Sunshine Kisses

They’d spent their entire childhood side by side, but they’d had so little time to enjoy being young together since.

‘What about work?’

‘They’ve offered me a position here. Basically what I do now, but from the office. Less on-site work, more planning and co-ordinating on projects around the world.’

‘But you love your job. You love travelling. Getting to be outside.’

‘I do.’

‘So…why?’ Her heart had slowed, and she could feel each heavy beat thudding in her ears.

‘There are…perks to returning. Things back here that I love more.’ Before she could process that, he continued, ‘I miss my family. And the travelling has been amazing, but I miss having a home. I want to sleep in the same bed for longer than six months and not move when I’m just getting used to it. I want to have real friends again and actually be able to hang out with them. I’m ready to put down roots, you know?’

There it was again, that twist in her stomach at the thought of Erik settling down and moving on with his life beyond her. The comfortable fantasy she’d been building in her head wobbled, but she held tightly onto it.

She’d indulge in it as long as he let her. Simply enjoy having her friend back before the inevitable took him away from her again.

‘Plus I get to spend more time with my favourite girl.’

Her stupid heart gave an honest to God flutter.

‘Who says I have space for you in my schedule?’ she teased.

‘Oh, you thought I was talking about you? Nah, Alex adopted a rottweiler and she’s the light of my life. I can’t wait to be reunited.’

‘You’re such a prick when you want to be.’

‘Only because I know you can take it, Sunshine.’ His grin was friendly and easy and he couldn’t possibly know what that phrase meant to someone who read as many romance novels as she did. ‘What about you? How’s uni going?’

Abby winced. Her research was going fine, documents and journals increasing in allocated file space on her laptop with every passing day. When it came time to use that research though—to draw her own conclusions, to use those studies to support her own thesis statement—she was met with only a blinking cursor, a blank page, and a deep sense of inferiority.

Who was she to talk about the liberation of female pleasure when she could barely have an orgasm without feeling the crushing weight of shame? How could she muse on the changing attitudes towards kinks in modern sexual encounters when she couldn’t even acknowledge and accept the list of things she wanted to try, never mind ask a partner for them?

But thanks to their careful boundaries erected almost exclusively around the topics of relationships and sex, she didn’t say any of that. Instead, she shared the broader, but no less crippling, truth: ‘Sometimes I think my parents were right.’

Erik paused with his glass halfway to his lips, staring at her with undisguised shock.

‘Maybe I should have studied something more concrete, more practical. I’ve given seven years of my life to academia and for what? I have nothing to show for it.’ She stared into the depths of her drink, willing herself to blink away the stinging sensation behind her eyes.

‘You have a Masters degree, for one thing.’

‘That’s a piece of paper.’

‘No, it’s proof that you put a shit ton of work into something you’re passionate about and made a success of it. Look at me, Abby.’ Eyes made of liquid silver bored into hers, his mouth a tight, concerned line. ‘Where is this coming from?’

She’d been working through the answer to that for the last six months.

She felt like a fraud.

For the topic she had been intent on pursuing. For thinking she had any right to work towards that height of academic achievement. And mostly, she already felt as if she’d lost the game.

‘Sometimes it feels like everyone around me has moved on and done something with their lives, and I’m still in the same place I was when I left high school, just with a few more letters behind my name. Most of my friends are settled in good jobs. Sarah is her own boss. You’re basically Captain Planet, travelling around the world saving the environment. Your brother is a finance bigshot with more money than God. And I’m trying to get people to care about the feminist implications of pegging.’

Erik sputtered into his drink, but she was too deep in her monologue to care.

‘I’ve gone into a field with extremely limited earning potential, and only a handful of options for employment. All the things my parents said when I told them I wanted to study literature. And I’ve now narrowed my options even further by focusing on a largely ridiculed area of that field. Even if I ever finish this PhD, no one is going to respect the person who tried to legitimise the role of romance novels in the literary canon.’ Abby took a long, hard breath when she finished, followed by a large swallow of alcohol that made her eyes water.

The ground jolted, and suddenly Erik was right next to her. When she glanced down, she saw one large hand still on the underside of her stool. He pulled her another inch closer.