04

Lucille

Hey sorry I lost my phone last night while I was painting

I can come over this morning if you still need company

Joanne

Unsurprising

You can 100% come over anytime

Lucille

I'll be right over

I'll bring breakfast

-&-

Lucy lets herself into my house that morning as she always does. She calls out a greeting to all Campbells that might be in the house, even though it's just me and Helo around. It's normally just me and Helo, but she's always polite enough to the house despite that. I can smell the croissants before she gets to my room, Helo sniffing the air beside me on the bed.

"Hello," she greets cheerily. She looks different from the last time I saw her somehow, even though she hasn't changed her hair, or her wardrobe, or her face. Her hair is pulled up into a messy bun, small flecks of paint left at the roots where she must've run her hand through her hair earlier while painting, and she's dressed in her usual tank top and jean shorts, dark against her brown skin. She sets a brown paper bag on the bedside table and kicks off her shoes.

Inside the bag, she's brought over ham, egg, and cheese croissant sandwiches, and just for me, a container of hot off the fryer, seasoned to perfection hash brown rounds. She also sets a bottle of orange juice nearby, then sits with me on the bed, hip to hip against the headboard. We eat in silence, too happy with warm, slightly greasy breakfast foods to think of conversation. Helo, unable to contain himself, sets his head on Lucy's thigh and lets out a quiet throat whine.

I pretend I don't see the piece of egg she feeds him.

It's nice to be back with her, in companionable silence. If I close my eyes, it's almost like this past year didn't happen, and we're just two girls waiting for college to come. Except, undeniably, the past year did happen, and we are different now. I changed without Lucy there to witness it, and I'm sure the same goes for her.

If she knew about the things I'd done at school… Well.

"Your room is a disaster," Lucy finally says. I open my eyes and look around. It is. Jacob and I piled boxes on boxes in all corners of the room when we were unloading, suitcases and garbage bags filled with clothes and blankets stuffed between piles.

"It looks normal, I don't know what you mean."

Lucy rolls her eyes as she argues, "alright, well, considering you have binders filled with all kinds of schedules, it's bizarre to see your room a little untidy."

I look around again at the piles in each corner, the boxes bowing underneath each other, the bags pressed between clutter stacked upon mess wedged underneath disaster. It's everywhere, undeniable and real, sitting before me with a taunting kind of malaise. I look into every corner, trying to find one clear space, and find nothing. It's all encroaching, the boxes still but advancing somehow.

"Anyway, we'll fix it," Lucy says, catching my hand and pulling it gently from my mouth. I didn't realize that I'm chewing on my lip until she pulls my fingers from my face. "We'll fix it. We'll start right now. What needs to be done first?"

I survey the mess.

"My clothes need to be unpacked."

She nods, and together we start in on the mess. We work quietly, unpacking and refolding the clothes, working almost in an assembly line, with Lucy unpacking and refolding, while I put them away in their respective drawers. It's a soft few minutes, working together in a repetitive monotony that slows everything down, my heart no longer racing at Lucy's presence amidst the mess. The motion of taking a shirt and finding its place in the dresser works at this hyper-speed reaction inside of me.

We move through each box, deciding which goes into the basement for storage and which could be unpacked for the summer. Binders filled with clean lined paper and divider tabs, notebooks I haven't used, pens and pencils neatly bundled together, and a pile of notebooks that I have used but haven't filled completely yet all are stashed away for later use in the basement, while my computer and artworks I brought to make my dorm feel more like home are put back into their proper places. It's slow-going, and tedious, but it's better with a friend.

Before long, our stomach growl in protest as it passes into early afternoon.

"Hey, you want some lunch? I think Pop's is open now," she asks.

Pop's is the local sub shop in town, a small deli that delivers to the immediate area that's locally owned and run. It's good when you want something cheap, but good, and especially if you don't want to leave your house. They're always nice and seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of usual orders. Jacob always says they had an actual encyclopedia of orders, and maybe they do, but when the order taker on the phone recites your order from memory before you can order it yourself, that makes you feel special. Even if they did it for everyone, it still gives me a little tingly warmth in my chest.

That tingle, Jacob says, was what you should strive to kindle in everyone you meet. That's what marks you as a good friend and a decent human being, passing along the Tingle™.

The Tingle™, Jacob says, is what sets you apart from everyone else, even when you have identical qualifications. If you can just brighten one person's day every day, then you are miles ahead of every competitor you face.

Pop's also makes really delicious food for a decent price, which makes ordering from them the best deal in town even without The Tingle™.

"Yeah, the usual, please."

"Of course."

Lucy disappears from view while she calls our order into Pop's, Helo hopping up to follow her. He hopes for food, or her attention. After Jacob and myself, Lucy is definitely Helo's favorite person.

I keep working while she's out of the room, putting my books back onto my shelves wherever they fit. Lucy comes back as I finish breaking down the last box and setting it with the pile of cardboard and bags beside my bed. I put my hands on my hips and survey our progress. We still have a few more bags to sort through, mostly trash and souvenirs from the school year, but we have made plenty of progress already.

"They'll be here in ten minutes," Lucy says, leaning into the doorframe. "Wanna take a break until then?"

I shrug but follow her out into the kitchen. Our house is nice, not lavish or extravagant in any way, but simple and welcoming. Jacob and I have bought art prints over the years from local artists and framed them to hang on the walls. We hung up each other's achievements in the kitchen. We'vr made our house a home the best we could.

Lucy climbs onto a stool at our breakfast bar and sets her head in her hands while she rests her elbows against the counter. I can hear the click of her shoes against each other; if she were a video game character, her shoe tapping would be her idle animation.

"How's your semester been?" she asks finally when I stand across from her.

"It was good, actually. I've gotten all of my general classes done, and I'm taking some really great classes next year."

"What about friends? Extracurriculars? I saw Willa giving you a hard time about not having fun."

"I mean, I partied, you know. I was a part of the queer student group, and some of my floormates and I went out to frat parties and snuck into the bar."

"What about those, uhh, captains?"

I can't help my eyes flicking up to Lucy's in panic.

"What about them?"

"Do you have a, a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend?"

"Oh! No, that's funny. No. I don't have time for a, a girlfriend, or a boyfriend. I've got a degree to get, and while hooking up with burning hot captains sometimes is all good and fun, and honestly the best way to relieve some, you know, anyway, I don't have time for dates and hanging out with one person in particular for long amounts of time."

It feels weird to lie to Lucy, pushing the facts aside about something that matters in order to save something that doesn't even exist between us.

"Oh, that, that makes sense, I guess."

"I mean, I like the idea of girlfriends, and boyfriends, but I'm not exactly the best candidate for dating at this point. I'm always at class or studying, so, people don't wanna date me. There is a boy, uhm, you'd like him. His name is Callum, he's a really good friend of mine. We're in the same major, somehow, and we met at this club meeting for freshman engineering majors. He's funny, and he's wicked smart. Like, I'm smart, you know? I know I'm smart, but then there's this kid and he's both really smart and really, really quick. He's quick witted and he's got this dry sense of humor that just, anyway. He's not my boyfriend, but he's the best approximation. We even signed up for the same classes next semester and we're moving off campus to live together in this little three bedroom with our friend Melanie."

"Wow, sounds like you've got it all planned out."

"Always," I say with a small laugh. "What about you?"

Lucy shrugs.

"I mostly helped take care of the kids and went to my art classes."

"Oh, yeah! How's figure drawing?" I say with a purposefully suggestive eyebrow wiggle.

One night we talked in the early weeks of fall semester, Lucy told me she was nervous about the figure drawing unit of her Beginning Drawing class.

"I love this professor, you know? She's got this creative aura about her, and she always smells like charcoal. It's my favorite class, it's just- I haven't seen anyone else naked before, Campbell. How am I supposed to sit and stare at some stranger and draw them? I can't possibly do that!"

She'd brushed her hair away from her face and set her head in her hands, staring into the screen where we'd been Skyping.

"I'm gonna fail."

"No, you won't. Look, just look up nude photography and practice that in private, and then when you get to class, it'll just be like in your bedroom."

"I don't like that idea either."

I had sighed but smiled. She had insisted that she wasn't a prude; she was just inexperienced, and she didn't want that to be super obvious in front of her favorite professor.

"She's not gonna care that you've never had sex, Luce."

"No, but I will."

Now, looking at Lucy who doesn't show any sign of blushing at the idea of nude figure drawing, I get the impression that Lucy isn't inexperienced anymore. Which. Is. Fine.

"It was fine. My professor loved my whole portfolio, and specifically asked me to apply to intern at her gallery next fall."

She says it so casually, as if she hasn't been drawing and toying with art for as long as I've known her. Granted, that isn't the most impressive amount of time, but still, she loves art.

"Did you do it!?" I ask excitedly.

"Yeah, and I got it."

"Luce! Lucille! That's awesome! An internship at a gallery! That's amazing! That's more than amazing, that's the best thing I've heard all day! Why aren't you more excited!"

She shrugs.

"What's the point of an internship, though? I still don't know what I want to do."

"This'll give you an idea, though! If I could get an internship recommendation from my favorite professor, I would die. Like, you have so many opportunities before you. Are you kidding me? That's so cool! That's great."

She laughs quietly and says, "alright, Campbell. Calm down. It's an internship from a professor at a community college."

I take her hands in mine, pulling them away from her face so she has to look at me.

"This is an achievement! By anyone's standards! I don't know who convinced you that this isn't an achievement but fuck them. You're learning something you're passionate about. You're experiencing art in motion, you're watching art be made every day! You're making art every day! That's so cool! You're gonna have so many contacts in the art world, you're gonna be drowning in business cards. That's not something to scoff at. That's something good."

Lucy smiles slightly, just a tug at the corner of her lips. It's enough.

"Hey, maybe your internship will show you what you want to do."

"Or maybe it'll confuse me more."

"It'll come to you. I swear it will."

She scoffs, then, and shakes her head.

"We can't all have it all together, Campbell. Not everyone knows that they want to work for NASA with an industrial science engineering degree since they were 10 years old."

"God, I hope not. That would make finding a job impossible."

"You know what I mean."

"I do."

"I just don't know how you can have this picture of your future. I can't even figure out what I'm having for dinner tonight."

"I don't have an answer. Although, I'm sure the answer is Chinese take-out. And if it's not, it should be."

"You make a compelling argument. I was also thinking tacos."

I gasp sarcastically.

"You, the incredible Mexican, would never have tacos."

"I'm a bad Mexican, though. Abuela always makes the point that we eat the American bastardized tacos. She makes a point of making authentic Mexican tacos when she comes up to visit. She thinks we're ruining our heritage."

"Como pudiste," I say, echoing the phrase Lucy's grandmother always chatters when the family disappoints her. How could you, she says it like a chant, a prayer to her god that these blasphemes return to her tradition and carry out her heritage the way she envisioned. How could you.

"You know I'm proud of you, right?" I say finally, locking eyes with Lucy and refusing to look away, even when it's uncomfortable. "You know that I am so proud of you. I'd be proud even if you didn't go to college. You going after knowledge and experiences? That's what I want for you. If you want to backpack across Europe, I will go with you and order food for you in France. If you want to hike up Mount Greylock, I will pack up Helo and we can hike up Greylock. If you want to sleep in for a year, I will make lunch plans for late afternoon every day."

Lucy smiles.

"I will always stand beside you, that's what I mean. No matter what you want to do."

Helo starts barking as the Pop's delivery guy, Mikey, pulls into the driveway and climbs out of his car with their lunch order. Lucy gets up to greet him, pulling out her wallet while she walks. Helo follows her closely, circling her in a furry loop.

"Heelie-boy, come."

Helo slinks back towards me and sits by my feet, tail rhythmically thumping against the tiled kitchen floor. I can see the small wiggle of his butt back and forth with his tail while he sits patiently.

"Good sit, Helo," I say, reaching down to scratch behind his ears. "Good boy."

He looks up at me and thumps his tail again.

Lucy bustles in with her arms full of sandwiches and chips. She grins at me, and my heart squeezes uselessly in my chest.

"So, one salad on a roll," she says, setting the orders down on the counter in front of me, "and a bag of salt and vinegar chips. And one good sandwich with a bag of good chips."

I roll my eyes but open my order without arguing. This is our typical conversation before any meal, a ritual of Lucy mocking my choices, me mocking Lucy's, followed by a round of bantering about how we aren't forcing each other to eat the food. It's a whole thing. I don't feel comfortable enough to push back this time, though, the usual playful words sticking in my throat.

We stay silent throughout lunch.

I try to chalk it up to Pop's being particularly good that day, but even after lunch, the words won't come back. Lucy looks so good, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, black tank top tight against her curves. So good.

It's the only thing my bisexuality-addled brain could conceive at the moment, even facing the facts that Lucy is my best friend, and she doesn't owe me anything, not even her time or attention.

We had been friends for a few years, since she and her family moved into town during our sophomore year of high school. Yet, somehow, looking back it's like she'd never not been a part of my life. Looking back, it seems like it has always been Campbell-and-Lucille. Before Lucille, though, there was Kayleigh, but Lucille is an eclipse. In the past few years, my life has become almost entirely Lucille.

The time between Kayleigh and Lucille was dark, an almost endless abyss. I was so used to having a constant companion, having someone to talk to about everything. Things weren't real unless Kayleigh knew about it, until Kayleigh knew about it. Once, after I kissed a girl for the first time – Amy, a curious older girl who ended up breaking it to me that she was straight and the kiss had been fun but not what she wanted– I walked around in a daze until I could talk to Kayleigh. She'd been in trouble with her parents for sneaking out to go to a concert and her phone had been taken away. The rest of my weekend was spent staring at my hands and at my lips in the mirror, trying to figure out if I had dreamed kissing that girl.

I came out to Kayleigh first, and suddenly the words meant something to me.

"I'm bisexual," I'd said to myself quietly for weeks, trying to make them meaningful, trying to make them worth something. When I'd looked at Kayleigh, and said them out loud, that's when they welcomed me. I'm bisexual, I'm bisexual, I'm bisexual.

But we'd lost touch, and then there was Lucy. Everything good about my friendship with Kayleigh had been rewritten

with Lucille Victor-Kelly, who shone brighter and talked louder than anyone I knew. And I was in love with her.