Borrowed Time

Chapter 149

Esme's room smelt comforting at every second of every day, and that was something that Juliette was eternally grateful for when they were gone from the house at work, because it meant that she could feel close to them even when they were nowhere near each other - she considered that to be a blessing that she wasn't going to take lightly.  She didn't want to take anything lightly from Esme, they were too good for that - they treated her too perfectly to act like a single thing that they did should be taken for granted, that wouldn't be fair to them at all.

Juliette sighed, laying back against Esme's mattress, splaying her arms from side to side as she laid in the middle, her fingertips not quite reaching the edges of the mattress as she breathed in, appreciating the way that Esme's soap and perfume clung to the sheets, leaving behind an essence of them in a way that made Juliette smile... It made her smile even more when she realized that hers did the same - they were interconnected, even when they were nowhere near each other, and that was something that she found to be very special.  Aside from Shelby and Micheal, she never dreamed that her soul would connect with someone else - especially not romantically, that was something she'd never planned for, because how could someone possibly plan for love?

She was pretty sure that if the person that she was in August saw her now, she'd get sick - and she'd wonder why she wasn't living at home.  It'd be a long conversation, a very difficult one because Juliette could remember how stubborn she was - actually, that hadn't gone away, she was just stubborn about different things now, and that made her life more interesting - she was no longer sure that her father was a good person who just fucked up sometimes.  She was no longer insistent that she was straight and would marry a man, and she was no longer nearly as quiet about her own needs as she'd been before.  Where it'd been like pulling teeth to get her to take care of her own well being before, now it was more like giving a mostly calm child a shot - you still might get bit, but the chances are lower.

Juliette rolled over, picking up the picture frame that Esme had on their nightstand, dusting it off a bit... She smiled to herself as she looked at it.  Given the background, awkward stances and the ages, she was pretty sure that the picture had been taken at their camp when they were twelve.  Esme was standing next to Penny and Tegan, with Emma leaning into Tegan's other side... It was odd to see them be the same height as Penny... Mostly because it made Penny look tiny in comparison to the figure that she was now.  Esme looked exhausted in the photo, but happy... Oddly happy for someone who had been through a camp like that, but Juliette could tell why they were so happy...

It'd gotten them away from Luis, they'd probably been sober at least for the most part, and they had friends... Friends that were holding them so close that you'd think that they never wanted to let go of them.  She noticed that Emma had scratches on her face and arms and a wrapping around her ankle... Right, she fell down that ledge, Esme told me that... There was something that was just so deeply comforting about the way that they were all together, it felt like she was looking at someone's happiest memory in that moment... And she liked that Esme had that next to a framed photo from homecoming, one of both of them and Shelby and Micheal - Micheal had jumped on Esme's back and Juliette had jumped on Shelby's and Shelby had had to extend her arm out so far to get them all in it... But the laughs were genuine, with Shelby's head being thrown back, Micheal's eyes closed as he rested his head against the side of Esme's... All of them.  It'd been such a special night.  Esme kept a photo of the two of them on their dresser... They actually had a bunch of polaroids tucked into the sides of their mirror and then a framed one that Tegan had taken on his phone and printed out from one of the parties - a soft moment that Juliette had hardly remembered happening where Esme was laying down on the couch with their head in her lap and she was smiling down at them, braiding a small braid into their air... Juliette liked it, she liked how genuine her smile was, she liked that Esme was reaching up and touching her face... It was just so casually intimate, it was beautiful.