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The first kiss was the worst, she figures.
It wasn’t glamorous, the way it was supposed to be. It was prom night, her senior prom, and all of her friends were going to kiss their dates and it was going to be magical. But it wasn’t magical.
Alex hadn’t gone to any school dances, she didn’t date. She didn’t have time. School was too important. She hadn’t even thought about guys until the spring of her senior year, when prom was coming and the buzz of the dance floated around the hallways. Alex had applied to five different schools and got into all of them, each having an outstanding pre-med and science program. So, when the cute boy on the track team — the one her friends had been pushing her towards — asked her to the dance, she said yes.
She was excited — she could go with her friends and with Kara to pick out a dress and get her hair and nails and make up done. She could talk about her date with all the rest of the girls and anticipate what the night was going to be like.
She was scared, though. All the other girls wanted to kiss their dates, hook up with their dates, and that terrified Alex. She knew how she was supposed to feel — she was supposed to want to kiss a boy, she was supposed to dream of the moment — but she wasn’t sure if she felt the same way the other girls did. She did her best to feel the way they described, though. She tried.
So prom night came, and Alex walked down the stairs in her long red dress, holding Kara’s hand as they found their mother and Alex’s date at the bottom of the stairs. Kara was wearing a short pink dress with her hair curled, and Alex fingered a blonde curl as the two hugged. Eliza’s camera snapped. Alex’s date took her hand, gave her a flower. Kara and Eliza swooned. The three took pictures together. Eliza cried when she took pictures of Alex and her date. She was so proud tha this nice, good-looking boy was taking her oldest daughter to the dance.
For years after, Alex heard her mother’s voice saying, “What a nice boy he is. You are so lucky to have a boy like that be interested in you.” All she wanted in life was to make her mother proud, the way she was the night of senior prom.
The dance was fun. All of Alex’s friends were there, arms linked with those of their dates. Alex and her date were immediately whisked to the dance floor by Vickie Donoghue —Vickie, her best friend, the most beautiful girl in school, whose touch was soft and for some reason made Alex’s skin tingle — and they talked and laughed and danced. She saw Kara, mostly with one of her friends. The DJ played their sister song — a horrible, upbeat pop song that Kara had made her listen to during her punk phase — and she grabbed Kara’s hand and danced with her little sister.
When the boy kissed Alex, at the end of the night, she didn’t know what to do. They were on the edge of the dance, where the music was muffled and the lights were low. The boy tenderly took her hand and placed his other hand on her cheek, and he kissed her slowly. She forced herself to close her eyes and relax, but she didn’t feel anything. She was acutely aware of his lips on hers and the way he pressed into her, and she tried to mimic his movements until it was too awkward and she had to stop. It was her first kiss. It was supposed to be bad and awkward, wasn’t it?
It didn’t matter, anyway, because high school was over and she left for college in the fall. She was going to make new friends, get great grades, get accepted into the best medical school in the country. Her roommate took her to a party in the first month of school, and it was out of Alex’s element, but she went with it. She had a little too much to drink, and she found herself in the arms of some hunk who kissed her hard and sloppy. She didn’t like it. She hated it, actually, But they were drunk and so it made sense.
At the beginning of second semester of freshman year, this nerdy boy from Alex’s biology class finally got the courage to ask her out. He was very attractive and very smart, everything she could have ever wanted in a boy. They went on a few dates, studied together, met at parties. They were official boyfriend and girlfriend by march, and Alex couldn’t have been happier. He kissed her, and she didn’t hate it as much as the other kisses she’d shared. He was gentle and respectful and kind.
She took him home for spring break. He was only staying for a week, because his family was taking a vacation, but he had wanted to meet the Danvers family. Eliza was elated, and Kara was excited to meet her big sister’s college boyfriend she had heard so much about. Eliza gushed over how handsome and smart he was. He helped clean the kitchen after meals, played board games with them, and fixed some things around the house. Alex was so happy that she had found a man and made her mother proud.
The first time they had sex was on his last night in Midvale. It wasn’t ideal, because Alex’s bed was small and Kara was in the next room over. But it happened and Alex didn’t enjoy a bit of it. It hurt her everywhere and she didn’t feel anything good about it. Once her boyfriend left, she stopped answering his texts and calls. She finally left him a voicemail saying they were over. She was hurt and confused, didn’t know why she didn’t feel comfortable during sex. It scared her.
It wasn’t until the next school year, towards the middle of the year, that she realized sex wasn’t something she enjoyed. She had gone on dates, never getting too close to anyone for fear that what had happened before would happen again. She had tried to have sex, a few times, and nothing seemed right. She figured that it wasn’t something she really wanted. She just wasn’t made to enjoy sex. It made her feel hollow inside, like she couldn’t really be normal. Over time, she figured out how to be confident again. It wasn’t the way she was built, and there wasn’t anything wrong with it. She went on dates and didn’t find the right person and that was fine with her. She had time.
Her college breakdown was where things had come to the surface. She stopped talking to her family. She got wasted every night, messed around with guys, trying to find some purpose. If she wasn’t going to be a doctor, wasn’t going to have the perfect career, then she had to fulfill the other part of her dreams — having the perfect man and raising a family. That was a little hard to do, seeing as though she was depressed and wasted all the time. Then, the DEO found her.
Once she started working for the DEO, she didn’t have to date anyone to feel happy. She could protect people, protect Kara. Her little sister moved to National City, and their relationship grew exponentially. She never told Kara about her dating life or her feelings, though. She was just going to live with it. No big deal. She didn’t even have time to date.
The day she met Maggie Sawyer was the best day of her life. Maggie was strong, she was smart, she was beautiful (and Alex only observed the last part — it didn’t mean anything. Lots of women were beautiful). They had butted heads, had become allies, and maybe even partners in a span of forty-eight hours. When Maggie took her to the bar, came out to her, her heart began to race for some odd reason. She was okay with gay people. She had met a few in college, knew they were nice and friendly. There were gay men and bisexual people in the DEO. Something about Maggie was different, though. No one had been that candid with her. No one had just said, outright and casually, that they were gay. No one trusted her that easily.
So maybe that’s why she was jealous when Maggie left the DEO for her date. Because someone else had Maggie’s trust. Because someone else knew an important part about Maggie.
She still couldn’t explain why her heart raced every time she saw Maggie. It was like a struggle to keep her cool, to be the suave DEO agent she was. Maggie threw her off her game whenever she looked at her with those deep brown eyes and smiled her dimpled-smile.
It came up in waves. Winn said something about “liking” or “feelings” and “Maggie” in the same sentence, and the words seemed to fit. She went to the crime scene and couldn’t help but ask Maggie to do things with her. Then, Maggie thought she liked girls, and the thought was so… right that it was unbelievable. And Alex ran. She ran to Kara, and Kara needed help, so she did what she did best and helped Kara. But she didn’t have time to talk out her own feelings. She was too scared to tell Kara. So she went to Maggie, the one person who understood her.
Her feelings for Maggie were very real, and they only grew in that bar as Maggie tilted her head and smiled and understood. She grew brave, supported by the woman that she had feelings for. And it Maggie’s prompting gave her the courage to come out to Kara.
That was why she kissed her.
It had been a long day, emotionally trying and physically challenging. She had bared her feelings to Kara, asking for help and love and acceptance, she had nearly lost her sister twice to a parasite, had spewed truth to Mon-El, and inspired M’gann to help J’onn. She just needed to be with the person she wanted most: Maggie.
She kissed her. It was the first kiss that she had initiated, and she couldn’t believe that she had even done it. It was pure instinct, instinct that was molded and shaped through years as a DEO agent. She reached her hand out, grabbed Maggie’s arm, and kissed her. And, oh God, was it the best feeling she’d ever had. There was a spark that traveled from her lips and to her heart. Maggie was warm and soft, she wasn’t rough and demanding like other men that she had kissed. It was a split second, and Maggie pressed back.
Until she didn’t.
And her heart stopped, because she had wanted it for weeks, and she finally realized how good it could feel, and how much she had wanted to kiss Maggie.
But Maggie pulled away, and she couldn’t hear. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and she left.
She sat in her apartment -- her apartment with it's blue color scheme and its perfect fabrics and tables and chairs and plates that matched (she didn't know why she spent so much time and effort decorating her apartment in such away when she spent more time out of it than in. She slept at the DEO more often than not, maybe because she didn't want to feel so alone.) -- and drank to keep her tears at bay and drank to forget that she was gay and drank to forget about that stupid, stupidly beautiful cop that she had kissed.
It was the best kiss she'd ever had.