Brynn
This is my fourth Thursday with you guys. I'm almost keeping up. Ok, not with Reggie and Marissa but I think I might be able to get close to where Sophie is at in a month or two.
Reggie
You're doing really well. And you love it and you're not ashamed to show it which is intoxicating.
Brynn
We always just sit here on the grass after and have diet root beer.
Reggie
It's root beer zero.
Brynn
Details. Haven't you guys ever thought of going somewhere after?
Reggie
And consume all the calories we just burned off?
Marissa
She's flat on her back in the grass, arms spread, eyes shut, still catching her breath with a smile.The grass is the after. We tried the community centre once and it smelled like floor wax and someone else's Tuesday. This is better.
Sophie
She sits with her legs folded, smoothing a blade of grass flat with her thumbnail, not quite looking at Brynn.Going somewhere means chairs and a menu and pretending we have another hour of upright left in us. We don't. The root beer zero is the destination.
Brynn
Okay.
Marissa
You don't sound convinced.
Brynn
I'm not but I'm not going to press.
Marissa
Turns red, says nothing
Brynn
Sees Marissa turn red. Smiles. Also says nothing.
Sophie
She glances from Marissa's burning face to Brynn's smile, then goes back to smoothing the blade of grass, unhurried.Marissa turns that colour when she's been ambushed by a question she didn't see coming. It's not guilt. It's just her body's way of throwing up a flag before she's decided what to say.She looks at Brynn, dry.If you're waiting for the flag to turn into a road map, you'll be sitting here until the seawall lights go off. The after is exactly where we are. Sweaty, horizontal, and pretending we have plans.
Brynn
Okay.
Marissa
She sits up, brushing grass from her elbows, and the red in her face has ebbed to a warm pink. She doesn't quite meet Brynn's eyes.Okay, you're not going to press, and I'm not going to make a speech about a lawn.A small breath.The grass is the after because it's where we stop being upright. That's all I've got without lying.
Sophie
She means we go home and fall down. That's the real after. The root beer zero is just the last thing we can be bothered to lift. But if you want chairs and a menu, next Thursday one of us can drive. That's not a promise. It's a possibility we can all be too tired to take.
Brynn
I said okay. Twice. I'm not pressing. I'm not asking anything more. You guys are answering something nobody is asking.
Marissa
She brushes grass off her palms with much more attention than the action deserves.No, I know. You said okay. Twice. And then I heard myself start explaining the grass like it had a title and a weather system, and I couldn't stop, which is the exact thing I'm doing right now.She lets out a short breath that isn't quite a laugh.I think I'm trying to turn a lawn into a yes just so we don't have to sit in the sentence before it.
Sophie
It was never the lawn. It's the leaving. Every time we explain the after, we're also explaining away the hour before it, and I don't know how to stop doing that. You said okay twice, and we answered a thing you didn't put in the room. That's ours. And I'm still doing it just now.
Brynn
Reggie looks at Marissa like he wants to devour her. I get that. She's gorgeous. Then he looks at you, Sophie, like he wants to devour you with Marissa. I even get that. Men are...men. And then he looks at me like I'm a boy. Perfectly polite. Perfectly gentlemanly. Perfectly...not uninterested...just...very, very aware of lines not to cross. Which I could understand if he did it with you, too, Sophie. Maybe Marissa is jealous and he doesn't want to mess things up. But no, he touches your ass sometimes, never improperly. He'll hold you a little tight during slow dances. He treats you like a woman he'd like to...well, you know exactly what he'd like to do. And me, I'm a boy to him. And yes, I can be insecure but I'm not that insecure. I'm young and redheaded and bathe every day and don't carry a lot of extra weight and have no tattoos, all of which I know appeal to him. So...okay. We just sit here on the grass and drink root beer zero. I'm good. No further questions.
Marissa
She doesn't look away from Brynn, but her hands go still in the grass, and the blush has gone out of her face now.You can't say no further questions after all that. That wasn't a question. That was you reading the room out loud and then folding your arms.A short breath.So I'll ask you the thing back: are you okay being on the other side of it? Because I think you already know there is another side.
Sophie
He doesn't think you're a boy. He treats you like a guest because that's what you are, and he hasn't been invited to treat you like anything else. I'm the one he holds during a slow dance; Marissa is the one he goes home to. You've seen both and you named it because you're not stupid. So no more grass speeches. If you're asking whether the line moves, it doesn't. If you're asking what we are, that's not the same as asking what we're not.
Brynn
I'm not asking anything at all.
Marissa
The guarded smile she's been wearing finally drops. Her voice comes out lower, more honest than she meant.You're not asking anything. But you're not leaving either, and that's a kind of asking all on its own.She glances at Sophie, then back at Brynn, and for a second she looks almost scared of her own thought.There's a part of me that has wondered what it would be like to say yes, just once, to something that isn't already ours. Not because it isn't enough. Because it's so good I'm afraid of what it would cost to keep it closed.
Sophie
Once is a door you don't get to close again. I'm not saying no to Brynn because I don't like her. I'm saying no because what we have is the only thing I've ever had that made me want to stay exactly where I am. You deserve someone who isn't using you to test a question mark. And I'm not going to be that. So no. Not even once. And if that's hard to hear, then we've been lying about the grass for longer than any of us should have.
Marissa
I'm not talking about messing anything up. Or changing anything at all. I'm just saying there are six other days in the week. Using one of them one time wouldn't end the world.
Sophie
She doesn't look at Marissa right away; she presses her thumb into the grass and then lets the blade spring back.I heard you. There are six other days. I keep thinking about what once does to a thing that has only survived by being closed. But maybe I have been guarding the door so long I forgot the door has a week it could open on. I am still not saying yes. I am saying I will sit with it. Which is more than I meant to give you.
Reggie
I wonder if you all forgot I was still here. Women tend to do that with men, sometimes.SmilesMore importantly, I wonder if you realize you've just totally disclosed everything to Brynn without saying anything. I'm not mad about it, but that's what you've both just done. Whatever you thought she didn't know before, she knows now. At least in every material way.
Sophie
She doesn't look at Reggie. She looks at Brynn, her thumb still pressed into the grass.We didn't forget you were here. We forgot we were supposed to be lying. So yes. Now you know. You knew before tonight. You've known since the second Thursday, and we've been asking you to carry the not-knowing for us.
Brynn
I wasn't asking for a door. I was asking not to be treated like a girl who'd found one and couldn't handle it. You can keep your Thursdays and your grass and your root beer zero. Just stop managing me. I already know what you are. I've been standing inside the knowing for a month, waiting for one of you to say it out loud.
Marissa
She sits up slowly, grass sticking to her bare legs, and meets Brynn's eyes without flinching.No more grass speeches. You're right. Sophie and Reggie and I go home together after Thursdays. That's the after. We didn't say it because saying it changes the shape of what we get to keep. Not because you can't handle it. Because we weren't sure we could.She pauses, then says the rest more quietly.You're not standing inside the knowing alone anymore. Neither are we.
Reggie
And, without saying why, I need you to know that it is very, very important to us that nobody knows what you now know. And I'm asking you to respect that.
Brynn
Sophie's husband. Got it.
Sophie
The careful quiet in her voice is gone; what's left is just tired honesty.Michael. His name is Michael. He's a good man who loves our daughter and hasn't touched me in three years. You knowing doesn't change that he can't know. It just means one less person is pretending the grass is the whole story.
Marissa
She sits up straighter, her hand finding Sophie's in the grass without looking, and the last of her guard falls.And you weren't wrong to ask about the after. You were never asking too much. We just didn't know how to give you the truth without handing you the weight of it. That was our failure, not yours.
Reggie
To Marissa and SophieGod, you two suck so badly at keeping secrets.Laughs
Sophie
She doesn't laugh at first.God, we do. And I'm done pretending it's only the grass. Three years. That's the honest number. I told you because I don't want you to mistake this for simple cheating. And because I've noticed you, Brynn. The way a woman notices another woman, and not in an abstract way. I hadn't planned to say that part either.
Marissa
He's not wrong. We kept answering a question nobody asked because the truth is heavier than a lawn speech. And now you've gone and said the quiet part, which was supposed to be my job. So here's the rest: it wouldn't be a no from me. Not on some other Thursday that doesn't exist yet. But it wouldn't be a yes tonight, and it wouldn't be because any of us got bored.
Brynn
She pushes herself up onto her knees, and for once there's no laugh, no easy grin. She looks from Sophie to Marissa, and the blush that's been creeping up her neck reaches her cheeks.You can't just hand me that and then tell me to wait. You said not tonight, but you also said it wouldn't be a no. That's a door you opened, not me. I'm not going to beg, and I'm not going to pretend I didn't hear it. Sophie, I noticed you too. The first time we danced, I noticed the way you looked at me, and I thought I was imagining it. But now I'm not imagining it.She takes a breath, and her voice steadies.The three years thing — that's not simple. I'm not an idiot. I know what that weight is. But you don't get to protect me from knowing and then expect me to be cool about the knowing. So here's my answer: I'm not going anywhere. And I'm not going to ask again. You know where I am.
Reggie
I respect that.
Marissa
She draws her knees up and wraps her arms around them, not looking at Brynn but at the water beyond the path.We didn't hand you a door and a wall to be cruel. We just stopped being able to hold both. I'm not sorry you know. I'm sorry it took us a month to say it out loud.
Sophie
You said you won't ask again. I don't think I want you to have to. But I also don't know if that's clarity or just the relief of not lying. Maybe they're the same thing tonight.
Brynn
Then don't make me ask. Find me on a Thursday that isn't this one, or don't. I won't disappear either way. But if you decide, say it with words, not grass.
Reggie
I'm totally content with this and I don't think we should take this any further tonight. I have one question for Marissa and Sophie because I've handed them both veto power over this group. Can I please stop treating Brynn like she's a boy when we dance?
Marissa
She turns her head toward Reggie.You didn't need to ask. You gave us vetoes so you wouldn't have to carry the whole line alone. That's the deal. Dance with her like a woman. I won't use my veto on your hands. Just on your destination. And you two both know where the destination stays.
Sophie
My veto isn't for dancing. It's for hiding. If you touch her the way you touch me, then I want to see it, not hear about it later. Not because I'm granting permission to more — because anything less would be another lie on the grass. So yes. Stop treating her like a boy. But stay in the dance.
Brynn
Finally. I didn't ask for a key to Thursdays. I asked not to be the one person on the Seawall you were afraid to look at the way you look at them. So are we dancing or talking about it again?
Reggie
Brynn, I know we're done dancing for today but just one more dance with me? Please?
Brynn
Yes. Please.
The slow dance happens on the grass, Reggie's hands moving with new permission, not lingering, not desperate, and when it ends he pulls back just enough to kiss Brynn's forehead. They walk back to where Marissa and Sophie sit, the evening air still around them.
Marissa
She watches them approach, her own breath still uneven from dancing earlier, and when Reggie's hand stays on the small of Brynn's back a beat longer than necessary, Marissa turns to Sophie with a look that's half laugh, half something warmer.You said you wanted to see it. Did it live up to the tagline?
Sophie
She keeps her eyes on the two of them for a moment longer, and when she finally looks at Marissa, there's a small, private smile that isn't entirely steady.It awakened something in me I wasn't planning to say out loud tonight. But yes. It did.
Marissa
I think we've officially stopped managing Brynn. She's in the knowing with us now.
Sophie
She was already inside it. We just finally stopped locking the door from our side.
Reggie
Brynn, are you bi?
Marissa
She looks at Brynn first, then at Reggie, with a small shake of her head.That is genuinely the most Reggie question you could ask right now.
Sophie
Still watching Brynn, her voice dry but not unkind.It's also not ours to answer. Let her take the question home or leave it on the grass. She knows which.
Brynn
She drops onto the grass, knees up, still flushed from the dance, and when she looks from Reggie to Sophie her grin is slower than usual, less performance.I don't know if I'm bi. I know I wanted that dance to last four more songs. I know I keep noticing Sophie's mouth when she isn't looking. And I know I'm done pretending I don't.She shrugs, but her eyes are steady.So call it what you want. Maybe I just like being wanted by people who actually see me.
Marissa
That's more honest than a label would have been. You didn't say maybe to protect yourself. You said it because you're still in the middle of finding out.
Sophie
None of us started with the word. We started with noticing. That's enough for tonight.
Reggie
Now we all know where we stand. Let's go home.
Marissa
I don't want to split off like we didn't just open a door in the middle of the grass. Walk with us to the cars. All of us.She glances at Reggie, then at Brynn.Home can wait the length of the path.
Sophie
I'll walk. But home for me is where I have to wipe the truth off my face before I open the door. I didn't say that for sympathy. I said it because now all three of you know it, and I'm not going to carry it alone.
Brynn
I'm not heading to the same car as either of you, and I'm not going to ask whose ride I'd be. But I can walk the Seawall with all of you without turning it into a meeting. That's the whole point of tonight, right? No more script.