by Siera Maley
“Let’s go look at the shelf,” Sarah suggested, looking genuinely excited at the prospect. “We can see if there’s anything good we haven’t heard of.”
“Why?” I asked, raising an eyebrow and following her anyway. “Are you gonna actually read another book?”
“Maybe.” She knelt down by the shelf and I watched her, surprised by her answer. “I mean, the first one I read was decent, minus the ending. Maybe I’ll find one that has a happy ending.” She picked out a book that caught her eye, and grinned. “Holy crap. Look, Katie… lesbian erotica.”
“Put that back,” I hissed, but she waved it in my face, still grinning.
“I should definitely borrow this. I mean, you aren’t taking care of me sexually so I’ve gotta pick up the slack somehow now that I’m no longer sleeping with boys, either.”
“Gross. I do not need to know about your high sex drive.”
“Hey, girls.” I jumped abruptly at the sound of Owen’s voice, and turned to see him approaching us. “See anything you’re interested in? If you want to check out a book or a movie, all you have to do is sign your name, phone number, email, and the item of your choice on that sheet over there.” He pointed to a desk just a few feet away, and Sarah looked over at it with interest. I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t the sheet that’d caught her eye, but what was stacked next it.
“Wait, are those condoms?” she asked.
“Yes,” Owen said. “We always have free condoms available to promote safe sex. Feel free to take one.”
“Oh, no.” Sarah waved him away quickly. “No need for those with this one.” She tilted her head toward me, and Owen smiled at us.
“Well, feel free to keep browsing. Just let me know if you end up signing anything out.”
“We will,” Sarah agreed. Once he’d left and she was sure no one was looking, she leaned over and stole a condom.
I rolled my eyes at her. “I thought you couldn’t sleep with boys anymore because you’re with me?”
She smirked at me. “Doesn’t hurt to be prepared. After all, I am talking to Sam, now.”
It was true. After whatever’d happened at the party Friday, Sam and Sarah had begun texting casually, and both yesterday and today, he’d talked to her in their English class. It was risky to call it this early on, but it seemed like she had his attention now and that they were well on their way to a hookup. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I guess it was good that Sarah’d probably get what she’d wanted from the beginning, but the closer she got to achieving that goal, the more used I felt.
It was safe to say now that if it weren’t for Jake and the rest of the LAMBDA club, I’d end our fake relationship and come clean. But I genuinely liked them all – with the exception of Jessa, who I was still a little cool toward after Friday. Still, I didn’t want her or any of the others to hate me.
I wandered away from Sarah to where Violet was sitting in one of the lounge chairs, flipping through an issue of “Out” magazine that’d been lying on one of the end tables beside her. She looked up at me and smiled. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey.” I took a seat next to her and leaned over to look at the magazine. On one page was a picture of a Pride parade in New York; on the other, a news story on the latest state to legalize gay marriage. “Have you been here before?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Yeah, a couple of times.” She hesitated for a moment, and then explained, “Things were a little rough between my parents and I right after I came out to them. I stayed here for a night.”
“Wow,” I breathed out. I knew, of course, that there were parents out there who reacted badly to having a gay child, but it was so hard to imagine it when I knew it would be such a non-issue with mine.
“How did you parents react when you told them?” she asked me.
I colored slightly. “Oh… I haven’t told them.”
She set the magazine aside, curious now. “Why? Do you think they’ll be upset?”
“No.” I shook my head. “My uncle’s gay, so I know they’ll be fine.”
“Then why haven’t you told them?” she asked, confused. I opened and closed my mouth for a moment, struggling for an answer, but Sarah saved me by plopping down on my other side, a book in her hand.
“Hello, ladies.”
I shot her a knowing look. “You didn’t.”
“I did. Already signed the sheet.” She waved the book in my face, and I rolled my eyes at her as Violet watched the both of us.
“You got the erotica, didn’t you?”
“No!” Sarah retorted, defensive. “I was just kidding about that.”
“Shame,” I sighed out. “You could’ve used the sex tips.”
“Hey!” she replied, mock-offended, and I grinned at her until she slapped at my arm.
“Ow!” I grabbed for her hand, but she pulled it out of my reach, smirking at me.
On my other side, Violet smiled widely at us and said, “Aww… you guys are so cute together. Stop it; you’re making me sad I don’t have anyone.”
My smile died a little and I turned away from Sarah, facing Violet again. Eager to change the subject, I asked, “What about you and Hattie? I see you guys hanging out sometimes.”
Violet shook her head, looking a little embarrassed. “Um… yeah, we kind of tried it last year, but it didn’t work out. I’m lucky we made it out of that one with an intact friendship.”
“Well, you can’t go wrong with any of the girls here as long as you don’t pick Jessa,” Sarah told her, rolling her eyes.
“She’s not my type,” Violet dismissed. “I mean, what she did to you guys… I thought that was really weird and uncalled for. She’s, like, way too abrasive for me.”
I searched the room briefly for Jessa and found her still talking to Henry by the buffet table. She must’ve sensed I was staring at her, because after a moment, she turned to look back at me, and then winked. Sarah’s hand, which had moved to rest on my shoulder at some point, fleetingly tightened its grip, and I realize she’d been watching Jessa, too. That explained the wink.
“You know what I don’t get,” I finally said. “If she doesn’t think we’re faking it anymore, then she has no reason to have any ill will toward us, and if she does still think we’re faking it, then she should think flirting with me wouldn’t piss you off, right?” I looked to Sarah for confirmation, but Violet, instead, was the one who answered.
“Jessa’s kind of strong-willed. She’ll probably never be fully willing to admit she was wrong… even to herself.”
“She hates me for showing her up,” Sarah said. “Now I’m glad I got that jab in about her not having a girlfriend.”
“In retrospect, it was deserved,” I said, playing along. “Anyway, tell me about your book.”
She flashed the cover at me. “Pretty basic. Girl meets girl, girls fall in love, and as far as I know, no one dies or goes back to men or gets pregnant, or any combination of the three. I’m determined to get my happy ending.”
“You really are big on them, aren’t you?” I asked her. Sarah nodded proudly and tucked the book into the bag hanging off of her shoulder.
“That I am,” she confirmed. “I won’t stop until I get one.”
“Good luck,” Violet cut in, grinning. “We don’t get them often.”
“So how was your club meeting?” Mom asked me at dinner later that night. “Did you do anything interesting?”
“Yeah.” I nodded at her. “We visited an animal shelter.”
“That sounds fun,” Dad said. “What kinds of animals did they have?”
“Oh, just the usual. Dogs, cats, birds, fish… it was like a zoo in there. It was kind of tempting to just take them all home with me.”
Mom smiled over at me. “We’d forgive you if you did. I’m sure they were adorable, honey.”
I let out a short laugh. “So you’d still love me even if I brought a random dog home?”
“Of course.” There was a short pause, and Mom added,
“A dog… a cat… both, neither… we’d love you regardless.”
I paused to stare at her, my fork stilling over my plate as Mom’s eyes stayed resolutely glued to hers. She took a piece of the steak she’d cooked and brought it to her mouth, and her gaze shifted to Dad as she chewed. He scooped up a spoonful of mashed potatoes and glanced back at her.
I set my fork down, suddenly not hungry. “Maybe I be excused,” I deadpanned, and then got up without waiting for an answer.
I heard the sound of a chair scraping against the floor behind me, and then my mom called, “Honey!” but I was already gone.
I slammed my bedroom door shut behind myself, locked it, and immediately grabbed my phone and called Sarah. “Pick up, pick up,” I murmured, and let out a sigh of relief when I heard the click of her answering.
“Hello?”
“Sarah, my parents know,” I said quickly. I could feel myself beginning to panic.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean they know,” I emphasized. “They know that I’m fake-gay, but they think I’m actually gay. I don’t know what to do. I think I’m about to have a panic attack.”
“Wait, calm down, Katie. How do they know?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t do anything differently, I swear! I didn’t say or do anything! They just do!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! They know I didn’t really join a club for animals; I think they might even know it’s a gay club. They asked me how it went and started using freaking metaphors about how they’d love me whether I brought home a cat or a dog.”
“Shit,” Sarah breathed out, and then seemed to collect herself. “Okay, listen. Katie, they already told you they’d love you regardless. So the worst won’t happen, right?”
“Except I can’t tell them I’m gay when I’m not!” I pointed out, my voice rising. “What the hell?!”
To my surprise, Sarah replied, “Yeah, okay.”
I paused, momentarily calm. “Wait. Okay?”
“Yeah. They’re your parents, not just kids we go to school with. They’re family. If you think telling them the truth is the best decision, I’m not gonna tell you to lie to them. But you aren’t gonna call this off if they tell you to, right?” I was silent on the other end, honestly unsure of my answer, and she pressed, “Right, Katie?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding my head even though she couldn’t see it. “Sure. Right. I don’t have to take their advice, that’s true. I’ll just, you know…” I swallowed hard, “…be a total disappointment of a daughter until I tell everyone at school the truth. Or tell my parents I’m gay and go back on it later. Great.”
“What are you gonna do?” she asked me, but there was a knock on my door before I could answer.
“Katie, we’d just like to talk,” came my mom’s voice.
I spoke quickly to Sarah, hissing, “I don’t know what I should do.”
“Maybe just let them do the talking first?” she suggested. A harder knock came on my door; this time I could tell it was my dad.
“Shit,” I whispered, and abruptly hung up on Sarah. I crossed to the door, grit my teeth and shook my head, and then unlocked it and yanked it open.
My parents stood together on the other side, and my mom sighed with relief. “Can we talk?” she asked, and I nodded nervously and stepped back to let them inside. Mom motioned for me to take a seat on my bed, and then sat down next to me as Dad placed himself in the desk chair across the room.
“That was very insensitive and tactless of me,” Mom told me, putting a hand over mine gently. “I wanted you to be able to tell me on your own time, but I thought… I guess I thought maybe you just needed to be sure that we were going to still love you.”
I furrowed my eyebrows, unsure of how to respond to that. She was talking like she’d been thinking about this for longer than just a few weeks, or even a few months.
“Your mother had the best of intentions, Katie,” Dad said next. “We’ve talked a lot about how my parents reacted to Kevin, and we wanted to make sure you weren’t afraid you were going to go through that.”
“How long have you been planning this?” I asked at last.
Mom gave a short laugh. “Oh, honey, we’ve had some idea since you were six. You were giving little girls flowers when we’d take you to the park. You picked so many of them we had to pay money to replace them.”
“You were quite the charmer,” Dad joked, and my mouth felt dry.
“I was?” I asked, feeling strangely empty.
“Yes. And it’s been very hard, as a parent, trying to prepare for that. I wanted to do everything perfectly, and so did your dad. We wanted to do everything for you that wasn’t done for Kevin. We even hoped he’d be around more to give you someone to look up to, but unfortunately that hasn’t been the case.” She sighed, and took my hand in hers. “Katie, we love you so, so much, and I couldn’t bear the idea of you struggling for all of these years and worrying that we wouldn’t still love you.”
“I never thought you wouldn’t love me,” I interrupted quickly. This was a lot to take in, but I was glad she’d finally said something I had a response for. “I knew you’d be fine with it.”
“Good,” Dad said. “Then we did our job correctly.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Mom added. “I’ve wanted to have this conversation with you for a very long time. I’d thought maybe you’d be ready for it soon, after the whole thing with Austin-”
“Wait,” I interrupted. What they were telling me was finally beginning to sink in. “You thought- I mean, you knew while I was with Austin that-”
“That you were gay? Oh, absolutely, honey. I could see you weren’t happy, and I could see the way you’d light up anytime you so much as mentioned Sarah’s name.”
“Huh.” I stared at my feet, unable to really think of anything to say to that. “That’s… huh.”
“We just wanted to make sure you know that we love you, and that no matter who you love, that won’t change,” Dad told me, folding his hands in his lap. “You can be gay, or bisexual, or even straight, and we’ll love you as long as you’re being who you are, okay?”
“Okay.” I paused, then looked up abruptly, glancing back and forth between the both of them. “Wait, you think I’m in love with Sarah?”
I could handle being mistaken for gay. Hell, I was pretty sure I could handle being gay, or even bisexual, if that was what I was. That wasn’t nearly as much as a concern to me as being in love with my straight best friend.
Mom looked confused. “Aren’t you? You two are inseparable.”
“Because we’ve always been best friends,” I insisted. “That’s how being best friends works.”
“Well…” Mom looked like she was struggling not to argue, “I guess if that’s how you feel, honey, then it’s not my place to say otherwise.”
“But you want to,” I accused. “You think I love her.” I looked to Dad, who wouldn’t quite look back at me. “You both do!”
“Well, you two are very close,” he admitted.
“Because we’re best friends!”
“Okay, sweetie.” Mom patted me on the arm and got to her feet, ignoring that I was gaping at the both of them now. I let out a forced laugh as Dad got to his feet, too.
“Do you guys even have real jobs or lives, or do you just sit around and gossip about my love life all day?” I asked them, appalled.
Dad raised his hands defensively, already backing his way out of the room. “I’m gonna let your mom handle this one.”
Mom bent over in front of me and gave me a kiss on the forehead. “Sarah’s a great girl. I think you two would be very cute together.”
“She’s straight,” I insisted, shooting her an incredulous look. She smiled back at me.
“I only have one biological child, but Sarah might as well be my second one. And a mother knows.” She tapped her temple with a nod, and then kissed me on the forehead again. “If you need to talk, I’m always here.”<
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“Oh my God,” I murmured to myself, shaking my head as my mom closed the door on her way out. “They are literally insane.”
I reached for my phone when it buzzed with a text from Sarah a moment later. “R they still talking to u? Is everything ok?”
I typed out a response, and sent, “Uh, they’ve always known I liked girls?”
My phone rang seconds after I’d sent the text, and I answered it to loud laughter and an incredulous, “What?!”
“You’re telling me,” I mumbled, shaking my head again. “I don’t even know anymore. Whatever.”
“Do they know we’re dating?” she asked, amusement still audible in her voice.
“Nope,” I said. “And we should probably keep it that way because I’m kind of afraid of what they’d say if they found out at this point.”
“I know, right?”
We spent a few minutes laughing about my parents and how off-the-wall and weird they could be sometimes, and I didn’t really give her the full story. I wasn’t sure of what to make of it myself, let alone what Sarah’d make of it. So I dismissed it all and eventually ended my call with her, and tried to nap for the next hour.
I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept thinking back to Austin, and the way we’d always felt more like friends forcing a relationship rather than a genuine couple with romantic feelings. But that didn’t necessarily mean I was gay… and neither did handing out flowers to random girls at age six. Maybe I’d just wanted a friend. Maybe my parents were mistaken. They certainly were about Sarah, that was for sure, and about my being in love with her.
But I couldn’t shake the tense feeling that grew in my chest the longer I mulled over what they’d said. Even if I didn’t have feelings for any other girl in particular, I’d liked kissing both Jessa and Sarah more than I’d liked kissing Austin. Maybe Austin just wasn’t the right guy for me… but what if that wasn’t it? What if my perfect boyfriend was actually a girlfriend? And how on earth was I supposed to know if that was the case?
I chewed on my lip as I laid in bed, and, finally, I made a decision.
