Robbie’s unexpected visit put me in a new state of ease. I begged him to stay longer—after all, he’d spent the past several days on a ship just to see me. But he said that he wanted to spend some time in London, the place where Ben died just a few years before. I almost felt guilty for not going with him.
After he left, I felt even more in love with Scarlett. With New Year’s right around the corner, there was a sense of possibility in the air. But sneaking around was getting old quickly, and I felt uncomfortable whenever we were around Will. I realized that we needed to talk before we fell into a permanent pattern of secret visits and forced concealment.
“What are we going to do?” I asked softly one night, nuzzling Scarlett’s neck.
“Mmm,” she purred. “About what?”
“Us.”
She was quiet for a while. “I mean, Lia . . . you know that this can’t go any further . . .”
“What do you mean?” I pulled back from our lingering embrace.
“You know what I mean,” she said gently. “We could never—”
“Never what?”
“No one can ever know about us.”
“Is this because of Will? But he cheated on you!”
“This has nothing to do with Will,” she hissed. “It’s the world! Don’t you understand?”
I told her about Robbie’s understanding reaction, hoping it might put her at ease.
“Oh, Lia. He’s just the rare exception to a universal rule,” she said bitterly.
I inched closer as she moved back.
“I want to be with you,” I said unapologetically. “I’m in love with you.”
“And I’m in love with you,” she cried.
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“I—I can’t,” she finally whispered.
I felt unexpected tears welling in my eyes as her words sank in.
“Scarlett,” I said, my voice strained. “Please.”
For a moment I thought I saw a flicker of something pass through her eyes. But they quickly returned to their indecipherable state.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she responded sadly. “We simply can’t be.”
I thought about our recent night in London. She was turning back into that scared, cynical person who didn’t want to risk telling the truth. I needed to change her mind.
“I’m trying to fight for you, Scarlett. Don’t you see that I’ve transformed since being here? Since meeting you?”
“I do.” She smiled through her tears. “You’ve really come into your own.”
She was right. I was miles from the flimsy girl I had arrived as. I had chopped off my hair into a flapper bob, gained a sense of style, and learned how to apply makeup properly. But more importantly, I was stronger, bolder, and more confident. I’d found purpose as an activist, fighting for women’s rights and equality. All while falling in love with the woman sitting next to me. The total realization conjured up more tears.
“Please, Scarlett,” I begged. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”
“You will always be the most important thing that ever happened to me,” she said.
“If our love is so important to you then why aren’t you fighting for it?” Salty tears flooded my eyes as she averted her gaze. “And everything we’ve worked for! Was it all for nothing?”
“You know it’s important to me. You’ve become my life, Amelia.”
“Then neither of us can be happy unless we’re together,” I choked out.
“That kind of thinking will only make you miserable,” she said quietly.
She took me into her arms. “The world just isn’t ready for us, my love.”
“But what about the stars, Scarlett?”
Her only response was a slow, heartrending kiss. She didn’t need to explain; I knew exactly what she meant. The heaviness of it—the fact that it was bigger than both of us—somehow calmed me. We lay there in silence for a while, filled with a tacit understanding that we would have to endure, together or separately.
Still, I tried to figure out how things could work, how we could work. The moment was pure and bittersweet: holding the girl I loved and trying to reassure her that everything would be all right, but crying with her because we both realized that it wouldn’t.