Of Half-Listening and Really Paying Attention || Skylar & Dani
It'd been two months since this perky redheaded girl bumped into her at the hospital coffee cart, spilling a macciato all over everything, almost destroying a phone in the process. It'd been six weeks since Emily had been stuck in an elevator with a claustrophobic Cade (who was admittedly creative in her threats to kill Emily) and asked about Dani. It'd been five weeks since they went to grab dinner - under the pretense of studying for Chemistry, as far as Emily's parents were concerned. Three weeks since they almost had sex in the rare moment that no one was home in the Robbins-Torres home. Three weeks since Dani flew off the handle, leaving Emily in tears. Three weeks of the two of them walking on eggshells.
Dani had called Skylar, the only level-headed person she knew in Seattle, and begged for the girl to come over so she could figure things out. Xander was fantastic at listening - but he had a tendency to jump from 'listening' to 'over-protective' in two seconds flat. Cade was amazing for... Well, if Dani was being honest, Cade was amazing for getting the girl piss-drunk when she was trying to sort out her feelings. And this was something for soberDani to get ahold of. The tequila would have to wait.
Skylar sat on the desk chair that had been in the room when Dani arrived. The Mamas Gay apologized profusely about their niece being stuck in a guest room, but with four children already, bedrooms weren't exactly falling out of the sky. As it was, any time the grandparents came into town, they'd agreed to stay at a hotel so as to not displace the newest member of the family. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Dani felt a bit like she was in therapy. It would bug her if she didn't truly need it.
"Sky... I just... I don't know why this is so hard for me. I get her not wanting to come out. I really do. I mean, if what people tell me about her mom's insane Christianity is true, I wouldn't be stoked about announcing my gayness either. But, at the same time, if you're really into someone, shouldn't there be a little bit of compromise?" Dani asked, throwing her head back onto the pillows at the head of her bed.
"Dani, shouldn't you ask yourself the same thing?" Skylar asked with a pointed look, arms crossed over her chest.
"What?"
"Well, Emily is new at the whole liking-girls thing. And as much as I'm not quite sure how it feels to be raised by someone who holds their religion so near and dear, I can grasp that it has to be scary. The fact that April knows and, presumably, loves gay people, may not make it any easier when that's Emily's mom. April isn't exactly someone that Emily could just walk away from, if things with her - or her extended family, even - went awry." For this, Dani had to sit up. Part of her felt like, if she was laying down, she'd break down and cry.
"All I'm saying is, you can sit here and wish, hope, pray and imagine that Emily would just stand up one night as their family was having a communal meal and announce that she really likes you and wants to see where the relationship is going to lead... The fact is that you're being really demanding of her, too. You're asking her to turn her back on some of the things that she's been learning from extended family for a very, very long time. And two months isn't really long enough to go and chuck seventeen years of religion and faith out the third-story window." Skylar took a deep breath and her expression softened ever-so-slightly. "I think you need to ask yourself if you're willing to wait and let her find her own level of comfort, or if you're more interested in being able to be all "out in the sun" about your raging queerness."
Taking a deep breath, Dani pulled a pillow into her lap, tugging at the ends like she would a stress ball (she was also starting to regret not thinking ahead a little bit more on what she packed to, ultimately, move to Seattle)."So you're saying that we need to break up?"
"No, that's not what I'm saying at all-"
"You're saying that neither of us are doing each other a favor by staying together, right?"
"Dani, I don't think you listened at all to anything that I talked about-"
"We can't stay together like this. I mean, how dare she put me in the closet.... Again. I spent enough time in there, without extending my sentence for some stupid Jesus freak-"
"Okay, I already have enough of Cade in my life, I didn't need a second. But what I'm saying is-"
"I... I need to call her." Dani exhaled and pulled her cellphone from her jacket pocket. Standing up, she started to pace as she scrolled through the contacts of her phone, looking for Emily's entry. In that moment, Skylar needed to intervene. She grabbed Dani's phone and shoved it in her own pocket. "No, you're not doing that right now. What you're going to do is sit down and listen to me for at least a minute."
Dani shook her head a little, just enough to bring herself back to reality. "Sorry," she whimpered in the softest voice she'd ever used.
"You need to really, really think about how you want to handle this." Skylar sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Do you like Emily?"
"Sky..."
"What? I'm being serious here. Do you really like her?"
Dani shoved her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt. "Of course I do. My attention span couldn't handle the past six weeks if I didn't."
"Okay then," Skylar answered with a nod before continuing on. "Why is her coming out to her family, and really being in the open, so important to you?"
"My name is Daniel in her phone, Sky." Dani replied, her gaze fixated on the rug they were both standing on. "When she talks about me to her mom, I'm Daniel, and I'm a boy, and she's only tutoring me in Chemistry. I've met her mom, but she hasn't put the two together."
"And that bugs you."
"It does more than just bug me..."
Skylar stood there for a second, thinking (kinda hoping) that Dani would elaborate a little bit more. And when she didn't, the smaller girl drew a deep breath. "Care to elaborate?"
"Why... What do I have to do to be worth her being honest?"
Now they were getting somewhere. Another deep breath, another shift of her weight and Skylar made eye-contact with her cousin. "You need to have this conversation with her. I'm just the GPS to help you get there. You gotta take the reins from here, Dani."
Fuck, Dani thought to herself. She hated it when the 5-foot-2 fireball of a not-actually-biological cousin was right.