Kali didn’t know what she’d done to deserve not one, but three significant others in her life.
Nancy she knew she’d loved for a long time. For years. From the long summer days they’d spent walking in the woods surrounding Hopper’s cabin, where Jane was still hidden. Where they had long conversations, so long that El had learned to just let them alone instead of worrying about them not being back before dark. Nancy loved the dark, and Kali loved Nancy. She loved her very very quickly.
Loving Steve and Jonathan was different. She loved them differently. But it had taken months for her to pinpoint what that “differently” was.
Steve she loved like she loved adrenaline, sometimes. She loved him with her whole heart, but the part of her spirit that was most drawn to him loved the pure, unfiltered energy of him. He was always putting all his senses on full throttle to experience the world, and Kali could relate to that. She loved Steve because through him she felt a kinship she’d never felt, didn’t know it was possible to feel. It wasn’t just sexual chemistry, she’d learned that fast too. If it had been, she’d only care about touching and kissing and orgasms, and the physical beauty of his muscles and mouth. But it wasn’t just sexual. It was riding with him on motorcycles and in his car with all the windows down, radio blasting. It was holding his hands beneath the waves of the lake in the pitch darkness, only his car’s headlights penetrating the black to show the desperation in his eyes.
And loving Jonathan was not quite the opposite sort of love to Steve’s, but something just adjacent, yet complementary. She loved Jonathan like she loved the feeling in her chest when her favorite music filled her up. Jonathan’s love felt all encompassing, consuming in a way that never suffocated, it was just there, like the clothes on her back. Warm but never too heavy. And she loved the way he would embrace her sometimes, and she could feel his love pour into her, through her pores, through the breaths they shared, every sense going beyond sensing each other’s body heat. The electricity in her brain was so often attuned to Jonathan’s movements and voice, because he drew her in without her knowing, without him knowing.
They all loved so completely, yet so differently, Kali never felt overwhelmed. If she did, it was in a good way, the best way a human can be overwhelmed. With contentment.
