Michelle & Illania - Enough

It was the bright rays of morning light coming in through the bedroom window that woke Michelle up.  She squinted, and in her still half-asleep state, guessed it was sometime around 6 or 8 in the morning.  Even if there was a clock in the room, it wouldn’t have done her any good, seeing as her glasses were lying on the end table and she was practically blind without them.  She’d begun considering just grabbing her phone and checking the time when the rest of her senses seemed to catch up with her consciousness, and she realized that she wasn’t alone in bed.  Michelle glanced down at the sleeping woman pressed up against her, her freckled cheek snuggling into her chest and her delicate fingers resting on her shoulder.  

Even without her glasses, Michelle recognized the familiar form of Illania.  She knew the younger woman. Knew her face and form. Etched her smile into her mind and her voice into her heart.  Michelle wasn’t the best with the softer emotions, often second-guessing herself or looking at things through a detrimentally logical lens, but one thing she knew for certain was that she was in love with the freckled younger woman sleeping beside her.  She had been for as long as she could remember, and try as she might, she couldn’t shake the feelings she had for Illania.

The lightness that had filled her chest upon seeing her friend snuggling against her, and remembering the night of lovemaking and passion only scant hours earlier, was slowly replaced with a weight.  It was that dull, familiar weight of reality settling in, that feeling of “hey, your fantasies are just that, fantasies, and you need to wake up from them”. The problem, she knew, was that Illania didn’t love her back, or at least not in the capacity that Michelle desired.  She saw Michelle as a friend--a friend with benefits that suited them both, but a friend none the less--but not as a lover. And Michelle knew she was in a bad situation with this. She knew it, her friends knew it, and all she was doing, throwing herself at this beautiful, kind, wonderful woman that couldn’t reciprocate her feelings, was hurting herself.

She felt like the weight in her chest would just bore its way through her, but the lightness returned a little as she felt Illania snuggle against her, shivering ever so slightly in the cool bedroom.  Yes, it was a bad situation doomed to go nowhere, and she knew that she’d have to move on eventually, to find someone that could and would love her as she loved them. But for now, this was fine.

Michelle placed a gentle kiss on her….friend’s...forehead, and Illania stirred.  The younger woman opened her blue eyes and, though her glasses also lay on the same nightstand where Michelle’s lay, recognized her friend and occasional lover, and smiled that soft, gentle smile of hers.  “Hey,” was all she said, giving the larger woman a hug and snuggling back into her shoulder. “Hey,” replied Michelle, stroking Illania’s short dirty blonde hair.

Yes, this wasn’t perfect, or even what Michelle wanted or really needed.

But for now, it was enough.

Edit: Also, sorry for the huge spoiler pic there :/