Chapter 8

As soon as she said the words, Isla realized that she'd gotten it all wrong. Whatever the reason was for Rachel's silence over the last few days, her knowing about Isla's love for her was not it.

Shock radiated on the other woman's face.

Fuck.

The pause turned into silence. It was stifling. Isla wanted to tear out of the room, out of the apartment, but she didn't. She sat there and waited because she'd said the words and now she had to deal with the consequences.

"You love me?" Rachel's voice was so quiet, Isla almost missed the question.

"I…" The truth was out and there was no way she'd be able to pull back from what she'd said. She might as well be all the way honest. "Yes. Yes I do." Then, "Are you okay?" Isla had been avoiding looking at Rachel after that first dramatic realization that her devotion had been a shock, but now she searched the brunette's face for clues as to her thoughts.

"Yes," said Rachel, very definitively. "Yes, I'm okay. I didn't realize that?—"

"I know," said Isla, words bubbling over. "I probably should have?—"

"Shut up," said Rachel, but she was smiling. "Hush yourself, and let me speak. Please."

Isla nodded, and that pit in her stomach got deeper. Rachel would be nice about it, she'd let Isla down gently, because of course she would, she was lovely like that. But nothing would be the same again and Isla had ruined their friendship for no reason.

"So I realized a couple of things whilst I was in Brighton," said Rachel. She was speaking slowly, as if she were trying to choose each word incredibly carefully. "I realized that I don't really like London as a place. It's too big, too impersonal, and as much as I've made this flat into a home, this city has never felt like home. But I didn't realize it because of you."

Isla looked up, startled. "Because of me?"

"Because of you. Because being with you feels like home, and we spend so much time together that I didn't even realize that I don't want to live in London anymore."

Well this was going worse than could have been expected. Rachel had stayed somewhere she didn't like because of Isla. And by the sounds of things, she wasn't intending on staying much longer.

Isla thought she might vomit.

"Isla…" The gentleness in Rach's voice almost made the inevitable rejection worse. "I stayed because I love you too."

"What?" The word was loud, cutting through the tension in the room almost comedically.

"I love you too, though I didn't know it ‘til Saturday. And that's why I've been so quiet."

She should be celebrating, she should be singing from the rooftops, but there was a note in Rach's voice that gave her pause.

"I love you, and if you love me too, then that's wonderful. But now I've realized that I don't want to live in London anymore, that throws up questions. Your job is here and mine? Well, I think that Covid proved that I can do my job anywhere." Rachel took a shuddery breath, and Isla had to stop everything in her from gathering Rach in her arms and holding her close. "I still would like to explore what this is between us, see if our love is compatible, but I think I'm going to have to do it from Brighton. I want to move back there."

Isla realized that Rachel was on the verge of tears, and that broke the last bit of self-control she had. She tugged until Rachel fell into her lap. "Darling, darling Rachel. You moving to Brighton doesn't change anything for me. If there's a chance…" She paused, her throat tight. "I never thought that I stood a chance; so even if we're in different cities, I'd like to try. As long as you still want to."

Rachel nodded, and let her tears fall then, her body wracked with sobs.

It almost killed Isla, seeing Rach so upset, but she knew that it was more than that, because Isla had salt trails down her own cheeks. It was the vulnerability of sharing this most dangerous of secrets—dangerous because love had the power to create or destroy. But the relief was almost as devastating as the rejection. She thought about all of the years they'd been friends, all those years when they could have been so much more to each other, and Isla almost felt like she was mourning the relationship that could have been.

But she wasn't going to mourn this before it had even started.

So instead, she held Rachel in her arms and when Rach's tears had subsided, she lifted her best friend's chin and said, "I would like to kiss you now."

"Yes please," said Rachel.

Isla wasn't going to rush this most important of first kisses. She cupped Rachel's face in her hands, searching those trusting brown eyes, and then kissed Rachel as tenderly as she knew how.

Rachel's response was tentative, as if she couldn't quite believe that this was happening, and Isla held back, allowing herself to relish the softness of Rach's lips, the plumpness of the face in her hands, the delicious miniscule inbreath when she came up for air.

"How was that?" she asked.

"Everything," said Rachel. "It was everything." She looked surprised, as if the importance of the kiss had bowled her over in some way.

It had bowled over Isla.

"There's a line in a Shakespeare play," she mused. "Something about the power of love being surprising."

Isla knew it well. "‘I do love nothing in the world so well as you; is not that strange?'"

"Yes, that. I never truly understood what it meant until now." She leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to Isla's lips. "It's you; it's always been you. And that realization has been so sudden and so surprising, I don't know how I didn't realize before."

"We know now," said Isla, and vowed that she wouldn't waste a single moment now that she did.