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*****
Be Mine?
“That’s kinda creepy.”
Lexa jumps, hand flying to her chest, not having expected the voice or the chin on her shoulder from out of nowhere.
Heart beating loudly from the surprise, she turns in her seat to scold her best friend. “Jesus, Clarke, what did I say about sneaking up on me like that?”
“A bit cliché and possessive, don't you think?” Clarke asks, dismissive, ignoring her near death scare to wag a finger at the Valentine's card in her hand. “What modern woman would want to be chattel, private property and not her own person?”
“I think it’s kinda sweet.” Lexa defends. A smile forms at the earnestness, lips in a slant, though its slope is not as crooked as the red craft paper heart in front of them.
“Really? Miss independent, I don’t date ever, and only wear black and a scowl, Lexa Woods, thinks that is sweet?”
Curiously, when Lexa looks up, she finds Clarke is the one wearing the scowl, brows knitted together and her mouth downturned in something indecipherable beside clear disapproval.
“I like it. Simple. To the point.”
“Be mine?” Clarke rereads with a scoff. “A question mark is weak, not even declarative like a period, or assertive like an exclamation mark.”
“Are you seriously criticising the grammar of romance?” Lexa challenges, eyebrow quirked in amusement.
Clarke stares her down, gaze narrowed in judgment.
“Yes.”
Lexa laughs.
Clarke turns her attention back to the ostensibly offensive misuse of language. Lexa watches, studying the way blue eyes scan the half-folded card, that’s clearly homemade, in intensive focus as if searching for other points of criticism. She finds the poked out tongue endearing. Her observation is broken by a cheeky inquiry.
“Who’s the wordsmith?”
Lexa turns the card over. There’s no inscription of any kind other than the bold, black block letters of the two words. No signatory.
“Dunno. Found it in this book.” She holds up the textbook to show.
“Oh, it’s not for you?”
“No. Not that I’m aware of.” For some reason, Clarke’s face visibly relaxes. The sudden relief odd. Not knowing what to make of it, Lexa continues and guesses, “It must have been used by the last borrower as a bookmark and forgotten.”
“Pfft, ha,” Clarke claims victorious and makes her disdain loudly known. It garners them a few glares and several head turns in what is supposed to be the quiet study area of the library. Clarke ignores their audience but does lower her voice to a whisper. “Clearly, the poet laureate didn’t earn the card’s keep. No wonder they didn’t want to put their name on it.”
“Maybe the owner will be back for it.”
Lexa decides it’s worth hanging onto on their behalf in the meantime, slipping the card carefully into the back sleeve of the jacket cover. She isn’t exactly sure how she’ll return it to the rightful person seeing as he or she could be any number of strangers who took out this book before her. But the hopefulness of the question mark that punctuates the message, tugs at her chest. Be mine? is a plea and a polite request rolled into one. Present with uncertainty but full of promise nonetheless.
Stealing a glance at Clarke, who continues to be adorably (and inexplicably) affronted by the elementariness of the romantic gesture, she feels sympathetic to the card writer’s plight.
She squashes down the urge of her heart to ask the same question.
“Anyway, lunch?” Lexa asks instead, gathering her things and changing the subject to Clarke’s favourite pastime.
The suggestion earns her the first bright smile in their entire exchange.
“Yes, please!”
Books tucked into her bag and card out of mind, Lexa links their arms to make their way into the bright afternoon sun.
“C’mon, I know the perfect banh mi that’s declaratively, assertively, got your name on it.”
—
You’re the one.
“The one what?” Clarke grumbles.
“What’s wrong with this phrasing? A full stop like you wanted. It’s declarative.”
“Yes, but even worse, it’s vague.” Clarke explains, nose scrunching around the word. “Ambiguous, unspecific. Unoriginal. God, I hate Valentine’s week. It brings out the most inane impulses in people desperate for a connection because of manufactured urging by a capitalist endgame.”
This arguably inane card was found in another textbook. Lexa is starting to suspect it’s not coincidental. Her suspicion is somewhat confirmed by the shy smile she catches across the way at the librarian’s desk. Costia cutely waves at her having been caught but then ducks her head and buries it behind a stack of books a reader has just plopped down on the counter.
Fingers snap in front of her, pulling Lexa abruptly out of her thoughts.
“Hullo? Earth to Lexa,” Clarke prompts, calling impatiently for her attention. “Did you hear anything I said—” Her question drops off, as does her smile, when she clues into the source of Lexa’s distraction. “Oh.”
“I think I might have a secret admirer.” Lexa theorises aloud.
“What makes you say that?” Clarke asks, head turning back and forth between Lexa and the librarian. A line carves deep between her brows.
“What are the chances of finding a third one of these in my set of books? Mathematically, statistically low that a forgotten Valentine’s card shows up again in my exact pile.”
The second card had been a doubtfully fortuitous discovery. Another heart-shaped effort, with two hand-drawn checkboxes as inside content. Options for yes and no. Surely, a follow-up to the first card. Lexa had left the answer blank. Clarke had rolled her eyes at the cliché.
Face hardened in concentration, looking less charmed than Lexa is by this latest infraction, Clarke asks, “And you think it’s her?”
“Maybe.” Lexa conjectures. “She keeps looking this way.” Sure enough, they both look back up to discover Costia staring in return. Her cheeks pink to find two sets of eyes on her. It’s Clarke who waves this time, aiming for nonchalance but causing the red colour to deepen anyway. “To think of it, she directly handed me my requested holdings.”
“For someone who spends her day surrounded by words, she couldn’t use better ones?” Clarke quibbles under her breath, gaze unbroken.
Lexa draws back to study her.
Lexa typically holes up non-class hours in the bay window of one of the coveted study lounge spaces she had snagged early on in the semester with Clarke’s help. The cubbyhole facing the quad had indisputably become their spot, especially after Clarke stared down one of the undergrads who didn’t know better and unwittingly dared to sit in their seat.
That same stare is now directed, vehemently, conspicuously, at Costia.
“OMG, are you jealous?” Lexa muses, internally tempering the hope. If only.
“What?” Clarke snaps her head back. A slight panic in her eyes falls quickly away to schooled displeasure. “Of course not. I just worry the university isn’t hiring the best. It’s a poor reflection on our HR practices, is all.”
“Uh-huh.” Lexa elbows her, laughing. She pulls Clarke into her cocoon, setting the card aside to resettle against the throw pillows. “C’mere. Where were we?”
After some minor but ineffectual protest, Clarke happily leans in against her chest, familiarly sat back to front between Lexa’s legs. It’s an intimate position for the semi-openness of their location. A little—a lot—more than friendly; easily interpreted to be otherwise. But Lexa is non-plussed by the exposure and extended meaning. Ignores that a couple two cubicles down is similarly arranged (and making out). She tightens her hold around Clarke’s middle, fingers skimming unconsciously along the soft skin under her shirt.
Lexa opens the book Clarke had excitedly brought over from the children’s section. Research for the graphic novel she’s been working on.
She proceeds to read from it out loud, a habit taken up during her study breaks. Voice kept low so as not to disturb others, Lexa pays no attention to the shiver that inevitably arises from how close her lips get to the shell of Clarke’s ear. Concentration wholly set on the words and warmth in front of her.
Clarke hums content. Burrows in deeper.
Halfway through, Lexa sneaks a glance Costia’s way and is met with a curious look and a slight frown.
Despite the rapid pulsing of her heart that Clarke must be able to hear thundering with their proximity, Lexa doesn’t acknowledge there’s nothing vague or unambiguous or unspecific about what she and Clarke are doing.
She tries not to wonder too, the one what?
—
Hoo ...
This card is the shortest on words to date. An illustrated owl is the only clue.
While the introduction of drawing initially inspired Clarke’s ire for its crudeness (‘Does it even qualify as a bird?’), it’s the three hanging dots that has caused the English-Art double major the most consternation.
“An ellipsis, Lex? Really? I think she’s just taunting me at this point,” Clarke gripes, dramatically face-planting onto the table and taking too personal offence to the apparent controversial mark use.
Lexa laughs at her theatric.
“What’s wrong now?”
“It’s an omission. It leaves out intention,” comes the muffled reply. “Although, I think she’s doing it intentionally to make me question if our English department is under-funded. The liberal arts is taking a lot of liberty with my tuition.”
“Babe,” Lexa chuckles and pries Clarke’s fingers away from where they cover her eyes. “I love you, but, this isn’t about you.”
Clarke huffs in indignation. “What’s it about then?”
“For the first time in years, someone is interested in me,” Lexa says softly. She tries not to let her gaze linger too long on Clarke’s strikingly blue set or for it to dip to her lips and the beauty mark an inch above.
Clarke harrumphs in objection but otherwise stays mum about her perpetual singlehood. Lexa thinks no more will come of it but then the unexpected question arrives.
“I thought you weren’t interested in distractions from your MBA?”
It’s asked with a lilt yet under the teasing tone, Lexa reads an unfamiliar current of anxiety and hesitation.
“What do you mean?”
“When we first met at the postgrad mixer and you thought I was an MFA student hitting on you rather than trying to find the bathroom, you told me under no uncertain terms, and I quote, MBA doesn’t stand for Major Babe Alert.”
“God, that was so embarrassing. One too many Malbecs and I sound like a complete asshole.”
Clarke smiles, not bothering to contest the characterisation.
“Unsolicited, you gave me the distinct impression that dating was off the table and that you were already in a monogamous relationship with micro and macro economics.”
That much she can’t deny. Lexa has always been serious about her studies, poised to take over her family business someday. But from her vantage point, she vividly recalls being flustered beyond coherence by the guest of one of her classmates she had accidentally nearly knocked over by the snack station. Upon righting their near fall from the collision, tight jeans, blonde curls, and a blinding smile cornered her into a mini thesis about female economists who had been airbrushed out of academic discourse. Given the receptiveness of her audience, and disregarding the entertained look, her dissertation devolved into equating monetary regulations with monogamy.
“Your boyfriend didn’t seem to get the memo about the M word,” Lexa quips, that memory souring her recollection of their kismet meet-cute.
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Clarke groans. “Now, he’s a real asshole. I found the bathroom and him coming out of it with his tongue down someone else’s mouth.”
Lexa gives a sympathetic squeeze of her arm. She feels no love loss for Finn, but in a twist of fate, his indiscretion brought Clarke into her life. So for that, she’s minutely grateful.
“I can’t believe you punched him,” Clarke reminisces, shaking her head. Smile returning.
“My fist slipped.”
Lexa’s hero complex couldn’t help but kick in seeing a pretty girl cry.
Since then, she has been nursing and suppressing a crush in favour of the friendship that blossomed.
Outside of a feeble attempt at online dating, Clarke hadn’t expressed any desire to put her heart out there again for the breaking. So, Lexa kept quiet about the one available to her for the taking.
“Speaking of slips,” Clarke nudges, head inclining toward the card while her attention returns to adding greater detail to the sketch in her notebook she’d been outlining. “Dot dot dot. Questionable ominous redundancy notwithstanding, it’s getting fancy with the punctuation. What are you going to do about it?”
Lexa looks over at the librarian’s desk to see Costia reading intently, glasses drooping on her nose. She’s sporting a knitted sweater featuring an owl. It’s an attractive sight but for some entirely knowable, and refusing to admit, reason, Lexa is disappointed. Impossible logistics and wishful thinking aside, she had kindled a longing that the identity of her secret admirer is the one currently doodling an elaborate depiction of a snow owl. In silent competition, unnecessarily demonstrating to Lexa her superior drawing skills.
She turns back to Clarke. Presses in until their cheeks brush as if preparing to relay a secret, and can hear the hitched breath her sudden closeness causes.
“To be continued ...”
Clarke laughs at the whispered words and pushes at her shoulder.
“Fucking ellipsis,” Clarke mutters.
Lexa wonders if her particular omission escaped Clarke’s notice. That Lexa has never addressed the question of why she doesn’t date.
—
... makes my heart beet.
This time the accompanying illustration is a root vegetable.
“Ugh, it’s downhill now that puns are involved.”
Lexa chuckles.
“Seriously, Lex, don’t laugh. I worry for the intellectual integrity of the literary institution that one of its representatives couldn’t do better than a beet. A beet.”
—
Will you date me?
In lieu of the word ‘date’ is a drawing of the dried fruit.
“I think, I think I’m going to say yes to Costia,” Lexa decides, aiming for conviction, though it comes out sounding more like a question. A consultation.
It’s the day before Valentine’s. Normally, she and Clarke make a movie night of the holiday, watching romcoms and deriding their predictability while snuggled in and entangled together under a blanket fort, guilty of the same behaviour they assail the protagonists. But with pining making an especially fervent appearance this year when Clarke made a surprise announcement that she has plans, Lexa feels compelled into action.
“I guess we’re back to question marks.”
Clarke’s voice sounds strange. Her remark is lacking its usual creativity. Lexa wouldn’t even have heard it were they not wrapped so tightly as usual.
The body in her arms stiffens. Gone eerily still.
Clarke isn’t looking at her. Rather, burning a hole in the carpeted floor.
“Do you think I should ask her now?”
Costia looks to be on a break, a perfect opportunity for Lexa to make her move and draw their game to a close.
She receives a non-committal hmmm in response. Then a flurry of words.
“Text me later about it. Good luck, okay. I forgot I had to—” Lexa doesn’t hear the end of Clarke’s sentence, its compacted delivery further hampered by the rustle of activity, before she is getting up, bag and books hastily gathered in tow, then leaning forward to just as hastily kiss her on the cheek and finally disappearing out of sight.
Lexa is left with her mouth agape, the spot on her cheek burning from where Clarke’s lips had been, staring into the space that Clarke had evacuated. Her chest cold.
Disoriented by what just happened, Lexa shakes off her emerging nerves, failing to attribute why their sudden haywire has little to do with what she’s about to do.
“Hi. Do you work here?”
It’s not Lexa’s best opening, or the most astute observation, but that’s all that comes to mind when she approaches the checkout desk following the confusion of her interaction with Clarke. Plainly, the librarian does work here, seeing as she’s been filling out Lexa’s order requests from the archives for weeks.
“Hello, Lexa.” Costia greets, grinning with mirth at Lexa’s cold opening, and taps on the name tag on her uniform. “I can confirm I’m ungainfully employed here. We’ve met before.”
“Right, right.”
Lexa nods uselessly.
Given Costia’s historic shyness to date, Lexa did not forsee the banter and her confidence, and has no game plan for a follow-up move. With Clarke leaving her speechless, the search for words proves difficult. When she struggles for what to say next, Costia helpfully pipes up.
“Did you not get the right book?” Costia asks, gesturing to the volume Lexa is deathly gripping that she had forgotten about.
“Oh, no. It’s good. Great. Thank you.”
Costia smiles again, looking pleased. It’s lovely and she’s lovely, back to nervously and cutely pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. The movement draws attention to deep brown eyes. It should make Lexa think of autumn and warm amber nights but her thoughts remain traitorously, stubbornly, monogamous to a cooler hue. The colour of glistened sky after rainfall, that left her sight in a hurry.
“Looking for something else then?”
She refrains from voicing her heart’s lurching want to say, someone else.
When Lexa’s silence drags on for longer than socially comfortable, Costia steps in to the rescue again. The change of subject, however, throws Lexa for a loop.
“You and Clarke seem close.”
“Sorry?”
“I don’t mean to cross any lines, but, you and her ...” Costia trails off. The implied ellipsis causes a sharp pang in Lexa’s chest. She wills out of mind all previous discussions about punctuation appropriateness.
“Yeah, we’re close. Good friends.”
“Just a friend?”
Costia seems highly invested in the answer, body leaned forward against the counter, albeit an unreadable expression passes on her face.
“She’s my best friend.”
Costia’s smile widens at her clarification.
“Glad to hear it.” Her gaze drops to the red cardstock sticking out of Lexa’s book.
The reminder gives Lexa a bolster of courage.
“Costia, about the cards.”
“What about them?”
That’s a good question.
—
Yes;
Lexa finds Clarke curled up in their spot. She looks cosy and warm if not small and sad.
“Lexa? What are you doing here?”
Clarke immediately wipes at her eyes but not quick enough for Lexa to miss the red rim around them. She’s instantly by Clarke’s side and cups her face. Fingers sweep over the wetness.
They haven’t talked since Clarke’s abrupt departure yesterday. Save but some stilted texts last night and this morning, communication has been painfully lacking. Lexa’s attempts to talk over the phone had gone straight to voicemail.
“I thought you were on your date with Costia?” Clarke asks, sniffling.
Lexa shakes her head.
The library is emptier than usual and they are granted rare privacy as Lexa scoots closer, pulling Clarke practically into her lap.
The rearrangement brings something into Lexa’s view.
Behind Clarke is a box of dates and chocolates.
“Costia is not the one who set up this elaborate scheme and got the archivist’s help to ghostwrite these cards and insert them into my reference books, filled with imagery deliberately drawn worse than she’s capable of, then disparaged her own pun mastery to throw me off the scent.”
“How did you know?” Clarke asks. Tears drying up.
“Because, she’s not the one who makes my heart beat. You are, Clarke.”
Lexa threads the fingers of one hand through Clarke’s hair, gently brushing aside stray flyaways, while she lets the other hand trace a pattern over Clarke’s bottom lip with her thumb. The intent is clear, no room for ambiguity about what she would like to do next.
On Clarke’s nod, Lexa kisses her. It is not soft or gentle, but full and deep of two and a half years of want. Clarke kisses back. Just as full, just as deep.
Her mouth opens to Lexa, whole body pressing forward, hands fisting possessively at her sides. Clarke’s tongue is so warm and wet with need, Lexa can’t help the moan that falls out. She kisses harder.
“Is this assertive enough for you?” Lexa asks when they finally pull apart, though stay close. She punctuates her statement by biting into Clarke’s lower lip and drawing it into her mouth to suck on.
Clarke takes her turn to shake her head. “No, I need you to be less vague.”
So Lexa kisses her again, and again, until air becomes a necessity once more.
Panting afterward, Clarke drops her head onto Lexa’s shoulder, nuzzles into the crook of her neck. Her lips skate up and down before they place a long, lingering kiss into the base of her throat. Lexa shivers.
“If you’re my secret admirer, then why were you here crying over dried fruit? Why didn’t you say something? More importantly, why did you let me make a fool of myself in front of our librarian declining an offer to date her when she never asked, all the while she was in on the ruse?”
“She seemed like a good foil at first that you wouldn’t suspect it was me for my eventual grand reveal. That’s what I had planned for today.” Clarke indicates at the dates. “You were supposed to come to the realisation that this plebeian word-clobberer who couldn’t draw a stick figure is a poor substitute for the writer-illustrator right in front of you. I didn’t think it’d get that far that you would approach her. Then I panicked when I thought you might have actually wanted it to be her.”
“So you let Costia, who holds a PhD in comparative literature and concrete poetry, pretend to not know basic syntax?”
Clarke shrugs. “She’s a romantic and wanted to take one for the team because she saw how ridiculously I’ve been pining over you thinking it’s unrequited.”
“It’s very much requited.” Lexa assures, kissing the tip of her nose.
“You have a good poker face, in addition to having a good face,” Clarke complains, burying her head further into the curve of Lexa’s shoulder.
“If there’s any doubt left,” Lexa affirms, repeating, “you’re the one.”
Clarke emerges from her hiding spot to ask,
“Be mine?”
Lexa pulls the card in question from her bag and scribbles down her answer.
Yes;
“Why the semicolon?” Clarke asks, curious and smiling.
“It’s because you’re both a full stop and a comma to me. Everything I could want. Period. End of sentence. But also, comma, and more.”
“I think I have a newfound appreciation for the grammar of love,” Clarke concludes, then with a burst of enthusiasm, declares, smile lopsided, “You can put an exclamation point on that!”
Lexa laughs.
Kisses her breathless.
“I heart beet you. Happy Valentine’s Day, Clarke.”
“I love you, too. Happy Valentine’s Day, Lexa.”
*****