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The post-pageant crash wasn’t usually this hard, but Caitlyn had also never fallen on stage before.In this case, I was accidentally smacked by the winner.She had waved Diane off her so she could run into the spotlight and have her moment. While altruistic, it was also in Caitlyn’s favor – she wanted the camerasoff herand elsewhere.

She was fine. Her pride was shot and all of the negative attention created a mild viral trend of people remixing and “dueting” the video of Diane smacking her in the face and sending her to the floor. Headlines like“Midwest Infighting!”only stirred the pot more as Iowans and Kansans on the internet argued whether the plain states could be considered the “Midwest.” Caitlyn was simply glad that she didn’t get more than a bloody nose.

She received humorous applause when she attended the Monday brunch, her last pageant event before she was allowed to return home. After speeches, air kisses, and exchanging friendship bracelets Caitlyn would probably never look at again, she checked out of her hotel and escorted her mother to the airport where Christine would fly commercial back to Des Moines and Caitlyn drove home with the rest of her family.

Wasn’t it grand to be home?

“Did you even decorate for Halloween?” she asked her wife after she dragged all of her luggage through the front door. “It’s Cece’s first autumn in America. You were supposed to take her out trick or treating.”

Cecelia choked on the iced tea she had taken out of the fridge. “You are kidding me, right?” Jane asked while slamming her car keys onto their hook on the wall.

“I love that image,” Rebecca mused. “Jane, the patient guardian… Cecelia, forced into a Wonder Woman costume against her will…”

“Why are people putting me in costumes?” Cecelia asked from the kitchen.

Caitlyn was too tired to unpack. She flopped onto the couch in the living room, stretched her limbs as far as they could extend, and forbade anyone from turning on the TV in case she had to see the replay of her falling down one more time.

She would, however, take a bath in her favorite jetted tub. The same one she would be sad to leave when they eventually found a new place to live.

…But that was something fortomorrowCaitlyn to deal with.

“Today” Caitlyn had other things to think about. Although she had made peace with not winning the pageant long before she even got there, a carrot had been dangled before her. She wasn’t convinced that it would have been there had she not even made it into the top ten.I don’t think I was supposed to get as far as I did…That was her own merit, right? She had proven that she had the right to be there as Mrs. Iowa, yes?

She sorted through the mental files that was the post-pageant crash while someone lightly knocked on her bathroom door.

“Aren’t you pretty?” Caitlyn wrapped her naked arms on the side of her tub, turning her whole body toward Jane, who stood in the middle of the bathroom with her thumbs in her gray pockets. Her black turtleneck was tucked into her waistline, her hair recently trimmed and her knowing gaze caressing her wife’s cheek before Caitlyn closed her eyes. “Sight for sore eyes.”

She didn’t expect Jane to kneel next to the tub, their noses only a few inches apart from each other.

“I love you,” Jane said.

Caitlyn’s eyes fluttered open again. “What’s that for?”

“Mm, no, Cait, this is the part where you say that you love me too.”

“I mean, Idolove you, but where did that come from?”

“Aw, can a woman not say that she is smitten with the prettiest girl at the pageant? You know I like the ones that fall hardest. Speaks well of their character.”

“We are to never bring that up again.”

“Cait, please, you were taken out by the winner. A queen no taller than me practically roundhouse kicked you to the face before spiking the pigskin in the end zone.”

Caitlyn’s chin rolled along the edge of her tub as she lightly poked the tip of Jane’s nose. “How long ago did Rebecca say that, and how often have you practiced it so you could say it in front of me? Flawlessly, no less?”

“I still do not know what most of it means.”

Laughter sputtered from Caitlyn’s lips as she shook her head. Eventually, she leaned back, settling against the slope of her tub and grateful that her bubblebath smelled of calming lavender. “Did you come in here to tease me? You could have waited until I finished my bath.”

“I came in here because I missed you while you were gone.”

The statement was so simple that Caitlyn almost didn’t hear the underlying meaning. “Seriously?”

“Of course. You are my Cait.”

Her knees moved upward on their own. Her arms tightened across her chest. She blamed the sudden heat in her cheeks on the hot water, not the way Jane made her feel with a single line.

“Do you really love me?” Caitlyn asked. “Even though I didn’t win the big pageant?”