The Hummingbird Sanctuary, page 13
“God, it’s gorgeous.” She’s breathing heavy but nothing crazy. Just enough that the rise and fall of her chest is mesmerizing. “I knew Colorado was going to take my breath away, but damn. It’s more than I imagined.”
I’m frozen. For the first time ever, my heart is holding me back, and my brain is the body part not cooperating.
“Everything about this place suits you.”
I should say that I agree. Because I do. I may miss Chicago, but the calmness of these mountains is part of why I’ve been able to get a handle on my depression, my anxiety, my inability to love myself. But I can’t answer. The blue of her eyes is too, too much, and her smooth voice is too, too much, and if I have to look at the sweat glistening on her shoulders for one more second, I may have a full-blown panic attack. I make myself look completely away, over the scenery, the mountains, the valley, the green of spring before summer’s drought robs everything of its lushness. I snap another picture before I put my camera away, occupying my hands because otherwise, she’ll be able to see their slight shake.
“Ellie?”
“What?” I’m working overtime to avoid eye contact. When we were younger, her eyes grounded me, calmed me, but right this second, they will be the death of me.
“I am so very sorry. For everything.”
“Mabel,” I say and groan. This is the last fucking discussion I want to have. Or maybe I do? I can’t decide, which is also infuriating. A part of me wants to yell and scream at her and tell her how badly she fucked me up. And another part, albeit small, wants to act as if I have recovered and barely remember what happened. “We do not need to rehash the past.”
“Yes, Eleanor, we do.” She dismounts, kickstand down in an instant, and comes to stand in front of me with the front tire of my bike between her legs. She wraps her hands around the handlebars. My gaze is pulled to her hands, to the white knuckles. She’s not wearing any jewelry. Something about her hands naked like that makes my knees weak. “I fucked up by telling him anything about you…without also telling him about me.”
My heart is begging me to look at her, but I can’t. I won’t.
“And Bobby and I didn’t work. We married and divorced almost in the same year, but you were gone, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t bring myself to admit I was wrong.” She stops talking, and her hand is on my face, then two fingers on my jaw. “Look at me, please.”
I can’t. I won’t.
“Ellie, please.” The pressure is gentle, but it’s pressure, and I crumble too easily under pressure, especially when it comes from her, so I give in. “I didn’t tell everyone about you. I promise. I didn’t find out who did until a few years later, but I swear to God, it wasn’t me.”
“Stop.”
“I will not.”
“I don’t care what happened.” The lie burns my tongue as it escapes into the space between us.
“You do care, though.” She smiles, a smile that is sad and knowing, and it makes me angry that all these years have passed, and she still fucking knows me. I thought I had changed. I thought I had left parts of me to die in the past. “And I care so much about you. I did then. I do still.”
“I’m glad you care about me.”
“You are such a stubborn ass.”
“I am? What about you, Mabel, hmm? You admitted that you never told me the truth because you couldn’t admit you were wrong. Sounds pretty fucking stubborn to me. And petty, to be honest.” I jerk my face away and dismount. I walk away after propping the bike up with the kickstand.
“Don’t you think it’s petty to still be so hurt over something I did in high school? In high school, Eleanor.” She’s standing next to me now. As if I need her to be close to actually hear her. “I was young and stupid and scared. Can you please see that? I was frightened. Of my feelings for you, of my lack of feelings for Bobby, and it snowballed, and that was it. I wish you could see that. I wish you could stop acting like I wanted to hurt you.”
“But you still hurt me.”
She sighs. “I’m sorry about that. I am. I don’t…I don’t know what else to say. I was hurt, too, though. You don’t seem to care about that.”
“Pfft. Why the hell were you hurt?”
“Are you kidding me? You are kidding, right?”
“No, Mabel, tell me. Why the hell were you hurt?”
“Because I loved you, Eleanor. And I was so scared that I broke you instead of being honest with my family, with myself. God. Ellie. I just…I was eighteen.”
She’s right. Goddammit, I hate when she’s right. But being right can’t be all that matters, can it? Right or not, she still fucking hurt me. And I cannot let an I was so young argument make it all better. Or can I? Because life is too short, and I’m getting too old, and shouldn’t I be letting go of all these fucks I seem to give?
Suddenly, she laughs. It’s small, and it really has no place in this conversation, but for some reason, it fits. The same way we fit all those years ago. “Will you please admit that you still have feelings?”
It’s my turn to laugh. “You’re out of your goddamn mind.”
“Well, y’know what? I do. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’ll shout it from this mountain if you need me to.”
My mouth drops, and I gape at her looking out over the valley, over the resort, chest puffed with determination. And I’m slip, slip, slipping down the mountain of my hatred, right back into her, into this, whatever this is between us that has never gone away. How can so many years pass, and all of this still exists?
“I think I always have. It took me a long time to understand that what we had when we were young, when we were in fucking high school”—she huffs—“was the most important relationship I have ever had.” She closes her eyes, pulls a breath into her lungs, and holds it for what seems like forever. “I’ve never been able to replicate it. Those feelings.”
It takes me a couple seconds to finally realize why none of my relationships ever worked. Why I held on to an attraction to Olive for way too long. Why my marriage ultimately failed. Why nothing has ever worked the way I wanted. “We’ve both changed a lot since then, Mabes.”
She nods, her eyes still closed. “But we’re both the same.” Her eyes open. “Aren’t we?”
“But I hate you,” I say softly.
“I know you do.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“The same reason you’ve haunted every single one of my thoughts for as long as I can remember.” She chuckles. “I guess I’m returning the favor.”
I look away, to my feet, to my legs, to make sure they’re still there because I cannot feel them.
“Listen,” she starts, then lets out a low groan. “I did not plan on running into you here. I was as surprised as you were. But I will say this, with all the certainty in my world, I have been trying to find the right time to look you up, to tell you how sorry I am, to tell you that I fucked up. Life has always gotten in my way. And fear. Fear that you’d never forgive me, so why even try? But seeing you…Ellie, I’m done trying to hide who I am.”
“And who are you?” I find my courage. “Hmm? Who are you, Mabel Sommers?”
“You really want to know?”
“I do,” I whisper.
“I’m a lesbian, Ellie.” She pushes out a little grunt. “God, it’s so hard to say but feels so good once I do it. And”—she pauses—“I’m in love with you. Still. Always. Seeing you again…” She pulls in a sharp breath, and her eyes fill with tears. “You still have this.” And she places her hand over her heart.
Fuck. How do I tell her that she had all of me before she broke me? How? How do I tell her it’s too fucking late, and I’m beyond repair now? That we are beyond repair? I want to scream at her. I want to tell her to leave me alone. But most of all, I want to tell her that I still love her, too, and all of this is too fucking scary to comprehend.
“Please don’t lock me out. Give me a chance.” Her trembling hand is the only indication of nerves.
“A chance? For what?”
Mabel shrugs. “To fix everything I did wrong? To make it up to you? To tell you everything that has happened since high school? I don’t know, Ellie. I…I want to fix this.” She motions between us. “To fix us.” She breathes deep before she lets out a loud “I am in love with Eleanor” into the valley.
As fast as humanly possible, I have my hand over her mouth. “Stop, oh my God, stop.”
She’s chuckling, and it fills my heart. “I told you I’d shout it from the mountain.”
“How do you know I’m not in a relationship?”
Her face falls. “I didn’t…Oh God, I didn’t even think…Wow. What is wrong with me? Why wouldn’t you be in a relationship? I mean, look at you.”
That comment makes me feel good because, yeah, look at me. I have leveled up since high school. I am finally beautiful. Even when I don’t feel it or believe anyone who tells me. I figured out makeup and my hair, and I take care of my skin, and I know how to dress, and I stopped fucking caring what other people think about me. I look back at the young girl I was in high school, so nervous and afraid of what was happening inside my body. I want to hug her and tell her that it’ll be okay. That one day, she’ll look at herself in the mirror and feel good. I wait a couple seconds, let the embarrassment flood Mabel before I start to laugh. “I mean, I’m not in a relationship. No worries.”
She gasps and smacks me on the arm. “You jerk.”
“You sort of deserved that.”
“I did. You’re right.”
She leans into my shoulder again. Her skin is very warm from the sun. I’m going to regret this. I can tell. There are warning flags and past experiences and those damn memories shouting at me to stop, apply the brakes, for God’s sake! But the part of me that wants to get past everything tells me maybe it’s okay to have some regrets, to ignore the flags, to speed around the corners of whatever is happening. What’s not okay is to never do anything because I would regret that even more.
After we came back down the trail and turned everything in, I felt a mixture of every single emotion. I was having a hard time trying to process. It was like my worst nightmare. I’ve put a lot of thought into what would happen if I had the opportunity to stand up to her. In every single reenactment, it never happened like this. I’m always screaming and telling her how much I hate her for ruining my life, for making me feel like something is wrong with me, for choosing a boy over everything but especially over our friendship. And she cries, and I feel good about myself because finally, I’m able to get it off my chest. And I have closure, and I’m on cloud nine, head high, nothing in the world getting in my way.
But that was not at all how it happened, and my brain has been playing catch-up with my heart ever since. And I’m spent. Truly and utterly spent. I could blame the ride because it was strenuous. But I’ve done that ride a hundred times, and at forty-seven, I’m in the best shape of my life. Even better shape than when I was seventeen and starting varsity volleyball and basketball and throwing in shot put and discus.
Jesus, I am such a lesbian. How did I not know that about myself sooner than the first time my lips touched Mabel’s?
Sitting and poring over the latest marketing plan is the only thing I can think to do to try to occupy my mind.
And big surprise, it is not working.
At all.
Every time I read a line, my brain zips right to Mabel telling me she’s a lesbian, too. That she’s in love with me, still. And that she wants to fix us.
I stare across my office, out the window, and chuckle. “How the fuck did this happen?” My voice sounds loud in my office, even over the radio. Gotta stay guarded, Ellie. I have to figure out a way to keep this wall up that I have taken an insane amount of time and effort and hate-filled confrontational reenactments to build. Piece by piece, every single brick started with Mabel. Even my divorce ultimately stemmed from my inability to get over her.
I am so confused and worried, and my anxiety is off the fucking charts. My heart hasn’t stopped fluttering like one of our many hummingbirds since the second I laid eyes on Mabel. And now? Christ. That hummingbird might as well be on a full cup of coffee.
“Hey, Eleanor?” Keri is standing in my doorway, hands on her hips.
“Hey there, what’s up?”
“You have someone here to see you. I know you said no visitors, but she’s pretty…um…bitchy.” She whispers the last part, and I can’t stop my chuckle.
“Well, great.” I look at myself, at my workout apparel. “Send her in, I guess.” Why the hell do I have a visitor? “Wait, Keri, who is it?”
“One of the VIP threesome ladies.”
Mabel. Shit. “What the fuck?”
“Do you still want me to send her back?”
“Sure.” Send her back. Send back the one person I do not want to see as I’m sitting here freaking out about her. Sounds like a fabulous idea. Add salt to my wounds. I wish I was an oracle or something so I could see the future and know whether I’m going to survive all this. I hate surprises. I’m one hundred percent the person who looks up spoilers for TV shows and reads the last page of the book before I start. I want to know. I’ve had enough heartache in my life that if I can spare it now, I’m going to do it.
Of course, The Handmaid’s Tale is still my favorite book. And that book is one heartache after another. And the same with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, my other favorite. Hmm, maybe I enjoy heartache more than I think. I’m a masochist. Perfect.
I go over to the door, peek out. It’s not Mabel. It’s Judy, and my anxious brain flips a U-turn and starts freaking out about everything in a different capacity. And I have no idea why. Catastrophic thinking is my best friend, apparently.
“Hi, Eleanor. I’m sorry for barging in here. And being pushy. Your front desk clerk was probably ready to throttle me. But I need to speak with you.”
Oh, yes, pushy is the word she used. “Okay.”
“Do you mind if we chat? I have…I…” She’s fumbling all over herself, and it makes her sort of…endearing? “I want to chat. And I’m not sure who to chat with.”
“Chat?”
She sighs. “I’m messing this up, aren’t I?”
“You’re fine,” I say. “Settle down and come in.” We sit opposite each other on the couch and chair. Patience is not my strongest suit, and I realize I’m bouncing my foot.
“Are you from Chicago, too?”
“Mm-hmm.” I cross my legs.
She motions to the Griswold jersey hanging on the wall behind me. “That is worth a pretty penny.”
I don’t respond. She’s not looking for a response.
“And that Cubs picture of the sign after they won the World Series? That’s such a great shot.”
“Thank you. I actually took that.”
“You did?”
I continue to observe her observing me through the story my office tells. My skin is crawling. I don’t like being under a microscope. Ever. But I don’t know how to speed up this conversation without sounding as bitchy as I’m sure she sounded earlier. What is it about this weekend that has us all acting like we’ve recently discovered the most ridiculous things about ourselves? Before she leans back into the chair, she removes her over-the-shoulder bag. She starts wringing her hands, which is only causing me to be more nervous. “Judy?”
“Yeah?”
“You wanted to chat?”
“God, yeah,” she says, followed by a soft groan. She looks a little older than me. Maybe early fifties. She’s striking, and even though I can tell she’s seen some stress in her life, she has this aura that screams, I’m ready to take a motherfucking breath. I see why Harriet is taken by her. She pushes her fingers through her bobbed, wavy blond hair. It messes her bangs up, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “I have a couple things to talk about.”
“I don’t want to sound rude, but you’re really freaking me out.”
She sighs. “I’m sorry. I knew I shouldn’t have done this, but I can’t talk to Mabel, and Sunny is, well, out there, flitting around like the free spirit she is.” She groans, a grimace forming on her face. “But I think I might be developing feelings for Harriet, and I think maybe you can see it, and I’m worried, and I don’t know what to do.”
I push out a chuckle that is drenched in relief. “Christ,” I say and breathe out all the stress I was clenching between my teeth.
“I’m sorry.”
“First of all, please stop apologizing.” I go to my small refrigerator and grab two White Rascal Ales. “Second, have a beer and try to relax.”
She takes it, and her shoulders slump. “Thank you.” She opens and sips in one fluid movement, as if it’s a magical courage elixir. “I needed this.”
“Same here.” I laugh again. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“Okay, so…” She pauses. “Wait, are you busy? Do you even have time for this?”
“I’m gonna kill you.”
It’s her turn to laugh, and she nods. “Sorry.” She shakes her head. “I’m having all these feelings for Harriet, and I don’t know what to think or how to feel about it all.”
“Are you straight?”
“No, not at all.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t normally do the whole one-night stand thing.” Judy sighs, then drinks again. She tells me how good the beer is before she adds, “I’m not in a great spot for a fling.”
“That makes sense why you’d be nervous, then.” I lean back on the couch, pull my legs up, and stretch them out. My knee and ankle pop. I am getting so old.
