As soon as the bathroom door shut, I chastised myself. “Righty-O, space captain?” I groaned and fell back onto my pillow, baffled by why I suddenly felt uncomfortable around Gemma. No, not uncomfortable, per se, but tongue-tied. Like I was trying too hard to be cute, funny, and charming.
Minutes later, Gem stepped out of the bathroom, dressed in a wifebeater and red pajama bottoms covered with ginormous white Ns. Her Irish skin had a pinkish hue, and the back of her shirt was drenched by her crimson locks. Gem’s lips were red and full, making me tingle with jealousy.
Gemma swung open the battered door to our mini fridge and seized two Target brand water bottles. She held one aloft. “I think it’d be wise for you to drink all of this water before you fall asleep and then this one during the night. Or you might wake up in a tutu and hula hoop again.”
I nodded, grabbed the remote to the stereo from the top of the fridge, which doubled as our nightstand, and flipped on the radio. “Fast Car” filled the silence in the room.
“How come you never talk about an ex?” I fluffed a pillow behind my back and then swigged some water.
Gem sat with her back against the wall, cradling her knees, facing me. “Not much to tell really.” She avoided my eyes.
“Au contraire. I can tell by your avoidance you aren’t playing fair.” I lowered my head, trying to catch her eye.
“I’m not avoiding.”
I slanted my head so it was nearly horizontal to the floor and stared into her eyes. “Yes. You. Are.” I punctuated each word with a jab of the finger. “I know you better than anyone.”
“Is that right?” Her tone was playful. “Even though we’ve only known each other a couple of months?”
“After living in a space smaller than a jail cell, it’s true. So spill the beans right now, missy.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll…”
“That’s what I thought. Empty threats will get you nowhere.” She tsked, rubbing one index finger over her other, teacher-like.
“I’ll s-show you an empty threat.” I glanced around the room helplessly, my eyes not wanting to focus.
She chortled. “Yep! You showed me!”
I shook the water bottle at her. “Don’t be so mean.” My speech slurred and so mean came out shhh-mean.
Gem placed a hand on her tiny but perfect tits. “I’m being mean? You’re the one threatening me. Or trying to.”
“Gemma!” I raked my blonde hair into a scrunchie, neglecting a large section in the back that hung limply, but I didn’t have the energy or coordination to fix it. “Just tell me what I want to know.”
“I’m sorry. What did you want to know again?” Her beguiling grin got to me in indescribable ways.
I lobbed a heart-shaped pillow at her head.
“That’s the threat? A decorative pillow?” Nevertheless, she clutched it to her chest.
“No, that’s not the threat. This is the threat.” I bum-rushed her and straddled her on the bed, tickling her sides. “Tell me or I’ll subject you to tickle torture.”
“Teeg… stop!” She attempted to pull my arms away, but I escaped her fumbling hands.
“Or what?”
She hesitated for a moment. “I won’t tell you what you want to know.”
That captured my attention, and I put my hands in the air as if a cop commanded me to reach for the sky. “Okay, I’ll be good. I promise.” I sat on her bed with my back against the wall under her “Everything I know I learned from my dog” poster to still the spinning sensation. It was strange how my mind was trying to fight off the drunkenness as if knowing a golden opportunity awaited.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Why?” I put a hand on my chest. “Because you’re my roommate, but I feel… Sometimes, I feel like you purposely don’t tell me certain things, and I don’t want a barrier up between us. You’re my best friend. Let me in.”
Gem snorted. “Really? Emotional blackmail?”
I nudged her with my foot. “This isn’t emotional blackmail!”
“Yes, it is.”
I stabbed the air with a finger. “Take that back!”
“Or what?”
“Or I won’t dress as Princess Leia.” My tongue stumbled over Princess Leia, making me sound like I had a serious lisp.
Gemma chuckled, and it seemed forced. “Jenny and April are the ones insisting you dress as her, not me.”
“What, you don’t want me to?”
She shifted on the bed, remaining mute.
I needed to up my game, and only one thing came to mind. I forced her onto her back, climbed on top, and resumed tickling her mercilessly.
“Tegan, please,” she shouted in a desperate manner. “Get off me!” She shoved with all her force, knocking me into the wall.
There was quiet in the room for a split second until Gemma blubbered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
Simultaneously, I babbled, “Please, don’t be mad. I’m just drunk. Please don’t be mad at me.” My brain and mouth were on different wavelengths, trying to figure out what spurred her to seriously wig out.
Gem helped me into a sitting position and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Are you mad?”
“I could never be mad at you.” Her voice was softer and filled with regret.
I nervously ran my tongue over the gap in my front teeth.
She smiled weakly, glancing down at her freckled hands in her lap.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I pulled away. “I understand if you don’t, but if you do, I’m here.” I positioned a hand behind each of my ears and said, “Have ears, will listen.”
She pulled a face. “I hate that poster.”
Last week after a student attempted to kill himself, the mental health clinic had slathered posters with their new slogan that showed a cartoon guy with elephant-size ears all over campus. Really, that was the best the professionals could do when a student tried to off himself? Their idiocy put a buffer between the reason why the poster was needed and the jokes in my circle of friends. I couldn’t resist peeling one off the back of a bathroom stall in the student union and taping it on my closet door. After the second day, our guests had added their own artistic flair. It was now covered with graffiti, my fave being: “What big ears you’ve got. Give me a peanut.”
“Who in their right mind would go see a therapist, thinking he or she’s half-human, half-animal?” I laughed in a mirthless way that clearly signaled my nerves were frayed by her out-of-character outburst.
“If you’re in your right mind, do you really need a therapist?” she halfheartedly joked, lending insight that she also was at a loss to explain the weirdness.
Gem tugged on the cuff of her pajama bottoms, and I gnawed on a hangnail.
“Well, this is awkward,” I said, finally trying to break the ice.
She nodded.
“You know you can tell me anything. I’m your friend above all else.” What was she holding back? Was she a virgin? Never dated? Or did her flip-out mean something really bad had happened to her? Something that was best left unsaid?
“I know,” she said without committing to divulging any personal details.
“What is it?” I rocked back and forth on the bed.
She turned her head in slow motion, a smile slowly tugging up the corners of her pink lips. “It’s killing you, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“That I have a secret.” She no longer looked tortured, much to my relief.
“I knew it!” I clapped my hands together. “I knew you were keeping something from me.”
“I don’t remember the rule stating you had to know everything about me.”
“Oh, it’s a rule. I mean, it’s like a Ten Commandments rule. Thou shall tell Tegan everything.”
She laughed.
I shook her arm, jostling harder than I’d intended, c
ausing her face to brush against my double D tits—the biggest reason why Jenny thought I was a shoo-in for the Princess Leia gig.
Gemma popped up immediately. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what? I yanked you into me.”
She rolled her lips, making them glisten.
I wondered what it would be like to kiss such soft-looking lips. Shoving that thought into my what the fuck mental file, I refocused on the matter at hand: Gemma. “I meant it earlier, when I said you could tell me anything and it wouldn’t change a thing between us. Not one iota.”
Gemma cowered back on the bed, supporting her upper body against the wall. “You can’t make that promise.”
“Yes, I can. I just did.” I spit into the palm of my hand and stuck it out.
Her eyes widened.
“What? I hate the sight of blood and only ever make spit oaths.”
“You’re studying to be a nurse. How can you hate the sight of blood?”
My face burned. “My blood. I hate the sight of my own blood,” I corrected.
“Oh, right.”
She still didn’t accept my spit oath. It was hard not to be slightly insulted, especially considering I hadn’t made a spit oath since grade school.
“You didn’t kill someone, right?” I joshed behind my now dried palm.
Her silence was unnerving. She drummed a finger against her lips, drawing my attention to them once again. Why was I obsessing about her mouth tonight? Something was seriously wrong with me, and I didn’t think it was just the booze sloshing through my veins.
“What am I doing?” she mumbled to herself.
“Taking advantage of me.”
Gem shot off the bed. “I’m doing no such thing. I’d never.”
The color drained out of her face to the point even her lips were white.
I jumped up and moved to put my arms around her, but she stepped out of my grasp. “What’s wrong?”
“I’d never take advantage of you. Never.” She squared her shoulders.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, you were trying to distract me with questions since I’m drunk. Dude, I know you aren’t a guy.”
Her eyes darted to mine, the look of panic connecting directly to my heart, and I knew her secret right then and there.
I backpedaled two steps, putting my hands up to steady myself. “Oh,” I whispered.
She ran a hand through her nearly dry hair. “Yeah, oh. Now you won’t—”
I punctured the air with my palm. “Stop right there. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Gemma collapsed into a desk chair across the room. “How did you mean it, then?”
“I feel awful that I bullied you into telling me something you clearly didn’t want me to know. I had no idea.” Or did I?
“If you did or suspected, would you have reacted differently?” She hugged her arms under her breasts.
“Of course.” I took four strides, knelt down, and laid my arms on her thighs. “It’s no big deal. I don’t care if you’re gay. It doesn’t change anything. I just wasn’t expecting it. That’s all. Honest.”
“Right.” She nodded.
I could tell she didn’t believe a word I’d said. And the award for “worst best roommate” goes to…
“Seriously. It doesn’t matter.” I tapped her leg with a hand. “No matter what, you’re my roomie.” I followed up by squeezing her runner’s thigh.
Gemma smothered a fake yawn. “I think it’s time for bed.”
“What? No way. I want to know about the girl.” I smiled foolishly. “Now that the cat is out of the bag—no more reason for subterfuge.”
She laughed despite her stiff posture. “You’re so stubborn.”
“You have no idea.”
“Oh, I think I’m learning.” Her eyes sparkled more than usual as she peered down at me. “But you only get one secret per day. You’ve reached your quota.”
I glanced at the neon green digits on my clock radio. “It’s 12:05.”
“True. The day just started, so you have to wait until 12:05 tomorrow morning.”
I whacked her arm. “You don’t play fair.”
“Says the emotional blackmailer.” She got to her feet and yawned again, for real this time. “Seriously, I’m wrecked.”
She had consumed way more alcohol than usual. We both had.
“Okay, safe for now. But I’m setting the alarm for 12:05 a.m. to find out the rest tomorrow.”
Gemma stood in the middle of our twelve-by-twelve-foot dorm room, watching me with a neutral expression that seemed more put-on than normal. “Seriously, you’re okay with this?”
I made a pshaw sound to seem more convincing. “Totally. You aren’t the first gay person I’ve known.”
“How can you say that if you didn’t know I was gay until a few moments ago?”
I collapsed onto my bed and climbed under the covers. “I meant you aren’t the first to come out to me. It happens…”
“All the time? What, lesbians flock to you like dykes to bikes?” She chuckled, settling into her bed.
“You’d be surprised. People love to confide in me. You’ll learn and surrender to me.” Surrender? What did I mean by that? Her confession was nowhere along the lines of my best friend in high school telling me she had a crush on our English lit teacher and wanted to have his babies. All of the girls had a crush on Mr. Sweeney. Gemma’s secret ranked among the ultimate—like CIA confidential.
Her quizzical brows seemed to be mulling over what I meant as well.
Even my alcohol-foozled mind clamped onto the obvious: I was blowing it. Gemma had just trusted me with a secret she had kept from everyone at Hill University, and here I was making light of it—or quite possibly she thought I was mocking her. But the fact she was a lesbian was slowly sinking in since I’d blotted out all the clues for weeks now. Why else would she prefer Star Wars over Indiana Jones? It had to be the bikini scene.
The knowledge that I was failing her and our friendship didn’t mean I had a plan to fix it. I pulled the chain on the tiny lamp on the mini fridge. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
The curtains over Gem’s bed weren’t completely drawn, and I stared out into the star-speckled, inky night, pondering why I’d pushed Gemma so hard to reveal her secret. I was a busybody to a certain degree, but it was as if I had to uncover the truth no matter what.
My eyes wandered down and studied the back of her head, and I found myself wishing she wasn’t facing the wall. Ages later, her breathing slowed, indicating she was drifting off. It wasn’t until I heard the soft snuffling sound she made when deep in sleep that I allowed myself to settle for the night.
Chapter Five
I pried my eyes open at 8:57 a.m. So much for making my nine o’clock class. I let out a puff of air, stirring loose strands of hair on my forehead. “At least it’s Friday.” I sat up to stretch and yawn.
Gemma’s bed was made, and the room was eerily quiet. Was she in the bathroom? I didn’t hear the shower. “Gem?” I called out. She didn’t have an early class, so where could she be?
A jangle of keys outside the door partly answered the mystery.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” She placed two donuts with chocolate frosting and a plastic orange juice container on the bed next to me. “I thought you might need some motivation to get out of bed today. G&T Thursdays are hard on you.”
Her tone was normal, but not once did she meet my eyes, and I couldn’t put my finger as to why; however, my pulse throbbed like something big had happened. Last night was foggy at best, and I sensed part of me thought it was best not to dredge up the memories. “My head is pounding,” I said, feeling like the Cowardly Lion.
“Right.” She opened her closet door to pull out her meds bucket that contained mostly vitamins. “Here ya go.” She sprinkled two aspirin out of a bottle into my hand.
“Thanks,” I mumbled and tossed the pills back
with OJ. “So, you’ve already had breakfast downstairs?”
“Yeah. Got an early… meeting, er, group study session today.”
Who would ever form a study session before noon on a Friday? Was Gem lying? That’d be a first.
“I should get going.” She gave a slight wave as if she couldn’t wait to leave the room.
“Wait, don’t go,” I said, and she paused at the foot of my bed, her back facing me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She wiggled her fingers about. “Nothing’s wrong.”
I got to my feet and marched around to confront her. “Something is wrong. Tell me.”
Gemma stared at her Doc Martins.
I lifted her chin with a finger. “Did I do something wrong?”
She shook her head, lips fastened shut.
“Gem?” I laid a hand on her shoulder.
She sighed, and her shoulders relaxed. “Do you remember much from last night?”
I blinked. Some memories of interrogating her about exes came into focus. Innocent tickling. Nothing serious, though, jumped to mind. “From the woodpecker behind my eyes, I think I drank way too much.” A sense of dread compelled me to stress the word “way” in case I’d done something so embarrassing she’d never forgive me. As my brother Glen would say, I was hedging my bets.
A faint smile appeared on her sweet face. “We both did.”
“Do you feel okay? Hungover? Is that why you’re acting strange?” I laid a hand on her forehead, which was radiating heat.
She hoisted one shoulder.
“There’s more, though.” I whacked my head to knock some sense into it, and regretted the action. “Oi!”
“Easy. No trips to Urgent Care today.” She motioned for me to sit down. I patted the bed for her to join me. She did—even though her rigid upper body indicated it was the last thing she wanted to do.
“So, give it to me straight. What did I do last night?”
“Nothing. You did nothing last night.”
“Was I supposed to do something? Is that why you’re mad?” I stared at her, perplexed.
“I’m not mad. I’m just—look, it doesn’t matter. You clearly don’t remember anything.” She started to stand, but I forced her back down. From the flicker in her emerald eyes, it clearly mattered.
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