saying, “Death is inevitable. We all become food for worms at some point.” But now, at 85 years old, she knows better. Or so she likes to think.

Yes, we all become food for worms, but not so damned soon. You left too soon. Barely sixty, when a drunk driver stole you away. Life wasn’t the same after that. Arguments became a daily occurrence between her and Ness, both drowning in grief but unable to reach each other. Ashamedly, they came close to breaking apart entirely. Your absence never left, even when they learned to live with it. The bed was still too cold, too empty, too big. No one spoke about how, despite all the space on the couch, your spot was still your spot. Your side of the closet remained untouched, your collection of trinkets standing still, frozen in time.

Then, it happened again. But if before she had Ness, if before, despite the fights, they had each other to hold onto, now she was alone. Alone with the weight of two losses. Two empty spots at the dinner table. Two empty spaces on the couch.

Kaiser picks up one of Ness’s old sweaters, pressing it to her face, but it doesn’t smell like her anymore. It’s just fabric now. The house is too quiet without your chatter, the silence pressing against her ears. Sometimes, she wonders if this is some sick, cruel game from the universe. A punishment for her indecisiveness, for her hesitations and treatment of you two before this love even began.

Her fingers tremble as she reaches for an old photograph, one of the three of you, laughing, younger and tangled together in a mess of limbs on the bed. She traces the edges, her vision blurring.

And all she knows, as she lays there in the dark once more, tears streaking her cheeks in silence, is that for the first time in decades, she doesn’t feel afraid.

Because she will see her lovers again soon enough.

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SNAPSHOT #3

Going to second-hand shops wasn’t exactly what Charlotte considered a fun bonding activity with her two best friends. As a matter of fact, she didn’t even want to be here, she was dragged here. But she is a good friend and so she shall accompany them. After all, they did promise a trip to that new cat café that just opened, so the trade seemed fair.

Charlotte’s brown eyes wandered through the various objects in the shop. Right by the big display of books, there was a small section dedicated to journals and sketchbooks, and as an artist, she couldn't resist opening one. One in particular spoke to her. The cover was a bit worn out, and no wonder, considering it was about a decade old. How it hasn’t been destroyed already is beyond her.

As she opened the pink diary, she was met with very clear handwriting, the ink surprisingly unfaded, as if time had refused to take it away. The first pages are all about some sort of football training? She’s not quite sure, she skims through those. She stops, though, when her eyes catch a few recurring names. Kaiser. Y/N. The more she reads, the more those names appear and she starts putting the dots together. This was the diary of a girl writing about her relationship with her two girlfriends. The more she reads, the more she finds herself mesmerized by the lives of these strangers. Their antics, their dynamic, the way Ness describes them is so vivid, so full of life.

Every page is a declaration of love, not just as a feeling, but as a promise. A vow to be faithful to them and them only. To be by their side through thick and thin. Charlotte pauses, her fingers lightly brushing against the edges of the pages, as if she can feel the weight of every word. Ness wrote like someone who loved fiercely, who held onto this love like it was the most precious thing in the world. She can almost hear her voice in the ink, filled with adoration, frustration, laughter, like these emotions were too big to be contained in just memories alone.

Her eyes are unable to pull away, and before she knows it, she’s at the end. A story left in half, because the diary finishes and she has no idea what happened next. What happened after that fight? Did they make up? Did they grow old together? Did they love each other until their last breath?

Questions that, despite their vagueness and impossibility of ever getting an answer directly, the picture she finds tucked safely in the last page, give her some sort of answer. There are three pictures, photobooth strips. Each one is a recreation of the other, just years apart. In the first, they look younger, maybe at the start of their relationship. They look a bit stiff, but there’s a teasing nature in their eyes. In the second, they are slightly older, maybe late 30s, early 40s. Time marks their faces, but they look happier. Closer. And the last, presumably in their late 50s, has a writing behind it. “2 years without you. We miss you.”

Charlotte’s eyes suddenly feel a bit wet. She looks up from the photos, her gaze wandering around the shop, spotting the frames of her two best friends currently arguing over who gets to keep the silly cat figure they just found. And she can’t help but let out a small, quiet chuckle. Her eyes trail over their figures, the way their eyes are so filled with life, with love, with energy. The way they look in those matching coats they insisted all of them buy together. And she can’t help but blush.

She looks back at the journal, closing it and holding it to her chest before walking toward her best friends.

Maybe, this trip hasn’t been such a bad idea after all. Maybe, just maybe, she was meant to find this.