Chapter 26

"Come home with me tonight."

Virgo tore her gaze away from the hypnotic sunset. The flaming colors painted in the sky contrasted starkly with the ice blue of her lover's eyes. The question was unexpected, a pitch from left field. Would she go home with her? Virgo's eyes danced all over Cammie's face like an explorer trying to find the secret to a hidden treasure.

Recognition dawned on Cammie after a moment of decoding the astonished expression carved into Virgo's face.

"Oh! No, not for that." Cammie quickly said, her face burning with embarrassment at the implication of her words. "I just meant that I wanted you to come over and hang out. Not for. . ."

Virgo chuckled, amused with the ease in which Cammie became frazzled. "Of course. Yes, I'll come home with you."

"You can stay the night if you want," Cammie sputtered. "Not to like, do anything. I mean, like, just hang out and we can watch a movie or something and then if you wanted to sleep over you can, but you don't have to—"

Virgo threw her head back in laughter, bemused by Cammie's disconcertion; this was the first time Virgo could recall Cammie struggling this much to form a single sentence.

"Arrêter, arrêter. I understand Cammie," Virgo said through a split of laughter.

"Yeah, yeah, i just mean that we don't have to, um, not that I don't want to, it's just like—"

Virgo laughed again and covered Cammie's mouth. For this Cammie was very grateful, because she realized that in her rambles she was about to say something incredibly awkward.

"Cammie, calm down. I understand."

Cammie looked down, sputtering with embarrassment. "Right, right." She inhaled a deep breath, exhaling slowly to even out her rapid heartbeat. "I'm sorry, I'm really nervous right now and I don't know why." A strangled laugh escaped Cammie's throat and she wondered why, suddenly, she became a nervous wreck.

"T'es mignonne."

Cammie smiled at the change of language. Somehow, when Virgo spoke to her in that enchanting tongue, Cammie stilled.

"I still don't know what you said, but it sounded nice."

"I said 'you are very cute'."

"You're making me wonder about everything you've said to me in French before today."

"I've said a lot."

"Have you said things like that before?"

"Every day."

The blush returned to Cammie's face once more. She turned her face away to hide it from Virgo and thought back to all the times Virgo spoke to her in French, the melodic words shrouded in mystery. How many times had Virgo given her a compliment? How many times had she told Cammie that she liked her? Loved her? How often had Virgo expressed a thought she felt couldn't be said to Cammie in English?

"It's very clever of you, you know? To talk to me in French. You can say whatever you wanted and I'm none the wiser."

Virgo smirked. "C'est vrai."

"I really need to learn so you can't say secrets around me anymore."

"Pour l'instant je suis comme un espion qui parle en code," Virgo said with an eyebrow raised in challenge.

"Oh, you think you're so funny, don't you?" Cammie asked, grinning. "You can say whatever you want because I can't understand you."

Virgo returned the grin.

"Remember when you told me that girls would fall for you just because you speak French?"

Virgo nodded.

"I guess I understand why." The light blush tinged Cammie's cheeks once more and she glanced away, back to the sunset, abashed.

"Ah, ouais?"

"It's kind of," Cammie cleared her throat. "Attractive." The confession was coupled with an eye-roll, as if to suggest that this was all so beneath her.

"Oh t'aimes mon accent maintenant? Ensuite, je dois seulement tu parler en français et tu alles tomber amoureuse de moi."

Cammie laughed and shook her head. "I hate you."

"Sûre. Je ne te crois pas."

The response was met with a blank stare from Cammie, her eyebrows raised high on her forehead, as if to say "are you kidding?"

"You need to learn French faster. if you want to know what I say."

"Nique ta mère."

The girls split into a fit of laughter.

"I regret teaching you to say that," Virgo said between breaths.

"It's the only thing I remember."

"Of course it is."

This was a defining moment in Cammie's life: a moment that would forever alter the predicted trajectory of her life. Before she had plans, blueprints, and the means to produce the product imagined in her mind. Suddenly, as the sun made it's final decent and dipped below the horizon, covering the word in shadows, Cammie understood that Change wasn't this ugly demon that reared its head to throw her life off the tracks; Change wasn't this force who's only job was to breathe anxiety into her chest; Change wasn't this beast bent on sabotaging her life. As Cammie glanced to the woman sitting beside her, the woman who she was destined to be with, her Soulmate, she understood that to embrace change was to embrace possibilites for a better life. Change had always held an air of fear about it, her parents drilling into her head that if it couldn't be planned on a spreadsheet, that it wasn't worth pursuing. But tonight, Cammie learned that the unexpected, especially love, was something you couldn't plan for, couldn't bend to your will. She had tried that with Adam and the entire thing blew up in her face. When she finally gave in, finally let her guard down and allowed Virgo to step in close, she found true peace within for the first time since she was a small child.

Virgo offered a smile filled with nothing but complete adolation.

I'm home, Cammie thought.

The tumblers in the lock groaned against one another. The apartment door swung open and the girls shuffled inside.

"C'mon, my room's down this way."

Virgo followed in line behind Cammie down the narrow hall to the room. Before they stepped through the threshold, a surge of anticipation filled Virgo; she had never seen Cammie's room, never seen this aspect of her world and for a brief moment, wondered what the inside would contain, wondered what it would reveal about her Soulmate.

The light flicked on and the room came to life. The small space was sparsly decorated with a bed shoved against the corner, a dresser on the opposite wall, and a desk and bookshelf between the two, facing the window. There wasn't so much as a spec of dust out of place, everthing was exactly where it was supposed to be. A small smile touched Virgo's lips, not knowing why she should have expected anything else.

What Cammie lacked in furniture she made up for with wall fixtures. Virgo's eyes were drawn to the colorful walls decorated with a variety art: photography, paintings, and posters. Most of the paintings and larger photographs were scenaries, pictures of nature. There were beautiful, faraway places. One painting in particular depicted train tracks slicing the imagine in half: the ocean on the bottom, green pastures on the top. The smile tugging at Virgo's lips grew wider.

"This looks like the tracks near my home," Virgo said, pointing.

Cammie turned her head to look at the photo.

"I actually have no idea where it's from. I think I got it from a garage sale or a flea market."

"It looks like France. There is a line that runs along the Mediterranean."

For a moment, Virgo was transported to another world, another life. Virgo was somehwere far away where Cammie couldn't touch her. Cammie became transfixed on Virgo, observing the subtle changes that washed over Virgo with the wave of nostalgia. A sudden desire, no need, to travel to France with Virgo suffocated Cammie. She blinked a few times, shocked at this sudden desire to travel, to escape Los Angeles, California, the States. The feeling was a novel feeling, something she didn't quite understand.

"It's beautiful," Viro said, relucantly tearing her eyes away. All Cammie could manage was a nod, still reeling from that strange moment.

Virgo's eyes trailed along the walls, noticing the paintings. It seemed that most of them were Cammie's own depictions with the exception of a few pieces seemingly hung up randomly throughout the room.

Cammie also had fixated movie posters to the walls, showcasing some of her favorite movies. It seems a lot of them were from the 80's. Virgo also noted that hanging above her desk was a large corkboard that seemed to be like a scrapbook of sorts, where random items such as movie tickets, coffee sleeves, and small doodles where stuck to the board.

What struck Virgo the most was Cammie's room seem to lack much color until the walls popped with an explosion of saturation.

Virgo's gaze shifted and she noted the bookshelf filled with textbooks, the shelf bowing under the weight of the books stacked two deep and piled high.

"So, uh, this is my room," Cammie said nervously, watching Virgo the entire time. Though it had only taken a moment for Virgo to observe the room, to Cammie, it felt like waiting an enternity for a judgement that she desperately wanted.

"I love it. It's very you," Virgo finally said after turning to Cammie and reading the blantanly anxious expression plastered on her face. Though Virgo was sure Cammie did not appreciate how easy it was to read her emotions and facial expression, Virgo was happy to be able to discern exactly what Cammie was thinking or feeling simply in the way that her face twitched.

Virgo crossed the room to the bookshelf and reached for a tattered sketchbook.

"May I?"

"Sure. Um, do you want to borrow pajamas?" Cammie asked, wanting an excuse to distract herself while Virgo peered through her book.

"Please. I would prefer not to sleep in jeans," Virgo teased.

While Cammie rummaged through her drawers she could hear the distinct dragging of the thick sketchbook pages being turned. Each scrape sent her heart hammering in her chest, wondering what Virgo would think, what she would say.

Virgo thoughtfully paused on each page, studying the outlines. The first sketch in the notebook was dated three years before. As she moved through the pages, the dates began to stretch out, the time between them growing larger and larger. As she moved to the center of the book, she noticed that prior to this month, the last sketch was dated almost ten months ago. Now, all the drawings this last month were gestures sketches of womens' bodies. They were moving in different ways, captured in different positions, as if Cammie suddenly became fascinated with the female body. The thought brought a warm feeling to Virgo's stomach.

"I think we're about the same size, so these should fit." Cammie said, bringing over a pair of cotton shorts and a t-shirt that she thought would be comfortable.

Cammie glanced over Virgo's shoulder and realized that she had stopped on the gesture drawing pages. A burst of heat immediately rushed to Cammie's cheeks and she suddenly felt the need to explain herself.

"Bodies are really hard." Cammie jabbed a thumb in the direction of the scenary paintings. "I usually paint nature, so I suck at drawing people and gesture drawings are the first step in learning to draw people realistically."

"It's cool. It's really good." Virgo said and closed the book.

Cammie exhaled a breath that she didn't realize she was holding when Virgo replaced the sketchbook on the shelf. A few more pages and she would have seen all of the sketches that Cammie had done of Virgo after staring at her Instagram for hours.

"Thanks," Cammie said and handed Virgo the piles of clothes. She spun around to grab her own.

As Virgo removed her shirt, Cammie couldn't help but glance over her shoulder. The curling black ink that Cammie had grown accustomed to continued up Virgo's arms and down her back, across her ribs; they seemed to cover her entire body. A smile played on Cammie's lips when she thought about what her parents would say when they saw how heavily tattooed Cammie's Soulmate was. A small pang of anxiety lodged itself in her stomach at the thought of telling her parents about Virgo.

The thought was quickly pushed away and she instead focused on being present with Virgo; he couldn't worry about the future right now. Today, it was one step at a time. Today, it was Virgo.

Cammie turned back to focus on changing out of her own clothes, but she couldn't help from herself from turning back to glance at the girl behind her, facsinated by the art decorating her body. Though she was completly enthralled by all of the brilliant lines that cascaded around Virgo's body, Cammie couldn't prevent the light blush that covered her face once more this evening while she looked at Virgo. A funny, warm feeling was materilaizing in the pit of her stomach, something she didn't quite understand. Virgo began to unclasp her bra, which snapped Cammie out of her trance. She turned her back to Virgo once more and finished changing without another glance in Virgo's direction.

"You have a lot of tattoos," Cammie said.

"You're very observant."

"It was actually one of the first things I noticed about you," Cammie confessed. "But I had no idea you had so many."

"Were you watching me change?" Virgo asked with eyebrow quirked and a smile on her lips.

"What? No, no I just saw your tattoo on your side when I turned around," Cammie babbled, heat flooding her body. She hoped the lie was convincing.

It wasn't.

Virgo was grinning.

"Well, what did you think?" Virgo asked after a few moments of letting Cammie flounder in her own embarassment.

"I never thought I would date someone with tattoos."

"No?"

Cammie laughed. "Of course not!"

"I'm not anything like what you expected, am I?" Virgo asked more seriously.

Cammie let a moment pass, let the silence sink over them, let the question settle.

"No. You're nothing like I expected."

They stared at one another.

"You're the literal exact opposite of anyone I would have dated or thought about dating. You're so much more than anything I expected. I had no idea that I needed someone like you to show me how ridiculous I've been, to show much of life I was missing out on."

Virgo crossed the room and gave Cammie a light kiss on her cheek. Camme turned into her, wrapping her arms around Virgo's neck and pulling her in close to brush her lips against Virgo's. This sent her heart rattling in her chest, her body seeming to be preparing itself for something.

"And me?" Cammie asked. "What do you think of me?"

Virgo smiled.

"You're nothing like I imaged and yet you are perfect to me."

"How am I perfect for you? I've made your life miserable."

"You've made me realize more important things in life, like patience and kindess and love."

"'The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return'." Cammie quoted.

"Have you learned this?"

"I'm starting to," Cammie said, looking into Virgo's eyes, seeing plainly the love that was there. Cammie wondered how she could have so naive these last few months. It was so obvious how much Virgo cared for her. Why had she been so willfully ignorant for so long?

"What are you thinking?" Virgo asked softly.

"How I could have been so naive all this time."

Virgo tilted her head in question.

"I don't know why it was so hard for me to see that you're my Soulmate."

"Allowing yourself to love another woman can be intimidating."

"I'm still scared, Virgo."

Cammie looked up to meet Virgo's eyes, worry painted across her face. How would Virgo take this news?

"C'est pas grave. C'est normal. Je serai là pour toi." Virgo kissed Cammie's forehead. "It's okay, Cammie. It's normal. I'm here with you, always."

"How do you say Soulmate in French?"

"Âme sœur."

"You are my âme soeur."

"T'es mon âme soeur."

Cammie repeated this to Virgo.

"Très bien ma chéri."

A bashful grin crossed Cammie's and she pulled her arms back from around Virgo's neck. As her hands slid down Virgo's arms, her hands paused on each of Virgo's forearms, fingers tracing the inky collage.

"Tell me about one of your tattoos."

"Which one do you want to know about?" Virgo twisted her arms around in front of her, examining the dark curves that spilled over her body. Designs curled around her arms, legs, and torso. Stories unfolded around her limbs, entire civilizations and myths lived and died with her breath. There were so many, sometimes Virgo even forgot which tattoos she had.

"Any one you want."

This gave Virgo pause. She was used to people asking about a particular tattoo, of them pointing it out. On more than one occasion, she had had a particularly daring person touch their fingers to the tattoo in question. Virgo hated that. She thought for a moment, mentally scanning her body for the most interesting story, or the most recent, or her first, or the shallow dip into the water that would give her room to expand and develop in the future. She decided.

Virgo spun around and pointed to her triceps on her left arm. In a delicate hand, with thin lines, Cammie saw the image of a clear wine bottle filled with lavender plants, lightly accented with purple. The bottle was detailed with crosshatching along the edges ro give the piece life. The trail the lavendar plants followed through the bottle was clear and visible.

"Where I am from, lavender grows everywhere. We would pick it all the time when I was a child and decorate the house. It always smelled like lavender. And we always had wine. When I was 15 my mother let me have wine with her. And once I turned 18 we drank a glass together almost daily as a family. So, it just reminds me of home and my family."

Cammie studied the image on her arm and lightly pressed her index finger to the skin and ran it over the tattoo. Though the skin had long since healed it felt as if Cammie could feel each line rising to meet the touch of her finger, coming alive. With each curve of her finger, following the lines, questions began swimming in Cammie's head. Virgo was an awfully far way from home; Cammie could never imagine being that far away from her family. Except now that things were different, now that she wasn't so sure about her family, maybe she wished she could as far away from her family as Virgo was.

"Do you miss your family?" Cammie asked curiously. If Virgo was so close with her family, loved them so much, Cammie couldn't understand why Virgo would move so far away.

"Of course. I miss them every day."

"Why did you move so far away from them? I couldn't imagine moving so far away."

"I just wanted to travel. I wanted to see the world. I wanted something different, a new perspective."

Cammie considered her words. Virgo took this leap of faith and instead of dipping her toes into the ocean of adventure, dove headfirst. Cammie longed for that confidence, that sense of independnece and the ability to not give anything a second thought.

"Well, what about you? Any tattoos?" Virgo asked.

"Just one."

"Let's see it!"

A light blush covered Cammie's cheeks. She was never one to be comfortable with showing off her skin. Wearing a bathing suit in the summer was challenging enough and Savannah still harassed her for not allowing her into the bathroom to grab something if Cammie was showering.

"It's on my ribs."

Virgo's eyes widdened. "I bet that hurt."

Cammie laughed at the, quite literal, painful memory.

"It hurt a lot. I almost cried."

"Yes, I know that hurts a lot."

"Do you have tattoos on your ribs?" Cammie asked, though she already knew the answer when she had stolen a forbidden glance at Virgo's bare back.

Virgo nodded. "Want to see?"

"Sure," Cammie said. Although she knew it was just an admiration for art, Cammie still found herself nervous to look at the exposed skin on Virgo's sides. That warm feeling in her stomach was seeping in again. The realization that there was a deeper attraction to Virgo than she realized, something she never felt with Adam, unfolded in her mind. With Adam, there had never been a deeper desire for him, no electricty. She thought it only to be that she was too focused on other things to really find herself drawn to him, wanted to be with him more intimately. But as Virgo pulled up her shirt and Cammie saw her exposed for a second time that night, that feeling stirring within her stomach sent her heart thumping wildly. This is what it meant to be attracted to someone; this is desire.

The tattoo covering Virgo's left side was a rendition of "Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette" by Van  Gogh. It was huge, almost five inches in length. Cammie recalled the pain that the small tattoo caused and grimaced.

"How long did that take?"

"A few hours," Virgo shrugged.

"Holy shit."

Virgo let her shirt drop back down. Hesitantly, Cammie lifted her own, just enough to allow the piece to peek out from under the fabric.

Virgo inspected the small hummingbird around the poppy flower, the colors light, almost pastel.

"It's beautiful."

Cammie quickly dropped her shirt.

"Thanks."

"Any reason why you wanted it?"

"No, I just wanted it. And my parents told me I couldn't get one."

Cammie crossed the room and collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Virgo laughed and joined her, their feet hanging off the side. "Wow! Was this your first act of rebellion?"

Cammie thought a moment. "I think so."

"I'm very proud of you."

The girls laughed together and after a moment, Virgo grew somber.

"So, your family. . ."

"What about them?" Cammie asked too quickly, too defensively.

"What are you going to tell them?"

"Would you hate me if I told you I'm not going to tell them? At least, not for a while."

"No, of course not." Virgo turned over on her side to look at Cammie. "You can tell them when you're ready. I won't ever pressure you into telling them."

"I don't know what to say to them. I don't think they'll take it very well and they're paying for my college."

"They would pull you out of school?" Virgo asked incredulous.

"I don't know if they would, but I have no idea how they would react."

"Let's just move to France. You can finish school there. Oh, and you won't have all of this debt."

Cammie laughed at the joke. "How can I finish school in France? I can't speak the language."

"You'll learn very quick."

Cammie laughed again. It felt so good to be with Virgo. She sensed everythign about Cammie, could read all of the subtlties and react to them.

"How much longer do you have here? I mean, how much more school do you have?" Cammie asked.

"This is it," Virgo said.

"What? This is your last semester?"

Virgo's nod of affirmation sent a thrill of panic shooting thorugh Cammie. Her last semester? What did that mean?

"What are you going to do after?"

"I don't know. Before today, I thought I would move back home."

Cammie's stomach sank. Move back home?

"And now?"

"I thought we could figure it out together."

Cammie released the breath she was holding. Virgo reach out a hand to grasp Cammie's.

"And you?" Virgo asked. "Do you know what you want to do?"

Cammie shook her head. Her entire world had been shattered today. How could she possibly know what to do with the shards?

"No, but I thought we could figure it out together."

Together, they could put back the pieces in any order that they wanted, to create a new life all their own.

Thank you everyone for reading :) You know I say this every time, but it really does mean the world to me to know that people are reading this story and actually look forward to my updates. I really appreciate each and every one of you and you keep me going every day! À bientôt