= Sarah POV =
Present day, back at the restaurant with Heather.
"So? Do you remember? Or have you completely blocked out that memory of the time you two first met?" Heather asked.
I scooped up a big scoop of ice cream and ate it before replying.
"Ok, I'll admit it, I thought she was so hot. And she kind of ticked all my boxes. It's just that we had established that we were friends…though now that I think back about it, she did kind of … molest me on my first night sleeping in the dorm with her…oh gosh, the signs were always there," I groaned and covered my face with my hands," But she literally told me not to think that all lesbians are into all girls. And, she had a girlfriend at the time, so I assumed that whatever we did was not inherently sexual."
"And did she molest you before or after she said not all lesbians are into all girls?" Heather asked wryly, resting her head on her hand.
"A-After," I said and groaned, "I'm an idiot!" I gasped, rubbing my temples.
"Ah, don't be too hard on yourself. I'm sure you were a good friend, and she took advantage of that. My guess is she insisted that the things you two did together were friendship, and because you were so trusting, you inherently developed this distorted concept of friendship with her based on her being manipulative," Heather said thoughtfully.
I frowned and crossed my arm.
"Chris isn't manipulative…she is just…misunderstood. There has to be a perfectly good reason for her going out of her way to behave like that. If she really was manipulating me the whole time, how did she keep it up for so long?"
Heather then sighed and leaned forward, "Maybe it's because she didn't want to rock the boat?"
"By the way, as an outsider, even though we never met you, she was always talking about you like a lovesick fool and changing girl after girl every week because no one seemed to compare to you, so I can confirm to you that no, she never thought of you as her friend, and yes, she was infatuated with you from the start," Heather said and shrugged, returning to her ice-cream.
"Really? I had no idea…I never thought that I was the reason that she dated so many girls. I just thought she was, like, a player," I said.
"Sarah… Ruby and I were in the same course as her, and she refused to allow us to come by her dorm the entire time she was at the university because she said she didn't want us to 'ruin the safe space she had with the girl of her dreams'. She said that there would be too much competition, and when she said we, I'm guessing she meant Ruby," Heather said and looked at me pointedly "And now look at how things are at the café between the three of you," She said and tsked.
I felt my ear burning. I hung my head in shame, feeling bad that I had contributed to the café's issues.
"I'm sorry, I guess I really need to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with Christ to get to the bottom of all of this," I said and sighed heavily.
"Ah, don't worry about it. It's not like you can control who falls in love with you'" Heather said, crossing her arms. "Now that we have gone down memory lane and talked about your issues for the last 30 minutes, would you care to help me out with my relationship problems?" Heather asked.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry; I'm all ears," I said, pushing aside thoughts of Chris and focusing on what Heather had to say.
"Thanks," Heather said and blushed, averting her eyes in a bashful way that I had never seen on the taller, composed woman, "I think I'm falling for Amber".