Together

She opened her eyes slowly to find me watching her face and looked at me quizzically. "Was I talking in my sleep again?" she asked slowly as the haze of her dream dissipated.

"Yeah, but it's okay." I reached out to stroke her cheek, its warmth at once inviting and reassuring. She closed her eyes, smiling softly and sleepily.

"I dreamed of her," Kristen finally informed me.

"Angela?"

"Yeah." She made a soft sound of happiness as I continued stroking her cheek. "She's okay with it. She's okay with us. We need to be careful, but she wants us both to be happy, and she knows that we can make each other happy."

The fragment I remembered from my dream came to mind again. "Are you sure she won't be jealous?" I asked with genuine concern.

My twin sister nodded beneath my hand. "We're both barely twenty years old. She knows that you can't be expected to be alone forever just because she's no longer physically here with us."

And that was when I heard it, a very familiar voice I thought I would never hear again:

It's okay. She loves you and you love her. It's always been that way for you two, but now you can take it to the next level. Go ahead. You both have my blessing.

Through her fatigue, Kristen smiled at me in the near-total darkness and brought a hand to my chest, rubbing directly over my heart.

"You're right," I whispered, both to Kristen and to Angela, and while Kristen leaned forward to kiss my lips, I felt Angela's kiss to my cheek. I unfortunately could not hold them both, but I held my twin sister with enough tender care and love to make up for not being able to hold Angela, and I slipped back into slumber with a new outlook on the future and a new layer of love added to the bond I had long shared with Kristen.

*****

The dawn of a new day was the beginning of a new chapter of my life. While I still had the same general concerns – classes, homework, the tumultuous economy, maximizing the limited capabilities of my old laptop, trying to keep my car drivable as I saved up enough to buy a more reliable vehicle – I felt better prepared to face those challenges. Once again, I had someone at my side, someone who was more than willing to share both the good and the bad of everyday life, someone who cared for me like no one else.

In the latter respect, Kristen's care and love was very unique. It was something she and I could not share with the rest of the world, something we could not display whenever we stepped out of her apartment, but I always felt it like a massive helium-filled balloon ready to lift me up over any obstacle in my way.

That gave our first lovemaking an extra level of meaning. As that same day dawned, as the new chapter of my life was being written, I pierced Kristen's soul and filled her with my love, and as she proclaimed her love into my mouth, I sensed Angela's presence in the doorway as she watched with the joy of knowing that her two closest friends would continue on nicely, and would continue on together.