There Comes a Song 1/?
“Twice. She came right out and said it. She slept with him twice.”
“So you’ve said. More than twice. When are you going to get to the point?"
It was the dryness in his voice that told Erica that her brother, surprisingly enough, was actually listening, and had actually been listening from the start. It was some comfort, at least. It would be more of one if his replies weren’t so damned insensitive and unhelpful.
“This is the point, Adrian. We haven’t even been at this a month and already-“
“You have your answer right there, Erica.” He interrupted smoothly, “It hasn’t even been a month, but you’re already visibly comfortable with it. She’s not, and the fast that you are is probably intimidating or worrying her. You have Dr. Wyatt and hours upon hours of private therapy to figure this stuff out. She doesn’t have that. She’s probably taking most of her cues from you, and all she knows is that you’re miles ahead of her. She’s doing the best she can to catch up, but she probably doesn’t feel that she has the time to do it as carefully as you did. She’s abandoned tact in favor of haste. But at least she had the integrity to telI you”. Here Adrian paused to take a carefully measured breath. Erica didn’t have to see her brother to know that he was running his free hand through his hair.
“She came out and said that she had to be honest with you in order to be with you. Judging from what you told me, coming from Callie Torres, that is a declaration of commitment. To your relationship, at least, if not to you exclusively right now. Just… let her stumble to you, Erica. It sounds like she’s making the best way she can. Trust her when she tells you, in her own special way, that you are her destination. I have to go now, you’ve made me late for class, and you’ll be paying for that later. Wiedersehen.” Click.
Erica flipped her own phone shut. Adrian was as talkative as she herself was taciturn, and he’d given her a lot to mull over. And, damn the man, he made good points, and made them well.
Now it was becoming difficult to avoid active and rational thought about the situation, which… she just wasn’t ready for yet. Wine was definitely in order.
“Twice? Seriously Cal, twice?”
Callie groaned lightly into the phone. She could picture exactly the disbelieving and mildly disappointed expression that was undoubtedly currently gracing the features of one Addison Forbes Montgomery at that very moment. She got the picture already. She’d messed up. Sort of. She had answered the question that she needed to have answered, that had to count for something.
“The Scientific Method calls for experiments to be repeated.” Callie returned lamely. The retort had sounded more impressive and logical in her mind.
“This is true, but I don’t think you can actually apply the Scientific Method to relationships.”
“I’m not applying it to the relationship. I’m applying it to sex. Just the sex.”
“But is it really ‘just sex’ with Erica?” Addison ventured cautiously. Causing Callie to freak out again was the last thing she wanted to do, especially now, given the delicate situation, but Callie obviously needed help.
“Addy, I’m not ready to go there yet. I’m just… not.”
“What do you mean, ‘go there’? You could start a collection with all of your passport stamps, from what you’ve told me!”
“For sex, yeah. But… not for the, you know, more-than-just-sex sex. I…” Callie groaned again in frustration, and pushed herself up off of the plush couch to pace the living room, “I’m not ready to think about sex with Erica like that. I might freak out again if I do, and I don’t want to freak out about this again. I hurt her last time, and I hurt her today with the sleeping with Mark thing. I can’t keep hurting her.”
Addison opened her mouth to reply, but wisely shut it again. Callie rarely, if ever, begged, but that was the closest Addison had heard her friend come to it in a long while. She filed that line of discussion away for later reviewing, and moved on to what she knew Callie needed to talk about most.
“Well, how did she take the news?”
Callie closed her eyes, mentally replaying the short and frustratingly ambiguous encounter. “She… just said ‘okay’. She didn’t look angry, but… I think she was. She’s got the best poker face I’ve ever seen, but she’s never used it on me before. I don’t know how to fix this.” Callie’s voice began to lose strength, and noticeably quavered by the end of her statement. Addison was quietly thoughtful for a moment, trying to dredge up every minute detail of the blonde woman she could.
Callie’s last circuit of pacing took her close to the marbled counter of the kitchen bar. She’d clocked a lot of hours in the past weeks just sitting on one of the high chairs, both at the apartment and at the Emerald City bar, just studying the table top. Her finger traced the patterns of the marble much like they did the wood grain of Joe’s tables. This time, though, she wasn’t actively thinking or trying to puzzle through the problem. She was just focusing on the patterns made by her fingers, and on the sounds coming from the phone against her ear. It was probably for the better, as over thinking was what kept getting her into these problems. For some reason she couldn’t just sit back and enjoy the ride with Erica, as Erica seemed to be doing with her.
“…Callie? Are you still there?” Addison asked softly, concerned.
“Huh? Oh, sorry. What did you say?”
“I said… I think you’ve already taken a step in the right direction with fixing this with Erica. The last time she was angry with you, she told you that she just wished you would have been honest about it. And… you were honest here, even before she asked you to be. That probably helped a lot.” Addison knew she had spoken well when Callie let out a quick sigh of relief, and mentally congratulated herself. Callie wasn’t done yet, though.
“What else should I be worried about here? I… I can’t step back far enough to try to get the big picture.”
“Personally, if I were her, I would be wondering why you did it. The first reason that comes to my mind would be that you liked sex with Mark better…” the redhead trailed off. Callie didn’t need to hear the question to know what her friend was asking. She only wished she knew the answer.
“Sex with Erica is… awesome. And sex with Mark is awesome. But sex with Mark is more… I don’t know, comfortable?”
“That could be because you don’t have any of those messy feelings about Mark. He’s your friend, but that’s all he is. Erica is your girlfriend, and Erica is a woman. And you do have those messy feelings for her. You’re still getting used to the fact that you’re involved with a woman, Cal. You’re expecting too much of yourself too fast. Just… calm down. Talk to her about it; tell her everything, why you slept with Mark, that you’re still not completely comfortable with her, but that you’re getting there, what you’re worried about. And then let her talk to you.”
Callie nodded thoughtfully. Addison was completely right. It was almost funny, sometimes, how well the red-head seemed to know Erica. Did the Latina really talk about her best friend turned girlfriend that often?
“And, Cal?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t forget to be honest with yourself, too. Don’t be afraid of the truth, whatever it might be.”
“Thanks, Addy.” Callie smiled. Down in California, she knew that Addison was smiling, too.
“You’re welcome, Cal.” Click.
Callie flipped the cell phone shut and sighed, long and slow. The bottle of merlot sitting on the other end of the counter caught her attention. It was the very same bottle from her first date with Erica, at Canto. Callie smiled fondly, remembering not only that wonderful night, but a few since where they had decided to break into it. She wouldn’t be surprised if that particular brand would work as an aphrodisiac for her for the rest of her life.
It almost seemed as if Callie’s body had gone into motion before her mind had been made up, and before she knew it, she had pulled on her jacket and walked out the door, bottle in hand.