The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Zoe

Zoe woke up to her phone ringing. The incessant buzzing from her nightstand was truly obnoxious, despite the phone being on silent. She rolled over in her bed to snatch the thing and brought it to her ear without checking who was calling. Or even the time.

She let out a huge yawn as she picked up, before she could even say anything. "Hello?" Even to her own ears, her voice sounded sleep-addled.

"Good morning, o lovely sister of mine. Sleeping in quite a bit, aren't you?"

Zoe blinked as her sister's voice came over the phone. After trying to clear the sleep from her eyes, she pulled the phone back to look at the time on it - 10:30. "Wow. I haven't slept this late in ages." She yawned again.

"Oh yeah? Had a late night did you?" Amy chuckled.

"No, not really, I -" Zoe started to say, before her mind finally caught up with her. Being woken up by her phone had been enough to keep her mind from working momentarily. But all in a rush, things came back to her. Visiting Cassandra's house, their talk over fried chicken, the impromptu movie night, sitting comfortably in Cass' lap and arms.

She felt her face grow hot as Amy laughed into the sudden silence over the phone. "That silence is rather telling, little sis."

Zoe rolled her eyes, not that Amy could see it. "Fine. I had a late night, happy?"

Amy snickered. "How late? Are you home?"

"Yes, I'm home and in my own bed." Zoe said, scanning her room once just to be extra sure. But she definitely remembered the drive home. "Alone, just to be clear."

"Aww. But what time did you get in?"

"I don't know. Like…three?" Zoe muttered, trying to remember. She and Cass had ended up watching to the end of the trilogy of the movies she had been in the middle of, and they were not short movies. They had cuddled the entire time, too, though nothing much beyond that happened. It has been immensely pleasant, though.

Amy whistled. "That's pretty late. Or early, I guess. Why didn't you just spend the night?"

Zoe opened her mouth to say 'Because if I didn't leave, I wasn't sure what would have happened', but stopped herself - Amy would have absolutely pounced on that response. She wasn't entirely sure how much she wanted to tell Amy. "We finished the movie we were watching, and it's not like I had clothing or a toothbrush."

"As if you couldn't have borrowed hers." Amy said slyly.

Zoe had considered it in the moment, too. She doubted very much that Cass would have stopped her from staying if she had asked. She had definitely left for fear of jumping too many steps too quickly. "That's besides the point."

"Oh, is it?" Amy chuckled.

"Amy."

"Sorry." To her credit, Amy did actually sound apologetic, not faking it the way their mother always did when Zoe complained about her prying. "You can't blame me for being curious, can you? You tried to play it cool, saying you wanted to go home and get to bed early, but you took off last night like ten minutes after our chat outside. There's no way that wasn't related. Not to mention, you clearly went there last night - you're not hiding that fact at all."

"Would you have believed me if I said I went straight home?" Zoe sighed.

"Nope. Especially not when I woke you up with a phone call at ten thirty."

"Well, there you go. No point is denying it if you won't believe me."

"So?"

"'So', what?"

"So, what happened last night?"

Zoe groaned. "Really?"

"Yes."

Zoe looked up to the ceiling in exasperation and let out a huge sigh. "I'm pretty sure I have a girlfriend."

Amy squealed in delight on the other end of the line. "Yay! Things went well then?"

"I think so. We didn't talk too in depth about it, honestly. But we both agreed we had feelings for one another, I sorta said 'I'd like to be your girlfriend', and she accepted that. We spent the rest of the night watching a movie cuddled up on her bed."

"I mean, you used the word girlfriend, right? So I think that's pretty cut and dry."

"Dunno. There were plenty of things with Rian that I thought were cut and dry too, but I was wrong." Zoe's mood tried to sour on her as she mentioned Rian, but she did her best to hold onto her good mood.

"She really messed you up, didn't she?"

Zoe appreciated the amount of emotion Amy had in her voice. There was a bit of sadness, yes, but she could also distinctly hear the venom in it included for her ex.

"Yeah, well. Nothing I can do about it now."

"Sounds like you have the chance to move on, little sis. Take it, and don't look back. Leave that bitch in the past where she belongs."

Zoe snorted. "Easier said than done, but yes. I suppose that is the plan."

"Are you happy?"

The question sounded as light as the rest of the slightly teasing conversation, but Zoe still took it to heart. She took stock of her feelings - seriously - for the first time since the previous night. And now that the giddiness had faded somewhat, she felt comfortable nodding. "Yes, I think I am."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"That's all that matters, in the end." Zoe could hear a smile in her sister's voice. "Well, that, and that the other girl is happy too. What's her name, by the way?"

"Cassandra." Zoe answered without even thinking about it, entirely unprepared for what came next.

"Cassandra? As in Cass? As in the gaming buddy you mentioned constantly? That Cass?" Amy asked excitedly.

"Yes, that Cass. Please stop." Zoe whined.

Amy just squealed again in delight, forcing Zoe to pull the phone away from her still not awake ear. "Oh man, I can't wait to hear all the real details one day. I really hope it all works out for you, Zoe."

"Me too." Zoe scooted over and flopped back into her bed, her head smashing into her pillow.

Zoe suspected her sleepy tone got mistaken as somber when Amy seemed to calm down quickly after her outburst. "I'm rooting for you two, Zoe, I promise. I'll let you go now so you can text your girlfriend good morning."

"Thanks, Amy." Zoe said, rolling her eyes. "I'll do that."

"You should! Show her how excited you are."

"Good bye, now."

"Talk to you later, Zoe."

When Zoe closed the call, she held up the phone above her face to get caught up on any early morning notifications she had missed. She had more notifications than what fit on the screen at once, but most of them were nonsense and useless. A weather update, some spam emails, one reminding her that her credit card payment was due in a few days, another letting her know she had hit snooze on her alarm too many times, notifications from other chat servers that she never bothered to mute…there were a lot of those.

"Literally nothing." She muttered aloud as her fingers navigated to the chat with Cass without much thought. She saw their brief exchange from the previous night after she left. Nothing special, just Cass telling her to let her know when Zoe got home, followed by Zoe's 'I'm home safe' message, then two simple 'good night's.

She still stared at the simple messages - that more or less blended in with all the other ones - while thinking about the decidedly not common event of the previous night.

She was positive that she hadn't quite processed everything yet. While she enjoyed the time they spent cuddling up to watch the movies, Zoe spent much of the night in something akin to a dream-like state. It wasn't so much that she didn't believe what had happened, but rather she was simply too happy and comfortable to truly process it.

Now that she was home, and alone, the rest of the emotions that she hadn't acknowledged were finally showing through. And while she was absolutely more excited and happy than anything else, Zoe also found herself on the verge of crying. With her emotions so jumbled up and unprocessed, she wasn't sure if they were happy tears, or borne of relief that she was accepted, or even something else entirely.

Maybe it was just how overwhelmed she felt. She really couldn't tell. But she took a deep, shuddering breath as she stared at the otherwise innocuous messages between her and Cass, wondering what she should say, while doing her best to ignore the pessimistic voice in the back of her head, wondering why Cass hadn't messaged her already, given how late in the morning it was.

Her phone suddenly vibrating in her hand startled her enough that the device wiggled out of her grip and smacked her straight on the nose. It took her couple seconds to reclaim her grip and see that Cassandra was calling.

In an instant, her heart was pounding in her throat as she hit the answer button and said "Hey."

"Good morning. I didn't wake you up did I?" Cass said, her voice sounding raw.

"Nope, my sister did that." Zoe stammered.

"I guess that's good?"

"What's up?"

"Nothin'." Cass said lightly, the raspiness fading as she spoke. "Just woke up. Figured I'd check in."

"You didn't need to do that." Zoe said, despite the pleasant feeling warming her chest and the smile on her face.

"I know. I'm just still giddy."

They both giggled at that.

"Did you have plans for today?" Cass asked.

"Sure don't. I slept until, like, 20 minutes ago, and today was always going to be a recharge-after-visiting-family type of day."

"Ah. Your family is that exhausting, huh?"

"I mean, yes and no?" Zoe shrugged. "I know they could be so much worse. But after spending all day with them, I usually feel best with a day to decompress from the stress of constantly…I don't know, being 'on guard' around them all day?"

Cass snorted. "Nah, I get that. Once you move out and have your own life and everything, visiting family is no different than being in public. It's not the same as being home anymore."

"Yeah." Zoe agreed. "And given that I moved still within easy driving distance of my entire immediate family, it's probably even less of an issue for me than it might be for someone that moved several states away."

"True. I've never actually returned home to visit my family after I left. Not once. So I don't really know the feeling, but I bet feeling like a guest in the house you grew up in must be crazy weird."

"It's certainly strange, yeah." Zoe said, accepting Cassandra's light tone on the potentially rough subject at face value. She did make a mental note of it, though. "There was one time, like a year after I moved out, when I went back for Thanksgiving and was asked to help set the table. All of the tableware and everything had been moved to new spots after my parents cleaned up, and it was such a bizarre feeling."

Cass chuckled. "Better or worse than accidentally hitting 'sort all' on your game inventory?"

"Oh my god, the inventory sort is so much worse. At least I didn't need to re-sort everything at my parents' house. Cleaning out in-game inventories takes so damn long."

Cassandra laughed. "I had so much crap in storage in Mag Mell right before the raids hit, that when I went to clean everything out and sell off the gear I didn't need any more before the patch hit, it took me literally over an hour."

"So real." Zoe agreed. "I haven't done that yet, and I'm honestly terrified of the day I have to. And it's probably coming up soon, too, given my storage only has a couple hundred slots left."

"I'd advise you to do it a bit at a time, starting sooner rather than later!" Cass teased.

"I…yeah, I really should, huh?"

"So," Cass said, her tone clearly a topic switch, "you said you have no plans today, but it doesn't sound like you're exactly looking to do anything either."

"Uh huh." Zoe agreed wordlessly.

"I just woke up and need to shower and probably eat, but you wanna just stay home all day today and play games together?"

"That's a plan I can get behind." Zoe said with a grin. "As long as we can go on a date tomorrow."

"Whenever you want."

"Great. See you in…an hour?"

"Let's say at noon. Just in case I fall asleep in the shower."

"Is that likely?" Zoe asked.

"Dunno. Maybe. I'm still sleepy, and I've not had a girlfriend in a long time. Who knows what's changed." Cass joked.

Zoe found herself rolling her eyes at the bad joke, despite the pleasant warmth that flooded her. She couldn't decide how to respond, wavering between a similarly bad joke, or a decidedly more suggestive one.

"Well, I know why I'll have to take longer in the shower." Zoe said mischievously, then added in a sing-song voice, "There's so much more work to be done in there now."

Zoe smiled to herself as she heard Cass stammer on the other end of the line, clearly not used to Zoe making even remotely dirty jokes. Which was fair, given she really didn't make them very often, as she found them generally un-funny. But being directly suggestive to her girlfriend - that worked for her.

"Talk to you later." Zoe said, in the same teasing, sing-song way, before ending the call. She slid from her bed, feeling rather smug, to go through her own morning routine while she had time. The phone, still in her hand, buzzed once and she grinned widely when she saw the message.

{Cass} : Wow. Didn't even let me say goodbye. Jerk.