Plunge

  “Do you have a secret?” I asked her, my voice bordering on shrill.

  Another pause. “Yeah,” she answered. “I do.”

  After we got off the phone, I stared at the ceiling in a funk. Marley and I had been friends forever and she had never had a secret from me. I was always the one who played coy, who had to have my little mysteries gently pulled from between my lips. Marley was the one who couldn’t wait until she saw me in person before she shared anything that could even halfway be perceived as interesting, many times grossly miscalculating what I actually wanted to know about. The world seemed to be turning backwards and here I was, flat on my bed, stuck going the opposite direction. With a huff, I rolled over and squeezed my eyes shut. It took awhile to quiet my thoughts enough to rest, but eventually I did. Sleep took me gently, the blackness coming in rolling waves.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lennox

  It wasn’t really in my personality to be the kind of person who was tormented by the question of what to wear. If I had jeans and a crisp flannel, I was good to go. Maybe I would do a little something to my hair, but that was the extent of my primping.

  All that lifetime of fashion chill was gone on the day I was set to meet Hannah at the coffee shop.

  There was nothing in my wardrobe that went with my infinity scarf. There was no way I could mix literary quotes and plaid. I should have told Hannah I’d be the one with a rose or something like in a movie, but no, I had to pick the most awkward fashion accessory ever as my prop.

  I stood in front of my mirror for twenty minutes doing little spins to check all my angles like I was in some freaking Romantic Comedy. I dusted off lint that probably wasn’t even there. I took off my purple flannel and put on a teal one. I looked like Hell and all my clothes were wrong. After what felt like hours but was probably less than five minutes, I finally settled on a loose, black and gray striped sweater with my favorite shredded mom jeans and hoped for the best.

  With a weary sigh, I fell back on my bed, letting the nervous jitters work over my body in waves. My legs, tight and humming, were achy and I felt like I’d been for a run instead of just standing in one spot.

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how the date would go, thinking about Hannah’s curly hair falling into her face as she turned her head and saw me walk up. It churned my stomach to think that maybe she would walk out as soon as she saw me, but the biggest part of me silenced that fear. I really didn’t think that was what I would be walking into. Hannah was the one who had always had faith, had faced her fears, had jumped off the side of the mountain just to prove to herself she could. She wasn’t going to turn away from me just when I was finally ready to take my own leap.

  It came to me then, what I considered a small stroke of genius. Instead of walking to Starbucks like I’d planned, I would borrow the car. It was big and small at the same time: nothing over the top, but a statement that I was ready to face my fears. For her and for me, I would do what needed to be done. I walked downstairs and into the living room where I knew I’d find Mom. Just as I suspected, she was curled up on the couch with her daily devotional in her lap. Her face was relaxed, and I hated to bother her, but I cleared my throat to get her attention. She turned and looked up at me.

  “Hey Mom,” I said. “Can I borrow the car?”

  She shifted to look at me, her sad, watery eyes fixed on mine. “You haven’t been driving.”

  I shrugged. “I know. That’s kind of why I thought I would.”

  She didn’t talk for a beat and I wondered what she was thinking. Was she suspicious of me, like Dad? Did she think I was going to do something that would make her even more ashamed? What would she do if she knew I was?

  She walked over to the table in the foyer. I trailed behind her. She fished the car keys from her purse and handed them to me. When I reached to take them, her hand closed around mine. She didn’t say anything, but she smiled a tiny smile and held me there for a few seconds. Then she let go.

  When I sat down behind the wheel of the car, I felt my throat tighten, my pulse quicken. The last time I’d been the driver of a car, it had ended badly. I tried not to think of that, but I could hear Dad griping in my head and just like in real life, his voice was too commanding to ignore.

  “I don’t know why you want to drive,” he grumbled as he slid into the passenger seat. I turned on the radio, but as soon as the bubbly, cheerful pop started to flow from the speakers, he reached over and turned the music off.

  “Because everyone drives,” I argued, not knowing what else to say. “It’s just a rite of passage; you get to a certain age; you get a license. You get a license, you drive.”

  “Seems to me like there’s nowhere you need to go that your mom can’t drive you to. If she can’t drive you, you probably shouldn’t be going.”

  It took everything I had to stifle the urge to slam my face into the steering wheel. He wanted to track where I was going all the time. That’s what his weird question was about. Keeping me from driving was just another way to try to make sure that the gayness wouldn’t seep into our Huntington lives, that I wouldn’t implode our life all over again. My hands gripped the wheel, but my palms were sweaty, and I had a vision of the wheel slipping sharply, turning because my hands were too slippery to control my grip. Blinking was my first instinct, but as my vision clouded even more, it struck me that I was just making things worse. Even as I tried to pull myself together, Dad kept on, a constant, deep drone in my ear that seemed to make the rest of the world blur into a speckled gray haze.

  “I mean, that’s what this is about, right, Lennox? You want to be able to take yourself places where your mom and I can’t keep tabs on you. You want to keep living this life of sin even though we had to uproot our whole life because of you.”

  And just like that, I couldn’t feel my lips. It was like they weren’t even on my face anymore. Just gone. Around the perimeter of my mouth, my skin felt like bees flapping their wings and buzzing, but inside the perimeter, nothing. I yanked the car off the road and threw open the door. My breath came in gulps and when Mom called out to me, asking if I was okay, it sounded like I was underwater.

  The vomit came in a wave that crested first in my throat, bubbling up and out in a splash against the ground. With the back of my hand, I wiped the acid from the corners of my mouth. I walked over to the car but let myself into the backseat. My dad shook his head before walking around to the driver’s side, sliding into the seat and adjusting the mirror.

  It was just another failure in his eyes and we both knew it; he was thinking: look, Lennox can’t even manage to drive two miles on the highway, but she wants her license? What he didn’t ask himself is why he bullied me into vomiting by the side of the road or why he never asked me if I was okay. I’m his only daughter, but it didn’t even occur to him to utter a single word of comfort. It hit me then that there had been all this time spent over the course of all our lives trying to figure out whether I’m the right kind of girl, but Dad never thinks to ask himself what it means to be a man.

  Pulling myself back into reality, I started the car. With one last glance in the mirror overhead, I checked my face and realized that somewhere in this flashback through time, I had started crying.

  Great, I thought. Just what I need. I’m going to show up to sweep the girl of my dreams off her feet with a puffy face and red bags under my eyes. Irresistible.

  I was able to stop crying long enough to safely make my way down eighth street, which was probably the most hectic part of the drive. It seemed like people were either back to work or still sleeping off holiday celebrations because the city was quiet. I could even change lanes without shaking because the other cars were so far behind me there was no danger I would get side-swiped. In less than ten minutes, I was at Pullman Square pulling into a parking spot across from the pottery store.

  With a quick glance in the mirror, I mentally prepared myself for the big moment. I was still puffy, but only a little, and if she was eve
n close to as nervous as I was, she wouldn’t even notice. I’d hoped to arrive before her, but my little trip down memory lane had delayed my departure, so she was probably already inside. I wouldn’t even have have a chance to go splash water on my face. The Starbucks we were meeting in was a tight storefront that was always crowded with people waiting for their caffeine fixes. She would likely be watching the door, notice me when I came in. The thought froze me more than the wind. More than diving into Grayson Lake. It was like plunging headfirst into a bucket of ice water. I shoved my hands in my pocket and took a deep breath, feeling the chill of the winter air make its way into my lungs.

  Five, I thought, beginning a backwards count, hoping it would steady me. I took a step forward. Four. Three. Two. I was at the door. All that was left to do was reach out my hand, grab the handle and make my way inside. I watched my breath turn to steam as it left my body. One.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hannah

  I felt like I was going to vomit.

  I’d never actually been great about meeting new people. My tendency to overshare and blurt out slightly off-topic questions threw most people and I was pretty sure I didn’t leave them with the best impression. A coffee date seemed safe, like it wouldn't too long for me to go without making a fool of myself. I should have suggested we start with a pre-planned speed dating session. I could probably be impressive for sixty seconds or five minutes or however long they set those little timers for.

  I stood in front of the mirror to try to build myself up. My curvy butt looked good in my high-waisted jeans. My striped sweater hugged my chest without making it look like I was trying too hard. Even if I walked into the coffee shop and immediately stuck my foot in my mouth, my fashion game was on point. I still felt like I was going to vomit. With a glance at my phone, I realized that I still had an hour until I needed to meet my blind date and that in my compulsive over planning, I’d left myself with absolutely no way to distract myself during that hour.

  Pacing around my own room didn’t seem like the best option, but it was all I had on short notice. I inched around the periphery, picking up pictures and old stuffed animals. I tossed a lumpy stuffed cat back and forth for a few minutes while staring off into space.

  As I continued to stare blankly off into space, there was a soft knock on my door.

  “Come in,” I called, and Mom popped her head in, a mass of tangled hair framing her face.

  I blinked at her head. I didn’t know why she was hovering in the doorframe, but I wasn’t going to tell her twice to enter the room.

  “Did you need something?” I asked the head.

  Mom cracked the door open a little wider and inched her way through so that now her body was wedged between the door and the frame. She was still in this liminal space between being in the room and not in the room. I rolled my eyes. We hadn’t talked since our fight and I knew she was hedging her way in to try to get me to officially put it behind us, but I wasn’t giving her the satisfaction. This argument was years in the making, and I wasn’t going to get over it just because she wanted to be funny all of a sudden.

  “In or out,” I grumbled, and I walked over to my bed before flopping down in a heap. Snatching up my pillow, I hugged it to my chest.

  She walked over and sat down beside me, her fingers finding my hair like they always did. She smoothed the stray tangles from my face. Her hands were warm, but I wanted them off me, so I rolled away from her, my eyes fixed on the wall ahead.

  “Mom, I have a blind date in less than an hour. I can’t get into this with you.”

  I heard a tiny sigh, followed by a hiccup. Mom always hiccupped when she was a total mess of emotions, but I didn’t have time to soothe her. I needed to find a way to soothe myself.

  “Hannah—" she started, and I just couldn’t take it. The room, her voice, it was all suffocating me. I got up and grabbed my keys from my dresser. With one hand on the door, I shot off the last arrow I had before whipping my hair around and heading out.

  “Not everything’s about you, Mom.”

  On the whole drive to Starbucks, I felt like shit. It hadn’t been a fair thing to say. Mom had never been one of those mothers who ignored her kids and focused on her own problems. Her life had been about me and Ari. I tried to soothe my guilt by telling myself she had to know that, that she was way too smart to take the untrue words of a bratty, tantrum throwing teenager to heart. Then every time the guilt would subside, the anger would swell like I was riding a wave that wouldn’t quit cresting, keeping me forever bouncing along the water’s edge.

  I was a mess. I couldn’t go into a coffee shop and have a blind date while my heart was skipping around like this. I looked at my watch. Five minutes until I was supposed to be inside. That was definitely not enough notice to cancel a date. There wasn’t a choice; I was going to have to push through it and go inside. Steadying myself against the side of the building, I peeked through the smudged glass to try to get some spoilers about my date. From out here, though, it was hard to make out anything that gave me answers. Starbucks was too densely packed with people needing their caffeine fix. I could only see the people sitting on little round tables by the front window and I was pretty sure my date wasn’t with the elderly woman in Tweety Bird scrubs or the pre-teen boy with the faux hawk and a giant, whip cream slathered Frappuccino.

  If I wanted to meet my love connection, I was going to have to go in. With a deep breath, I pushed my way through the double doors. Inhaling deeply, I took a whiff of nutty, chocolatey coffee and navigated my way through the heavy crowds until I could find her. With a glance at my watch, I shook my head in disbelief. Starbucks usually had the biggest crowds in the early morning, pre-work rush. As an elbow pushed up against my stomach, I turned sideways and ducked a little.

  That’s when I saw her: I knew who she was as soon as I saw the back of her head. Lennox. It wasn’t just the hair, either, although there was something about the way the fuzz trailed her thin neck that was distinctly her. She was sitting like Lennox, head tilted just slightly backwards so that I couldn’t see her face but could tell she was ceiling staring. Should I talk to her? We hadn’t spoken since our fight, but I wanted so much to make up. I could buy her a coffee and we could sit and hash things out and maybe I could get her to listen to me this time.

  Still, it wasn’t really the time. I was here for someone else.

  As I geared up to walk past her table and try to avoid eye contact, I noticed it there on her table. A book page circle scarf. With one hand grasping at the chair closest to me for support, I stared at the scarf trying to make sense of what I saw. Should I even go over? She was supposed to be my blind date, but it had been made abundantly clear that she wasn’t interested. So what did this new turn of events mean? That she had changed her mind and decided I was actually worth it? And so, she was just going to lie to me and trick me into a date with her? My jaw tightened and I tried to swallow the anger that had risen like smoke across my vision. With a hard swallow, I walked over and stood in front of her table. I tapped my fingers on the surface in front of her and she looked up.

  “Hey. I think I’m going to have to disappoint you,” I said. “You’re here for a blind date from Lavender Menace?”

  Tears threatened to push their way out of my eyes, but I was going to do everything I could to hold them in. She stood up and started rifling through her brown leather satchel as I waited for a response that didn’t come. After about thirty seconds, I started shifting my weight back and forth between my feet toying with the idea of walking off and buying a latte to go. Before that idea had time to take root, Lennox’s hand emerged from her bag. In it, she held a tiny white box that she extended to me, still not talking.

  “Is this for me?” I asked as I reached out to accept.

  “Yes, Captain Obvious,” she said, and I grinned at the dated but clearly relevant nickname.

  Inside the box was a sterling silver chain that had a blue, glass pendant hanging from it. On the pendant w
as a human form; a lean body that appeared to be wearing scuba gear. I must have looked as confused as I felt because Lennox started explaining it to me with her eyes glued to the ceiling.

  “Okay, so this is kind of dumb and you know that I hate to have to talk about feelings a whole lot, but I wanted to buy you something that represented what I think of you. I know you don’t scuba dive, but I couldn’t find anything that just had a girl in a diving stance or anything and the dive was really the message.” She looked at me then, our eyes meeting as she held my gaze. She took the box back from me and took the necklace out of it; I noticed her hands trembling as she lifted the necklace to my throat and gestured for me to hold my hair up. She wrapped her hands behind my neck and fastened the clasp and our faces were nearly touching as she continued her monologue.

  “I missed you when we weren’t talking. I know that’s stupid because I’ve only known you for like a month, but I missed your obvious questions and the way you would try to cover it up when you caught yourself flirting with me. I missed being around someone who wanted to live as much as you do. Who wanted to dive into everything, not just take a polar bear plunge.” She smiled at me and dropped my hair back against my neck, but her left hand stayed up as she ran it down the length of my shoulder. “I found your profile and I decided it was time for me to take a leap of faith, too. I hope you aren’t disappointed.”

  All the wanting that had burrowed inside me over the last month took hold of me. I didn’t talk and I didn’t think; I threw my arms around Lennox’s neck and pressed my lips into hers, not caring that it could be too much, too soon, not caring about people watching, not caring about anything except for the way she smelled like apples and dryer sheets and the way her hair felt between my fingers. Not wanting to pull away from her, when the kissing ended, I nuzzled my face into her shoulder, just lost in her scent and the warmth of her arms encircling me.