Chapter 13

It had been five days now since Sutton had offered Ada the chance to walk away. She was counting the days in her head, repeating the number in a detached way, telling herself she was simply noticing how long they had gone without speaking--as if it wasn't something that was pulling tissue from her stomach every hour.

She was 17 years old again, paralyzed by the nightmare of losing Ada. It wasn't quite that her heart was bleeding--it was more that her heart was suffocating in a merciless limbo, waiting for word that it could either rejoice or shatter.

Sometimes she had a strange faith in Ada - faith that Ada would come through for them - but other times she felt suffocated by logic and reason. Ada was stubborn, Ada was scared, and Ada had spent her whole life trying to find her place (Sutton had spent it believing Ada's place was next to her).

Now history repeated itself. Sutton was heartsick, staring into a long abyss--a life without Ada. Some moments she wished she and Ada had never reconnected at all, that they had never reopened those secret places in their hearts. She knew Ada must be heartsick, too, so she couldn't even channel her pain into anger; she felt empathetic, for she knew Ada was struggling, and she desperately wished she could make things easier for her.

-

She and her mom were better - though they were still tense sometimes, there was no longer toxicity between them - but Sutton starved to tell her mom about her current troubles. She wanted to tell her about Ada's heart, her ambitious mind, the way she walked around the office with a tight determination, how her laugh sounded exactly the same as it had in high school--and how none of this might ever matter. She didn't know what her mom would say, but she yearned for her advice, or at least for her comfort.

-

Work was the hardest thing. She and Ada spoke politely to each other when they had to--the sound of her voice was like balm that turned to fire--but mostly they avoided each other. Sutton watched her from afar in the moments when everyone was busy. Ada sat at her desk with her face inches from her computer screen, and Sutton yearned to sit down next to her and simply absorb her presence.

She had started leaving the office during lunch hour, usually walking to a nearby sandwich shop so she wouldn't risk sitting in the break room with Ada. Debbie Chung caught on to this pattern quickly, her hungry eyes burning into Sutton whenever she walked across the office.

"I'm coming with you today," Debbie told her on Monday.

"What?"

"Wow, you need to work on your reaction faces. I can tell way too easily that you don't want me to come. Start practicing your 'That sounds great' expression."

Sutton stared at her.

"Oh, for the love of Lululemon, it's fine. I won't talk at you the whole time," Debbie said, standing up and grabbing her purse. "Come on, I'm craving Chipotle."

-

So she went to lunch with Debbie. They sat on the Chipotle patio and ate burrito bowls, Debbie spreading her guacamole--she'd convinced Sutton to spring for it, too--all over her beans and rice.

"Why are you depressed?" Debbie asked.

"What? I'm not depressed."

"You suck at lying. You might as well tell me the truth, because otherwise we'll sit here with an elephant between us, and I still have this whole burrito bowl to eat. Is it Ada?"

Sutton stared at her in what she hoped was a disdainful way. In her head she heard herself say Why would it be Ada in a snotty voice, but those words never came out of her mouth; she seemed to be tongue-tied. The moment swelled and Sutton sat mutely, knowing she was confirming Debbie's guess.

Debbie didn't look smug, as Sutton had expected her to. Instead, her eyes grew sympathetic and her voice went soft. "It was nice of you to talk to me about Wyatt on the company retreat," she said. "I wanted to return the favor, if you were open to it."

It took Sutton a long beat to internalize what this meant. Debbie was thanking her for the talk they'd had about Wyatt—a talk that had acknowledged that Debbie and Wyatt were a romantic couple. Now Debbie was comparing that to Sutton's situation—was she acknowledging that Sutton and Ada were a romantic couple, too?

It felt so nice, like Sutton was taking a long, deep breath, but it was also alarming.

"Um," Sutton said. "I'm just not sure if..." she trailed off and picked her fork through her rice.

"It's okay," Debbie soothed. "You can trust me. I'm the same as you."

Sutton frowned. "Are you?"

"Yeah, can't you tell? I think we have the same feelings."

"Okay, I am very confused right now. What are you talking about?"

Debbie answered through a mouthful of beans, her voice regaining its hyper quality. "Disclosing to HR. Isn't that what's bothering you? I figured you and Ada probably paralleled me and Wyatt. You want to disclose your relationship, but she doesn't, right?"

Sutton couldn't help but laugh. "That's what you thought I was upset about? Uh—that's part of it, I guess."

"What could be weighing on you more than that? God, I've hardly slept in weeks. I keep having nightmares where Marta calls me into her office and fires me for dating Wyatt without telling her."

"Why would she fire you and not Wyatt?"

"Because he's the better employee. Aren't you worried about the same thing?"

"I'm not at that point yet. There's other stuff in the way."

Debbie sighed dramatically. "Ada can be difficult."

Sutton broke eye contact. "You hardly know Ada."

"I know her well enough to understand that she can be a pain in the ass. Look, I don't want to meddle, but just know you can talk to me if you want. I like you and Ada together. Ever since you joined Cyntera, she's seemed happier and nicer. It makes my day oodles easier."

Sutton took her time chewing the last bites of her lunch. Then she asked: "Why are you pushing to disclose your relationship? Aren't you nervous about it, like Wyatt?"

Debbie's ponytail bobbed as she pushed back in her chair. "My feelings for Wyatt outweigh any anxieties I have about what other people think."

Sutton thought about that statement--and the confident, artless way Debbie had said it--all the way back to the office.

-

On Tuesday morning, in that magically productive hour before lunch, Sutton received an e-mail from Ada.

Need to speak with you. Please meet me in the smokers' area near the entrance to the building.

When Sutton looked up, Ada was watching her. Her eyes were penetrating. She turned and stalked out of the office, and after a minute's delay so as not to attract their colleagues' suspicion, Sutton followed her.

The elevator had already come and gone, so Sutton waited for another one. A minute later, she stepped off at the first floor and made her way outside the building, then over to the left, where the smokers gathered. She had never been in this area before.

Ada was waiting with crossed arms and a frowning brow.

"That e-mail read like a drug deal," Sutton said.

Ada rounded on her. "Did you tell Debbie about us?"

Sutton was so blindsided that she actually took a step backward. Ada looked dangerous: her eyes were pointed and dark, practically drilling into Sutton.

"No, I didn't," Sutton said, anger swelling up inside of her.

"That's funny, because she's been saying some odd things to me since yesterday afternoon. Things about you."

It seemed Ada was waiting for Sutton to ask "What things?", but Sutton didn't want to give her the satisfaction. Instead she said, "Wow--do you think she has a crush on me?"

"Grow up, Sutton," Ada hissed. "What did you tell her?"

"I told you, I didn't tell her anything. She already knew."

"How would she have known?!"

"Because sometimes," Sutton said, with the air of speaking to a preschooler, "when two people are in love, other people can sense it."

"That's bullshit."

"It's the truth. She didn't even ask about you, she just had it figured out already. She said we reminded her of her and Wyatt."

"That's disgusting."

"What are you even worried about, that she's going to hack your Facebook and spill our secret relationship to everyone? That she's going to stamp your face with permanent ink that says GAY?"

Ada stalled into silence, her jaw locked.

"You know what, Ada, I'm done with this shit," Sutton said. "We can go back to hating each other, and you can go back to ignoring the complications of your sexuality. But I just want to tell you something Debbie told me, something I think is far more significant than whatever tiny, stupid thing she said to set you off on this paranoia trip. Yesterday I asked her why she wasn't afraid to disclose her relationship with Wyatt to the company. He doesn't want to do it, but she does. And you know what she told me? She said, 'My feelings for Wyatt outweigh any anxieties I have about what other people think.' And I think that's the truest thing I've heard from anyone in months. It's made clear to me that all these issues with me and you have nothing to do with what place I'm in or what place you're in - when it comes down to it, the problem is that you care about other people's perceptions of you more than you care about you or me."

With that, she turned around and marched back into the building, a wave of adrenaline carrying her all the way up to her desk.

She and Ada did not speak or look at each other for the rest of the day.

-

Her stomach ached when she woke on Wednesday morning. A small part of her - no doubt the emo teenager still buried inside of her - had hoped that Ada would call her last night and say she was right, that there was nothing more important than the two of them being together, and then they would have whispered into the phone until their voices were hoarse and their eyes itched with sleep.

But they were adults now, and dramatic teenage fantasies had fallen away to be replaced with bland reality - and the reality was that Sutton would have to move on from Ada one more painful time.

The radio personalities were annoying this morning. They gossiped about a celebrity couple who had just broken up, asking their listeners to call in with theories as to what had gone wrong. Sutton jabbed at the buttons before she settled for listening to NPR.

It was another boring Wednesday in the office. Wyatt was clicking around on ESPN.com and didn't bother to hide it when Sutton sat down in the legal nook with him. On-Delay stood in the middle of the office, lazily feeding pieces of paper into the big, bulky scanner while Mikey P. huffed impatiently behind him. Javier sat back in his chair and popped Cheetos into his mouth (Sutton noted that it was just after nine o'clock in the morning), not bothering to pick up the ones that missed and fell to the floor.

The only odd thing was that Ada was nowhere to be found.

Sutton tried not to care--after all, she had decided it was time to move on from Ada--but of course she did. Ada was normally the first person in the office, already focused and making moves by the time everyone else arrived with their pathetic thermoses of coffee. Was she sick today? Was she having car trouble? Was she working from home to intentionally avoid Sutton?

There was a new e-mail in her inbox.

Pls come into my office.

It was from Marta, and it was time-stamped to a minute ago. Marta must have seen her come in--was she watching through her internal windows? Sutton had been several minutes late--was she about to be lectured?

She stood up at her desk, smoothed down her cotton skirt, and walked to Marta's office with an anxious pit in her stomach.

The door was shut. She knocked. Marta's voice said to come in, but Sutton couldn't get a read on the tone of it.

Marta was sitting very formally at her desk, a frown on her face, and across from her, perched upright in one of the two chairs facing the desk, was Ada. Her posture was confident and cool. She met Sutton's eyes for a tick of a moment, but her expression was unreadable.

Sutton had the strangest, most disorienting feeling, like she was back in elementary school and had been called to the principal's office for fighting with another student. Marta showed no signs of disapproval, but as Sutton settled into the chair next to Ada's, she still felt unnerved.

"How are you, Sutton?" Marta asked. "Happy Wednesday. Half-priced cocktails at Duvic's later."

Sutton nodded. "Is everything okay?"

"You know, I have the same question. Ada and I were discussing something rather important when she asked me to call you in here."

Sutton looked over to Ada again. Ada gave her a brief glance, just quick enough for Sutton to see a mixture of apprehension and determination in her eyes.

"So, Ada?" Marta prompted.

Ada was the epitome of a professional. She sat with her shoulders straight, her ankles crossed, her hands cupped in her lap, her head held high. She blinked slowly, calmly, like she was about to discuss a regional sales report.

"I can't go to Florida, Marta," she said.

Sutton's heartbeat sprinted away.

"That's what I was getting around to telling you," Ada went on. She had stopped making eye contact with Marta, her eyes skirting nervously over the pictures on the desk instead, but she continued to sit straight up with her hands in her lap. "I'm so grateful for the opportunity, and I want to give my best to you and this company, but I can't--I can't leave."

Sutton's heart continued thudding in her chest; it had not beat like this since the first time she had seen Ada in this office all those weeks ago.

"I asked you if Sutton could join us," Ada said, "because I wanted her to hear this decision, too. I told her you had offered me this opportunity, and she was helping me think through it."

Sutton felt Marta's gaze roam curiously onto her, but she could not break her eyes away from Ada.

"Sutton and I..." Ada's shoulders rose high with a breath. "We're in a relationship."

Sutton's breath caught. Ada looked at her once more, and her eyes said Is that okay and I'm sorry and I'm scared and I'm ready, and Sutton breathed again.

Ada kept talking like she hadn't just given Sutton the universe. "I can't go anywhere right now," she told Marta. "This relationship is my priority. It's what I want to focus on."

Marta, sensing Ada had finished, nodded her head and leaned back in her chair. "I didn't pin you for a romantic, Ada."

Ada opened her mouth and hung it there, clearly unsure of how to respond.

"Looks like our office is teeming with romantics. Holly-Ann ditched our jiu-jitsu plans last night to go chasing after some young barista at Starbucks, On-Delay just started dating a gal who talks so fast you can't understand a damn thing she says, Wyatt and Debbie are still running around thinking they're pulling the wool over my eyes, and now you two."

Ada's mouth still hung on the air. Sutton, who felt wonderfully giddy all of a sudden, broke into a laugh.

"I'd advise y'all to disclose your relationship to HR," Marta said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Edgar will make you fill out a form, but I hear he's giving out 10-percent off coupons to Bugaboo's Tattoo Parlor this week, too."

"Thank you, Marta," Sutton said.

"I'm sorry you won't be taking the job, Ada," Marta said, "but I'm also happy you'll be staying here with us. There's no replicating you."

Sutton watched Ada smile. It was an easy, genuine smile that made the whole room warmer.

"Now scoot your boots," Marta told them. "There's work to be done."

-

Sutton figured they would simply return to their desks after that, but Ada surprised her by steering her out of the office and toward the elevator bank.

"Where are we going?" Sutton asked, following her.

Ada strode past the elevators and turned down a small hallway. Sutton figured she might just be looking for some privacy so they could talk, but Ada continued down the hallway until they were facing a large gray door.

"What are we doing?" Sutton asked again.

Ada propped open the door and leaned back against it. Sutton looked past her to a steel ladder built into the wall.

"Does this go to the roof?"

Ada's eyes were steady. "Will you take me?"

"We're 11 stories up. Won't you be scared?"

"I don't care. Everyone's always talking about this view. I want to see it."

Sutton studied her. Ada let her. Then all of a sudden Sutton felt herself smiling, and as soon as she became aware of it, she realized Ada was smiling, too.

Mere weeks ago, on the company retreat, they had scaled a ladder because their names had been drawn out of a pouch. They'd climbed without looking at each other and with the added weight of their past selves clinging to their backs. And in the moment when they had decided to give up, Sutton had looked down to the ground and could not fathom that she had been standing on it only minutes beforehand.

Now she looked at Ada, and Ada said, "Will you hold my hand?"

-

It was dazzlingly bright on the roof. The Buckhead skyline sprawled before them, and in the near distance, the Midtown skyline dotted the view, its jagged pattern of buildings hiding the arts and commerce below.

"I've never seen Atlanta like this," Sutton said.

Ada spread her fingers through Sutton's. "I don't feel scared."

"You don't?"

"Maybe because I don't feel like I could fall anywhere. I don't see anything below, just across."

"It's beautiful."

"Stunning."

The heat swelled around them, pulling the cold residue of air conditioning out of their clothes. In the depths of the building, people were typing e-mails and jabbing at the copier and clicking off random Internet sites when the boss walked by, and no one knew that Sutton and Ada had snuck onto the roof like two young kids, carrying a secret all their own.

"Do you mind that I told Marta like that?" Ada asked.

"No," Sutton said, "I'm grateful you did. But are you sure you feel okay with it?"

"Yeah. I feel like I'm out of my comfort zone, but in a good way. How do you feel?"

Sutton didn't let herself answer right away. She stood there holding Ada's warm hand while she waited for the truth to present itself.

"Ready," she said at last.

"Ready?"

"Ready to be with you...and to move on from high school...and to try for a new relationship with my parents."

Ada smiled with her eyes. "I want you to tell your mom about us."

"You do?"

"Yeah. And then I want to have her over for dinner."

Sutton pulled Ada into her. She placed a hand on her neck and slung the other around her waist, and she kissed her.

"Kissing me at work?" Ada whispered. "So not allowed."

"I went a long time without kissing you," Sutton said, "so forgive me if I can't hold back anymore."

-

They made a reluctant return to the building, Ada sneaking one more kiss from Sutton before she descended the ladder.

"You go back first," Sutton said when they reached the elevator bank. "I'll hang in the bathroom for a minute."

Ada winked at her, then strolled into the office with her normal confident air.

In the bathroom, Sutton ran into Debbie, who stood at the mirror reapplying powder to her face. Her eyes landed on Sutton's reflection. "You look suspect," she said in her curious, upbeat way.

Sutton stood next to her and fixed the bobby pins in her hair. "I think Ada and I are going to be okay."

Debbie drew back from the mirror and looked directly at her. "Really?"

Sutton couldn't help but grin. "Really. And hey, we told Marta about us, and she was surprisingly chill. I think you and Wyatt have nothing to worry about."

"Ah!" Debbie said. "That is so perfect. Thanks for telling me, Sutton. You're a good friend."

"So are you," Sutton told her, and Debbie's smile was so effusive she almost looked shy.

-

The day passed quickly. Sutton worked with Wyatt on final paperwork for the Florida acquisition, a buoyant feeling in her stomach the whole time. She joined Ada for coffee in the break room, where Ada had already poured her a cup with the perfect ratio of cream and sugar. At lunchtime, Debbie announced she was going for Thai food and asked if anyone wanted to join her, and Sutton, Ada, Wyatt, Javier, and Mikey P. said yes.

Around four o'clock, Sutton's e-mail inbox chimed.

- Happy hour today? Ada wrote.

- On a Wednesday? :) Sutton replied.

- I've always liked Wednesdays, shouldn't you know that now that we're in a relationship?? We can still go on Friday with everyone, but today I want a private S/A happy hour.

- Are you finally admitting that you like going to Happy Hour with everyone?

- I've admitted a lot of things today, Ada wrote, but you'll never catch me admitting that ;).

-

They found a bar they'd never been to before. It was unlike the other bars in Buckhead: it was old, dank, and quiet compared to the bustling scene outside. A bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt brought them their drinks and left them alone.

Sutton felt the way she had after finishing law school only a handful of months ago. Her parents and brother had come for her graduation, and the night after they left, she had sat on the porch of her rundown Knoxville apartment drinking a Miller Lite by herself and marveling at the truth that she was now finished with school forever. The air had been muggy but light--not yet weighed down like a Tennessee summer--and she had scratched at a swath of peeling sunburn on her ankle while she imagined what it would be like to finally join "the real world." She had sat there for 25 minutes, sipping the beer until it was warm, and the extended moment felt anti-climactic, but still profound.

That's how it was to sit here with Ada now. It was like they were finished with something forever, but they were also starting something that might go on forever. The occasion should have had some significant marker attached to it, but there was nothing more than this dank bar, the tired feeling of a workday, their matching vodka sodas, and the wrinkles in Ada's pencil skirt.

Still, Sutton would look back on it later and feel that it was profound.

"Tell me something," Ada said. "So--when a guy and a girl date, they each have their own best friend outside of each other."

"Yeah, usually."

"So if we're dating--if we're a couple--does that preclude you from being my best friend, too?"

Her eyes were mischievous--teasing--but there was something earnest in them, too.

Sutton took her time answering. She looked at Ada's shimmery work shirt, the sleeves of her perfect-fit blazer, the faded lipstick on her mouth, the mascara on her eyelashes. She took in the way Ada held herself--confident and poised, one slender hand propping up her face--and the way she'd grown into her height, commanding it gracefully. This was the Ada who strode around the office with purpose and plans, who spoke with authority, who ran errands and cooked meals and paid bills and filed taxes, who lived with a fire burning inside her.

Sutton looked at her own hands, cupped around the cold vodka soda glass, and at the way her wrists peeked out of her work blazer. She breathed intentionally and watched her own chest rise, wondering how many breaths she had taken over the last decade.

In a different place and time, she sat in her middle school cafeteria with tight braces and eyebrows that were too closely plucked. She had just finished P.E. class and the scent of Bath & Body Works country apple body splash hung around her. Her childhood friends picked at their lunches while they volleyed the idea of going to the mall that weekend, but suddenly Sutton turned away from them because she felt something new. It was a tap on the shoulder from the girl she had spoken to at carpool yesterday, the girl with the fresh, pretty name and the handwriting Sutton could have looked at for hours.

"Can I still sit here?" the girl asked.

Sutton scooted down to open a space for her, and the girl smiled with her eyes and offered Sutton one of her mom's homemade cookies.

This same girl smiled with her eyes now--older, surer eyes--and asked Sutton what she was thinking about.

"You," Sutton said, twirling the straw of her vodka soda. "And how you felt like my best friend from the moment I met you."

"And what does that mean now?" Ada said.

"It means you're still my best friend, and I'm dating you, and I'm going to buy us another round of drinks."

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(Author's Note: If you've reached this point, then I thank you for reading this story! You can find more fun tidbits about Sutton & Ada on my Tumblr (link on my profile). You can find information about my published lesbian novel, Her Name in the Sky, on my profile.)