Only ever one choice, p.3
Only Ever One Choice, page 3
Ashleigh keeps her eyes on her, not looking away even once.
“I didn’t—I was still recovering from surgery and I was figuring out this huge thing about myself, and I spent so much time looking back on how my life and relationships have gone, and I—” she stops, biting down on her bottom lip.
She hasn’t even said it.
She hasn’t even admitted the thing they both know.
Finally, Mikaila tells her, “My physiotherapist, her name was Miriam, and I realised only after I was discharged that I actually developed a huge crush on her while I was in there.”
Ashleigh blinks. “Oh, my God,” she says. “You’re totally coming out right now.”
Mikaila drops her gaze, blushing. “I’m not sure what I am, exactly, but I’m aware enough that I don’t classify as straight,” she admits, comfortable with at least that much. “I’ve spent the last year or so trying to make sense of that, figuring out how to accept what that means for me, in terms of my past, present and future.”
Losing her father was traumatic, recovering from her own injuries was also traumatic, and figuring out the person she was becoming wasn’t even whom she was meant to be, was its own trauma. It’s been a lot to work through.
“I figured out there were three girls in my past whom I managed to develop feelings for and just didn’t realise it until I stopped and really thought about it.” She swallows. “And you are one of those girls.”
If anything, Ashleigh is the girl.
Mikaila clears her throat. “But I think you already know that, don’t you?” She doesn’t even give her the time to reply. “You’ve always known.”
“Mikaila.”
It stops her cold, the sound of her name, whispered in that tone.
“Is this what we’re doing here?” Ashleigh asks. “Rehashing the past?”
“No.” But she’s not quite sure anymore. Isn’t it all wrapped up together, past, present and future? Mikaila didn’t even know the role she played in the end of their relationship until just a few months ago. She didn’t anticipate just how much it would change to be aware. To replay those last moments together, standing on the street in front of Ashleigh’s shared house, her heart racing, too scared to share in Ashleigh’s ‘what if.’
How different would their lives be if Mikaila had answered yes when Ashleigh asked?
Mikaila abruptly turns her head and raises her hand to get their waiter’s attention, and orders another coffee when he comes by to buy herself time.
Ashleigh sits silently, watching her with those eyes that Mikaila has actually painted more times than she would be willing to admit. She’s tried to get the colour right, but never quite succeeded. They’re almost luminescent, the perfect blend of sea and sky, always so captivating.
“I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while,” Mikaila tells her, finding her voice again. “You’re on my list, you see, and I know we left things badly when we last talked. It’s taken a while, but I’ve figured out why it hurt so much when we—when we just stopped being friends, I guess. I didn’t even realise I’d gone through it before. With Chelsea, sure, and this other girl in my undergrad, Nicola, who ended up switching to Psychology and I just didn’t see her anymore.” She stops, heart beating double-time. “I’ve managed to have a similar conversation with them both, and I… Well, the truth is I didn’t know if I would be able to sit here and do the same with you.”
“Why am I different?” Ashleigh asks, crease in her brow.
“I’m the most confused about you,” Mikaila says. “Like, I am certain of harboured feelings for Chelsea, and for Nicola, but you—”
“Me?”
Mikaila feels heat on her cheeks. “Well, Ashleigh, if you must know, you don’t quite fit the profile of what my friends and I have established is my ‘type.’”
Ashleigh’s grin is sudden and even more embarrassing for Mikaila. “You have a type?”
Mikaila ignores her amusement. “Apparently,” she concedes, meeting her gaze. “I also can’t tell if I was so heartbroken about losing someone I had feelings for or about losing someone who promised to be by my side through everything the world threw at us.”
Ashleigh’s amusement immediately evaporates. “Mikaila…” she breathes, soft in a way that reminds Mikaila of warm Wednesday afternoons spread out on the carpet of their shared boarding room, The Script playing on repeat while reading Twilight.
“Because I recognise it now,” Mikaila says before Ashleigh can say anything more. “Heartbreak. It is—it’s not fun at all, and I’ve gone through it three times without even realising I was going through it.”
“Mikaila.”
“And I just needed you to know that I’m sorry if the way I reacted to our, um, end was so intense, because it turns out I was—I was actually losing someone whom I thought would be part of my forever, and then you just weren’t, and I definitely didn’t handle it well.”
“Mikaila.” Ashleigh’s voice is firmer, a bit sharper, and Mikaila finally stops. Ashleigh looks conflicted, as if there are things she wants to say but isn’t sure she should.
Mikaila is equally, if not more, unsure she actually wants to hear anything she has to say at this point. It’s already been a taxing day, and she feels raw and exposed, vulnerable in all the worst ways.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” Ashleigh finally admits.
“You’re not supposed to say any specific thing. I just—I want closure on my past.” It’s the reason she convinced herself she needed to talk to Ashleigh at all, not sure she can get on with her life without working through the list. “I’m still figuring out my present, obviously, and I have no idea what’s going to happen in my future, but I just wanted to apologise for the role my inability to make sense of my feelings played in the end of our friendship.”
Ashleigh leans back against her chair, frowning in thought. “That sounds like a lot,” she says, which is yet another understatement. “Does your family know?”
“I haven’t told any of them, no,” Mikaila answers with a shake of her head. “I don’t think I could. They wouldn’t understand. I just—it doesn’t feel necessary to tell them, when there’s no need to. There’s nobody in my life I would be willing to risk my family for, so I just—I’m waiting to see what happens.”
“What? There aren’t girls just flocking to you?”
“Oh, my God, no,” she says, laughing through the sudden panic she feels at such a thing. “I am very much still firmly in the closet.”
“But—”
“I mean, my friends know, of course, but I’m—I can’t do that kind of thing in Cape Town.”
It’s a discomforting truth. Because she has so much extended family in this city, even the idea of being just a little outgoing in this new normal she’s discovered fills her with dread despite how much she longs for it.
“Have you kissed a girl?” Ashleigh asks.
Mikaila feels her cheeks warm again, more surprised that Ashleigh would ask the question, but she makes sure to maintain eye contact when she smiles and says, “No.”
“Mik,” Ashleigh says, voice soft. “You’ve got to kiss some girls.”
Mikaila shakes her head, finally dropping her gaze. “I’ll get right on that,” she says, only half-serious about it. “I’m still—I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the whole, uh, process.”
“The process?”
“Of finding someone,” she explains. “Of putting myself out there enough that people who would be interested in me would know I could be interested in them. I don’t even know what I would do, to be honest.”
“It’s unlikely some girl is just going to pop out of the woodwork and throw herself at you, you know?” Ashleigh points out, clearly amused as she sips her tea. “You should try a dating app,” she suggests. “But an actual dating one, not Tinder or one of those hook-up ones. You might meet people, if only just to talk.”
“I meet people,” Mikaila tells her, because she has met people in the few online spaces she’s joined while trying to make sense of the changes in her life. “Just, you know, they don’t know I’m me, and they kind of live on other continents.”
“Mikaila,” Ashleigh says around a laugh.
“What?”
“You’ve got international lovers,” she accuses lightly.
Mikaila’s instinct is to deny, the words on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t bring herself to. The accusation isn’t entirely inaccurate. She just wouldn’t use that word to describe them. Friends, perhaps. Acquaintances.
“I can’t help it,” Mikaila says, which is really the truth. She’s spoken to people with their own anonymous social media handles, wherever they are in the world, and it’s allowed her to be herself without actually being herself. She’s discovered a lot about the person she is because of it, and one of those things is, “It turns out I can be a bit of a flirt.”
“Oh, I know.”
Her eyes snap up. “What?”
“You totally used to flirt with me.”
“No, I didn’t,” she counters, voice a little high. “What? No, I didn’t, Ashleigh, that’s—I definitely didn’t.”
“You definitely did,” Ashleigh assures her. “You probably just didn’t realise it.”
“Well, obviously not,” she grumbles, frowning. “Wait, seriously?”
Ashleigh nods, looking amused. “Casual touches, as well.”
“No, now I definitely don’t believe you,” she says, because Mikaila keeps her hands to herself. Right? Well, now she does, constantly overthinking everything she never used to pay any attention to.
“It was—Yeah, you could be intense, sometimes,” Ashleigh says, smile fading a little. “It was... a lot.”
“Oh.”
Mikaila fiddles with the handle of her fresh cup once again, feeling particularly deflated. She really had no idea. It’s no wonder Ashleigh felt uncomfortable around her.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“No, don’t,” Ashleigh immediately counters. “It’s—I should apologise, too.”
“What on earth would you be apologising for?” she asks, because Ashleigh explicitly said she wouldn’t be doing that.
“I don’t think I handled things with us well,” Ashleigh says, eyes slightly distant, and Mikaila can’t figure which part she’s remembering, because they’ve got their signals crossed more than once before. “I just didn’t handle it well, so I’m sorry about that, but not for—”
The other part.
For putting her family first.
For removing herself from Mikaila’s life in a way that hurt them both.
Mikaila tells herself the acknowledgement is enough. Whatever conclusion they’ve reached in this moment can be enough. The difficult part can be over. It feels as good a place as any to close the chapter on their mutual past.
“Thank you,” Mikaila murmurs, which Ashleigh acknowledges with a nod of her own.
Then, with a little grin, she asks, “So, besides these life-changing realisations, how have you been?”
The switch back to casual conversation is slightly jarring, but Mikaila just about manages it. “I think it says a lot that I’m just trying to survive,” she reveals. “Everything is changing for me right now. It’s almost as terrifying as when we were in Matric.”
“Those really were some wild times,” Ashleigh agrees. “Are you still in contact with anyone else from high school?”
“One or two,” she reveals. “Maintaining adult friendships isn’t easy. Are you?”
“Not at all, no, but you hear things, right?” Ashleigh says. “I mean, did you know Chelsea’s working in London now and living with her Irish boyfriend?”
“I—Yeah, I did, actually.” Not because Mikaila is overly interested in her once-best-friend’s life, but because Chelsea is the second person on Mikaila’s very short list and the two of them have already had this kind of conversation over the phone.
Thankfully, Ashleigh doesn’t press further, her attention switching when she receives a text from her mother that makes her audibly groan. “I have to get going,” she says, and she actually sounds reluctant, which is a foreign thing to Mikaila.
Half the time they hung out during their undergrad, Ashleigh seemed ready to leave as soon as she arrived.
“My mother, who is a grown woman, needs me to drive her to the dentist.” She rolls her eyes. “Honestly, doctors are actually the biggest babies.”
She types a message out on her phone while Mikaila gets the waiter’s attention once more and asks for the bill.
“You should keep me updated on how things are going,” Ashleigh tells her, and Mikaila is already certain she’s going to do no such thing. She still takes Ashleigh’s new number when she offers it, saving it as an entirely new contact, and wonders how strong she’ll have to be to be able to resist the chance to establish full contact once more.
If only this could be a chapter she could actually close and keep closed. She’s said her part. They can both move on with their lives. That’s why Mikaila wanted to talk in the first place, isn’t it?
When they leave, they walk side-by-side. It’s the closest they’ve been to each other in more than four years, and Mikaila is torn between treating it as something normal or taking the time to memorise everything about this moment.
Mikaila can see her own car as they walk out to the parking lot, and Ashleigh accompanies her right to it, steps assured on the uneven terrain. She looks thoughtful, as if there’s something she wants to say but can’t decide if she should. Mikaila almost laughs, because that’s never stopped her before.
Mikaila comes to a stop before Ashleigh does, turning her body to face her. It’s time to say goodbye. It’s likely they won’t willingly meet up again, and Mikaila is trying to be okay with that. It just feels safer this way, because Mikaila’s memories are potent, and Ashleigh is so very beautiful.
“Okay,” Mikaila says, trying to escape this moment intact. “It was—Thank you for meeting me. And for listening.”
“I hope it helped.”
“It definitely did,” she assures, though she can’t say how or why. It just did. Mikaila steps back, already turning away. This is it. This is all she really wanted. They can both finally move on. She won’t have any more excuses not to keep truly living her life.
But then Ashleigh asks, “Do you want to kiss me?” and Mikaila freezes. The question is asked softly, almost teasingly, and Mikaila would find it a cruel, sick joke if she wasn’t convinced Ashleigh is actually being serious.
It sends her right back to that all-important night, something like déjà vu, a younger Mikaila Mohamed standing in front of a younger Ashleigh von Bronckhorst in front of a quiet house, those same words rattling between the space between them. Mikaila remembers the shock, horror, fear and desire, all descending on her in an instant, forcing her back a step. It was that, maybe, and not the words that came tumbling out of her mouth, that sealed it for them.
Mikaila said no, then, and now Ashleigh is asking again.
Mikaila blinks. “Um…”
“Would you like to?” Ashleigh presses, and her eyes sparkle with intent. A test to see how far Mikaila has come.
Mikaila’s heart beats rapidly in her chest, disbelief clashing with anticipation. It isn’t shock or horror anymore, maybe some fear, and a lot of desire.
Ashleigh takes a step closer, right into Mikaila’s personal space. She has to resist the urge to step back, because Ashleigh smells exactly as she remembers: warm and floral, sweet and spicy all at the same time. It’s a little overwhelming how many memories a simple scent can evoke.
“Ashleigh,” Mikaila whispers, tempted to look around to see if anyone is watching them. It’s unlikely, of course, because it’s still early morning on a Thursday, and the parking lot isn’t easily visible from the actual café or the road. The only risk is the car guard’s seeing, so she hopes he isn’t paying them any attention.
“You can,” Ashleigh tells her. “If you want to.”
Everything about this moment feels surreal, and Mikaila knows she probably shouldn’t, but she’s also tired of doing what she’s supposed to.
If Mikaila wants to.
As if she wouldn’t.
Mikaila suddenly feels as if she’s been waiting to be able to rewrite the end of that night from the moment it spun so devastatingly out of control, her eyes slipping closed as she closes the gap between them.
When Mikaila kisses Ashleigh now, she thinks of nothing, and it is perfect. Eyes closed, lips pressed together for a long moment, this kiss confirms many things and leaves her wanting.
Before she can lose herself in the feeling, she forces herself to pull back, blinking against the morning light, and Ashleigh is looking at her with eyes that are just slightly wide as she absently licks her lips.
“I didn’t think you would,” Ashleigh whispers, and there’s an odd lilt of wonder— almost longing—in her voice.
Mikaila feels a little giddy, even a little reckless. She’s proud of herself, though, because she also knows she was nowhere near ready for this the first time around.
“Yeah, well, I think there are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Mikaila says, tone coyer than she intends.
“I guess there are,” Ashleigh agrees, her eyes darting over Mikaila’s face as if she’s taking in whatever new things she might find just in her appearance.
Mikaila just smiles, putting some space between them. She needs to breathe air that doesn’t smell like Ashleigh. “Thank you,” she says after a moment.
“For what?”
“Everything,” Mikaila tells her, and she means it.
