You Go Down Smooth

Rather Be

"Normani..." she can hear Dinah's voice, her hand rubbing her shoulder. "Normani, come on. Let's go shower and change. We'll come back in a little bit, okay?"

"I'm not leaving her Dinah."

"Kordei, her family's here. She's not alone. Come on. Let's go to the beach house and freshen up. Lo and the gang are waiting to hear how she's doing. Plus, I'm not judging or anything but, you stink."

"I'm NOT leaving her." the brown girl states, plainly. She grips the covers around the sleeping brunette. "Just bring me a change of clothes or something if it makes you feel better, but I'm not....I can't leave her, D."

"Normani, she'll be fine..."

"Dinah!" It's a higher pitched tone that Dinah understands to mean it's not up for negotiation. "I can't just leave her. She wouldn't leave me...if this were me. She did this for-this is....I just can't. If you need to go, that's fine. I'll be fine. Just go."

"Okay. I'll be back soon. Text me....if you think of anything you need." she says walking towards the door. She turns, calling back to her friend, cuddled up in the hospital bed next to her girlfriend. "Normani, it's gonna be okay. She's going to be okay."

But Normani doesn't answer her. She doesn't respond, because there are no words that she can find to describe how she feels. How had they gotten here? How had she ended up here in this bed next to this incredibly beautiful human being? She never thought when she and Y/n had started texting - when Y/n was just 'Charming' - that they were ever going be anything more than text replies in the middle of the night. She never imagined hours upon hours of phone conversations - those same countless hours of missed sleep because they just couldn't hang up. She definitely never thought they'd meet. It seems like the kind of thing you see in movies, and her life was NOT a movie. But right now - in this exact space and time - she felt like it very well could have been.

Laying here, at Y/n's side, her arm draping over her trying to protect her from unseen foes - but wasn't she the reason this had happened? The pain of betrayal that she had seen etched across the brunette's face hours ago. The knowledge that she had shared one of Y/n's biggest secrets and that even after that, even after what y/n had said about her and after she had basically told her to fuck off, the girl had still risked her life to save her.

"Hey Normani." the voice came to her from the doorway to Y/n's private hospital room. "She still resting easy?"

"Hey, Layne." she said, looking up at him. "Yeah. Nothing but, it feels like. She seems so peaceful. I love it....but I hate it at the same time. I just want her to wake up, now."

"Give her time. She just needs the rest." he says, resting his hand on his sister's foot. "You doing okay?"

"Not really. I can't stop thinking about it. About her....running towards me and....she looked so scared, Layne. She was diving in front of a car, pushing me back out of the road, being this...heroic guardian angel. And yet....she looked terrified. How is that??"

"Duality." he says with a shrug. "But you shouldn't be worrying yourself with that. That kind of stuff doesn't scare her. She literally gets paid to be 'Captain Super-Save-A-Hoe' with all her pyrotechnics and shit..so she's used to that. " He offers her a smile, but it doesn't comfort her.

"You didn't see her face...."

"Honestly, I don't have to, Normani. I don't need to see her face to know that she was more scared of losing you than anything else."

His words hit her as she lays her head back down on Y/n's chest.

How does he always know what to say??