The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Zoe

"What about your sister? Is she also a drama seeker?"

"Amy? Not really." Zoe said, her mind still a bit of a jumble. "She…Well, I think she likes watching the drama unfold, but she's much quieter about it. Doesn't actively cause a mess the way River does."

Even having spent half an hour in silence alone in her car, Zoe wasn't sure what she wanted to do. And now that she was sitting at a table with Cassandra, she felt even more lost. They both sat in relative silence, picking at their chicken. Zoe honestly appreciated that despite suddenly crashing her evening, Cass was content to just sit there with her.

Zoe kept stealing glances at Cass while she bounced back and forth mentally. She had the rules that she had set for herself several years ago that were still, in her mind, about as simplistic and straightforward as she could manage.

First, don't fall in love with friends. That went doubly so when she didn't know where their interests lie, and she was still unsure if Cass liked women, so she should have been entirely off the table.

Second, simply don't date at all. After the absolute ball of drama that was Rian was finally cut out of her life, she had been pretty resolute to simply remain single for a while. Originally, she had planned on at least three or four years, and that was two years ago now. She genuinely had no idea if it would've made a difference, but she was hoping that, perhaps, re-entering the dating pool at 26 or 27 might put her in a better situation to avoid toxic and childish women like her ex.

On the other hand, after her little chat with Amy, Zoe wasn't sure she could keep ignoring her growing feelings for Cass. Because she simply couldn't pretend that in the last two weeks the best days she had were the ones that included going out with Cass. She had a great time every time. They were practically perfect dates in her eyes.

And yet, she still wasn't sure how well she really knew Cass. Sure, after being friends for four years, they were suddenly closing the distance that had persisted for that entire length of time. But there were glaring gaps in her knowledge of the woman she was crushing on, considering one of the big reasons she was still so hesitant to say anything was not knowing if Cass liked women.

It also wasn't lost on her that despite having been friends with Cass for basically the entirety of the time she was with Rian, Cass knew nothing about one of the biggest black spots in Zoe's history.

That divide was something that she was coming to regret pretty heavily, now that they were working to close it. And Zoe had also wondered if she had subconsciously - or maybe even entirely consciously - chosen to put up walls between them, especially after Rian.

When she stole yet another glance at Cass, their eyes met and held for just a moment. Zoe felt her heart skip a beat, looked away abruptly, then collapsed on top of her arms on the table with a big groan.

Cass chuckled at the clearly over-dramatic display. "You okay?"

"I don't even know anymore." Zoe whined, her brain fried from overthinking everything. "My head is such a fucking mess."

"Because of your family being all up in your business?"

"Among other things." Zoe sighed.

"Well, I can't speak much to your family being nosy," Cass began, her voice sounding light and somewhat flippant. Like she was trying to make sure Zoe didn't take what she was saying too seriously. "I'm…pretty sure I've told you before that I don't talk to my family much, but it's more accurate to say they want nothing to do with me. And I want nothing to do with them, to be clear." She added.

"I'm sorry, that sounds awful." Zoe said, propping her chin on her arms so she could see Cass.

"It was, but it's been a long time and I am…mostly over it." Cass shrugged. "Nothing I could really do about it in the end."

Zoe felt like she was holding her breath, waiting for Cass to continue. After she had blurted out earlier that she was gay, she had suspicions where this was going.

Cass did need a moment to compose herself before she continued. She gave Zoe a half smile as she said, "I bet you can see where this is going, can't you?" She chuckled lightly, but she still looked tense. "My family…wanted nothing to do with me after I came out at the end of high school. It was a mess, and I'm not going to get into it now. But I had a good scholarship for college, so at the end of the summer, I just left. Took everything I could, and never went back. I can count on one hand the number of times I hear from my family every year. It's usually twice."

Zoe reached to cover one of Cass's hands reassuringly. Cass looked mostly alright, but there was no mistaking the tension in her hand, or the slight jerk at the contact.

Zoe wasn't sure what to say. It's not like she could make it better, and apologizing again felt somewhat patronizing to her. "You did really great, in the end," was what she settled on. "You're living in a big city and have a good job. I bet they'd be jealous, if anything."

Cass smiled. "I'm sure."

They sat like that for another minute or two in silence. It was comfortable, though, and Zoe didn't feel any need to break it. Or let go of Cass' hand.

Instead, her mind just whirled around her own knot of problems, which seemed to be unraveling rather easily in her head.

She shouldn't fall for friends, especially straight ones.

Well, Cass evidently wasn't straight. And it was really that issue that was the problem, wasn't it?

She should just stay single to avoid the drama that came with a relationship.

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But Cass was clearly mature and wasn't the type to cause and thrive on drama.

On the off chance that Cass didn't like her, she wasn't sure she was willing to risk their friendship.

But there they were, holding hands at Cass' table. And Cass held on to her tightly.

At that point, it was really more a question of whether Zoe had the courage to say anything. Or maybe Cass would beat her to the punch, at this rate. She really didn't know, and they were kinda in uncharted territory now.

One thought did keep taunting her though. Oh, her family was going to have a field day with this.

"While we're being unusually forthcoming," Cass said, interrupting her thoughts, "thank you for telling me. I've actually been curious for a while."

"Honestly, I don't usually make any real effort to hide it." Zoe said. "I try to keep it somewhat under wraps at work because it's not really anyone's business."

"I've noticed. I won't say anything." Cass said seriously. "But you've definitely been guilty of, uh, let's say being thirsty on occasion?" She laughed.

"Like I said, I don't really try to hide it." Zoe shrugged.

"Fair point. You've made enough similar comments toward male characters too, so it was pretty nebulous anyway."

"Nothing wrong with appreciating a good looking character design."

"Here, here." Cass said, in a vocal mock toast.

"Thank you for sharing, too." Zoe said, her voice warm and sincere. "You're used to keeping it hidden, aren't you?" Zoe gave her friend's hand a squeeze, still hoping to relieve some of the tension there.

"Yeah." Cass took a deep breath. "In my experience, nothing good usually comes from sharing it with others." Her smile was there, but fragile. "Like, I could go on dates and things. Meeting others in places or on apps where it's a foregone conclusion that people there are gay is easy. It's the…telling part that's hard."

Zoe squeezed her hand again. "I can only imagine how rough that would be on someone. For all my bellyaching about my family, I do also realize how lucky I am to have them."

Cass didn't respond to that, but she did squeeze back as they lapsed into silence again. It was a generally comfortable silence, but that didn't stop Zoe's mind from rushing around trying to decide where to go from there.

Part of her wanted to just tell Cass that she had a crush and see what happened afterward. Another part of her figured that saying 'Amy thinks you like me' and being able to play that off as a joke if she said no was a safer option. A third part wanted to just sit there quietly and say nothing, hoping that Cass would be the one to make a move. Zoe even briefly considered just getting up and leaving the situation altogether, but she at least threw that option right out.

Zoe spent the entire time fighting the urge to steal glances at Cass, or even outright stare at her, and it was a losing battle. With her mind moving in a thousand different directions, she really didn't have the will to keep her eyes focused elsewhere. And having Cass' hand in hers didn't exactly help matters, either.

Every time Zoe's eyes drifted over to Cass her train of thought got derailed. She didn't know what to do about it either, because it was an entirely new phenomenon for her - she had never gotten this badly distracted so easily before.

Cass was idly scratching the side of her soda can with her free hand while lost in thought, staring off into space, her expression a little vacant, but still full of emotion. She looked like she was watching a poignant movie, fully absorbed in it. The image of Cass's face in profile was just beautiful.

Zoe very nearly just told the woman she loved her right there, her mind all but blank, but Cass spoke before Zoe did. It even took a moment of realization for Zoe to realize that Cass had turned back to look at her with a lopsided, easy grin before speaking, and caught her staring. "Do I have something on my face, or what?"

Zoe shook her head, both to say no and pull herself out of whatever daze she was in. "Sorry, I think I was just zoning out while looking your way," she said as an excuse. Zoe could have sworn that a look of disappointment crossed Cass' features briefly before she smiled again.

"I suppose I'm more interesting than the fridge, at least," Cass said, pointing to where she had been staring instead. Then she sighed and asked, "How is it that we've known each other for like four years and only now got to this conversation?" She slumped in her chair, and her voice came out as a rather impressive whine, but she didn't let go of Zoe's hand.

"I don't know."

Cass snorted. "I'm trying to think back now. Have we really just spent all four years of our friendship just talking about our hobbies and nothing else? Is that even possible?"

"It's probably my fault," Zoe admitted, "I've actively avoided talking about romance and dating since my last relationship a few years ago ended so badly."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Cass said, once again squeezing her hand in comfort. "I can't say I've ever had any messy breakups, if only because I don't think I've ever had a deep enough relationship for one."

Zoe chuckled, trying to inject a little levity into the conversation. "Trust me, you don't want one. It was such a nightmare that I basically swore off dating afterward. I figured I'm young, I have plenty of time. Right after, I didn't even want to think about it, so I even went and deleted all my dating app accounts, too. Just blew it all up." She mimed an explosion comically with her free hand complete with a sound effect.

When Zoe looked back to Cass' face, her expression confused Zoe. She seemed to quickly cycle through surprise and realization for a moment, then laughed. And it was a solid belly laugh, too, not a chuckle.

"What's that for?" Zoe asked, not sure if she should be insulted by the sudden turn in demeanor.

Cass struggled for a minute to get her laughter under control. Zoe, still unsure whether to be annoyed by the laughing, moved to pull her hand from Cass', but her friend held fast. When Cassandra finally settled, she leaned forward onto the table, and stared into Zoe's eyes, and the sudden seriousness of it all made Zoe squirm.

Zoe watched as something in Cass' expression seemed to settle into place, and her friend's intensity faded a little.

"Would you like to know a secret, Zoe?" Cass asked, with an impish little smile on her face.

"...Sure."

"I have spent…I don't even know how many nights in the last several months prowling the absolute hell out of each and every dating app I could think of."

Zoe raised an eyebrow, not sure how that qualified as an interesting secret. "Okay? Are you about to share all of your dating stories now that we confirmed we both like girls? Because I'm not particularly interested."

Cass chuckled and shook her head. "Nope. I don't know how long I spent looking, but I never saw what I was looking for. As it turns out, apparently every single profile I was looking for was deleted a few years ago."

The gears in Zoe's mind whirred, trying to piece together what Cass meant, and it took an embarrassingly long time for her to put it together, even if it was only a few seconds. Cass just sat there with a peaceful smile on her face as Zoe finally put it together.

"Now, just to be clear," Cass continued, as if in response to the realization hitting Zoe's face, "what I was looking for was confirmation that I had a shot with you. Because I would prefer to have this sort of conversation in person and not through an app."

Zoe was still stunned, unsure how to respond, so Cass just barreled forward. She adjusted their hands so their fingers were entwined. "So, what do you think, Zoe? Do I have a shot?"