Dating Sarah Cooper

by Siera Maley

  Tomorrow, I’d pay Owen and the LGBT resource center another visit.

  Chapter Eight

  Lunch the next day marked the third straight school day of Connor acting unnaturally subdued. Ever since the party, he’d sat silently for the majority of the period and repeatedly shot me furtive looks from his spot at our table. But honestly, I didn’t care enough about Connor to ask him why he was acting so strangely. In fact, I cared so little for him that I’d always wondered why he’d never bothered to sit anywhere else, especially given that it should’ve been clear to him by now that none of the girls at our table were ever going to give him the time of day.

  But I wasn’t thinking about Connor at all that Wednesday. In fact, I went to Jake almost immediately once I entered the cafeteria, and pulled him aside to ask him for a ride to the LGBT resource center after school. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Sarah’d be willing to give me a ride, but given my reason for going, I decided it’d be best to just keep my trip from her altogether. If our positions were reversed and I knew my best friend and fake lesbian girlfriend was questioning her sexuality, I’d probably be understandably concerned. And I didn’t want Sarah to be concerned. I just wanted her to land her guy and then we could start our fake breakup. Or I was pretty sure that was what I wanted.

  Jake agreed to give me a ride, and mentioned needing to talk to Owen about our upcoming plans for October 11th anyway, so with that set, I spent the next few hours waiting for the day to end.

  At last, three o’clock came. My last class was forced to stay a little late; it was lab day and we hadn’t done a good enough job of cleaning up after ourselves, and we had one of those uptight teachers who insisted upon having everything spotless before anyone could leave the classroom.

  I wound up fast-walking down a deserted hallway to my locker with the intention of meeting Jake by his car after I’d put my books away, but I paused right before I slammed my locker door shut, hearing familiar voices coming from within the boys’ bathroom just across the hall.

  “When? Next week?” one of the voices said.

  Then came the other one: “Yeah, next Monday night. We’ve got a test in our English class we’re gonna study for.”

  My eyebrows furrowed. That second voice was Sam, and the first boy sounded like one of the ones from the party. I heard laughter as I stood stock-still, my hand gripping my locker door tighter by the second.

  “Man, you know you two won’t be doing any studying, dyke girlfriend of hers or not.” There was more laughter, and a sink came on.

  “Yeah, probably not.”

  “Juggling two at once, though; that’s gotta be tough for you to pull off. Christine’ll be pissed if she finds out.”

  “So she won’t. They don’t talk, anyway.”

  “Ohhh… that’s right. Although, maybe you could talk her into letting you have both. You know Sarah’d be up for it.” As they laughed again, I was half-sure I’d squeezed a dent into the metal door between my fingers. My teeth were pressed together so tightly my mouth hurt.

  “The perks of hooking up with a bi chick, dude.”

  The sink stopped running and I slammed the locker door so loudly it echoed up and down the hallway. Fuming, I rushed to get away from the bathroom, in no hurry to be caught by Sam and his asshole friend. It was no surprise to me that he was such a jerk, and the things he’d said about Sarah and me were infuriating.

  But worst of all was that I wasn’t sure Sarah would believe he’d said them.

  I was quiet for most of the ride with Jake. The worst part about not being honest with anyone about Sarah and me was that when I did have a problem, I couldn’t ask anyone for advice. As much as I wanted Jake’s help, I couldn’t tell him that Sarah was considering going on a study date with a boy who was only interested in using her.

  Could I?

  “So I saw something today,” he said, toward the end of our drive. He seemed hesitant to share whatever it was with me, but eventually decided on continuing. “It might not even be a big deal, and I don’t want you to think I’m on Jessa’s side or anything with the whole confrontation between her and Sarah when you guys first joined LAMBDA… but I did see Sarah talking to Sam today.”

  I swallowed hard, not sure what to say to that. “Oh?”

  “I think they made plans to hang out or something. It sounded like maybe next week they had a test to study for. I mean, that could be all it is… and if it makes a difference, he was definitely the one who seemed to be pushing it and initiated the conversation and everything, so Sarah could’ve just been trying to be nice. But I just thought you should know.”

  I was quiet for a moment. There were several ways to play this. I couldn’t tell him the whole truth, but maybe I could tell him Sarah and I were on the rocks and that I was worried she was genuinely interested in Sam. And then I could tell him about what I’d heard in the bathroom and get his advice.

  But I wasn’t sure I was ready to toe the line like that yet. It was risky.

  I swallowed hard, and said, at last, “Yeah, she told me about that, actually. It’s totally cool.”

  “Oh, really? That’s great.” He looked a little embarrassed, and I felt my heart sink in my chest. “Sorry if I was being nosy or anything. I should’ve known she’d have already talked to you about it.” He laughed suddenly, and shook his head. “Of course you guys have talked it all out. You’re like the perfect couple.”

  “We are?” I raised an eyebrow disbelievingly.

  He smiled over at me. “You don’t think so? The rest of us envy the hell out of you. Two pretty, popular girls… we all dream of being part of something like that.”

  “Well… we have our ups and downs just like everyone else,” I mumbled.

  He just laughed again, and soon enough, we were at the resource center and walking into the lobby. Owen was there at the front desk, and he greeted us with a grin. “Hey, guys! Here to talk about Sunday? I was thinking we’d all meet here about noon, and then set up what we need to for Monday the 11th.”

  “That sounds great,” Jake agreed, and turned to me abruptly. “That was what I was here to talk about. What were you doing here again, Katie?”

  “Oh. Um…” I looked around quickly and spotted the bookshelf across the room. “I’ve been meaning to finish up the first season of The L Word, and I thought you guys might have the box set?”

  “Of course. We have every season,” Owen told me. “Feel free to go check out the bookshelf and grab whatever you’d like.”

  “Cool.”

  I left Owen and Jake to talk, and made my way over to the shelves, scanning them uncomfortably. Every now and then, I glanced over my shoulder, wondering how on earth I was supposed to get Owen alone.

  And then my eyes landed on a book on the bottom row of the shelf: How Do I Know? The LGBT Guide for Questioning Teens.

  I glanced over my shoulder again, and then hastily grabbed the book and opened it to the table of contents. There was a chapter on childhood signs, a chapter on coming out, a chapter on accepting yourself…

  I snapped the book shut when I felt a tap on my shoulder, and spun around to see Owen standing there. He raised both eyebrows at me, reacting to how jumpy I was. Jake was now across the room, flipping through the same magazine Violet had been reading just yesterday.

  “Hey, sorry about that,” Owen laughed out. “How are you doing?”

  “Oh, fine.” I tried to hide the book title, but he caught a glimpse of it anyway.

  “For questioning teens,” he echoed. “You seem a little bit past that, judging from what I saw of you yesterday.”

  I glanced over at Jake again, surprised to feel my cheeks growing warm. “Um,” I finally mumbled, “is there somewhere we could talk alone?”

  “Sure,” he agreed, nodding. “I’ve got an office just this way.” He pointed down a nearby hallway, and I caught Jake’s attention as Owen and I left the lobby, gesturing to him that I’d be right back. He looked curious, but nodded.

&n
bsp; Owen closed the door behind us once we were alone in his office, and we took a seat in two chairs with a desk between us. “Is everything alright?” he asked me.

  I realized pretty quickly that this conversation was going to be a tough one. His first question already felt loaded. “Things are… complicated,” I finally said.

  “Well, that’s what we’re here for,” he told me. “Ask away, or say whatever you’d like. I’m an open book and I’m all ears.”

  I swallowed hard, my gaze falling to the book still gripped in my hands. Finally, I asked him, “I guess I was wondering… How did you know you were gay?”

  He didn’t answer at first, and I raised my eyes to him hastily.

  “Wait, you are gay, right?”

  He laughed at that. “Yes, I am.” He sat back in his chair and rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “I believe I was… hmm. Right around your age, actually. Maybe a couple years younger, at most. And I knew because I fell in love with a boy at my school.”

  “How’d you know you were in love?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s a question I can’t answer,” he admitted. “When you feel it, you just know.”

  “But does that mean that everyone who isn’t sure if they feel it isn’t in love?”

  “Not necessarily. Feelings are confusing. There are thousands of books written about one feeling, and all of them say thousands of different and sometimes contradictory things.”

  “So you’re saying you can’t help me,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “Well, what is it you need help with?”

  I chewed on my lower lip. I couldn’t tell Jake my whole story; he’d probably hate me. But Owen’s job was to not judge. Still, being honest was always risky.

  At last, I took a deep breath, and admitted, “I kind of did something terrible.”

  He looked curious, now. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because it’s the truth.” I swallowed a lump in my throat, and continued, “My friend and I, Sarah… you met her yesterday. We’re best friends, and about a month ago, Jake mistook us for a couple. So ever since then, we’ve pretended to be one. We haven’t told anyone else the truth.”

  I didn’t dare look at Owen, but I heard him shift in his seat. Finally, he asked me, “What made you want to pretend to be a couple?”

  “I didn’t want to, but it wasn’t up to me. It happened really fast and Sarah just kind of said we were. She wanted attention from this dumb guy.”

  “So she thought being into girls would make her more appealing,” Owen guessed. I nodded.

  “I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t go back on it once it’d been done, because everyone was really happy to have two new people they could relate to. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I didn’t want people to hate us. But now it’s been a month and things have gotten… weird. Not to mention this guy she likes is a complete asshole, and I know she’s just going to end up getting hurt but I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Well, have you tried talking to her?” he suggested.

  “I don’t know what that’ll do. She probably wouldn’t even believe he said the things he did, anyway.”

  “I don’t mean about the guy,” Owen corrected. “I mean about how you feel.”

  I let out a bitter laugh. “No way. I don’t even know how I feel. Why else would I be here? Besides, I seriously doubt she’d give up on a guy she’s been crushing on for four years to be with a girl, even if that was what I wanted. Which it definitely isn’t, so.” I folded my arms across my chest defensively, watching him with a sharp gaze.

  “What’s wrong with wanting that? Are you worried about being rejected?” he asked me.

  I forced a laugh. “Uh, I’ve seen enough movies to know what happens when you fall for your straight best friend. I can like girls; that’s fine, but I don’t want to get my heart broken. I’d like to like someone who will like me back, you know?”

  Owen tapped at his chin for another long moment. “So from my understanding, you started out faking being gay, and now you’re saying you don’t like your friend, but you’re still worried you might actually be gay for other, potentially related reasons,” he recapped. It felt strange to have it said aloud. Like he was talking about someone else I was watching from afar. Someone who wasn’t me.

  “I don’t know,” I said at last. “I’m not sure I should even think about it. Maybe if I didn’t, I’d stop being so confused and all of this would just go away. Then things could eventually get back to normal.”

  “Do your parents know what you’re going through?”

  “They’re the ones putting me through it!” I told him, exasperated. “Everything was fine, or at least it was okay, but then they had to go and actually believe I was gay, and I didn’t have it in me to tell them the whole thing with Sarah was staged, so I had to just sit there and listen to them tell me about how they’d always known and how they just wanted me to be myself.”

  “You’re very fortunate to have parents like that,” he said.

  “Yeah, but I’d have preferred ones that didn’t tell me I’ve always been gay when I’m not sure how I feel about anything or anyone anymore. Things were a lot less confusing when I hadn’t kissed any girls.”

  “You’ve kissed Sarah,” he guessed.

  “And another girl,” I mumbled. Both of his eyebrows shot up, and he looked genuinely thrown for a loop.

  “Really? Multiple girls?” Then he paused, amused. “So I see. Between that and the response from your parents, you’ve built a quite a good case for liking girls.”

  “Exactly. So how do I know for sure whether I do or not?” I watched him expectantly, eager to hear his answer.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t tell you, to be perfectly honest. All I can say is that you have to answer that for yourself. Look inside your heart.”

  I sank back in my seat and deadpanned, “Seriously? That’s all you’ve got?”

  He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Katie, I know it seems like I haven’t helped, but nobody else can tell you whether you’re gay or not. Not even your parents. I can tell you how I knew, and you can read all of the books you want, but the answer is something only you can give to yourself. Do you like how you feel when you’re with Sarah? Do you like kissing girls? How about boys? And most importantly: Do you really want to spend hours on end worrying about a label right now? I’ve found that my life got a whole lot easier when I stopped thinking so much and just started feeling. That was how I got my answer.”

  Owen took a breath, and continued, “My suggestion is that you go with the flow. You’re already facing the negative consequences of being openly gay, so the upside is that you have a lot less to lose than most questioning teens. It’s a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. So that’s my advice. Stop thinking and let yourself feel.” He got to his feet, and that was my cue that we were done.

  “And hey, listen,” he added as he moved to open the door to his office, “what I can be sure of is that gay, bisexual, straight, asexual, pansexual, whatever you are… you will always be welcome here.”

  “Thank you,” I said. As unresolved as my issues felt, his words were still oddly comforting.

  “And please, please be honest with your friends, when you can be,” he added. “It won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.”

  And then we were out of his office and heading back to Jake, and I was still confused, but strangely, thankfully, being confused felt okay.

  At least for now.

  Chapter Nine

  “So I heard about you and Sam. Monday night, right?”

  Sarah looked up from her spot across from me on her bedroom floor. She was halfway through painting the toenails of her right foot a dark blue-green color, and a Calculus book sat open beside her. It was Friday, and I’d given her two days to tell me about Sam herself. Now it was clear she simply hadn’t planned on sharing. I wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “Uh, yeah.” She went back to her toenai
ls, sounding distracted. “He asked me to study.”

  “You know he’s not actually interested in studying, right?”

  “Of course.” She arched an eyebrow at me, pausing again. “Wasn’t that the plan all along?”

  “I guess.” I shrugged my shoulders and looked away from her. My mind felt scattered, and I noticed another book – the one she’d checked out from the resource center earlier in the week – lying on her bedroom floor, just a few feet away. The bookmark stuck inside of it told me she didn’t have long to go before she was finished with it.

  “You don’t sound very convinced,” she observed.

  “I just…” I trailed off, then took a deep breath. “Um, wasn’t there some other girl he was flirting with? The one from the party?”

  “Yeah, Christine. I texted him; asked him about it. He said they’re not serious.”

  “What if he’s lying?”

  She laughed and shook her head, eyes still on her toes as she painted them. “Why would he lie?”

  “Because jock assholes kind of do that?”

  She pursed her lips together as she finished with the nail polish, then closed the bottle and set it aside. Her eyes snapped to mine, then, and she tilted her head to the side. “I didn’t know my spending an evening with a guy I’ve liked since freshman year would be such a problem.”

  “It’s not,” I retorted instinctively. “I just think you should be careful.”

  “Well, thank you for caring,” she replied, sounding not very thankful at all. I shifted uncomfortably. This was going about as well as I’d expected it would.

  “Look, Sarah. All I’m saying is that there are guys out there who don’t respect girls. I’d hate for you to get hurt.”

  “You know, that’s funny, because last week you said it was great that I was getting attention from him. Now all of a sudden it’s not a good idea? I’m kind of getting mixed signals here, Katie.” She got to her feet and crossed the room to her desk, putting her nail polish away.