“There was Finn, though. Finn got it. Daddy got it. He’s my best friend, do you know that? My father is my best friend and my hero and my whole world.” Her tears sprang free and she swiped at them hastily. “If I lost him, I don’t know if I’d come back from that. And if I lost him because I’d rather fall in love with Angelina than Brad, I’d never forgive myself. Not for making that choice.”
“Is it a choice, Eloise?” I leaned forward, wanting to understand. “You can’t help who you’re attracted to.”
Her lips curled in bitterness. “No, you can’t. Believe me, I wish I could. I wish I really wanted Finn.”
I contemplated my mug, trying to gather the courage to ask. “How did...how did you know you were gay? When?”
“I was almost fifteen. I’d known something was different for a while. I never had crushes on boys and as we got older and my friends started dating I didn’t want to. I tried to tell myself it was a maturity thing, that I just wasn’t there yet. I kissed boys at parties but I didn’t feel anything but uncomfortable, even repelled sometimes. One day Bryce was talking about a boy in our class. She was talking about how cute she thought he was and how she got butterflies every time he smiled at her.
“And that’s when I realized I did feel that way—” more tears dripped down her cheeks “—but I felt that way about my French tutor.”
“A girl,” I whispered, my chest aching for her.
She nodded. “Audrey. She was French. Eighteen. A freshman at Boston University. And little fourteen-year-old me got butterflies when she smiled at me and my skin tingled whenever she touched me. I was aware of every little movement she made. I overanalyzed every little thing she said to me. And I cried the whole night when her boyfriend came to pick her up from tutoring me. I eventually told Daddy I didn’t need her anymore so I didn’t have to deal with my feelings. But it was like all my feelings were now unlocked. Soon after I developed a crush on Katherine Kelter.”
My jaw dropped.
Eloise gave a huff of angry laughter. “I know. I’m full of surprises. But I’ve pretty much been mooning over her since ninth grade. And she’ll never look at me twice. I’ll never be able to go up to her and ask her out, or hold her hand or kiss her. How is that fair? Why do I have to hide who I want to be with?” Resentment flared in her eyes.
Until now Eloise had seemed so controlled—sad but controlled. But I saw more. I saw her fury at having to hide from the world. And now I also understood her reaction every time Bryce mentioned Katherine flirting with Finn. The jealousy in Eloise’s eyes wasn’t for Finn...it was for Katherine.
“You’re not going to freak out, are you?” she snapped, her defenses up again. “Aren’t you scared I’m attracted to you?”
I didn’t know if she was testing me but I knew how I answered this was important in how we moved forward. So I raised an eyebrow and said, “I’m straight, does that mean I’m attracted to every guy in the world?”
“Of course not. But that doesn’t answer my question. Are you freaking out that I might be attracted to you?”
“Are you attracted to me?” I said in a way that hopefully communicated I wasn’t finding this conversation alarming.
She sniffed, wiping away the last of her tears. “You’re gorgeous, but I put you in the ‘familial’ box before you even got here.”
I thought about what Finn had said about Eloise’s fears and how her mom had something to do with it. “So your mom never knew any of this? You realized after she’d passed away?”
Pain tightened Eloise’s features. “Yes. But I know she wouldn’t have accepted this about me.”
Somehow I couldn’t imagine anyone who loved their kid as much as I could guess Eloise’s mom loved her wouldn’t support her. “How can you possibly know that for sure? Because she was a conservative pro-traditional family person like your dad? That doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t come around if she’d known this about you, and loved and accepted you for who you are.”
“Have you ever had memories from your childhood, stuff that confused you at the time, but when you remember them as you get older you start to realize a truth you were too young then to understand?”
“What do you mean?”
“When I about six, seven years old...” Eloise’s gaze drifted over my shoulder as she seemed to search back into past memories. “My uncle Beau came over to the house while my dad was at work. There wasn’t anything unusual in that. Beau was my mom’s little brother. We weren’t super close because he traveled a lot but he and my mom seemed close. But that day she didn’t want him in the house. I didn’t understand what they were yelling about or why they were both crying, and I didn’t really understand why Beau left that day and I never saw him again.
“But during the weeks when I realized I had feelings for Audrey I started to remember that day. It was just weird. And I never got an explanation from either of my parents about it. However, I remembered something my mom said to him. She said that she could never support his lifestyle. I didn’t understand what it meant then but that word, ‘lifestyle’... I started to think maybe Beau was gay.”
A heavy feeling settled in my gut for Eloise. “You don’t know that for sure though, right?”
“No. But it would make sense, right? And if my mom could cut out her own brother for being gay then she might have felt that way about me, too. Ashamed.”
“You’re taking a guess here. You’re afraid of something you don’t even know is real. Not supporting Beau’s lifestyle could mean anything. He might have been a criminal or a drug addict or something. It doesn’t mean he was gay. And even it if did, their argument was a decade ago, and a lot can change a person’s mind in a decade. Say you’re right—and we don’t know you are—and ten years ago your mom did stop talking to her brother because he was gay, that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have eventually changed her mind, or that she would have reacted the same way to her own daughter. People can react differently to something when it affects someone they desperately want to protect. And I can only guess that your mom would have wanted to protect you from any kind of pain.”
“We don’t know that though,” she argued. “And we’ll never know because she’s gone. I’m terrified of losing my father, too. I won’t do anything that might cause me to lose him.”
“And so no one else but Finn knows?”
“No one. And that’s the way it stays.”
“Elle, I’ve seen how your dad is with you. He would support you. You have to know that. He loves you.”
“No.” I saw the panic take over her anger. “You don’t know him. He’s backed a campaign against same-sex marriage. He’s openly voiced his opinion on what he considers the traditional and ‘right’ American family, and that is a straight couple. I can’t risk it. This would change the way he sees me.”
“Or how everyone at school sees you?”
“Exactly. You have to get that, India. You need the popularity because it makes you feel safe—well, I feel the same way. I’ve never known anything but being Eloise Fairweather. I’m privileged and popular and people respect me. You know what kids are like when they come across someone who is seen as ‘different.’ Eloise Fairweather, blue blood, straight-A student and girlfriend to school legacy Finn Rochester...she’s respected, envied and admired.
“Eloise Fairweather, gay girl...she’d be annihilated.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Back at my school in California I knew kids who were openly gay and no one tortured them for it. They just accepted them for who they are.”
“This isn’t California. This isn’t even Boston. This is Tobias Rochester.”
I still had a hard time believing she wouldn’t be accepted at school. “There are openly gay kids at Tobias Rochester. The guy you’re in Our Town with is gay. Gregg something...”
“Gregg Waters.”
“So, I don’t see kids following around Gregg, making his life hell because he’s gay.”
“Not Gregg, no. But last year a senior, Josie Farquhar, came out to her family and friends. Within hours it was all over social media. The next day at school it started—crass jokes, mean girls. They would scream if she passed them in the hall, lunging out of her way in fits of giggles, crying out how she’d tried to touch their boobs. They campaigned to the school to have her banned from the girls’ locker room because they said they felt uncomfortable and sexualized by her. Every day they taunted her and they did their best to make her feel ‘other.’ She left. Her parents took her out of Tobias Rochester and out of the state to finish her senior year.”
“That was one example and it was a bunch of mean girls who probably would have found something to bully the girl for, anyway. No one would do that to you. You’re Eloise Fairweather.”
“But I’ve lied. I’ve fooled them into believing I’m something I’m not. And they would come after me for that. Let’s not pretend that there aren’t people out there who enjoy watching someone’s downfall. I can’t go through that. I only have to look no further than my friends for a bad reaction—Bryce would not take the news well.”
“Speaking of, why are you friends with her?” Bryce was...well, there was no nice way to put it: Bryce could be a bitch.
“Because we’ve been friends since we were little kids. Sometimes she can be sweet.”
I made a face of disbelief.
Eloise laughed. “I promise. She hasn’t been the sweetest to you but that’s partly my fault.”
“How so?”
“I made it clear before your arrival that I wasn’t looking forward to having you here.” She sat forward, placing her now empty mug on the coffee table. “You have to understand it wasn’t personal. When I first met Hayley I was concerned, naturally, because my father, although he had dated, had never been serious about someone. I worried that she was a gold digger. But if she is one, then she’s a very good actress.”
“Hayley likes society life,” I said. “I won’t say that she doesn’t. But she loves Theo. She’s dated some idiots in the past but she was never serious about them. Theo makes her feel safe. You of all people should get that.”
“I do. And that’s the impression I got when I met her so I decided to give my support but continue to look out for my father’s best interests. Keep my eye on things. You...you were a problem.”
“How?”
“It’s easy hiding a huge secret like this from my dad, because as close as we are, I’m a teenage girl and he gives me my privacy. But having another teenage girl in the house and hanging around my friends, I started to freak out that somehow you’d find out I was gay.” She grunted. “Apparently not such an irrational fear, after all.”
Suddenly everything started to make sense. “So that’s why you were cold to me?”
“The only reason I even invited you to sit with my friends is because Daddy had Headmaster Vanderbilt spying on us, and he ratted me out.” She narrowed her eyes on me. “I could tell you didn’t trust any of us. Now I think it’s got something to do with your dad.”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“You should know my father is a really good man.”
“Except for the whole intolerance to gay people.”
She flinched. “It’s not like he wants to burn gay people at the stake. He...just doesn’t understand it. That means he’s flawed, not that he’s not a good guy. Okay. You are safe here.”
I was grateful for her reassurances considering the emotional mess she currently was in over her own problems. “So are you. Listen to what you just said. You should consider telling your dad. It doesn’t mean anyone else has to know.”
“No.” She stood up abruptly, anger filling her eyes. “And you have to promise you’re not going to say anything to him.”
“I promise.” I held up my hands. After all, Eloise knew her father better than I did. “I promise. I will never speak of this to anyone. It’s not my secret to tell.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and she slowly lowered herself back onto the sofa.
We were silent for a while until she said, her voice so low I had to strain to hear her, “Have you ever been terrified of who you are?”
Fire burned in my chest as our eyes met across the room. I thought about how hard I found it to trust anyone, unable to let them truly in. “Yes. I’m scared who I am means I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life.”
Her mouth trembled with emotion. “Me, too.”
Something eased inside of me at having admitted that, and at having her understand. “Do you think it’s supposed to be this complicated?”
“I don’t know.” Eloise sighed heavily. “Every day is hard and confusing and complex, and more times than I’d like I feel sad and furious at everything and everyone. But I do get up and I get through every day because I remind myself that I have things that other people don’t, and I have love in my life, but most importantly I have hope, India. I have hope that someday, once I’m out of high school, things will change for me. That I’ll be stronger and that this horrible fear I have of losing my dad over this will go away somehow, and I can be me. Really be me. That’s what gets me through high school.”
As her words percolated, I felt my admiration for her begin to grow. More than that, I felt like she was holding up a mirror in front of me, and I didn’t like everything I saw reflected back at me. “You’re stronger than you think. Jesus...”
“What?”
“I’ve spent the last five years holding people at a distance, especially my friends, because I thought I knew something they didn’t. I was hurting so much that I couldn’t see how anybody else could hurt more... I’ve been kind of a selfish, distant asshole.”
“You’re not alone in that.”
“But that’s the point. You and Finn...you have all this money and privilege and power...but it didn’t save you from pain. I guess I thought you were narrow-minded overprivileged snobs who didn’t know the first thing about life—turns out I’m the narrow-minded one.”
“No, you’re not,” she assured me. “If you were narrow-minded, you would have failed to be kind to me today.”
“There are different kinds of narrow-mindedness,” I argued.
Laughing, she held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, you were narrow-minded about us. But now you know the truth. Life is what you make it, no matter where you come from.”
“Life is what you make it,” I murmured. “Yeah. That’s kind of my motto.”
“And you want to rule the school,” she reminded me.
“I do.” But I wasn’t sure it was that important anymore. Still, it had been my focus for so long I was kind of scared to want anything else from life.
“I can help with that. You’re now officially only the second person in the whole world that really knows me. And I’m not currently talking to the other person since he outed me. So you’re it. That means we’re stuck with each other, O sister-to-be, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. You guard my secret, I’ll take you to the top.”
“I’ll guard your secret without payment,” I said, a little annoyed by the “bribe.”
Eloise grinned. “And that, my friend, is why I’m happy to take you to the top.”
Relief warmed me. “So we’re definitely okay?”
“Yeah.” She cocked her head to the side, contemplating me. “About Finn, though...”
My stomach flipped at the mention of him. “Yeah?”
“He and I made a pact, and I’m sorry but I have to hold him to it. It’s just until college. However, Finn likes you, and as angry as I am at him right now...you’ve been cool so if you two want to see each other in secret then I guess I’m okay with that.”
The thought of being able to to
uch and kiss Finn, to hang out and listen to him and to talk to him, and just be with him, was definitely exciting. I wanted to get to know him better. But I wasn’t sure I could cope with a secret relationship, with being “the other woman.” I wasn’t sure how good a secret relationship would be for my self-esteem.
Eloise seemed to sense my reluctance. “I’ve never seen him so caught up in someone before. He really likes you,” she insisted.
I exhaled, long and slow. “I don’t know.”
She held up her hands. “Hey, your choice. I’m just letting you know I’ll be all right about it, as long as you both are supercareful about keeping it under wraps.”
“We’ll see. As for you and Finn...he loves you. I know you must feel betrayed by him telling me but I promise it just happened and he feels awful about it. Please forgive him.”
Eloise lowered her gaze. “I know all that’s true but it doesn’t change what he did or how much it hurts. I just need time.”
* * *
Those butterflies Eloise had mentioned raged to life as soon as I pulled into the parking lot at Maggie’s. I parked Eloise’s Jaguar next to Finn’s Aston Martin and gave up any hope that the cars wouldn’t draw attention to us. They were giant, expensive beacons. Alone they were bad enough. Together...well, I just knew as soon as I entered the diner the customers and staff were going to watch me with curiosity.
Hopefully we knew no one in Waltham.
I was right. I felt the burn of attention on me as I searched for Finn. I found him in a booth at the back. He must have requested it, because there were no other diners near it. He sat up a little straighter when he saw me.
Was his heart pounding as hard as mine?
To my surprise he got up before I could reach him and met me halfway.
He touched my waist and my whole body seemed to explode in tingles of awareness. “They stop looking after a while,” he muttered, his eyes flicking around at the room.
“You sure?” I was uneasy about talking to Finn privately when there were so many eyes on us.
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