by Siera Maley
She stared at me for a moment, and then at the floor in front of us. “Alright,” she said at last. “If you really think it’ll work, we’ll do it your way. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
My parents invited me to church with them for the first time in months the next day. I turned them down, perturbed at what their invitation implied. Clearly I was finding my way back onto God’s path, or something, because even when I said no, they gave me small, disappointed smiles, like they felt sorry for me, and my mom said, “Okay. Maybe another time, sweetie,” before they departed.
I was still upset about that when I texted Chelsea.
“Wanna hang out?”
I went to take a shower and had a reply waiting when I was done.
“I thought you’d be in church. Aren’t your parents religious?”
“Yeah, but I’m not. I’ll meet you at the park with food in an hour?”
“Sure.”
“Wear something comfy.”
I dried my hair and picked out an outfit—something normal, like I’d wear to school, but could still run in—and on the way to the park I grabbed us a couple of biscuits and bottles of water from a fast food place. My last stop was to pick up a soccer ball from the store.
Chelsea beat me to the park, which wasn’t unexpected, given how close to her house it was. It wasn’t as crowded during church hours, and we found a bench by one of the empty baseball fields to sit at while we ate.
“Did you have a good time last night?” she asked me. “I felt weird about throwing you in there with everyone like that, but I’m really glad you came.”
“I’m glad I did, too,” I said. “It was fun aside from Cole.”
“Yeah, he’s an ass.” Chelsea rolled her eyes. “I hope he didn’t bother you too much.”
“Other than drunkenly assailing me in the stairwell?” I joked, but Chelsea stiffened and looked angry.
“Are you serious? I’ll kill him.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “He was trying to get me to stop…seeing you, or whatever.” I avoided her eyes. “You know, whatever this is.” I paused, and then added, with a short laugh, “He said something about you introducing Gina and Marie.”
When I finally looked at Chelsea again, she seemed thoughtful, and maybe a little upset. “He’s an ass,” she said again. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to see him again.”
“He asked me if we were a thing,” I pressed carefully, setting my food aside and twisting my body to face her. She looked back at me, relaxing now. “We are, right?” I wanted to see if she’d commit.
“We can be whatever you want to be.”
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes, and instead smiled back at her with a mock-thoughtful tap to my chin. “Hmm…whatever I want…”
“Okay, with limitations!” she cut in, laughing and grabbing at my hand to pull it away from my chin. She scooted closer and didn’t let go of my hand. “We haven’t even kissed yet.”
“We will,” I promised, pointedly shifting away from her. She sighed. “It just has to be the right time. I can’t just give it all up on the first date, can I?” I grinned at her and she laughed again.
“That’s a little different from what you said two weeks ago.” She had me there. We’d literally toasted to being promiscuous.
“Well,” I began slowly, thinking as I went, “if it’s special, it’s worth the wait. You have to let it build a little, so that when it finally happens…” I formed a fist with one hand and then swiftly opened it, mimicking an explosion and giving her an exaggerated wink. “Fireworks.”
She tilted her head to one side, considering my words. “That’s an interesting way of looking at it,” she finally said.
“You don’t agree with me at all.” I laughed. It was obvious.
She looked at me and I could see the affection in her gaze. “I think I just really want to kiss you.”
That look in her eyes froze me for a moment, and I wondered fleetingly if Skylar or any other girl had gotten the same look. Then I abandoned that thought and softened visibly, wanting her to see it, and nodded. “You will,” I promised again. And then I stood and grabbed the remnants of my food. Her eyes followed me as I stepped off the bleachers and tossed everything into a nearby trashcan. “I’m gonna grab something from my car,” I announced, and jogged off to do just that.
When I came back with the soccer ball, she laughed at the sight of it. “No way!” she said, but it was out of disbelief, not aversion.
“Do you still play?” I asked. She hopped from the bleachers and threw her own food away, then came to me and took the ball from my hands.
“Not since middle school.” She saw the uneasiness in my expression and added, “Jeez, Zoey, that doesn’t mean this isn’t an amazing idea. Let’s go kick it around. Are you any good?”
“I’m not very athletic,” I warned her. We pushed open the gate to the baseball field and headed into the outfield. “I mean, I played some softball when I was like, ten, but I kinda sucked.”
“Soccer’s easy,” she told me. “You just kick it.”
“Expert advice,” I teased, and watched as Chelsea dropped the ball on the ground and then kicked it at the fence nearby. It hit directly in the center and bounced off, rolling a few feet back in our direction. Chelsea jogged after it and collected it.
“Ready?” she asked, and when I nodded, she kicked it to me.
I stuck my foot out and managed to stop the ball, then gave it a few experimental taps, walking forward to reach it each time I touched it with my foot.
“See?” Chelsea called out from across the field. “Easy!”
We kicked the ball back and forth for the next several minutes, just chatting. I had just clumsily stopped the ball with my foot again when, out of nowhere, Chelsea dashed toward me and declared, “Okay, now try to keep me from taking it!”
“Shit, no!” I yelped, quickly snatching the ball up from the ground, wrapping my arms around it protectively, and then waddling away as Chelsea broke down into hysterical laughter behind me. She closed the distance between us and wrapped her arms around me from behind, so I threw the soccer ball a few feet in front of us in surrender. She laughed in my ear and then released me to go pick it up.
We chased each other around like that for a while, throwing and kicking the ball to keep it out of each other’s hands, grabbing at arms and shirts and whatever we could reach to impede each other’s progress, and by the time we were both out of breath and too tired to continue, there were grass stains all over our shirts and sweat plastered our hair to our foreheads.
We sat down by the fence with our bottles of water, side by side, and I closed my eyes and listened to Chelsea breathe hard as she rested her head against the fence.
At last, she asked me, “So when did you decide you weren’t religious?”
“Around the time I realized I was gay,” I forced myself to answer. I wasn’t used to opening up to someone, but for my plan to work, I was going to have to try with Chelsea. “There seemed like two ways to go about it: that God made us all in his image, or whatever, and so there wasn’t anything inherently more wrong about being gay despite what the Bible said…or the whole thing was a load of crap. Option two seemed simpler, and I’m lazy.”
She laughed a little at that. “I bet your parents didn’t like that.”
“They don’t know.” She looked at me, alarmed. “I mean, they know about me being gay, sort of. They just don’t know that I’m not religious. I think they think I’m boycotting church as some sort of protest against their religion’s homophobia. Which is also true, to be fair.”
“But they’re okay with you?” she asked carefully. “I mean, everything’s okay?”
I paused, swishing the water around in my bottle. I hadn’t wanted to talk to her about this at all, let alone so soon. But if I was going to open up to her, I’d have to start somewhere. “Not really,” I said.
She touched her hand to mine. “I’m sorry, Zoey.
”
“It could be worse. I still have a roof over my head.” I looked at her and asked, “How are your parents? Still good?”
She seemed to realize that I didn’t want to go into detail. “They’re good, yeah. They’ve always been good. You know.” They’d bought rainbow candles for her cake on her thirteenth birthday. “They should be driving home now.”
“Did you guys finish cleaning up okay last night?”
She nodded. “Gina and Marie stayed over and helped out. All evidence of beer has been removed.” She wrinkled her nose and scuffed at the grass with her shoe. “God, I can’t believe Cole tried to warn you off me. Like I’m some kind of monster.”
I studied her expression and decided she looked genuinely disgusted. Whether it was with Cole or with the idea that anyone could think her a bad person, I wasn’t sure.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I shouldn’t have even mentioned it.”
“Yeah, it does. I just don’t want you to think…” she trailed off, and I raised my eyebrows, wondering where she could possibly be going with this. “I mean…I’m not perfect, but no one is. It’s just that he could probably tell you stuff that would make you rethink this. The two of us.”
“You’re the only person I’m listening to,” I told her warmly. “You really think I’m gonna seek out Cole and listen to him trash you?” I linked our arms together and leaned into her. “I don’t care what he has to say.”
When I got home, the first thing I did was to go up to my room and search through every social media site I could think of to find Cole. I didn’t know his last name, so I started with Chelsea. I found Gina’s Instagram account through hers, which gave me Gina’s last name. Cole didn’t have an account on Instagram, but he did follow Gina on Twitter. His Twitter bio had a link to his profile on some other lame dating site I’d never heard of, and there, he’d posted his phone number.
“Idiot,” I muttered, and reached for my phone to add him to my contacts. Then I pulled up the number and started a text message.
I paused one word in. Was I really about to do this? There was no going back once I spoke to Cole.
I shook off my hesitation and typed out a text: “Hey, I need to talk to you. It’s Zoey from last night.”
Then I set my phone aside and waited, taking a few deep breaths and spinning in my desk chair. Maybe this was a huge mistake. I didn’t even know anything about Cole other than that he’d dated Gina and he didn’t like Chelsea. Maybe he’d take the opportunity to rat me out to Chelsea and ruin everything before we ever even got started. I had to find a way to keep that from happening. If she found out I’d spoken to him, she wouldn’t forgive me.
“How did you get my number?” was the response I eventually got from him several anxiety-ridden hours later, while I was distracting myself with homework. I snatched up my phone immediately.
“Found it online,” I said. This time, he replied quickly.
“What do you want?”
I tried to word my next text carefully. I needed him to agree to talk to me. “I think I believe you about Chelsea. Can we meet up and talk somewhere? I’ll pay for food.”
A few minutes passed. I stared down at the text I’d sent, then straightened up when I saw Cole was typing a reply.
“I like burgers.”
We settled on a burger joint fifteen miles out from me in two hours’ time. I made myself look presentable and when it was time to go, I passed by my parents as quickly as I could. They were in the living room watching television.
“Where are you off to?” Mom called after me, curious. “Dinner’s in half an hour.”
“Oh, um, I’m gonna meet someone for food. Sorry.” I grabbed a coat and tried to leave.
“Who?” Mom pressed.
“Just a friend. Someone I met last night.”
“Can we have a name?” Dad asked, half-kidding, but they both waited for a response anyway. I wanted to die.
“Cole. Bye.” I left swiftly, before they could say more, cursing aloud to myself as I tossed my stuff into my car.
Cole was waiting in a booth when I arrived. He raised a hand to me in greeting and I sighed as I slid into the seat across the table from him. He’d already ordered a drink. The waitress saw I’d arrived and came over, and I asked for a water. We turned down appetizers and then she was gone.
“So,” Cole began smugly, “you wanna know what I know about Chelsea.”
“Pretty much,” I agreed, flipping through the menu in front of me to try to seem casual. I didn’t want him to know I’d be hanging onto every word he said.
“What’s in it for me?” he asked.
I glared at him. “I’m buying you dinner.”
“Yeah, but this is some primo information, here. I mean, I’ve got shit going back to freshman year. Jaclyn Phillips; Chelsea dated her while I was dating Gina.”
“I can make up names, too,” I said, just to bait him.
He looked insulted. “I’m not making up anything. Chelsea’s dated at least four girls since our senior year started, not including you. I mean, those are just the ones I know about, too.”
“Isn’t the satisfaction of knowing you’ve ruined her chances with me reward enough?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “If you really hate her as much as you say you do.”
“I never said I hated her; I said I don’t really like her,” he corrected. “I mean, I’ve gotta give her props for being so good at what she does. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“And what is it that she does?” I pressed.
He narrowed his eyes, grinning, and then wagged a finger at me. “Nice try.”
The waitress interrupted us then to ask for our orders. Cole got the most expensive burger on the menu and then looked smug again when he saw the frustrated expression on my face. I decided not to order anything.
“I think you’re just jealous of her,” I told him when we were alone again. “Dating four girls in one school year is pretty impressive, especially for a lesbian without nearly as many options.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I could date four girls too if I was heartless.” He leaned forward and sighed. “Look. It’s pretty simple. Chelsea’s always gone through girls quickly. You see her with one, they’re all smiley and lovey-dovey, then two weeks or two months later it’s like they never knew each other. Except the other girl always hates her and it’s obvious. It’s not hard to draw a conclusion from there.”
“So you don’t actually know anything,” I decided.
“Do the math, Zoey. Two people hook up. Then they break up. The same one is always doing the breaking up. What does that tell you?” He waited expectantly, like I was supposed to answer, and then when I didn’t, he finished, “Chelsea doesn’t care about anyone other than herself. I’ll give her maybe Gina and Marie, but that’s it. Hell, she’s probably a sociopath.” He waved at me dismissively with his hand. “You’re crazy for dating her. Practically asking to get used and then dumped.”
“We’re not dating yet,” I replied. “That’s why I’m trying to figure all of this out.” The truth was that he hadn’t really told me anything valuable. I knew it all already, other than the exact number of girls she’d been with in the past year. “You really think she sleeps with all of them?” I wondered.
Cole laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Wouldn’t put it past her.”
Well, I knew he was wrong there, at least. “And do you know the names of any of these girls?” I asked him. “The ones from this year?”
“Why? Are you gonna hunt them down, too, Nancy Drew? Kinda seems like you’ve already made your mind up on Chelsea if you’re going to all this trouble.” He paused, thoughtful. “You know, she probably wouldn’t like you talking to me like this…”
“You can’t say anything to her,” I warned him. He smirked, and I thought quickly. His phone was lying next to his plate and I snatched it up before he could stop me.
“Hey!” he called out, trying to take it back, but I
kept it out of his reach while I deleted the texts between us and removed myself from his contact list.
“There,” I said, handing him his phone back while he sulked. “Evidence gone. I’ll tell her you were the one who sought me out. You know she’ll believe me over you after what you said to me last night. And then Gina will find out, too. If you think she doesn’t want you around now, just wait until she finds out you tried to wreck her best friend’s relationship.”
He looked at me, uneasy. “Jesus. Maybe you and Chelsea’d be a good fit, after all.”
“So, names,” I said next, taking out my phone and waiting, notepad open. “The girls from this year.”
He sighed and shook his head, thinking back. “Ah, uh…the first one was Abby something…I don’t know…and then Leslie Santos; I had Art with her last semester. Then…Trina Owens, but she transferred schools sometime afterward. Then some blonde girl I didn’t recognize. That’s it. The ones I knew about, anyway.” I put my phone away and he squirmed in his seat a little. “Good enough?”
“For now,” I decided. “I’ll let you know if I need anything else.” I got to my feet and handed over twenty dollars in cash to him. He looked confused as he took it.
“Wait. I was gonna let you have some of my fries.”
“Bye, Cole,” I told him pointedly, and then left him there alone in the booth.
7
I decided to focus on Trina Owens. Of the four girls that Cole had mentioned, she seemed like the best option, given that one had been Skylar, another I didn’t have a last name for, and the third was still attending Chelsea’s school. The further away from Chelsea I could stay for this, the better. Talking to Cole had been risky enough.
Skylar came over on Monday, much to the disappointment of my parents, and helped me find Trina online. This time we used Skylar’s Twitter account. She hadn’t stopped praising me since I’d filled her in on my date with Chelsea at the park, which made me feel like the decision I’d made to fully take the reins had been the right one.