The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

50 : Blaire

B L A I R E

•

The others leave, eventually.

This has been a whole day affair, including a brief respite to walk to the lake and back for air: we listened to the episode; we gossiped; we laughed; we watched a film. Then another. Olga left first, when her dad called and asked if she was going to be home for supper. Cat and Niko left shortly afterwards.

Now it's just me and Sukie. Sukie and me. The two of us, alone in her basement, her body nestled against mine, her legs thrown over my lap. I don't want to move. Don't want to spoil this moment.

"Blaire?" My name is a murmur on her tired breath, her eyes drooping, energy sapped by a long day with us and the baby feeding off her body.

"Mmm?"

"This isn't temporary, is it?"

"What?"

"You and me."

I have to pull away from her a bit to face her properly. "Why would it be temporary?" I ask, aghast at the thought that maybe she's anticipating this curse smiting me. Horror hits, draining my face of blood; I feel myself pale.

"When I have the baby, are you still going to be around?" she asks, her eyes huge as she looks up at me. In an instant, my horror is replaced by crushing relief. "I really like you, so freaking much. Getting to call you my girlfriend is ridiculously exciting"—her cheeks flush; she semi smiles—"but in a few months, I'm going to have a baby, and I don't want you to run away when I do."

"I'm going to be right here, by your side," I say. "Of course I'm not going to run away."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. I don't want to tread on your toes, bu—"

"I want you around."

"And I want to stay." I kiss her, one hand on her bump, and laugh when I feel the baby move. She holds me close, deepening the kiss, and I'm gone. I'm hers.

My lips are numb when we part, googly-eyed. Sukie gazes at me and shifts so she's pressed against me, her bump nudging my waist.

"I liked you the moment I saw you," she says.

My heart flutters. "You did?"

She nods, a lazy smile on her lips. "Do you ever see someone for the first time, maybe in a coffee shop, maybe when you're a barista and they're new to town – just an example, of course – and you look at them and all you can think is oh, shit, I want to kiss you so badly."

"I think I know the feeling. Just a smidge." I hold my thumb and forefinger a centimetre apart. "Have you ever fallen in love with someone's voice before you've ever met them, and you don't see how they can be any more magical, and then you meet them at last, and they're everything and more?"

She's staring at me. Eyes wide. Wider than wide.

Oh, no. I dropped the L word.

I didn't mean to drop the L word.

I can fumble or ramble or wait for her to say something. Or I can double down. In for a penny, in for a pound. Mustering a smile, and more calm confidence than I own, I let my hand skim the warm curve of her neck.

"First, your voice. And then you. You make it easy to fall in love with you, Sukie Watanabe."

She kisses me so hard I can't breathe, and then I forget how to breathe, paralysed by her intensity and my rush of adoration.