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Juleka fell back on the rug beside Rose, one hand pressed over her mouth to try and stifle her silent laughter. It was no use—she didn’t think she’d laughed this hard in ages. The wicker rug spread across the floor of Rose’s room dug into the skin on Juleka’s shoulder blades, leaving marks she knew would linger for a whisper of time. Rose’s fingers would softly trace the patterns once they sat up, making them last a little longer as a memory if nothing else.
It was their thing. It was perfect.
Juleka managed to catch her breath first. She sat up and reached for the bottle of wine they’d snagged from Rose’s parents stash. That part of the routine was new, but Juleka had to admit she liked it. The alcohol calmed the usual constant tumble of her thoughts. She could reach out and grab a single one now, instead of having five competing for attention, demanding to become the next new crisis. It was true that once she drunkenly grabbed a thought, it wanted to slip through her mental fingers just as easily, but that was half the fun.
Maybe it wasn’t entirely the alcohol. Maybe Juleka was just getting better at letting go.
She giggled again, not managing to stay quiet this time, and she took another swig before setting the bottle down.
“Shhh,” Rose whispered. “We have to be quiet! My parents will kill me if they find us like this.”
That was probably true. It had been a shock when Juleka had first started coming over to Rose’s place years ago, to have two people watching so closely as their kid played. Careful with those scissors. Don’t talk and eat, you’ll choke. Don’t run down the halls. It was so unlike growing up with Anarka; Rose’s parents worried a lot.
Then again, they had reason to.
Rose’s fingers pressed into Juleka’s back, right over the top edge of her tank top like she’d expected. They were cold at first, but Juleka didn’t care. Rose warmed her on the inside in a way nobody else could.
“What’s wrong?” Rose whispered. “You went quiet.”
Juleka hesitated. “Just…thinking.”
Rose didn’t press. She was good at not doing that. Years of hospital visits must have taught her that people didn’t always want discuss the things bothering them. Or maybe her parents just hadn’t left her enough room to speak in those times. Sometimes Juleka thought about that.
Often, Juleka wondered why she and Rose had clicked in the first place. She knew what she’d been drawn to—Rose smiled as easily as she breathed and had been the first person to really make Juleka feel like she mattered. But whatever had drawn Rose to Juleka remained a mystery, one Rose didn’t even seem able to explain.
“I just liked you?” Rose had said the one time Juleka asked her about it. “You seemed cool?”
Juleka supposed that childhood friendships often didn’t have answers beyond that. When you’d loved someone so long you couldn’t remember a time before, the why of it seemed to get lost. And maybe it wasn’t important, though Juleka still wished she knew.
Sometimes Juleka still didn’t know what she could offer Rose now, so she offered what she knew. She thought about Rose, then overthought, then worried. She considered about every possible scenario that Rose might not be able to, trying to solve every potential problem that would likely never come about.
She didn’t tell Rose about that, it would only make her worry.
Apparently this time though, Juleka had been silent for too long. “Jules?” Rose prompted. “Are you okay?”
Alcohol, Juleka then realized, could feel heavy, too. It was a playful mist and a thick fog. There was freedom from standing near the edge of a cliff, but there was the terror of trying not to fall as well. Conflicting emotions bubbled inside of her, and suddenly it was just a lot.
She took a deep breath. “I just really love you,” she said.
The fingers on Juleka’s back stilled, and she regretted having spoken at first, missing their careful trails. Then a hand cupped her cheek, turning Juleka’s face towards her.
“I love you too,” Rose said. “Always.” Her cheeks were a faint pink, illuminated by the moonlight streaming into the room.
Juleka leaned in and kissed her. Rose’s lips parted slowly like they had all the time in the world, and their certainty steadied Juleka, who reached over to squeeze Rose’s thigh. Rose smiled against Juleka’s lips. The kiss didn’t last that much longer, because Rose’s breath carried hints of black licorice, and Juleka had told her to stop snacking on those earlier. Even if Juleka had to admit she’d looked cute biting into them.
Juleka broke the kiss, pressing a quick smooch to Rose’s cheek before she pulled away, clicking her tongue.
“What?” Rose pouted.
“You know what you did.”
“Oh my gosh, is this about the candies again? That was hours ago, there’s no way you can still tell.”
Juleka shrugged, smirking. “I told you so.”
Rose narrowed her eyes playfully for a moment, then sighed. “Fine.”
She scooched away, and Juleka was about to protest when Rose lay down on the rug again, this time resting her head in Juleka’s lap. She let her eyes flutter closed with a sleepy smile. Juleka couldn’t help but smile back as she let her fingers graze the ends of Rose’s hair.
Juleka would have stayed there forever if she could, just knowing that the person she loved most in the world was safe and happy, and that Juleka had a part in that. But her mind wouldn’t stay quiet for long. They were about to start their last year of lycée, and after that…
“Ro, do you ever think about the future?”
Rose stiffened. It was hard to see in the darkness, but Juleka felt the fingers that had been grazing her jeans freeze. Rose sat up a second later, grabbing the wine from beside Juleka. She took a long sip, then picked at the edge of the label as she spoke.
“I used to…not,” Rose admitted. There was a glint of worry in her eyes, a feeling she didn’t show the rest of the world, but that Juleka got to see. “I used to...I’d worry I wouldn’t...you know.” Juleka did. It was the same thing that terrified her, even that things were good now. Remission was a magical word, but it wasn’t a sure thing. “I didn’t want to plan for something I wasn’t sure would happen,” Rose continued. “I wanted to live in the moment, you know?”
Juleka nodded, but she didn’t quite understand. Moments were—by definition—fleeting things, and Juleka didn’t trust them. Then again, if all of her moments could be like this? Well, maybe Rose was onto something.
But it didn’t have to be a fleeting thing, the two of them. It already wasn’t. If Juleka trusted one thing in this world to last, it was how she felt about Rose.
“Let’s plan then,” Juleka said, grabbing one of Rose’s hands. “Let’s figure out our future together.”
Rose smiled, though her eyes still seemed distant.
“I think I’d like that,” she said slowly. She passed the wine back to Juleka and crawled over to her desk, coming back a minute later with a notepad and a sparkly pink pencil. “Where do we start?”
Juleka bit her lip. “I don’t know? I mean...I have ideas, but…” Well, Rose would probably want something a little more concrete than travelling the world, kicking ass and taking names. So Juleka took a moment to think thinks over. “I guess I want to move out,” she said slowly.
“Like...as soon as you can?” Juleka nodded. She loved her mother, but Anarka could be a lot. Plus, the ship didn’t have much privacy. Rose scribbled something down on the notepad. “Yeah, I get that. I mean my parents are great, but...I want to be able to make my own decisions, you know? Not have them hovering all the time? But Paris...we’d need money for that.”
“Well...I had actually been thinking…” Rose put down her pencil, giving Juleka her full attention. It was gorgeous the way her blue eyes twinkled in the moonlight. Juleka took another swig of wine before going on. “I was talking to Adrien the other day, and I mentioned something about how I’d always wanted to model, and he said he’d put in a good word for me if I applied to Gabriel.” Juleka was pretty sure half the reason he’d offered was just so he wouldn’t have to work with Lila anymore, but still. It had been nice of him to think of her.
“Oooooh, you totally should,” Rose squealed. “You’re so gorgeous, and you…” She placed a hand on Juleka’s knee, leaning in closer. “Well, you’ve really kind of…come out of your shell the last couple years, you know? Like…I can see you just shining on camera.”
“Pffft, you’re just biased.”
“Well, duh. But that doesn’t mean I’m lying. It’s like…one day you just decided to share all of your brilliance with the rest of the world, and I never really understood what changed, but…” She shrugged. “Confidence looks good on you, that’s all I’m saying.”
Was it too soon to take another sip of wine? Suddenly Juleka knew exactly why adults hid their feelings behind alcohol. She knew why her confidence had skyrocketed of course. But she couldn’t tell Rose about being Purple Tigresse.
Juleka set down the bottle. “I guess, maybe...finding out Jagged was my dad and getting to know him...that changed things.”
“Makes sense,” Rose said. She cocked her head to the side. “Do you think...No, nevermind that’s stupid.”
“What?”
“Well...Jagged has money, obviously...maybe if we needed something, he could help us?”
“Oh. I...I don’t know. I hadn’t considered that.”
“I mean, we don’t have to, obviously. Maybe it would be weird to ask.”
“I dunno. He did bring up taking Luka and me on some big vacation when we graduate. Ankara was totally against it, but you know, we’ll be eighteen then, so…” Juleka grinned. “You should totally come with us. I’ll need somebody to hide away with when Jagged gets too crazy. I think Luka just gets a kick out of riling him up, honestly. It’s like some huge game of ‘What will Jagged do Next?’”
Rose laughed. “So, where do you want to go then? If you got to choose.”
“Man, I don’t know. Everywhere? Greece, Egypt, Korea, Japan, India, Italy? Austria’s supposed to be nice too, apparently you can visit Beethoven’s grave in Vienna. And ooooh, I mean I know we’ve visited London before, but there’s supposed to be this really nice cemetery we never got to see…”
Rose made a face. “Why do all your vacation spots involve corpses?”
Juleka smirked. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“You do if you want me to come with you,” Rose teased.
“I don’t know…” Juleka said. “I mean, death is...well it’s not cool, obviously, but there’s...something alluring about it, I guess. About the cycle of things.” Rose didn’t look like she understood at all, but she didn’t voice anymore objections. Juleka passed her the wine and she took another sip. “Really, the architecture is just supposed to be cool.”
Rose nodded, wincing slightly as she swallowed. “That’s fair. You did always like architecture. Do you think...would that be something you’re interested in?”
“You mean like...careerwise? I mean…I doubt it. I think I’d get bored of an office job.”
“What do you want to do then? You want to model long-term?”
“Nah, not for too long, I don’t think. But maybe something in that line of work.” Juleka lay back down on the rug, throwing her hands up dramatically over her head. “I want to be glamorous, darling.”
Rose snickered. She put the wine down and curled up beside Juleka, pressing another kiss to her cheek. “You already are.”
They lay on their backs for a while in silence, listening to the hum of the radiator and staring at the cheap plastic stars stuck on Rose’s ceiling from when they were kids.
“What about you?” Juleka asked eventually.
“Hmm?”
“What do you want to do. As a career, or...whatever…”
“I…” She rolled over and curled into Juleka’s side. “I really don’t know, Jules.”
Rose was scared—such a rare thing for her that Juleka almost missed it. But her voice shook and her reached for Juleka’s hand and gripped it tightly.
“That’s alright, Ro. We’ve got time.”
Rose was silent for a while. She shifted, propping herself up on an elbow. Juleka mirrored the pose, twisting onto her side. Keeping a solid grip on Rose’s hand.
“Is it ok if we don’t talk about it now?” Rose asked. “I think I just want to enjoy tonight.”
“Fine by me. Did you have anything else in mind?”
Rose grinned. “Weeeell…if you’ve reevaluated your stance on the licorice…”
Juleka frowned, but it didn’t take long for Rose to get her way.
In the end, kisses laced with bitterness were a fair trade for spending forever with the sweetest person Juleka could imagine.