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“But – you want the fairy tale,” she insisted, her voice comfortingly soft. “Even if we’re going to modernize it, and make you the working independent woman, et cetera et cetera.” Gianna rolled her eyes and waved her hand as if to push away the many arguments Ellie had made over the years as to why the Disney examples of fairy tales were terrible examples. “You’ve always wanted it. The relationship. The connection.”
“Maybe,” she allowed, then shrugged defeatedly. “But, maybe it’s just not something that can happen for everyone. Even if we lived in a world with soulmates,” she pulled a face at the word. “Where there’s guaranteed to be someone who understands you and loves you exactly as you are, the likelihood that you could find that person is slim-to-none.”
“It’s about my life. It’s about wanting to have someone I’m building a life with.” “And it’s not constant. I’m not sitting at home feeling depressed whenever I’m there by myself,” she assured, and once again – it was the truth. “It’s like… I can see Ellie having everything I want to have and living a life I’ve always wanted to have. And that’s amazing,”
“What I can’t help but circle around to is – what if I’m the problem? Or at least a big part of it?”
“But the biggest, most important thing I have to say, babe, is this: you should never be less picky. You should only be with someone that you truly want to talk to after a long day. Not someone you just want to want. And that is the truthest truth I can say.”
If someone hurts you, and then you hurt them back, you should then feel better. That was an equation she understood. Gianna might not know enough math for astronomy – fucking science course – but that math? Was simple.
Right now, it felt like kissing Riley was all Gianna cared about in the world.
“You’re so special, Riley,” Gianna breathed out,
But something about Riley Beckett was simply breathtaking. It made sense, she supposed. Because she cared about and liked Riley so much, and Gianna also loved beautiful things.
Trusting Riley, so fully, felt like enough – more than enough. And it was so nice, she dimly registered, to not have to hold herself up.
“I don’t even know if I can put it all in words. Because it feels – it feels inescapable. She feels inevitable.”
She looks at you like you could go on a killing spree and she’d be like, good job, babe, they deserved it! I’ll call my lawyer!”
the truth is that when I’m close to you, you make everything feel the way the world should be. You make everything make sense.
And Riley knew with every fiber of her being that she needed to do everything in her power to give Gianna anything she needed right now.
“This is my Gianna,” she whispered, stroking her thumb over Gianna’s soft cheek. “And I would pick the real you, complete with all of your feelings no matter what they are, every day of the week.”
She was perfect. Gianna was ridiculously and annoyingly and beautifully perfect.
“The most insane thing, though, is that even though I know seeing Gianna might make me want to cry, it might totally crush me?” She shook her head, swallowing thickly as she admitted, “She’s also the person I want to see, to celebrate with, most of all.”
“You have feelings for me.” “Yes. Yes, Riley, I do.” There was a raw desperation in Gianna’s voice that clouded the joy of the moment. “And I kissed you because of that. I kissed you, because I have feelings for you. I kissed you, because when I heard what you said tonight on the livestream, I could have passed out from how fucking happy it made me.”
“I didn’t even know what it was like, for someone to love me the way you do. Even, before all of this,” she was quick to explain, shaking her head, as she looked at Riley with pleading eyes. “You showed me that I’m loveable, Riley,”
“Well, you were right,” she spit the words out, “Riley is cute. And she’s fucking hot. She has amazing tits and the softest hair and thighs to die for. She’s funny and sweet and smart and ambitious. She’s – she’s the perfect date!” She spluttered out. “Even if you didn’t totally blow it tonight with whatever you just tried to pull,” she gestured between the two of them. “You’d never be able to pull Riley long-term.”
“If you think Riley is so perfect, why don’t you date her?” “Maybe I should,” she shot back, still simmering, but agreeing with that sentiment with her whole fucking heart. “Because you don’t seem to have a clue how to give her what she deserves!”
“Do you think I will ever find someone who knows me, understands me, laughs with me, wants me, loves me, the way you do?”
“I want… everything. I want to be with you, at the end of every day, and hear all about work and Joel and Ellie and the weird guy who clicks his tongue who works in the coffee shop next to the station. I want to wake up with you and feel understood and loved without having to say a word. I want to get married,” the word escaped her, unbidden, and she found herself laughing at it, as Riley’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Small ceremony or big or anything in between; I don’t really care. I want everyone to know we’re together. I want to see every little line on your face appear while we get
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Riley was perfect, in every form, to her. Simply perfect.
