Unlike every other morning, despite the fact that it should've been the one morning to rush through her routine, Rae didn't rush through her morning routine. She woke up a good thirty minutes before her alarm, and instead of using the extra time to make breakfast or get a cold shower out of the way, she stood at the end of her bed and stared at it, the defined outline of her body in particular, wondering how much she'd need to weigh for the bed— and the floor— to break. It wasn't a thought that rooted from any sort of insecurity on her weight, but rather from a somewhat child-like interest in the absurd.

Perhaps, if she fell one story down, right in the bedroom of her young, party-animal neighbors who loved to keep her up at night during the weekends with their loud music, it would've been one fantastic tale to tell everyone she knew, and heck, she could appeal to her chatterbox of a sister's tastes for once, had she wanted to, by doing just that!

Rae would laugh at the surprise in her neighbors' faces, and tell them it couldn't be helped; that their beats were 'so sick' they summoned her. She would ask those little twenty-year-olds for a drink and insist on being the life of the party forever and always, make them so embarrassed they would never turn up their stereos again, or move out altogether. Though, the rent for their building was way too cheap to walk away from for a reason as simple as embarrassment. Every tenant in the fifth floor thought so, at the very least; she's seen them around since the first day she moved there, and that was all the way back when Diamond was barely out of her diapers. None of them have moved out as of yet, regardless of all the plumbing issues and overall lack of maintenance for the building by whoever the landlord hired— if they hired anyone at all.

With the tips of her fingers, Rae traced the fuzzy surface of her flannel bedsheet, and the warm, sunken part of the bed where her body had rested on less than thirty minutes ago. She allowed her muscles to relax. She closed her eyes, and wondered some more about what it would take for her to sink all the way down to the floor, and beyond. She wondered how it would feel to be pulled down to the ground by gravity, down to the fourth floor of her building, where her young neighbors lived, from where she now stood. Then the third floor, and the second... the first... below the barren soil by the entrance of the building, where wildflowers should've grown last spring... and then, all of a sudden, something whispered in her ear.

In the softest of voices, in the most gentle of voices, something caught her attention, kept her mind locked in place, kept it from wandering within the walls of itself.

Something asked Rae where she was. It had a familiar tone, one she heard every day, one that came directly out of her mouth whenever she uttered a word. She just never thought she'd hear it out of her; as if she were a whole other person, as if it'd come out of someone else's mouth rather than her own, enough to pick up on all that existed beneath the light feel of its tone, of itself. It was low, restrained. Subdued. Had she ever paid attention to it before? Had she ever taken the time out of her day to poke at it, look into it?

No, she had no time for that. She never did, never could. Never wanted to. Why, again?

As Rae rubbed the raised hairs of her bedsheet between her fingers, her voice, in a soft whisper, asked once again where she was. It went a step further, too. It asked why there were weights on its limbs, why the room had no beat, no song. Rae didn't know what to do. Rae didn't know what to reply with. She didn't understand.

She breathed in, then out. She fixed her throat, prepared herself to say things she had little to no clue of, things like 'somewhere only we know,' 'where time is money,' and '(not) between duty and happiness.' She then opened her eyes.

Rae stood in place, frozen, save for the gasp that escaped her, and the constant curling and uncurling of her toes── toes that failed to be grazed by the rough carpet fibers of her bedroom, because she wasn't in her bedroom.

Yes, she wasn't in her bedroom. Contrary to what she'd expected, she was elsewhere, in a bedroom that wasn't hers. Instead of a plastic dirty clothes bin, there was a six-feet-long metal coat rack by the entrance of the room, and the entrance itself wasn't across the bed, it was right next to the lily-white nightstand pressed against the bed, where an antique table lamp rested beside a bright, hardcover book. The walls, the ceiling, were painted with a dulled shade of pastel pink rather than beige. There was a long desk in the far end corner of the room. A laptop, a dirty mug, loose pieces of paper, and dozens upon dozens of pens and pencils, were sprawled along the desk's surface. A tangled laptop charger clung to a leg of the chair by the desk, and books of all colors, shapes, and sizes were littered across the room. A wide, half-finished bookshelf collected dust in the only part of the room with empty space, along with its instruction manual, which was tucked in one of the five built shelves.

Beneath Rae there was a smooth, hardwood floor, cool to the touch. She didn't have to look down to know that it was stone grey, with a beautiful shine that was meticulously maintained once every three months. Rae would know. She happened to be there almost every time it happened. Except the last time it was polished, perhaps...

Rae licked her lips and rubbed the bedsheet between her fingers some more.

Its fabric didn't have a fuzzy feel to it anymore.

As soon as she felt the difference, she looked down at her hands. A lump formed in her throat. The satin bedsheet matched the pastel walls of the room that wasn't hers. It was gentle on the skin, ultra-soft. Lightweight. The same feel of her nightcap, if not a thousand times better. Rae should've seen it coming.

Rae licked her lips again, except she didn't. She couldn't. She froze on the spot again, held her breath. From the corner of her eye, Rae spotted movement. The shuffling of a blanket. There was someone on the bed.

Three seconds in, their head moved to the side of the room Rae stood on, and cuddled up to their body pillow. They were asleep.

Rae's face burned at the sight of them. The blanket covered a good part of their naked figure, but still left too much out in the open for all to see, and they were drop-dead gorgeous.

Their cheekbones were perfectly sculpted, and complemented by the wide nose in between. A thick pair of glasses usually rested on its long bridge, but for now, with their owner sound asleep, a long, natural pair eyelashes stole the spotlight.

In the intricate headwrap of the sleeping beauty, Rae knew healthy, densely-packed curls with sheen thrived, curls with sheen that took Rae's breath away whenever their owner let them out.

Their rich, midnight black skin was flawless, as if coated by the Cosmos itself; their dark skin was kissed by patches of white, and within said patches, tiny, permanent red spots stood out. There were worlds within worlds in their skin, a skin so blessed, so beautiful, that it glowed under the warm light that peeked in from the windows across the room, above their desk. Rae admired its feel from afar, a feel she knew was as soft as a baby's bottom── the result of many years' worth of massaging shea butter on skin after a shower.

That person on the bed was gorgeous, there was no doubt about it. Rae's heart swelled with just a glance at them. She couldn't help it.

'Where am I... where am I now?'

Slowly but surely, Rae inched closer to their face; she had the sudden urge to caress the sleeping beauty's cheek. The lump in her throat grew and grew as she did so, to the point where she could hardly breathe. She couldn't swallow it down, but she didn't need to. She didn't need to breathe. Her heart pumped regardless, kept her flushed. It was just about ready to explode, and it did, when Rae's skin touched the person's. Amaya's. Rae's... friend. Old friend. No, not friend, not old friend...

You are home now.

Amaya's eyes snapped open. They met with Rae's, in all of their wonderful glory. It calmed Rae down, filled her with peace. Calm. It managed to raise up spirits Rae didn't know were down, made her believe that anything was possible. She was overwhelmed with a warm feeling that stood for a thousand others.

'Finally.'

"It's about time," Amaya purred. She nuzzled into Rae's hand, kissed it. Rae found herself grinning from ear to ear. Nothing held her down. "It's about time I called you my girlfriend, Desirae."

♦♦♦

The alarm went off, disrupted Rae from a dream that left her empty inside, left her with a sense of longing, and she knew why── it was for the same reason she'd dreamed of the sky earlier, for the same reason she cried herself to sleep last night. She couldn't hide the facts when they stared at her right in the face, when they dared to be as bold as Amaya. It was a given, though. They were inspired by her.

Checkmate for Rae. Congratulations to Amaya.

Rae couldn't ignore it anymore. She couldn't hide it with anger either. For now, at least.

So what now? Nothing. Nothing will change. Everything will be business as usual. Life wasn't going to stop for two women with pent-up feelings for each other. All Rae needed to do was let it all pass, until the facts that were drawn out of her by Amaya crawl back to the shitty, barren corner of Rae's brain.

Perhaps, with time, maybe Rae and Amaya could be friends again and leave it at that; with no strings attached. Or, just as likely, maybe they would never see each other again, as Rae originally intended. Either way, whatever they were before, it was over, over. And yes, it hurt Rae. It tore her apart. She couldn't hide that at the moment. It hurt Rae to not see her, it was no wonder that it would manifest in her dreams just hours after hearing the pain in Amaya's voice. But it had to be done.

Rae couldn't afford to risk the plans she had for the future ahead of her, the plans she had to follow to prove to herself that she was capable of being the best mother she could be, despite all that her parents and her sister believed about her, despite the history they always pinned against her, just because of the things she'd done when she had yet to be mature enough to understand the gravity of her actions or what responsibilities were, when she felt in her heart that she wasn't loved or valued by her family, when she was constantly compared to extended members of their family who were "smarter" and more "capable" than her, when she was told that all she had was good looks by both friend and foe.

So a confession by the most wonderful woman in the world wasn't worth anything to Rae, if she set her priorities straight.

She had to do what a good mother must above all else, and a good mother didn't take away time that could be spent on her child to party, date, or sleep around with whoever she pleased. No distractions. Any time that was spent away from the child involved the child in one way or another; Rae's job, for instance, was necessary to provide food, shelter, and a constant flow of money coming in to the savings account she had opened up for Diamond's college tuition since the very first month of her life outside of the womb.

A good mother was more or less a born-again virgin. She had to think of her child twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Any free time was time to tend to her child. There was no such thing as true free time, save for the time the father cared for the child, and even then, a good mother would never not check-up on them.

Amaya's dangerously enticing confession reinforced Rae's sense of her duty as a mother, simple as that. Reinforced a duty that had slowly but surely faded away every time she visited Amaya's house on the days Prince was in charge of caring for Diamond.

It was all because Amaya happened to be sneaky. She sneaked in past Rae's defenses── no, strolled past them, in the guise of a friend. So the distance was good. It needed to be done. Feelings that shouldn't have surfaced, surfaced, and it was Amaya's fault; Rae was fine with never dealing with the feelings she'd developed for Amaya. Rae planned to keep them locked down forever, deep in her heart.

Why did Amaya have to put them in the spotlight? They would have remained friends had she not done it. But then, again, their... enigmatic? relationship would've never been put to an end. It needed to be done, it had to. No matter how much it hurt her throat, her lungs, her heart. No matter how many tears she bled.

One day, Rae would be wholeheartedly grateful for what went down three months ago. For now, she just had to swallow all of her pain down.

Rae lifted her head up from the bed, slid a wrist past the drool on her mouth, and brought herself up from her knees. She didn't know how long she'd fallen asleep for, but surely, her knees shouldn't have been aching as much as they were from kneeling on the carpet for less than thirty damned minutes. It's not like she had any knee problems, and her legs were at their physical peak; she trained them almost every day with all that she had to do at her job. Delivering mail wasn't as easy as it looked.

Rae sighed as she pressed the snooze button for her alarm, and skimmed through all of the forty-eight notifications on her phone. They were all text messages Amaya had sent throughout the night. Rae erased them all, promptly. She then walked over to the small window of her bedroom and pulled its curtain to the side. Once she saw the view, she shook her head.

The world couldn't be any more straight-forward.

There was no such thing as a baby blue sky── not in Rae's reality── but there was a bland, gray one, concealed by a dark sea of clouds that looked down on her.