On our third day, we went to visit an electronic art museum. Fine art was all good and dandy, but if I have to say, this was definitely the best part of our trip. Everything was interactive, and a lot of it was absolutely surprising. There were inanimate objects turned into “living” creatures, rooms that seemed to stretch to infinity, places that turned motion or touch into sound and color, the list goes on. We all laughed a lot at each surprising discovery.

We then spent our last afternoon of the trip visiting a couple of smaller museums, mostly showcasing art from foreign cultures. Ocean knew a lot about foreign art, and half of the time we spent there was just listening to Ocean illuminate us with her wisdom.

“Say,” she said, once we left, “we still have a bit of time before we have to get back to the hotel. This is a bit against the rules, but why don’t we go somewhere else? For the fun?”

“I don’t know,” said Tabatha. “I’m down with anything, but I really don’t want to get teach mad at us. We can’t be long.”

“She won’t be,” said Ocean. “I’ll text her, telling her where we’re going.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“I was thinking we could visit a couple of art galleries,” she said. “I wanna get featured in one of them, someday, so I figured it would be helpful to go and see what kinds of stuff they have in there.”

“That’s clever,” Tabatha pointed out. “And I bet teach will be okay with that, too.”

“Great!” said Ocean, giggling. “Thanks girls.” She opened her phone and called us a car. Minutes later, we were walking around at the city center, and I was surprised to find out that there really was a sizeable number of art galleries in there.

We walked into one of them.

This one had mostly photography, plus a few collages. Every once in a while, Ocean stopped before one of those, and asked us for our opinions on it. Photography wasn’t really my forte, to be fair, but I figured that a lot of what I had learned about painting could also be applied here, so I went with that.

“What about this one?” she asked me.

She had stopped by a black and white photograph of two naked women facing each other. They had ropes tied to their arms and legs, and those trailed off the edge of the picture. Aside from that, it was a very intimate, sensual shot. And for that reason, it made me a little uneasy.

“It’s okay,” I told her, then pretended to be admiring another photograph.

“It’s okay?” Ocean repeated, sounding disappointed. “Honestly, Polly, I expected more from you.”

“It’s a nice shot,” I said. “The lighting is good, I like how strong the contrast in it is, and the composition is well balanced.”

I tried to keep my analysis of that photograph as technical as possible. I was fairly sure that by doing that, there was no way she would notice how I really felt about the picture, or about its subject. Unfortunately, though, that did not sit well with Ocean.

“Come on,” she told me, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me back to the picture. “You can do better than that.”

She placed me right in front of the frame, and let go of my arm, then waited expectantly beside me.

I sighed. Might as well give her my honest opinion of it.

“It’s sad,” I told her. “They’re so close that at first glance it looks like they’re about to kiss, but then you realize neither of them looks happy, and they aren’t really looking into each other’s eyes. There are all these ropes binding their arms and legs, and even if those look like they’d be drawing them away from each other, the truth is that the ropes are just lying on the floor, not tensioned. It’s not like they’re trying to reach out for each other, but are restrained from it. It’s more subtle. They could reach out for each other if they tried, but they’re not doing it, so why? Maybe they’ve convinced themselves that it’s impossible. If that’s how it is, one could interpret that the real restraints are within them.”

Ocean chuckled. “Bravo,” she said. I felt my cheeks heat up. “See? I knew you could do better.”

“What’s your interpretation of it?” I asked.

“It’s a bit different from yours,” she told me. “I don’t think it’s a sad shot at all. They’re not looking at each other, exactly, but they’re looking at each other’s ropes. I think each one wants her partner to be free, so they’re taking the time to acknowledge each other’s fears and regrets, which the author has materialized here as ropes. It’s an important step in a relationship, to recognize your partner’s limitations, even if you can’t personally do anything about them right away.”

“So you think they’re in a relationship?” I asked her.

“Don’t you?” she retorted.

“Not really” I said. “It looks to me like they’d want to, though.”

We continued to go through the photographs in that gallery. We were so entertained by those that, by the time we realized it, it was already time to go back to the hotel, and we had only managed to visit one of the galleries.

“Shit,” said Ocean, while we were waiting for the car that would take us back to the hotel. “I really wish we had a few more days.

“Me too,” I confessed. The truth is that I hadn’t expected to make any friends at all, during this trip, I never expected I’d get closer to someone like Ocean. I wished I could stay like that with her for a month, or a year, just going to visit museums and talking about art with each other. It was sad to think that, by that time tomorrow, we would be both alone in our own houses, and we’d never be able to go back to that moment.

Once we had arrived at the hotel, Tabatha was the first to call dibs on the shower, and so we were left to wait for her outside.

Ocean was on the balcony, leaning over the parapet. I was inside, just lying in bed reading a book.

“Hey, Polly, come here,” she called.

I got up from the bed and went to join her on the balcony. There wasn’t much to see from there, since we were only on the second floor and that street was lined with buildings at least twenty-stories tall.

“Watcha looking at?” I asked her, resting my arms on the parapet.

“City lights,” she declared.

We remained in silence for a moment.

“Polly, I… want to ask you a question,” she said, “but you may not want to answer it. And, like, it’s okay if you don’t, really.”

“Shoot,” I told her.

“Why are you running away?” was Ocean’s question.

I was a bit stunned by that, for a moment, and unsure if I had any idea of what she was talking about.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You,” she said, looking into my eyes for a brief moment. “When we first got here, I felt like you were avoiding me. And then again, in the morning, when we visited the classical art museum. You ran away when I asked you to undo my zipper for me, and did it once more today when I asked you about that picture in the gallery. It’s me, right? I know it is. I haven’t seen you running away from Tabatha or anyone else. Why are you running away from me?”

This time there was a longer silence. I was looking at Ocean, unsure of how to answer that, while she had her eyes fixed at some random point on the building in front of us. The longer it took me to reply, the more she looked like she was about to cry.

“Sorry,” I told her. “I didn’t mean to.”

She scoffed. “Of course you meant to. You did it so many times. Was it something I did? Or is it just that I’m gay, and you were disgusted by that?”

“I didn’t… Wait, you’re gay?” I asked, surprised. Did I really hear that right?

This time, for once, Ocean was even more shocked than I was.

“You had no idea?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“Not even the photograph?” she asked.

“I just thought you had a nice artistic take on that.”

She chuckled, then her face grew sour.

“Oh my god,” she said, putting a hand to her forehead. “Oh, shit, I just came out to you and accused you of a bunch of stuff, and you didn’t even deserve that.” She sounded a bit desperate.

“Ocean…”

“No, it’s okay. Look, I’m sorry, I guess it was all my imagination. Just… please forget I ever said anything, okay?”

“Ocean!”

She walked back into the room, and was making her way to the door.

“I was running away from you!” I yelled. That stopped her dead in her tracks. She turned around.

“What?” she asked, confused.

I walked back into the room as well.

“I was running away,” I repeated. “Because I saw you naked and you’re hot and I guess I’m gay too,” I surprised myself at how bluntly I was able to put it, but I was so scared of making Ocean cry that I felt I just couldn’t beat around the bush. “But I was scared that you’d resent me if you knew,” I admitted. “I’m sorry.”

Ocean sat down on one of the beds, and her face was a mixture of shock and amusement.

“That’s it?” she asked me. “That’s why you were avoiding me?

I sat on the bed in front of her, keeping my eyes down.

“I’m really sorry,” I told her.

“What are you talking about?” she retorted. “I can’t resent you for thinking someone’s hot. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t have changed right in front of you, but you didn’t do anything wrong. I… have a confession to make.

“After you ran away from me, on the first night, I thought you might have heard from someone that I was gay, and you didn’t want to be alone with me. I thought you were, like, prejudiced, because a lot of people are. But it turned out that you’re really sweet, and fun, and you have some really cool insights in art and all of that, I really loved talking to you these past few days, from the bottom of my heart. Still, I needed to know for real what you thought about me, so… I can, you know, reach that zipper just fine, and I had already been to that gallery before, the only reason I took you there today was because I wanted to find that picture again. I was testing you.”

Ocean looked away from me, smiling and embarrassed. I furrowed my brow, concerned.

“I guess I failed the tests,” I told her.

“Er, what? No, you didn’t. I mean, sure, you ran away from me on both times, but I quite liked your interpretation of the photograph, today. I thought that if that’s how you were able to see it, then you had to be a good person. I wasn’t wrong about you.”

“So,” I began, “does that mean we can stay friends?”

“Of course,” she answered, smiling.

“Even if I think you’re hot?”

“I think you’re hot too,” she told me.

“Come again?!” I asked, surprised.

Ocean giggled. “Oh, come on, I always thought that. I even checked you out a couple of times in school, during gym class. You’re totally hot.”

I tried to process that in my head for a moment.

“Please tell me I’m wrong…” I said, “But when you took off the bathrobe and decided to change right in front of me…”

“That wasn’t entirely by accident,” she admitted.

My jaw dropped.

“Ocean, you’re horrible!” I said, smiling.

She laughed. “Sorry, sorry. Do you still wanna be my friend?”

“Honestly?” I said. “I kinda wanna have sex with you.”

Ocean laughed again.

By then we heard the sound of someone knocking on wood. It didn’t come from the door, though, it came from somewhere on the far end of the room. We both looked, and saw Tabatha standing in the doorway to the bathroom, with a towel wrapped around her head, looking decidedly annoyed.

“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” she asked.

I blushed.

“Heeey, Tabs,” said Ocean, awkwardly. “Polly and I were just… we were just…”

“Don’t bother,” she said, walking outside. “I heard everything.” For a moment, I felt my blood run cold. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but honestly, you two are just too loud.” She unwrapped the towel from her head, and started to brush her hair. “I’m happy for you and everything,” she declared, “but you’re not having sex when I’m in this room, d’you hear?”

I felt myself blush even more than before. Ocean only laughed.

“Thanks, Tabs,” she told her. Then, looking at me, she said: “Hey, do you wanna go for a walk? So we can finish talking about this… whatever this is,” she pointed at both of us.

I nodded, and we got up and made our way to the door.

We were walking side by side in the hotel corridor, not at all in a hurry to get to anywhere in particular. Then I felt Ocean’s hand in mine, and after that she interlocked our fingers together. I felt something hot inside my chest.

“Does this bother you?” she asked me.

“No, I’m… I’m happy,” I replied. I saw a smile form on Ocean’s face. We stopped walking, and she turned to look at me.

“Hey, isn’t this like your interpretation of that photograph?” she asked me. “Like how you want to reach out for me, but you convinced yourself that it’s impossible, so you don’t even try.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “Or maybe it’s more like your interpretation, and I didn’t act on it because of my fears. That these are my limitations.”

“In my interpretation,” Ocean said, calmly, “those two were a couple.” She smiled devilishly, and that made me blush again.

“Yeah, there’s that,” I whispered to myself.

“Do you wanna try that?” she asked me. I was very conscious of the fact that we had still not let go of each other’s hand. “Being a couple, I mean.”

“Are you serious?” I asked, looking straight into Ocean’s eyes. “I mean, are you sure about this?”

She shrugged. “When are we ever sure about anything in life?”

I thought about that for a moment.

“You have a point,” I admitted.

“So…” she began. “How about you kiss me, and we stick around with each other to see where that’s gonna lead us?”

She smiled, and so did I.

“I think that sounds lovely,” I told her.

[End]