by Liz Jacobs
“And are you?”
“No!”
“I didn’t think you were, love. Then why does she think that? Have you spoken to her?”
“I’ve tried, but she’s avoiding me, like. Hardcore.”
“Not even a single conversation?”
“Not for days. She’s not talking to me. Hi, bye, that’s it. It’s like she’s determined not to hear me, and I don’t know what to do. And things are so bloody awkward with everyone now, and fucking hell, we’re housemates, she can’t avoid me forever, but she’s definitely doing her best. Dex is telling me to be patient and whatnot, and everybody’s looking at me like … with this … this pity, and I don’t want pity. I want my mate back. She’s being the stroppiest cow you’ve ever met, and I just can’t handle it. Mum, I can’t write.”
“Oh, love. That sounds like a right nightmare.”
The look Mum gave her was pitying, but somehow it was all right coming from her. It was all right to spill her guts all over the sofa because Mum would always care and clean it up in the end. It felt safe to do here on this ratty old sofa that Mum kept covered up with blankets. When Izzy had been younger, Mum had told her that the blankets were there to protect the sofa. It was only later that she realised the sofa wasn’t some precious antique left over from her mother’s grandmother, but a secondhand bit of tat that was the only thing they could afford at the time. The blankets were protecting them from the sofa, it turned out. But even after Nan died and left them money, Mum kept it, because it was theirs. Izzy bloody loved this sofa.
“She’s not being fair to you,” Mum finally said.
“Mum.”
“No, listen. I know what it’s like to get swept up in something and let it take over your life, but you’re not me, and you’ve got goals, all right?”
Oh God. Izzy couldn’t look at Mum when she was being this earnest. She stared at the ceiling instead, watching the single cobweb in the corner shift in the telly light.
“I know, but you just told me you can’t write, and Isabel, this is not a reason to get blocked.”
“That isn’t how it works, Mum,” she said, exasperated.
“Well, I wouldn’t know, I was never a writer, but remember I told you about that one guy, Matthew?”
“Yeah?” Vaguely. He’d been the one before James.
“I was mad for him, and stopped revising. I nearly failed two classes because of him, and let me tell you, he wasn’t worth it.”
This wasn’t helping. Still, Mum so rarely talked about her past, Izzy couldn’t really interrupt her.
“I know your life is different, I know you aren’t in love with Natali or anything, but you owe it to yourself not to get caught up in this.”
Was that how she thought of what happened to her with Matthew? Or James? Or after Izzy was born? That she got caught up and never escaped? “I don’t know what to do.”
“I know.” Mum gave her a smile and said, “It hurts. You haven’t done anything wrong, and she’s shut you out.”
Izzy sniffed. God, that felt good to hear. You haven’t done anything wrong.
When Dex had come to her the night after she told everyone, she got this feeling as if he was maybe even siding with Nat. Not in a mean way, just that he understood things better than Izzy. That his queerness made him understand Nat better. But wasn’t Izzy queer, too, apparently? Mum was right. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
She hadn’t led Ruby on. She’d loved their night together. She wasn’t in love with Ruby, but she had her number just in case. She had told her friends.
Whatever was going on with Nat, it wasn’t Izzy who was the main problem. It couldn’t be. She hadn’t done anything wrong. It felt like a boulder had been lifted from her chest.
Fuck it. She was done with this pity party.
She hoped.
She let Mum talk her into remembering she was the girl who was going for her film degree. She was going to be an award-winning writer-director, and she didn’t have time for this bullshit. Surely, this would be behind her soon enough.
“Yeah. Fuck that. Sorry. Sod it, I won’t let her make me feel bad.”
A new emotion surfaced, spread through her blood. She was angry. She was, now she thought about it, properly cheesed off.
She didn’t need Nat. She had other friends. She wasn’t going to let this crap get in her way. So she was bisexual. So what. It just opened up a whole world of possibilities for her. Girls! Who knew! Girls were wonderful. Girls were lovely. And Izzy was coming for them. As soon as she caught up on her writing.
18
Nick couldn’t sleep. It had started worsening a few weeks back, and he had no idea what to do about it. His mom once told him that even as a baby, he wouldn’t go down easy, but this was getting ridiculous.
He blinked and tried to focus in on the digital numbers glowing around the vicinity of his desk. He thought he could make out a three. Nothing good ever happened at three AM.
When they’d first moved to Ann Arbor and he and Zoyka were still sharing a room, she would talk him through it. She’d made it sound so reasonable. What are you worried about right now? Okay. Think about the worst that could happen. It probably won’t, right? Can you deal with it in the morning? Good. What’s next?
He kicked off his covers and attempted to breathe in deeply a few times. His heart was beating hard. His throat was dry. He needed water. His pillow was thin. He needed another one. He could solve one problem by padding into the bathroom and drinking from the faucet.
The cold water on his face woke him up further.
Irritated, he climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over his head. The air was too warm and smelled too much like him.
What are you worried about right now?
I think it’s true.
What’s true?
Even to the Zoyka in his head, he could not say it. She’d always been the one he told things to. She’d always kept his secrets.
But she wasn’t actually here. Not now. It was just him under his duvet, and this room, at least, knew. It had witnessed it, been part of it.
What if I am?
What. Just say it. Why are you so fucking scared?
What if I’m gay.
He ripped the duvet away and sat up, attempting to dislodge every thought with a shake of his head. If only it were that easy. He breathed. It was no good, his heart was too fucking fast. The cycle fed itself, his heart sped up his breathing, his breathing forced his pulse to flutter like a trapped moth. His gut churned.
When he closed his eyes, he pictured his mom. His aunt. His uncle. Zoyka, Jake. His grandparents.
Dad.
You’re what? Mom would say. What are you talking about? You’re Russian. Ty-zhe nash. Don’t talk nonsense.
She had a trembling crease between her eyebrows when she was really upset. In the last few years, she had developed a slight tic in her mouth that preceded her laying out the worst thing he and Zoyka could ever hear. What would your dad have to say about this? She didn’t trot it out too often.
She would trot it out for this.
He told himself firmly he had to go to sleep. He had class at nine o’clock. He was always a zombie if he got less than seven hours’ sleep, and it was much, much less than that now.
If you go to sleep in the next twenty minutes, you’ll have just over four hours.
Time continued to drain, and he fell asleep with the sky slowly washing out to gray behind the half-closed blinds, his pillow jammed beneath his neck, his hands clammy and hot.
There were times when Zoyka was wrong. Nick didn’t feel better about his worries in the morning. At three, his anxiety had been a shapeless thing, with weight and texture, but part of dreams. A sort of terrifying unreality he had to breathe through.
At eight, as his alarm shrieked at him to wake up, the shapeless, textured thing coalesced into something more terrifying than the nightly ghosts.
He wanted men. He hadn’t really wanted Lena in all the year
s they’d been together. He hadn’t really wanted Ashley during sophomore year when they’d kissed in the art classroom, her hair tickling his palms where his hands had trembled on her shoulders. Fruitless humping in her sunroom, sweaty and shaky and half hard.
He wanted Dex. Of all people, of all the people he had met, he wanted him so much his hands ached with it. Nick was past denial. Truth frightened more than denial.
He brushed his teeth, and past the bags under his eyes and morning stubble he saw Dad’s young face looking back at him in the mirror.
He went to class. He looked at the other students, watched them respond to the tutor’s comments, give theories, write notes, and he wondered, What must it be like? What must it be like to know yourself and to like what you know? To take up space the way they did and not feel strange or ragged around the edges? To know that you belonged somewhere, inside and out?
He’d watch Dex sometimes and marvel. He seemed to have no fears. At least none that Nick could see. He moved in a way that assured the world had room for him, and it did. He had family he didn’t seem to hide things from. Alex had once made an offhand comment that Dex had gone through hoards of boys his first few months at college, and Nick had thought about it ever since.
It seemed so impossible—sex that satisfied, sex that felt the way others made it sound. He couldn’t, and yet he couldn’t stop trying to picture Dex with all those faceless, joyful boys. He had no idea what it would even look like. Physically, he couldn’t picture it. Maybe if he couldn’t picture it, that meant he could never do it. Did it work like that? If you wanted something badly but could not shape it with your mind, did it exist at all?
He’d started asking himself why so long ago, it felt like a part of him. At thirteen, he had been just as desperate to have the answer as he was now, at twenty. Why me? Why couldn’t I be normal?
He’d run four thousand miles from home, but all he’d done was get closer to the question. Why had he thought England would be neutral ground? If anything, it was like a conductor, and Nick was standing on it, entirely exposed.
Four thousand miles, and nothing was getting easier.
It was getting worse.
+
Once again, Nick used a big paper as an excuse to hermit himself back into his one-man existence, but when Izzy texted him and asked for the second time if he was up for a coffee, he couldn’t find it in him to say no.
He told himself it was because Izzy needed a friend despite the fact that she had better, more helpful friends than Nick, told himself it was because he wanted to know how she was, told himself it would have been plainly rude to refuse.
It was all of those things. But it had also been five days since Dex had come over for the cooking lesson. Five days since Nick had stupidly, thoughtlessly, and in a fit of delirium said yes to another one—and exactly as many days since he’d heard from Dex at all.
He and Izzy had agreed to meet up at the same greasy spoon where Izzy had dropped her bombshell on everyone, and when she came in this time it looked like she was still feeling the effects of it. She smiled as wide as always, but Nick could see the shadows beneath her eyes. He kicked himself for not seeing her the first time she’d asked.
“Hi, babe.” She plonked down her bag on a chair across from his. “Back in a tic.”
Nick sipped his giant coffee, looking around. The place was hopping, noisy with the sound of cutlery and conversation, orders being called out, shit getting dropped. It wasn’t exactly conducive to conversation, but Nick relied on Izzy being her usual exuberant self.
“So, how have you been?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that.”
She made a face. “I guess I’m all right. You know.”
Nick waited.
“Just sort of thinking about shit. A lot of thinking.”
“About what?”
“How weird are humans, you know? What the fuck? I thought I knew myself.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ve not exactly been hiding secret thoughts and desires.” It took a lot of Nick’s strength to nod nonchalantly. “But at the same time—so you’re kissing a person you really like, and they’re not a terrible kisser, so it feels nice, really nice.” She cleared her throat. Nick liked kissing. Kissing was nice. To this much, he could relate. “It feels natural. Good, you know?” She paused, and Nick looked up. “Sorry, is this TMI? Should I stop?”
“No, no, it’s fine.”
She gave him a tiny smile and focused on something beyond the window. It was a grey day, which made her hair look just a tad muted. “Well, then. Basically, when Ruby and I—kissed, it felt just as good as kissing a guy. I don’t know, it just surprised me, I suppose. I’m still—I just can’t believe I never knew.” She cleared her throat again. “And then I thought, well, kissing is kissing. Kissing is—almost safe, you know? ’Cause there’s the other, uh, stuff. And—oh God, am I completely embarrassing myself?”
“Not at all.” She eyed him with suspicion. “I promise.” He reached out in a fit of bravery and grabbed her finger. “Pinky swear.”
She squeezed back. “Well, if it’s a pinky swear. Everything else also felt natural, it turned out. But that’s not even the part that I’ve been obsessing over, not really.”
“Natali?”
She sighed. “Yeah. Like, sexuality is fucking weird, and I’m still getting used to the idea that I like women apparently the same as I like men, that I’m bi, but I think—what if it cost me a friend? Was it worth it, to find out?”
When their gazes met, Nick saw that the tip of her nose and her cheeks had grown pink. Nick panicked. Would Izzy cry? Did Izzy cry? “Has she talked to you?” he asked carefully.
“No. Well, I mean. She says morning and Can you pass me the sugar, but she barely spends time at home anymore. Even Jonny and Dex seemed surprised.”
“I’m sorry.” It was so inadequate, but he didn’t know what to say. It sounded awful. Was it worth it to find out? What a good question.
“It’s been two weeks, and she’s still shutting me out, and I don’t know why. Why? Shit, I even went home and cried to my mum.”
Nick startled at that. Had she told her mom—everything? He had no idea what that would even be like. And she’d gone home? Where was home for Izzy? She hadn’t told him, and he hadn’t asked.
“It’s such shit. At first, I’d text her, try to get her to talk to me. I tried in person, everything. Fuck, I almost asked Beth, one of her baby dykes, to help me out, but I’m pissed off now. If she won’t talk to me, I’ve got to stop chasing her. It’s shit. It feels like shit.” She sniffed. “I did nothing wrong.”
“Yeah.” He was out of his depth. “I mean, you didn’t. Nothing wrong.”
“I miss her.” Izzy went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “She’s one of my closest mates. And she’s shut me out.”
The next minute was spent in silence as they both sipped their drinks. Nick briefly pictured what the two of them must look like. The saddest date in existence, probably.
“God, sorting out your own crap is annoying, isn’t it?” Izzy mused after a while. “I dunno. Sex is such a fundamental part of the world, why do we have so much bullshit associated with it?”
Nick managed a nod.
“So you’re gay or straight or bi or what have you, why’s that so bloody fucking important? Have you ever thought about that, really thought about it?”
He was shocked to hear his voice come out even when he said, “Not really.”
He was an awful liar. Izzy could tell. He couldn’t move a muscle. “Really? But I thought—” She stopped.
Nick was caught in the moment. He had no idea how to stop or reverse it.
“Sorry, that was so fucking rude of me. Nick, I’m so sorry if I made you uncomfortable, that was—shit. Shit. I’m so sorry.”
Nick barely managed to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “No, it’s—it’s fine. You didn’t.” Had he just inadvertently come out? Or coul
d he make her believe she’d thought wrong? His heart hammered.
If Izzy could tell, who else could? Every single interaction he’d ever had with a human being flickered through his mind. All but with his family. It would never have even occurred to them. Lena, though? What about everyone here? Steph, Alex, Natali, Dex.
Fuck.
Dex.
“Nick, babe. Nick. Breathe.” When she reached out and touched his hand with her fingers, he jumped. She retreated. “Christ. You okay?”
Nick had no idea. Thoughts jumbled in his mind, bouncing against one another like marbles. So much clatter, so much noise. “Izzy,” he choked out. “Izzy, please don’t say anything.”
She was looking at him with so much concern. He was close to breaking down.
He made himself continue. “Please, don’t tell. Promise.”
“I promise, I swear to God.” She hooked her pinky over his. “Pinky swear, all right?”
He kept hold of her pinky. For a long moment, he did his best to breathe.
“So you’re not out then?” She sounded so careful. Nick shook his head. Words would probably be good, but he had none. He felt numb. His head was filled utter stillness. It wasn’t calm. It was just there. “I’m so sorry I put my stupid foot in it. Do you need to get some air, maybe? What can I do?”
Nick managed to breathe. “I don’t know.” He put his hands over his flaming cheeks, shut his eyes. The smell of grease and coffee clinging to his hands made his stomach recoil. He dropped his arms on the table, then his head. “Fuck.”
“Look at me, I just word-vommed all over you about this stuff, and I’m … dunno. I’m lucky. I took it in stride. You know. For the most part.”
Nick wondered which part she meant.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Did he? He no longer had any idea what he wanted.
“You don’t have to. It might help. Just to. Share or whatever. You got pretty upset. This seems big.”
Nick nodded.
“C’mon.” She patted his elbow, all business. “For once, it’s not pissing down, so let’s go find a bit of green to sit in and air out. D’you have anywhere you have to be?”