Page 26 of The Forbidden Fling

A soft hand steadied hers, and she stopped scratching. The nervous habit often left her with bloody cuticles and sore skin, but the warmth radiating from Diana’s touch gave her pause. She looked up from Diana’s manicured toenails and focused on the white wall instead.

She tried to breathe like Riley had instructed in their yoga classes. In through the nose…and out through the mouth. The chaos in her mind sank to lower levels, and when she opened her eyes, she found Diana watching her. That curious expression assessing while her thumb stroked soft circles on Faye’s wrist.

Just do it.

“I have an ostomy. A stoma,” she blurted, loud enough that it made the woman jump. So loud that everyone on the island probably heard. “That’s why I freaked out before. I was—still am—afraid of what people might think. I mean, it’s not exactly sexy, having a flapping bag of poop attached to my body.”

A flapping bag of poop? A perfect mental image for the extremely hot and sophisticated woman sitting on your bed. A puff of laughter escaped her. Then, seeing the surprise on Diana’s face, she laughed again. If the scarring image didn’t scare her off, Faye’s maniacal laughter surely would. She tipped her head back, water forming in her eyes. At this point, she didn’t know if it was from the laughter or from the sheer stupidity of her confession. It might have been a mixture of both.

Only she could have the most beautiful woman in existence kiss her and then immediately drive her away.

But Diana’s mouth cracked into a smile, and a rumble emerged from her throat, unlike one Faye had ever heard. Rich and deep and sexy in a way that it had absolutely no right to be.

When the laughter subsided, Faye’s stomach aching and tears wetting her cheeks, she brushed them away with her free hand, realising that Diana was still holding the other.

Diana didn’t pull away.

That almost made her cry real tears. The ugly, snotty kind that left her skin blotchy and red.

Luckily, Diana spoke first.

“Thank you for telling me. It makes sense now, why you reacted that way.” Her thumb continued to brush Faye’s hand. “I’m sorry if I’ve ever made you uncomfortable.”

That word again. “You haven’t. I’m the one who kissed you first, remember?”

Diana’s mouth ticked up at one side. “I do.”

The movement of her mouth—that plump, soft mouth—tugged at Faye’s belly, reminding her of the woman’s proximity to her and her bed. She suddenly realised that Diana was in her bedroom. And that she’d kissed her up against the door.

Somehow it felt like a fever dream. But no, that actually happened.

Did that mean… Diana had a crush on her, too?

The word crush felt childish and inadequate. But to call it anything more would be getting ahead of herself. Faye didn’t want to do that again.

But as Diana’s thumb circled her hand, raising the hairs along Faye’s arm and sending a tingle to her sternum, she couldn’t help the feeling swelling in her centre.

“Have you had it long?” Diana’s smooth voice pulled her gaze towards her. Her straight nose, heavenly sharp cheekbones, and her pointed chin, which, Faye just realised, had a small dimple in it. Diana raised an eyebrow when Faye didn’t answer, and added, “Your stoma?”

“Right.” Heat flushed Faye’s neck. Diana had definitely caught her hopelessly checking her out. “It’s been six months and twelve days. Not that I’ve been obsessively counting or anything.”

Diana nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a big lifestyle change.”

“Yep. Especially when I had no time to prepare for it.”

Bright white lights flashed through her vision. The hospital’s monotonous beeps had crawled inside her skull like angry crickets. The pain in her abdomen flared up on instinct, and she put her hand over it, crinkling the plastic weight in its place.

“It was an emergency op,” she said, blinking away the images. “I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease when I was eleven. Since then, I’ve been in and out of pain and had loads of different treatments. It’s weird. Sometimes, it seemed there was nothing wrong. I’d go weeks, sometimes months, without a flare-up. I could play with the kids on the street and go to the after-school gardening club. I remember the other kids talking about watching caterpillars grow until they formed their cocoons, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I didn’t want to miss a thing. I’d cross my fingers and pray, hoping the pain wouldn’t come back. But sooner or later, it always did.”

She smiled, thinking of a younger Faye sitting at her pink desk with her diary and glitter-gel pens, making sure she ate and drank the right foods. Afterwards, she’d line up her stuffed animals to pray with her to increase the odds of being heard. She wasn’t sure when she stopped praying, or believing in God, but remembering it now stirred a forgotten ache in her chest. Of wanting to be heard. Wanting to be normal.

“On bad days, I’d take my duvet and pillows and curl up on the bathroom floor. But this particular time was worse than normal. A lot worse. The pain never left, and I burned hot all over. I probably should’ve called my dads sooner, but I didn’t want to bother them.” A flash of pain ghosted through her at the memory. “The next thing I know, I’m waking up in the hospital. I’d blacked out from the pain.”

Diana squeezed her hand, grounding her. She hadn’t meant to say so much, but once the words were out, they’d tugged at a string, unravelling so much she’d kept inside.

“My bowel was so badly inflamed it had perforated, and the tearing caused a severe infection. They had to remove a significant part, so they gave me this.” Her hand brushed the bag. “My dads say I’m lucky to be alive.” Her throat thickened, and she swallowed. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”

Tears pricked her eyelids. She’d never admitted that out loud. Never dared let her thoughts linger there too long. She had to be positive and happy for her dads, to stop them worrying. David had taken so much time off work, and Lukas had cancelled his art tour. Faye hated how it had affected them. She hated being the “abnormal” one. The failure.