The Snowball Effect

by Haley Cass

In Regan’s humble opinion, the taste testers – or whoever the hell came up with the flavors at their northeast-based chain – had no fear. Occasionally, when they sent down the recipes for some of those wild flavor combinations, she wondered if they even had taste buds.

“I mean, adult-identified ADHD. But I don’t really like to look at it as something that’s wrong with me.”

Like, what was the proper greeting to your unreliable and unpredictable mom that had sporadically been around throughout your childhood before moving to Florida and starting a second family when she finally reached adult maturity levels, who was now – having moved back to New York – desperately trying to bond with you?

Emma would give anything for there to be a book about how to manage this situation. She’d yet to find one.

If she wasn’t jam-packed at work, what could she say now? Short of, actually, I’m not ready to see you, and I don’t exactly know why, but I also don’t really want to put in the mental energy to figuring that out, anyway?

Kimberly pulled a chair out and perched in it as she carefully placed the bagels onto the table. Way too carefully for bagels, to be honest, but Regan got it – there was some emotionally charged shit happening here. She didn’t know exactly what kind of emotionally charged shit, but sometimes people needed their emotional support bagels.

“So, congratulations, Emma; you finally get exactly what you’ve wanted since you moved in. I’ll stop texting you, stop trying to hang out with you. You wanted a roommate you barely have to speak to, and you finally got her. Because I am so done trying.”

“The trick to never letting that get to you is knowing that if someone doesn’t truly know you, ninety-nine percent of the time? Their opinion says far more about them than it does about you. Or, in the words of my grandmother: judgments made in ignorance are better left ignored.”

“What you do with truths once you face them, well, that is where the world gets interesting, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never really met anyone that seems to want to get to know me the way you do.”

“Looks like we have a real what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object situation on our hands,” Emma mused. “The force wears the object down,” Regan answered easily. “It’s called erosion.”

“Am I missing something? It is July, right?” Regan turned, her mouth falling open in faux shock. “Emma, what are you talking about?! It’s November! This is our Thanksgiving spread!” “You know, if I hadn’t just walked from the subway to our apartment in cloying heat, I might be tempted to believe you,” she dryly shot back.

“I like to draw maps.” The sheer randomness of that statement made Emma choke on her water. Coughing, she blinked at Regan. “What?” But the grin on Regan’s face wasn’t joking or teasing. If anything, it was a little sheepish. “Maps. I like to draw them.”

“And then, by the time we got back to the car – it had been towed!” Regan said the word as if the very existence of a tow truck was offensive to her.

“Except for you; you don’t have the striking family features. But I think it’s a good thing that you don’t resemble your wife!” She laughed, then, and Emma wondered if making a joke about… incest? Should be normal or funny when first meeting someone, but for some Regan-reason, it worked. She found her own smile melting into one that felt natural as Ted – serious, quiet Ted – laughed as well.

“Charlotte, please. You want to be a leader of our country. I need more leadership right now. Win my vote.”

“Sexuality is fluid; it’s a scale. You are – bafflingly – attracted to men. Maybe your sexuality scale is ninety percent men, ten percent women, or an even smaller percentage. It’s not one-size-fits-all. Some women don’t even realize they are full-fledged lesbians until they’re decades older than you are.”

Real attraction for a fake girlfriend. Not on her bingo card!

“I wish you’d told me that your little crush on the barista had becoming something more.”

“Where did you even find the cat? It had one eye.” “His name was Blackbeard, thank you very much. And he was mine; he lived in the shed in the back of the yard. Dad never got around to tearing down the one on the edge of the property after he got the new one built.”

“I think about your breasts and your thighs and your lips all of the time.”

“You were just – you were so sweet to me. And I… I felt good telling you everything about my family. And you looked at me like you really got it. Got me.” Regan blew out a deep sigh, turning her gaze back on Emma’s, as she expectantly said, “So – that’s why.”

“I’m not that drunk and I’m wide awake, and I want to hang out with you. My platonic friend and roommate. And I assume you’re also wide awake, since you weren’t waiting up for me or anything.” She could feel Emma’s sharp, huffy inhale, and she smiled widely to herself. Gotcha.

“But you are – surprisingly but unquestionably – my taste,” she finished, ducking her head to capture Regan’s lips with hers.