Maybe it wasn’t Skylar at all, because, really, she didn’t know the girl. She didn’t know the first thing about her, about her past, about her family. Maybe she was just missing Lacey more than ever, and was translating those feelings into a petty ‘crush’ on this woman she’d met only yesterday. If this was true, she had to have a good look at herself. She had to figure out who she was again, and reevaluate what she thought about the young woman she’d just had sex with. Billie didn’t say anything for a little while, allowing Skylar to taker her hand, talk and then kiss it. Skye thanked her, and asked her to meet with her for a late lunch in the tavern, which made her stomach twist with an anxiety she couldn’t explain.
After a moment more of fairly heavy silence she nodded “Okay” She agreed simply “We’ll meet later.” She shook her head “And thanks to you as well.”She said “It was… the best time I’ve had in years. Don’t know what that says about my life” She shrugged. That part was true, the whole night, the sparring, the dinner, the sex, all of it had been the happiest she’d been in a long time. She didn’t consider herself to be an unhappy person, but she had been lonely. She’d accepted that she needed some sort of human interaction to keep her sanity. Even if other people just made her uncomfortable most of the time, in small doses they weren’t so bad.
She let Skylar go, holding the door open for her and sending her off with a quick farewell. Before closing the door and collapsing down onto her bed again. She didn’t know why, but everything she been NOT letting herself feel for years decided to pour out of her, leaving her the pathetic, crying child she’d been when she was growing up. She hated it, unproductively laying there, feeling sorry for herself, missing lacey, not knowing who she was. She’d been so sure of it before. She was strong, she was positive, she never stopped moving forward. But she’d been stagnant and still for so long, too afraid even to read a letter that could possibly change something in her life, because it could possibly change something in her life.
The sex just felt dirty now. It felt like she had just been using Skylar unconsciously to cover up the ache in her chest. And that was wrong. She despised using other people like that: it was dishonest. Obviously that didn’t mean that she didn’t like it, and it didn’t mean that she was going to let go of Skylar. She liked her far too much, and without her the pool of people she could form a potential friendship with was limited.
When Billie lifted her hand to her face she was almost shocked to find that her cheek was wet. “Crying? How pathetic…” She muttered in Nari, as if it was Sadie who’d said it. If Billie didn’t know who she was without Lacey, she had failed herself. She had to fix that, and that meant being honest with herself. She was lonely, and that was why the flirting had drawn her in so easily. Skylar had a few things in common with Skylar, their background, their love for unarmed combat, their sexual preference, and that is what had drawn her in. She was currently afraid of the next big change that could happen to her life, mainly because of how the last one had ended, which was why the idea of opening up the letter terrified her so much.
Now that she had considered all that, she felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her chest. Now all she had to do was act on it all. She would go and meet up with Skylar, not because she was lonely, but because she liked her, and she wanted too. Then, that evening she would open the letter, and read it. There was no putting it off anymore. Two birds, one stone.
From there… well, she’d work it out. She always did.
