209. Chapter 209

The rims of her glasses are her safe place.

The feel like Jeremiah comforting her on the bench behind the house after Alex got stitches; they feel like Alex’s strong arms around her – she usually shies from touch, but with Alex, it’s okay, everything’s okay – when she cried after waking up from her first nightmare about Krypton exploding; they feel like Cat Grant’s eyes searching her and telling her, finally, that she always knew she’d be a reporter.

The rims of her glasses are her safe place, and when her fingers go to them, they remind her of all she is, and all she has to pretend to be for the people around her. They remind her of her range, of her depth, of her capacity to be all at once: to be everything; to be nothing; to be on the cover of CatCo Magazine every week; to be invisible.

When her fingers trace their firm outline, when the contours of her fingertips press down just slightly, adjust her glasses on the rim of her nose, comfort seeps through her. Order. It makes sense to her. The world. A little bit more. She can pretend a little bit better. And somehow, at the same time, she can be a little bit more honest. She can be a little bit more her.

She watches Alex’s hands, too, and she loves that she’s not the only one who needs them to feel safe.

Alex’s hands spread open and behind her back, kind of like a shrug, but with her hands down, with her arms splayed. Alex’s fingers find Maggie’s hair, find Kara’s hair, during movie night, and Kara thinks that maybe her hands are talking for her, too. Are comforting her, too.

She starts to watch Maggie’s hands, and she notices that when she’s about to be vulnerable, she holds her left hand just below her lips. She wrings them slightly when she’s nervous. Her thumbs swipe across Alex’s jawline, her cheeks, when they’re kissing in the corner of the bar.

When it’s movie night, their mouths are quiet except for chewing, their lips quiet except for laughter, except for kissing, except for squealing when one of them steals food from the other.

But their hands? All their hands are noisy, all their hands are talking. Maggie’s thumb swipes across Alex’s thigh; Alex’s fingers running through Kara’s hair when a scary part comes on; Kara’s thumb and index finger adjusting her glasses, her glasses, because when she’s with Alex and Maggie, she doesn’t have to stop it, she doesn’t have to hide it.

So she doesn’t. And it feels incredible.