by Siera Maley
“Well, I know we were never friends before,” she told me when our giggles had died down, “but if you ever decide you don’t want to be more than that, I’d be open to trying friendship. Though, for the record, I don’t think we’d be very good at it.” I forced a laugh and she reached for both of my hands and looked me dead in the eyes, turning serious. “But my friends are your friends. And I have a lot of friends. So you have a lot of friends. And none of them want anything from you.”
“Yeah, and when I piss you off?” I half-joked.
“I’ve pissed off too many girls to not forgive one for handing me some well-deserved karma,” she said, smiling, and for a moment, I let myself imagine a world where we made it past all of this, where she forgave me for hurting her the way she feared I would, and we started over again.
I didn’t consider where I’d stand with Skylar in this imaginary world. Maybe that was a good thing.
About a week after Skylar proposed the fake coming out idea, I agreed to it on my own terms. It wasn’t something I’d ever anticipated doing, but Chelsea’s comment about wishing she could help with my parents was what actually set it into motion. I knew that she’d be willing to come to dinner with them and declare herself my girlfriend; Cole’s stupid argument about finding out whether or not I meant anything to Chelsea was just that. I knew what I meant to her; I felt like an idiot for ever doubting it in the first place. But when she offered her support, I couldn’t shake the idea of taking it.
For the next week, I took a more hedonistic approach to our remaining time together, even if it was selfish of me. Our days were ticking down, we made each other happy when we were together, and Chelsea was going to get hurt regardless, so I was going to make the time we had left count, and use it to prove to her how much I really liked her. I hung out with her most days after school, sometimes with her friends and sometimes without, and usually at her place or off somewhere in her car.
When I wasn’t with Chelsea after school, I was with some combination of my parents, Cole, and Skylar, which was absolute hell. Between my parents schmoozing Cole, Cole sucking up to my parents, Skylar and Cole both doing a horrible job of “subtly” bringing up the fake coming out idea over and over again, and Skylar pressing me for Chelsea updates (which I could almost never give her to her satisfaction), I was just about ready to do anything to eliminate any of those four points of stress in my life. Cole was the biggest common denominator, and so Cole needed to go.
Or, at least, that was my mentality when I agreed to Skylar’s and Cole’s plan. They thought I was going to pretend, but I wanted to come out to my parents all over again for real. I missed being myself, and if I could rid myself of just a few hours of pretending each day, it seemed worth it. And if they hated me all over again, well, at least they’d hate Cole too for covering for me. He’d never be allowed to set foot anywhere near my house again, and his only card to play would be to spill our Chelsea plan, but I knew that he was too invested in it to risk ruining it.
So, motivated mostly by aggravation, frustration, and exhaustion, I planned for a Saturday night dinner with Chelsea at my house so that she could finally meet my parents. There was just the matter of letting her know what I wanted to do.
I waited until Thursday to fill her in, mostly because I was dreading bringing it up at all. Even though it had been my decision in the end to go through with coming out to my parents, I felt sick every time I thought about it, and I didn’t want Chelsea to have to sit on those kinds of nerves either. The panicked look she gave me when I brought it up told me that had been the right decision.
“And…you’re sure about doing this?”
“You don’t have to come,” I told her hastily. “I’m doing it whether you’re there or not.” We were lying on her bed together, half-watching a movie, and now she’d rolled onto her side and was facing me, noticeably paler.
“No, of course I’ll come. If you want me there, I’m there.”
“They might freak out on me,” I warned her.
“That’s okay.” She winced. “That’s not—…I didn’t mean—”
“It’s alright,” I reassured her, laughing a little as I took her hand. “I know what you meant.”
“Okay.” She relaxed a little, but her expression told me she was worried. “What made you want to tell them?”
“I’m sick of lying,” I said truthfully. “About you, about me. And I want them to know that this isn’t going away.” I squeezed her hand, swallowing hard. “That you’re not going away.”
She smiled sweetly at me and glanced down at my lips, but didn’t move any closer. I shot her a knowing look, trying to push down the usual guilt I felt whenever I drifted too close to lying to her. “Chelsea,” I reminded her, “you can kiss me. I’m not made of glass.”
She sighed forlornly. “Yeah, but kissing you leads to both of us wanting to do more than kissing, and after what I said, I don’t want you to think that I just—”
“Oh my god, shut up,” I interjected, rolling my eyes. “For the millionth time, I’m so over last weekend. You’ve spent the past week treating me like I have onion breath, so trust me, I believe that you don’t mind just spending time together as friends. But we’re more than friends, so come here.” I grabbed her by the shirt and leaned back, pulling her half on top of me, and she stared down at me, beaming, her nose an inch from mine.
“More than friends?” she echoed. “So you’re my girlfriend?”
“If you want to be,” I decided. If we were telling our parents we were dating in a couple of days, it seemed appropriate to make it official. “I know you don’t always, um…” she raised both eyebrows, amused, and I finished carefully, “take that step.”
“Of course I want to.”
“Of course?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” she huffed. “I wanted to be your girlfriend in the seventh grade. I’m completely obsessed with you.”
I felt a smile pull at the corners of my lips, and it only grew when she scrunched her nose and looked embarrassed. “Really,” I said. “Obsessed?”
“You know what I mean.” She pursed her lips and scowled at me when I only smiled wider. “Oh, stop.”
“No, it’s cute.” I pecked her on the lips. “I’m obsessed with you, too. You’re all I think about.”
Now it was her turn to smile. “Really?” I nodded, and she turned and laid her head on my chest, content. We laid in comfortable silence for a moment, and finally, she asked, “What do you think things will be like after graduation? We’re gonna have the whole summer to spend together. And then college…yours isn’t far from mine, you know. Maybe a half-hour drive, maybe less.”
I gave a half-hearted, “Mhmm,” and stared at the ceiling, willing her to not have this conversation right now. For a minute, I’d let myself forget about Prom and everything that would come afterward. But everything eventually came back around to my lie, just like it always did.
“Too much?” she asked suddenly, raising her head to look at me again, and for a moment I wondered if I’d missed something else she’d said. I raised my eyebrows at her in silent confusion, and she elaborated, “Sometimes I forget that you haven’t done this before, either. The long-term relationship thing, I mean. If we even reached that point, of course. It’s probably way too soon to talk about any of that; I shouldn’t have even brought it up. I know you’re already freaked out enough about how everything’s going to change after graduation without me getting all clingy—” She was starting to get nervous and ramble, I could tell, so I shook my head quickly and interrupted.
“I don’t think it’s too soon. But we have to get there first.”
“Yeah.” She seemed disappointed by what I’d said. “I guess I just believe that we can.”
“Me too.” And just like that, the guilt was back again. “But we have to make it through this stuff with my parents, first. And Prom.”
“Shit,” she replied, exhaling hard through her nose. “God, of course, I’
m sure you’re so worried about this weekend. And here I am, already talking about months from now like it’s not a big deal. I’m—”
“If you apologize, I’ll leave,” I warned her, half-kidding, and she gave me an apologetic look instead.
“Do you want to talk about this weekend?”
“I’d rather not talk at all,” I said, smirking at her, “but like I said, I apparently have onion breath.”
She laughed and shook her head, then pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and swung one leg over my thighs. “For the record, I love kissing you. I think I remember that being part of what got me into trouble.”
“Oh, right,” I scoffed. “If only I were a bad kisser, you’d have never put your foot in your mouth and I’d have slept with you by now.”
“And if I were a bad kisser, you’d be straight, right?”
I laughed at the callback to our first conversation and she muffled it with a kiss. I felt her smiling against me for a few short seconds, but soon it was gone and she was pressing closer and cupping my face with her hands. I reached for her hips and slid her shirt halfway up her back, grateful to be able to finally touch her for the first real time since our fight, and she groaned and pulled away from me suddenly, glancing over her shoulder at her open bedroom door. “Hold on,” she mumbled, scrambling off of me to go close and lock it.
“Aren’t your parents home?” I asked her as she climbed back onto her bed and settled over me again.
“Yeah, but they’re realists,” she said, reaching down to pull off her own shirt. I swallowed hard and wordlessly grasped at her to yank her back down to me. “And they know how to knock.”
“We can’t have sex,” I warned her, but I knew it didn’t sound very convincing. She was kissing down my neck and I’d forgotten to breathe.
“Whatever you want,” she mumbled into my skin.
I groaned and fumbled for the hem of my shirt in lieu of explaining that what I wanted was exactly the problem. If I hadn’t already decided that sex was off the table as long as I was lying to her, we’d have probably barreled through that barrier the night we’d made out on her basement couch. But it wasn’t exactly like I could tell her that.
She pulled away to let me take my shirt off, then took her time staring at me after I’d laid back down. I started to feel self-conscious. “What?”
“I have that bra,” she told me, poking me through the underside of one of the cups, and I glared at her, hearing the teasing edge to her tone. “Okay, and you’re also the hottest girl I’ve ever seen without a shirt on. Obviously.”
I rolled my eyes. “With all the competition I have, I doubt that.”
Her jaw dropped, but she was smiling. “Fine. I take it back.” She lowered her head and placed a short kiss on my collarbone, and then another just below it, and then another, and I suddenly felt so nervous I was worried I’d start shaking. She paused when she reached the top of my bra, then looked up at me and tilted her head to the side in silent question, giving me a small smile. “I do mean it, though,” she said when I just stared back at her. I was sure my face was beet red. “I think you’re gorgeous.”
“You’re so much prettier than me,” I mumbled.
“No way.” She moved back up so that her face was above mine again, and I held back a sigh of relief. A part of me wasn’t sure I’d have been able to turn her down if she’d asked to do more. “I always wanted more freckles; did I ever tell you that?” She brushed my nose with hers, smiling gently. “I think they’re gorgeous. I spent three Halloweens in a row in elementary school dressing up as Pippi Longstocking because my mom would paint a ton of freckles on me.”
A laugh bubbled out of me before I could stop it. “Who the hell is Pippi Longstocking?”
“Some storybook character, I think.” She shrugged, looking near laughter herself. “I don’t know; I think I just requested something with lots of freckles when my mom asked me what I wanted to be.” She placed a hand on my shoulder with purpose, as though to get me back on track. “Anyway! Point being, you’re gorgeous, there are about a million things I want to do to you right now, and I probably shouldn’t do any of them because you look like your face is about to overheat. It’s cute, though.” She kissed the tip of my nose and then scooted off of me, and I rolled onto my side and kissed her again, which seemed to catch her off-guard.
“Just stay above the shoulders,” I mumbled into her mouth before I could change my mind, and then grabbed her hip and pulled her close again.
Cole and Skylar wanted to meet with me after my afternoon with Chelsea. Reluctantly, I drove the short distance to Smokey’s again, and we all sat down in the same booth from a week ago, Skylar and I side by side across from Cole.
“Chelsea agreed to do this weekend with my parents,” I told them in greeting. Cole gave me a strange look and then snorted and pointed at me.
“Dude, seriously? I didn’t realize you were a method actor. Jesus, we just said to tease her.”
“What?” I asked, self-conscious.
Beside me, Skylar turned to follow Cole’s finger and then her gaze shifted down to my neck. Her jaw dropped. “Oh my god. Zoey.” She seemed to take a moment to shake herself out of her stupor, and then reached for her phone, turned on the front-facing camera, and then held it out in front of me. I caught one look at my reflection and immediately turned red. “Do you have makeup with you?”
Cole guffawed at that. “Makeup? She needs a scarf for that.”
“I can’t just turn her down,” I told them quickly, willing my cheeks to cool. “She’d get suspicious.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was torture,” Cole replied. Skylar silently put her phone away while Cole dissolved into laughter at my expense again, and I set my jaw and tried not to look as embarrassed as I felt, worried I had upset Skylar.
When she did speak, it was directed at Cole. “Would you shut up already? Technically, she is doing what we told her to do. As long as she isn’t actually into Chelsea, I say she can do whatever it takes.”
“Fine,” Cole said, sobering up at last. But he couldn’t resist throwing me one last wink. “Perks of the job, I guess.”
“Do you care or not that she’s having dinner with my parents on Saturday?” I snapped at him.
“It’s good that she agreed,” Skylar replied instead, giving me a reassuring smile. “That proves what we thought: she’s invested emotionally.” She glared at Cole and added, “Not just physically.”
“Yeah, I’m super convinced there’s nothing physical there at all,” he replied under his breath, giving my neck another pointed look.
“The point is that it’s both, which means we’re right on track for breaking her heart at Prom.” Skylar twisted in her seat to look at me. “So, I’m thinking the next thing we want to see from her is long-term commitment. You need to ask her to be your girlfriend tomorrow, or at least before the dinner in two days. And have a real conversation with her about the future. See if she’s been thinking about life with you after Prom. Remember, she doesn’t know Prom is the endgame. If she wants to talk about the future, we’ll know she’s all-in.”
“Oh, I alr—” I started to say, but then I shut my mouth and nodded instead, worried Skylar would get suspicious if I told her the full truth about what’d happened in Chelsea’s bedroom today. The state of my neck already said too much. If I told her that I’d had those sorts of conversations with Chelsea even without being directed to, who knew what conclusions she’d jump to. “Yeah. Of course. I’ll do that.”
“Okay, good. Now, we have one more thing to do before Saturday,” Skylar continued, giving me a pointed look. “You have to convince your parents that you’re mad at us.”
“What? Why?” I stared at her, taken aback.
“Yeah, why?” Cole interjected.
Skylar sighed at us, clearly annoyed that we weren’t keeping up. “Because if you put Chelsea in the same room as your parents and they name-drop me, you’re screwed. And Cole wouldn’t be much b
etter, though at least you could probably explain him away if you prepare an excuse ahead of time.”
“I’ll have to,” I thought to myself. Cole and Skylar didn’t know that I actually planned on coming out to my parents; they thought I was only going to pretend to for Chelsea’s sake. But when I told the truth, there was no doubt in my mind that my parents would start asking about Cole. And if they mentioned that he’d been at my house, my cover was blown.
“Oh, shit,” Cole said. “Yeah, I didn’t think about that.”
“How will making them think I’m mad at you help with that?” I wondered.
“Because it’s the only way to make sure they don’t talk about us,” Skylar explained. “So, you’ll have to make them believe it was really bad and that you don’t even want us brought up until further notice.” When I looked doubtful, she asked, “Okay, I know it’s not foolproof, but do you have any better ideas?”
“No,” I admitted. “I guess it’s the best idea we have.”
“So you just have to be convincing when you lie to them,” said Cole. “Should be easy for you, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied shortly, shrugging my shoulders and hoping I didn’t look as dismal as I felt. “I guess I’m a pretty good liar.”
13
Chelsea arrived at six o’clock on Saturday evening, and I went to greet her by the front door while my parents put the finishing touches on dinner. She looked visibly nervous.
“It’s okay,” I told her, trying to convince myself at the same time. “It’s gonna be fine. They need to know.”
I’d gone over it a billion times in my mind. Mom, Dad, I know that you’ve spent these past few months wanting me to change who I am. I’m sorry that I led you to believe that I had. But I can’t help that I like girls. Chelsea and I have been seeing each other.