Among the Stars

by Renee Porter

  “You could too, you know.”

  I laughed at that notion. “I don’t think a pop star engineer would be very popular.” I sat back down at my desk as Taylor gave me a wry smile.

  “I don’t mean you have to make it a career like how I want to. You could still do open mic nights. You have a beautiful voice.”

  It was so easy for her to compliment me and I hated it. I didn’t want her to make my heart beat faster every time she looked at me. I didn’t want to know what she was thinking behind her blue eyes.

  “No. I don’t think so.” I looked around the empty room. “Maybe this is better. It will give me more time to study.” I tried to believe it myself but my body wouldn’t catch up. I slumped further in my desk.

  “Come on, let’s go.” Taylor stood, grabbing her back pack and waiting for me to do the same.

  “Where are we going?” I watched as she scribbled a note that said “Practice Canceled” and walked to the door. She placed it on the outside and waited, yet again.

  “We’re going to hang out at my place. We’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves because of those two jerks. We’ll veg out and watch old movies and pretend like we actually like each other.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that last bit and Taylor provided me with a teasing smile. I in turn, stood, gathered my things and walked out of the room, shutting off the lights and closing the door.

  +++

  “So, Bryce Baker, huh?” I fiddled with a Mardi Gras necklace hanging down Taylor’s mirror. She was sitting on her bed, lounging against the head board and following my movements with her eyes.

  We had spent the evening watching her mothers’ old movies and laughing at the most inopportune times. It wasn’t until Bryce Baker emerged from his temporary room that our evening alone turned to an evening of watching Bryce and Taylor interact. They were obnoxiously cute together. I had never seen Taylor so at ease with another person before.

  “I have to give it up to you. You haven’t insulted me in,” I saw her look down at her wristwatch, “close to an hour.” Her eyes widened and she smirked at her tease. “That’s a new record, isn’t it?”

  I channeled my inner Dana and rolled my eyes at her. “If it makes you feel any better I couldn’t even get a word in with you and Mr. Gabby McGee.”

  Taylor scoffed.

  “So, when are you going to tell him you’re into him?” I tried to make light of the situation but I’m not sure if it came off like that.

  “Bryce is my best friend and I don’t like him like that.”

  If hearts could dance, mine would now be doing the jive. I shrugged my shoulder as I took a seat on the carpeted floor. “It’s cool if you do. He’s nice. Just talks…a lot.” Taylor chuckled and the sound made my own lips curve upward.

  “Bryce knows that I’m not really into…” Taylor stopped her thought and pushed it away easily. “We’ve grown up together. Charlie and Ryan are like my aunts. Sure he’s a little younger but not by much. It’s kind of like you and Dana.”

  “Yeah. But I don’t want to get into Dana’s pants,” I muttered. Oh boy, that was a good one, Jen.

  “Yep, and that’s that.” Taylor turned her head away from me, more frustrated with those words than anything else I had ever said to her. I groaned as I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

  “Then tell me what you meant to say.”

  Again I groaned but I knew Taylor wouldn’t let it go that easily. “I just meant that it’s okay if you like him. I’m sure he would totally go for it if you wanted to try a relationship with him.” I sounded more sad than supportive but Taylor laughed at my words.

  “You have no idea how wrong you are, Jen.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Taylor and decided to roll with her laughter and get some information. “Then who do you want to get hot and heavy with if not Bryce? Is it Landon?” Again Taylor laughed, “Josh?”. Harder. “Justin?” Taylor was in stitches now and I chuckled along with her. “Come on, just tell me. You have to like someone at school. You’re a normal teenager.” Taylor’s laughter faded as she looked at me, holding a smile but looking down at her hands.

  “I don’t like any guys right now. And yeah, I used to like someone but…”

  Okay. Wow. Not sure if I was prepared for this talk. Why did I allow myself to go in this direction again? Oh yeah. Because I have a big, lesbian crush on Taylor Montgomery-Fields.

  “What happened?”

  “They turned out to be not what I expected. But then…”

  “Then…”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You think that I would totally hate them, but I don’t. And I’m beginning to really like them again but I just can’t. And not to mention it would be totally messed up.”

  “Why are you speaking in riddles here?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re talking about this guy as if I don’t know him. Just give me a name.”

  Taylor looked at me seriously. I could see her heart beating in her neck. I don’t think hearts are supposed to beat that fast normally.

  “I told you I don’t like any guys.” My mouth slowly opened.

  “Oh.”

  The world was silently spinning on its axis while my own world was spinning out of control. Holy shit. I think Dana was right.

  “Yeah. And I don’t know how you feel about it but you seem to be okay with my moms. So I just figured…” She shrugged her shoulders while I just nodded.

  “I’m cool with it.” I was pretty sure I was nodding my head a ridiculous number of times. I was also pretty sure I was making her uncomfortable. And this is where I should say something supportive. I just have to make sure I don’t screw it up.

  “Who else knows?” Perfect. I had to clap at myself for not insulting the girl.

  “Bryce.” I waited for her to say more but she stopped right there.

  “That’s all? Not even your parents?” She couldn’t be worried about her parents not accepting her. Right?

  “No. I can’t deal with telling them. They took a lot of heat from the media when they decided to come out. I know a long time has passed since then and homosexuality isn’t nearly as condemned as it used to be, but it’s still talked about negatively. Just imagine if it got out that my moms also raised a bisexual daughter? The media would have a field day. And it would just perpetuate an unfounded notion that gay parents breed gay kids.”

  I had to laugh. Not at the seriousness of Taylor’s concern but at the fact that people would be so ignorant to believe you are gay just because you are raised with two gay parents.

  Taylor looked at me as if she was waiting for an insult. The worry in her eyes made me stop laughing and I shook my head. I tried to reign in what I was feeling but I also wanted to be supportive. Because in all actuality, I liked Taylor. And although this crush was beginning to grow into something more, as her somewhat friend, I knew she needed a little confidence.

  “Sorry, I always feel like I’m apologizing to you. But I’m not laughing at you, I promise.” I sighed as I stood, heading over to the bed and sitting at Taylor’s feet. “What you said was just so crazy to me that I had to laugh that people still think that.” Taylor kept her eyes on me, unsure of whether to believe me or not. I could see I still had to try. “And anyway, hetero couples make gay kids all the time. So that theory shouldn’t hold any weight.”

  “I know it doesn’t. But it still impacts me.” Taylor shifted and her socked foot touched my thigh on accident. She pulled it away quickly but I couldn’t tell if she didn’t want it there or if she thought I would be uncomfortable.

  “I am okay with it, Taylor. I really am. I mean, out of anyone, aside from your parents and Bryce of course, you should believe that I’d be okay with it.” I wished I could just come out with the words. But I had barely come to terms with what I was feeling myself. I didn’t even really know if this was a phase. If one day I would wake up a
nd immediately start finding boys attractive. I shook my head at the thought. I knew the path I was already walking down but I just didn’t know if it was going to lead me to a different world.

  “Okay.” That was all that Taylor said. Just that one word. I didn’t know if she truly grasped what I was telling her but at that moment I was okay with her eluding to whatever she saw fit. Maybe she thought that I was leaning toward interests similar to her own, or maybe she just thought that I really didn’t have a problem with it.

  “But I won’t tell anyone. Not even Dana or my parents. You have my word.” I crossed my heart, an action that I got from Beth and Taylor chuckled.

  “I know. I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t trust you to keep it to yourself. At least until I’m ready.” Her words hit me hard. I was suddenly reminded of my pathetic list of friends. Of Dana telling me how I could only count the people I trusted on one finger. How that one finger only named myself. And even then I wasn’t so sure if I should have even included me. Here Taylor was, trusting me so easily, even with our rocky ‘friendship’ and I couldn’t even say the same words to myself. She really was so far beyond everyone I knew.

  I took a deep breath and exhaled. My eyes falling to her bedroom window. “I heard in California you can’t see this many stars.” I had said it as an afterthought, not really stating it for an answer. Just to fill my mind with something familiar and to stop feeling the sudden urge to get closer to Taylor.

  I heard Taylor hum with a response and felt the bed move. My mind was still spinning with a jumble of words. I just wished I could put them all together and spit them out. “At my grandma’s place it’s not so horrible. But there definitely isn’t as many lights. And if you want to see a meteor shower you have to go out to the desert to get the full effect.” Taylor was sitting up now, our bodies closer than they had really ever been voluntarily. I could feel her warmth and I closed my eyes, relishing for a moment of what my body was telling me.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to do it.” I could feel Taylor looking at me. I could see her eyes behind my own lids wondering what I was talking about. “When I move to California in the Fall. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to look out and not see as many stars. I mean, people say they’d miss the greenery, the relaxed way of life, but I’ll miss the stars.”

  Taylor didn’t say anything for a moment and I thought that maybe she wouldn’t. It was a pretty stupid thing to say. And I laughed at myself audibly. “Sorry.” I felt a hand on my forearm for a brief moment and then it was gone.

  “You should stop apologizing. There is nothing to be sorry about, Jen. You know what I think?” I gulped. I didn’t want to know what Taylor thought but at the same time I yearned to know. Damn that confusion. “That you know that people think you have it all figured out. And in a way you do. You know what you want to do in life. You’re already admitted into the college that will get you there…but you’re also scared.” Again she squeezed my forearm, “and that’s okay.”

  I couldn’t respond with words because if I did, I didn’t know what would come out. But I know what I was thinking so I nodded and sighed. We sat silent for a moment and then Taylor continued. “And just to let you know, the beach has a great view of the stars on clear nights.”

  I smiled at Taylor. The vision she set in my mind was breathtaking. Feeling the cool mist of the ocean breeze while looking up at the stars. It was so visceral that I could almost believe I was in California already. But there was one thing that set that dream out of my mind. I knew it couldn’t be real because in my vision, Taylor was standing there with me.

  I shook my head out of my thoughts and then it occurred to me. Turning to Taylor I said, “Who’s this girl you like?”

  +++

  How could I let it get this far? I tried to be analytical about this all but for some reason I let this crush snowball into something more. It didn’t help that I knew Taylor liked girls. It really didn’t help that I like girls. But I thought I’d be able to control it.

  Attraction is nothing but biological chemistry. There have been countless of studies to help prove this hypothesis and the results come out the same every time. So if it’s biological I could control it. Eventually, you trick the chemistry in your body to turn off. Your crush who becomes your friend will stay just a friend because you don’t want to lose her. But I couldn’t turn it off. And now I’m fucked.

  “I kissed her.”

  “I know. You’ve said that like, three times already.” Bryce was chewing on a piece of beef jerky as he flipped through the channels on my TV. Beth was begging him to turn on cartoon network and finally he relented to her constant asking.

  “Is that all you have to say?” Bryce shrugged and suddenly I became very frustrated that he didn’t have words coming out of his mouth. Why had I called him and not Dana? Oh that’s right, because the only person I could even tell that I thought I liked girls had to be Taylor’s best friend. Who I didn’t know, at all. How fucked up is that, Jen?

  “What do you want me to say? You liked it didn’t you?”

  Liked was not a word I would use to describe this kiss. In fact, I think it deserved its own word. It was scrumptious – and delicious – like a chocolatey dessert at the end of dinner. It was decadent.

  “It was scrumptulescent,” I whispered under my breath. Bryce looked at me as if I was having a stroke. I back peddled. “I kissed her.”

  Beth was now making kissing sounds at the TV and laughing. I don’t think she really heard me but just in case I lowered my voice. “Has she called you?”

  Bryce finished swallowing and took another piece of beef jerky out of the bag. I pulled it from his hand and he gave me a sad look. “Tell me and you could have this.” Bryce thought for a moment, eyeing the beef jerky that was just out of his reach and he relented.

  “Yes. She called me last night after it happened. Now can I have it back?” My heart started pounding louder than the sound on the television.

  “What did she say?” I still held the beef jerky out of reach.

  Bryce’s lips drew into a thin line, clearly not happy with my torturous ways. “She’s freaking out.” He grabbed the beef jerky from my hands immediately and took a chunk out with his teeth.

  “Freaking out?” Suddenly my anxiety rose to a whole new level. Maybe I had gotten things all wrong. Didn’t they say that when you wanted something so bad that you started to see things that actually weren’t there to obtain that thing? Maybe I was seeing Taylor’s friendship as her feeling something toward me. I was pretty sure that even if Taylor wasn’t gay, she would still act the same way. I groaned as a sickness rose in my stomach. The smell of teriyaki and pepper steaming from Bryce’s mouth was almost enough for the bile to rise in my throat.

  “Yeah. Of course she is. She thinks she scared you away.” Bryce swallowed the final piece of beef jerky and frowned when his hand didn’t find any more in the bag. He threw the package on the coffee table and turned to me. His eyes were teasing and he smirked. “I came over here to apologize for her, but it seems as though I have no reason to.”

  Apologize? “I don’t get what you’re saying.” I licked my lips, trying to add some type of moisture to my mouth.

  “She thinks that she kissed you. Not the other way around. And when you ran off afterward, she thought it scared you away.” I watched Beth pop her head along with the cartoon characters on the TV. She didn’t have a care in the world.

  “But I kissed her.”

  “So you say. You know what you can do though?” Bryce asked. He held up his empty coffee cup and smiled at me, dangling it in front of my eyes. My lids formed a single slit as I dogged him for this stupid game. I knew he wouldn’t tell me until I got him another cup.

  I grabbed the mug out of his hands and stomped toward the kitchen. Filling his cup with black coffee, I added way too much creamer and no sugar. Just the way he didn’t like it. When I returned, I handed him the coffee as he gave me a charming smile.

/>   “Call her,” he said.

  I flopped down as I watched Bryce take a large sip. He looked down at the coffee, shrugged his shoulder and kept drinking. Did this kid ever care what he put in his mouth?

  “I can’t just call her. What would I even say?” I groaned as I hugged the nearest pillow to my chest. I couldn’t call Taylor. I was sure that the only thing that would come out of my mouth was nonsense anyway. “I’ve never done this before, Bryce.”

  “It’s no different than talking to a guy. Just because she is a girl…”

  I chewed on my bottom lip as I kept my gaze on him but he didn’t finish his sentence as realization set in. “Oh, you’ve never done this with a guy, either.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement and a very true statement in fact.

  “I just haven’t been interested, until now.” I placed the pillow over my face to hide the reddening of my cheeks. How stupid of me to go through life without even being on a date.

  “Okay…” Bryce contemplated his coffee mug and tilted his head back and forth. It bobbed like Beth’s at the cartoon’s theme song. When it finished he looked up at me and said. “Call her.”

  That’s when things got violent. I threw the pillow at him and he caught it before it hit his face. His eyebrows rose up at me and I smiled. It felt good to smile, seeing as all morning I had been running around the kiss in my mind, wanting to vomit at a consistent level.

  “Look. I’ve told you already that Taylor is freaking out too. You should feel some solidarity knowing that you’re both in the same boat.”

  He had a point. But the point missed its mark on me. “I don’t know why she would be freaking out. She’s freakin’ Taylor Montgomery-Fields. Anyone would be jumping for joy if she kissed them.”

  I know what I just said. I know that Bryce heard what I just said. And I know that I should be jumping for joy too. Especially since I knew now that Taylor wanted the kiss, just as much as me.

  “She’s freaking out because she doesn’t even know you’re gay, Jen. She literally thinks that she pushed you into kissing her and that’s not Taylor’s style. In fact,” Bryce got up and stretched out his six foot one frame, “I should be over there with her calming her down.” Bryce fished for his keys in his pocket and I grabbed his wrist.