Say Yes to the Cheerleader

by Abby Crofton

  “I said that already,” Marie interrupted. “We didn’t plan on it, but we both had the same idea of coming down here to see how you two were getting along. Really, you both should feel lucky to have such great best friends who care enough to go through all this trouble to make sure your date is going smoothly. It’s a compliment, really.” But I wasn’t having any of that.

  “Uh huh. Well next time, both of you just stay at home like normal people and don’t go around snooping on other people’s dates. It’s rude and creepy,” I said sternly.

  There was an “excuse me” from the front of the theater. The four of us looked down at a theater employee standing awkwardly in the aisle with a broom and dustpan.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I have to clean up before the next showing. So if you could just…” He trailed off as he gestured to the exit.

  We trudged our way down the steps and out of the theater. In the lobby, we stood silently until Kate said, “Since you two are here, do you want to go get something to eat with us? If that’s okay with you, Haley?” she added hastily.

  I was a bit bummed that Kate’s and my date had been hijacked, but looking at the two guilty faces of our best friends, I couldn’t stay mad.

  “Sure, let’s go get a pizza. But you two are buying,” I warned the interlopers. They were smart and kept their mouths shut, though Jenny gave me a glare, which I was more than used to by now.

  We all got along surprisingly well at dinner, as long as Jenny and I did not interact. Marie and Kate liked the same television shows with pretty people doing stupid things, and Jenny was actually funny when not trying to make my life miserable. The one time we talked, she called me an idiot, and I was ready to stab her with my plastic fork. Kate had to admonish us, and after that we just ignored each other.

  The four of us parted in the parking lot. I reassured Marie that I wasn’t mad and that I would call her later. I heard Kate say something in a low voice to Jenny, which she followed up with a hug. Jenny looked relieved and grateful. We all said our good-byes, and then Kate and I walked to her car.

  After we got in and Kate maneuvered us out of the parking lot and back on the road, she opened up about how she really felt about our unexpected companions.

  “Can you believe those two? I mean, who does that, spy on someone else’s date? Why would they think that was an okay thing to do? I am so confused about their thought processes.” She glared through the windshield at the oncoming road.

  “I don’t know what they were thinking,” I responded. “I’d like to say that Marie isn’t the type to do that sort of thing, but actually she is exactly that type. I’ve just never been on a date before, so I had nothing to base her reaction on.”

  That got Kate’s attention. “You’ve never been on a date before?” she asked incredulously.

  I immediately regretted letting that slip out. But rather than trying to backtrack and make up an excuse that would be transparent, I went with the truth. “No, I haven’t. It never came up in the past. I wasn’t out, and I didn’t want to date some boy just for appearances. There was this one girl, but it was a quick thing and we never actually went out,” I explained, hoping I had not revealed too much information.

  “Oh,” she responded. That was it. One word and then silence. It was not very encouraging.

  Right when I was going to start apologizing (even though I wasn’t sure what I would be apologizing for), Kate spoke up.

  “That’s fine. That makes a lot of sense. I can see where you’re coming from,” she said. She continued after a slight pause. “I dated guys. You might have known that from seeing us around the school, but if you didn’t, I wanted to tell you. I’ve also been with a couple of girls.” She chanced a glance at me, and then her eyes widened. “Not all the way being with girls. More like the making out way. I haven’t been with anyone yet, male or female, in that way. I’m still a virgin,” she hurriedly announced.

  I had not been expecting the conversation to go in that direction. It appeared neither had she.

  “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that,” she said out loud to herself and, by extension, me and the universe at large.

  At a loss for what to say, I mumbled out something that sounded like “Yeah, that’s cool,” which didn’t seem to be the right thing.

  Kate suddenly swerved the car into the first parking lot on our right. It belonged to a big box store. She drove a bit too fast to a corner of the lot where there were no other cars and stopped. After putting the car into park, she turned to me with a bit of panic.

  “I didn’t mean to say that,” she announced with a slashing motion of her arms. “It is way too early to be talking about those sort of things. We've had only one real date, and you’re great and awesome, but we haven’t even kissed yet, so we should definitely not be talking about more advanced things.”

  I don’t know what prompted the next words to come out of my mouth. “You mean sex, right?” I asked with the absolute stupidest voice I had ever heard come out of a human, let alone myself. It was like the majority of my brain had turned off and the only sliver that was still working was dysfunctional. At least both of us were embarrassed now.

  “I’m sorry,” I started at the same time she said, “You can call it that,” and that just made me more confused.

  “What else would I call it?” Another A+ question from me. Would it be too distracting if I just kept my mouth taped shut for the rest of my life?

  “Yes, I'm talking about”—she cleared her throat before continuing—“sex.” It was very obvious that Kate was uncomfortable talking about this particular subject. I tried to hurry the conversation along, though at this point I had no idea where it might have been heading in the first place.

  “Listen, we don’t have to talk about this now. Like you said, we’ve only been on one date. And now we know each other’s romantic history, so we’re on the same page there. We can take things at whatever speed we both need,” I tried to reassure her. It seemed to work.

  “Great,” she exhaled. Her shoulders dropped as if a weight had been lifted with my words. I liked the idea of taking her burdens from her.

  She looked so relieved, and her hair was a little messy from being loose all day, and she had a smudge on the side of her chin. She looked absolutely beautiful. With a surge of confidence that seemingly came out of nowhere, I was able to ask her the question I had never thought I would ask her in real life.

  “Can I kiss you?” It came out a little needier than I’d intended, but it was out. She looked at me and just nodded.

  And that was the how, where, and why of my first kiss with Kate.

  Chapter 13

  My new normal was actually really weird. As I sat at lunch, with Kate next to me and Marie across from me, I had a hard time reconciling how fast things had changed. Kate going from a crush to something more (too early to call her my girlfriend) in such a short time had my head reeling. What was tripping me up even more was the fourth member of our new lunch crew: Jenny Jeffries.

  The girl who had belittled and provoked me for years, who’d turned out to be the lifelong friend of my dream girl, had unpacked a huge sub, a salad, a tub full of fruit, and one single chocolate pudding pack and plopped herself right next to Marie. She immediately joined in the conversation, and it was clear that I was the only one who objected to her sitting with us. Both Kate and Marie were laughing at whatever Jenny was saying while I sat bewildered.

  “So we were on the treadmills, and when I sped up a notch, I saw Kate do the same thing. So of course I had to go up one more. After a few minutes, we were both sprinting at full speed because neither one of us would back down. Just as I thought I was going to face-plant because the machine was going so fast, I saw Kate's arms and legs flailing right before she managed to press the emergency stop button. I then pressed my button because I was laughing too hard. I will never forget the sight of her losing her balance on that machine and the way her arms just sort of went crazy,” Jenny said,
moving her arms like wet noodles in imitation of Kate. Marie was laughing and Kate was cringing.

  “Not my best moment, I'll admit. But I can still outrun you when we're not on some stupid machine,” Kate defended, spearing some of her salad with her fork.

  “And I can still bench press two of you,” Jenny responded, flexing her admittedly muscular arms. Jenny's words over the years had been so cutting that the fact she was also pretty ripped had been a secondary concern of mine. It was like she’d been made in a lab to be the perfect bully. One whose biceps my best friend was playfully squeezing, much to my chagrin.

  While having Jenny sit with me at lunch was not doing much for my digestion, having Kate next to me was worth suffering through the bully's presence. And it was interesting to see this different side of Jenny. I had to admit to myself that she was funny and definitely knew how to tell a story well. Plus, she was totally ignoring me, which was a big plus from my perspective.

  “Haley and Kate,” Marie said as she pointed to each of us in turn, “Jenny and I are going to the mall after school today. My brother has science club tonight, so I have a couple of hours of freedom before I have to pick him up. Interested in tagging along with us?” she asked.

  “I can't,” Kate replied before I had even thought about it. “Cheer practice after school. But you should totally go, Haley, and hang out with the girls.”

  I glanced at Jenny, and the look she was giving me did not communicate a desire to hang out with me. “I have homework tonight, so I have to pass too. Thanks for the invitation, though,” I told Marie, while very consciously keeping my eyes away from Jenny. She might have been cool with my friends, but years of animosity between us wouldn't disappear in a few days.

  As Marie and Jenny dug into their meals, I felt something brush against my knee. When I looked down, I saw Kate's hand resting there, her fingers lightly curled around my kneecap and her thumb brushing against the side. I immediately glanced around, afraid someone had seen this show of intimacy. Kate snatched her hand back, and I felt like an idiot. Kate started talking to Jenny about meeting up for a workout session soon, leaving me to stew in my own thoughts.

  An awesome, beautiful, intelligent girl wanted to show me affection, and all I could think about was if anyone had witnessed it. My nervousness around Kate had morphed from worrying about interacting with her to worrying about how others saw us interacting with each other. Even though everyone knew I was a lesbian, I still had hang-ups about being affectionate with another girl. Intellectually, that was ridiculous. But my emotions were currently overriding my brain. I had to get a handle on this before I did something stupid, which was a very real possibility for me.

  Marie, in all her best friend glory, brought me out of my funk.

  “How did dinner with Kate's parents go last night?” she asked. “You never responded to any of my texts, so I've been dying with curiosity for hours,” she added with a dramatic flair.

  Kate and I let out simultaneous groans.

  My first meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Monroe had probably been one of the more embarrassing situations I had ever been in, which was saying a lot. They were perfectly nice people who, on the night I’d met them, had fallen into the category of “trying too hard.”

  Before I met them, Kate had explained to me that she had never brought a girl home to meet her parents before, because the two times she had been previously involved with a girl had been at cheerleading camp. After crushing my initial excitement at hearing this (“That happens at cheerleading camp? I thought that sort of stuff only happened in movies.” “What types of movies are you watching?”), she’d revealed that she had only come out to her parents after our first date, and while they had been supportive when they’d heard the news, they were not 100 percent comfortable yet.

  That had worried me a little, but it was understandable. So when I had gone over to their house for dinner the week after our date at the movies, I’d been ready for some awkwardness, maybe even a little veiled (or not so veiled) hostility. What I had not been ready for was the virtual pride parade that had greeted me when I stepped through their front door. The first thing I’d seen was a huge rainbow flag draped over the railing of the upstairs landing, lightly fluttering from whatever breeze had been present in the house.

  The second thing I’d seen was Kate standing underneath the flag, staring up at it with a look of mortification on her face. Trying to ignore the multicolored metaphorical cloud hanging over us, I’d thanked Kate’s parents for inviting me for dinner. I’d also seen for the first time since they had opened the door that they were wearing matching shirts with the words “I support my gay daughter” written prominently on the fronts. They each had had big smiles on their faces as they’d greeted me with hugs and exclamations of how happy they were to meet me.

  As I had been led through the house to the dining room, I’d noticed smaller pride flags and the logo of the Human Rights Campaign sprinkled liberally throughout. Kate had apologized in a whisper, telling me that she had been up in her room most of the day and had no idea that her parents had redecorated in such a colorful way. I’d whispered back that it was fine, and I had meant it. I would’ve rather been awkwardly embraced than scorned as I had feared.

  Kate’s parents, Mark and Julia, were both engineers, and freely admitted that they were more comfortable with numbers than people. But there was no doubt that they loved their daughter. I could tell by the looks on their faces when they talked about Kate or when Kate was saying something that she meant the world to them.

  Kate had inherited the best physical features of both her parents so that their unassuming individual looks had come together to form a very pretty daughter. There had been a fond exasperation in the way Kate had talked with her parents, as if she had wanted to be mad at them for going overboard with the pride paraphernalia but could not quite muster up the needed emotion.

  The high point (or low point, depending on your perspective) had been when we were all sitting around the table about halfway through dinner. The conversation had turned to our first date, despite Kate’s attempts to steer it to less personal matters, when Mr. Monroe had said with a laugh, “At least I don’t have to worry now about becoming a grandfather anytime soon!” Mrs. Monroe had scolded him with a sharp “Mark!” while Kate had chimed in with her own “Dad!” I had just smiled uneasily, at a loss for what else to do or say.

  The rest of the night had gone much smoother, and I’d left feeling wholeheartedly, if a bit overenthusiastically, embraced by them.

  “It went fine,” I vaguely said to Marie, not wanting to get into all the embarrassment from last night while at lunch. Or ever, really. Kate concurred, and before Marie could grill us on our nonanswers, the chime signaling the end of lunch went off. Thankful to escape an interrogation, I quickly gathered my things and got up to leave. After nodding halfheartedly at Marie's threat of calling me later, I awkwardly stood, facing Kate as the rest of the students filed out of the cafeteria.

  “I'll text you later?” she said quietly as she fiddled with a strap on her backpack.

  “Yeah, I'll look forward to hearing from you,” I said, wincing as I realized too late how desperate that sounded. Trying to shrug off my mistake, I added, “Have a great time at practice today.”

  Kate smiled and I melted. If she hadn't turned to leave after thanking me, she would have witnessed me slumping back down to the table in bliss.

  The next two weeks went by in a rainbow-hued flash. Eddy had won the race for student class representative, so she was even more insufferable than usual. Kate and I went on a few more dates, some more successful than others. My parents absolutely adored Kate, which didn’t seem like it would be a problem, but definitely was. They always wanted me to bring her over to the house so they could feed her, and my dad kept on asking if everything was going well with her, as if he were worried I would mess things up. It was a bit insulting. The worst was when my mom sat me down and started a sex talk. I covered my ears and immed
iately fled. Parents shouldn’t give sex talks anymore. We had the Internet for that now.

  And I did not want to find out what my straight mom would say in her presumably lesbian sex talk. We’d had the traditional sex talk when I was eleven, right when I was beginning to realize that I maybe looked at girls the same way my friends looked at boys. I had not mentioned anything to my mom about not liking boys enough to let one do what she had been describing to me at the time. Instead, I’d sat there silently and tried to keep the growing disgust off my face, because even at that age I’d known that wasn't the “normal” reaction to the thought of having sex with boys.

  Sex with girls, though, was entirely more appealing to me.

  It was confirmed one afternoon when Kate had come over to study. In contrast to our first study session, where the bed had been avoided at all costs, we were now lying on top of the bedspread, furiously dragging our mouths against each other. What had started out as an innocent make-out session as we sat on the edge of my bed—leisurely exploring each others’ mouths with our tongues and teeth, our fingers slowly caressing backs and shoulders and necks—had evolved into Kate pressing me into the pillows as my hands slid against the smooth skin of her lower back. They had somehow wandered under her shirt. My fingers and palms reveled in her warm skin, igniting my nerve endings.

  There was an urgency in our kisses and touches that had been hinted at but never before fully unleashed. Her mouth wandered from my lips to my cheek to my neck, alternating between sucks and bites that had me gasping. I tried to return the favor by nuzzling the spot right underneath her jaw that made her eyes flutter in pleasure. I hoped I was making her feel just as good as she was making me feel.

  Kate shifted over me so that more of her weight was resting against my chest. I liked it, so I pulled her closer, my hand drifting higher so that my fingertips brushed against the back of her bra. Just as I was wondering if I should slip my fingers under that strip of cloth so I could feel even more soft skin, Kate maneuvered her left leg between my thighs, and when she gently rocked into me, it felt so good I let out a whispered expletive.