On the Outside

by Siera Maley

  “The real reason you’re against us dating comes out,” Riley played along, grinning.

  “I’m not against it,” I lied. “I just didn’t expect it.”

  “You know that I didn’t expect it to happen either,” Riley admitted. “But don’t tell Evan that.”

  “Must have been a shock when he kissed you.” I was growing tired of treading water, so I swam over to join Riley against the wall, watching her carefully for a reaction.

  “Yeah.” She gave a laugh I could tell she had to force out, and her smile was small and thoughtful. “He caught me off guard, that’s for sure.”

  We fell silent for a moment, just enjoying each other’s company, and I adjusted myself a little, moving so that I could stretch out, let go of the wall, and float. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, drifting in the gentle water. I thought of Prom night: the last night things had been normal. The night I’d spent an hour in my bathroom with Riley, turning her into someone beautiful enough for me to notice.

  Evan had always noticed her.

  A small fountain of water landed on my cheek and splashed across my face, and I floundered, struggling to right myself as Riley laughed at me. When I twisted around to face her, she was sinking down into the pool to gather another mouthful of water. I gaped at her. “Did you just spit on me?”

  She nodded, grinning, as she rose back up, mouth full and ready to fire.

  “No!” I screeched, darting toward her in an effort to keep her from gathering fresh ammo after she inevitably released a second mouthful. This time she caught me on the shoulder just before I pinned her to the wall, my hands gripping the concrete on either side of her as she threw her head back and laughed so loudly that I was sure Evan could hear her from the bathroom.

  That reminded me that he’d been gone for at least a minute now, and I looked over my shoulder, curious. “What’s taking him so long?”

  When I looked back to Riley, her mouth was open like she’d been about to reply, but she closed it the instant we locked eyes. We were very close. Way too close, actually. Her arms had reentered the pool at some point, and I could feel water rushing past my legs beneath us as she kicked back and forth with her legs to stay afloat.

  “I… um,” Riley tried to say, and I saw her eyes dart to my lips even as I pushed off of the wall and moved away from her. My face was red, I knew, but hers was even redder, and that was what really scared me.

  I twisted around and swam away, and when Riley uncertainly called out my name, I sucked in a breath and then dipped beneath the water, swimming along the floor of the pool with my eyes open and focused on the wall at the other end. It wasn’t long before my lungs began to burn, but I propelled myself forward a few feet at a time, trying not to expend any more energy than I had to. My urge to avoid Riley was greater than my need for air, and besides, burning lungs hurt less than the searing feeling in my chest that’d never quite gone away.

  I reached out and touched the wall as I reached the other side, then opened my mouth and let the air rush out in the form of a stream of bubbles as I pushed off the floor and broke through the surface. I sucked in air, panting hard, and reached up to run my hands over my head, getting my hair out of my face.

  When I finally gathered the courage to turn back to look across the pool at Riley, I was relieved to see that Evan had rejoined her and was lowering himself into the pool. He was saying something to her that I couldn’t quite hear, but her eyes were still on me, and she was chewing at her lip with a worried look on her face.

  I turned away and slowly made my way over to the stairs in the shallow end, then straightened my bathing suit as I climbed out of the pool. From there, I headed to where I’d left my flip-flops and towel. “I’m gonna head home,” I told Evan and Riley. “You guys should have some alone time.”

  “Okay,” said Evan at the same time that Riley asked, “What?” They looked at each other, and then Evan shot her a strange look before twisting around in the pool to face me.

  “We’ll see you around, Kayla.” He wasn’t even trying to hide that he was more than willing to get rid of me, and Riley picked up on it, too. I could tell from just one glance in her direction that while she may not have been sure about what was going on, she definitely didn’t like Evan’s tone.

  “Kayla, you don’t have to go,” she said, but I didn’t even look at her. To Evan, she added, “Look, I don’t know why you guys are acting weird all of a sudden, but you need to sort it out.”

  “Why is it my fault?” Evan asked, defensive. “You should ask Kayla what’s going on with her.”

  “Evan,” I snapped at him in warning, but he gave me a look and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m just saying. Maybe Riley would be helpful, since you won’t hear anything I have to say.”

  I shook my head at him, glaring, and then wrapped my towel around myself and stormed out of the pool area. Riley called out, “Kayla!” like she could tell that I was leaving because of her and not Evan, but I only upped my pace, refusing to look back.

  ***

  Nicole was up watching a movie in the living room by the time I got back, and I changed into my pajamas and joined her, plopping down next to her and stealing a handful of popcorn from the bowl in her lap. She acknowledged me with a glance and a soft smile.

  “Have fun?”

  “Tons,” I deadpanned, regretting joining her when I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I didn’t know what to think or what to feel anymore. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, I was pretty sure that Evan was being so possessive of Riley again because he was worried that I liked girls, and I was also pretty sure that whatever I’d felt with Riley in the pool had at least been partially mutual. But the idea of acknowledging that I’d felt something was about as palatable as slicing off one of my toes. Evan and Riley were complicated enough. The last thing I needed in my life was to be part of a love triangle.

  “I think it’s just puppy love. It’ll fade,” Nicole advised me, and it took me a moment to realize she was talking about Evan and Riley. “We both remember our first big crushes. You clearer than me, given that yours is fresher.” She smirked at me. “The butterflies, the tingling, the little gasp-y feeling you get when you first see him. I’d have done anything just to see Cody Juergens smile at me. I was obsessed with him for six months before we finally dated. I mean, it was ninth grade, but still.”

  I sat in silence, knees pulled up to my chest and my head tilted back to rest against the couch cushion behind me. I stared at our ceiling as the light from the TV tinted it different colors, trying to remember how I’d felt about Josh my sophomore year. What Nicole had said rang true. The butterflies, the tingles… it’d all been there. I’d been sure before that I’d been in love, but now I wasn’t as confident.

  “Have you ever been in love?” I asked her. “Like, real love?”

  “Not unless you think that what I felt in ninth grade was love,” said Nicole with a laugh. “Because that’s about as good as it’s gotten for me.”

  “Something tells me that’s not real love,” I decided. “I don’t think that’s how it feels. Maybe at first, I guess, but not once you’ve really gotten there and you’re actually in love.”

  “Hmm.” Nicole tossed a piece of popcorn into her mouth and asked, non-committedly, “What do you think it feels like, then?”

  “Not sure.” I paused and closed my eyes. I could remember feeling butterflies with Josh early on, and for a long time afterward. Maybe they’d never really faded. Maybe that was because I’d never truly grown accustomed to being with him. Even when we’d broken up, he’d still felt new and unfamiliar.

  But he hadn’t been the first person I’d felt butterflies for. He hadn’t been the first person I’d seen and immediately knew I wanted to be around.

  I remembered, with a sudden jolt to my chest, that that’d happened in first grade, and that just a few short minutes later, I’d walked right up to Riley and declared that she was going to be m
y best friend.

  “Maybe you’re right, though,” mused Nicole, pulling me out of my head. “Eventually it must just feel… comfortable. Or, like… warm.” She gave a short laugh. “Maybe love is like eating a microwaved slice of chocolate cake. With hot fudge sauce poured onto it.” She paused. “Now I really want cake.”

  “Bet you still have some left over from your party,” I mumbled, still perturbed by my thoughts.

  “I do. Thanks for the reminder.” She patted my knee once, gratefully, and then stood to head into the kitchen.

  By the time she’d returned, I was upstairs in bed, more confused than ever and with zero chance of getting any sleep.

  ***

  Putting my phone on silent shortly after leaving the pool turned out to be an excellent idea, because I was able to wait until morning to face what I expected to be an inevitable barrage of texts.

  Except I didn’t have a million missed texts, actually. There were just a couple from Riley. The first said: “Evan told me about what happened. We need to talk.” The second, sent an hour after the first, said: “Talk to me. Please?”

  I left my phone on my nightstand and went downstairs to eat breakfast. It was a Sunday, so Mom and Nicole were in the kitchen when I got there, Mom standing by the counter eating an English muffin while Nicole texted someone at the table, a bagel on a plate in front of her. I stole half of it from her and took a bite.

  “Hey!” She snatched it back, and I scowled at her, then went to the fridge to scavenge for something to eat.

  “Any plans for the day?” Mom asked me. “Nicole and I were thinking about renting some movies. It’s supposed to rain today. I have to run to the store so I was thinking about picking a couple up on the way home.”

  “I guess,” I said, shrugging.

  “Do you have any you’d like to see?”

  “No. I’ll just watch whatever you two want.” I found an uneaten cheese stick and then closed the fridge.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Mom asked me. I turned to see both her and Nicole watching me, and wondered if I really looked as miserable as I felt. I forced myself to perk up and offered them a smile.

  “Sorry… just didn’t get much sleep. I might go take a nap.”

  “Want us to come get you when we’re ready to watch?” Mom asked, though she still looked concerned.

  I nodded. “Yeah, just wake me up.” When they still stared at me, I asked, “What? I’m fine. Just tired. Seriously.”

  “You haven’t been the same since you and Josh ended things,” Mom mentioned tentatively, like she’d been trying to decide for a while when the best time to bring this up was.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted, more forcefully this time. Mom looked away from me and pressed her lips into a thin line. It was a look that said she’d expected me to react exactly how I was reacting. I softened and let out a sigh. “I really am. I’m just tired. I’ll come watch movies later, I swear.”

  “You can talk to me, honey. You know that, right?”

  “And me,” Nicole added.

  “I know. There’s just… nothing to talk about.” I took the cheese stick with me and left the kitchen, but threw it in the garbage the instant I was out of sight, suddenly not very hungry anymore.

  Chapter Seven

  The whole “living in the same neighborhood with Riley and Evan” thing worked both ways. I could find Riley when she didn’t want to be found. But she could find me when I didn’t want to be found, either.

  She knocked this time. Not on the front door, but on my bedroom door. I thought it was Mom, asking me to watch a movie, until I heard her voice, gentle and anxious. “Kayla?”

  I let out a sigh and sat up, pulling out the ear bud I had in one of my ears. The other was already out, resting on my bed so that I could hear my Mom when she came to get me. I wished I’d put it in, now, on the off chance that not responding would’ve just made Riley leave.

  That turned out not to be the case, anyway, because after about ten seconds of me staring silently at my closed door, the knob turned and it cracked open to comically reveal just one of Riley’s eyes. I’d have laughed if I’d been in a better mood.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  I grimaced. “Does my answer make a difference?”

  She hesitated, pondering my question for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’d rather not have to figure it out.”

  I closed my eyes and let out a silent breath, certain I’d regret letting her in. “Come in,” I said.

  She slid inside and closed the door behind herself, then stared at me for several seconds, her back pressed to the door and her teeth worrying her bottom lip. I glanced up at her and then down to my cross-legged lap, over and over again, until she finally spoke.

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  She sounded hurt, which surprised me for some reason. I’d almost expected her to treat my kiss with Grace like some shocking piece of gossip, which I realized now was totally unlike Riley and much more like a reaction Vanessa would’ve had. Riley’s primary concern, as always, was us. Our friendship, our trust in each other, our closeness.

  I put myself into her shoes for a moment and realized that a part of her was probably scared. I’d hid something big from her, and I’d never done that before. We’d been spending less time together, and we hadn’t been quite as close, and she’d worked hard to make sure we wouldn’t grow apart because of her relationship with Evan, but now here we were. To her, it was probably the most concrete evidence she had that I was pulling away from her.

  And I was. But I was sure she didn’t know the entire reason why, because I’d yet to completely work it out myself.

  “I didn’t tell anyone,” I said at last. “Evan saw.”

  She hesitated, and then crossed the room to join me on my bed, facing me with one leg bent at the knee and folded under her while the other hung off of the edge of the bed. I knew she was looking at me, so I glued my gaze to a spot on my right ankle and didn’t look up.

  “I still wish you’d told me,” she said.

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” I mumbled. “It didn’t mean anything.”

  There was a long silence as the half-lie hung in the air, and Riley reached out and took my hand. I knew immediately that she didn’t believe me.

  “Hey,” she murmured, and I squeezed her hand hard, my vision growing bleary as my eyes fogged over and my throat tightened. I wouldn’t look at her. I couldn’t.

  “I’m scared,” I admitted at last, and felt Riley squeeze my hand back. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know what I…” I sucked in a breath and amended, “If I even like…”

  I stopped there. I couldn’t say it aloud.

  “That’s okay,” Riley breathed out, but I could feel her trembling slightly across from me. My heart pounded in my chest and I looked up at last.

  Riley’s eyes were shiny, like she wanted to cry too, and I was confused when I saw that. She was my best friend, and I knew that she hurt when I hurt, but this seemed more intimate than that.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was so…” She seemed to struggle with how to finish her sentence. “So… caught up in juggling my own mess and the little bit of yours that I could see, with all of the drama with Evan and me and then you feeling left out. And I asked you if that was all that was wrong just to make sure, because I wondered if…” She hesitated, and then never finished that thought. “I just didn’t actually look hard enough to see if I was missing something.”

  She swallowed hard and raised her free hand to my cheek to wipe away a tear with her thumb, continuing, “And I hate that I missed this. I am the last person that should’ve missed this.” Her voice shook for her last sentence, and her hand lingered, her thumb brushing gently along my cheek. “Because I guess a selfish part of me was looking for it.”

  I opened my mouth but found myself at a loss for words, my eyes still glued to hers. Something passed between us, and I knew right then that I wanted to kiss her. I
knew a lot of things right then. Why Riley’d always taken my hand at every opportunity and why she’d always laughed at even the dumbest of my jokes. Why she’d never had a boyfriend, and why she’d only gotten one after I’d made it completely clear that I supported the idea. Why the most affection I’d ever seen her give Evan was a kiss on the cheek. Why she’d kissed him on Prom night, while I was supposed to have been off losing my virginity Josh. Why she’d disliked Josh much more than Evan ever had.

  “Oh,” I whispered, stunned. I let go of her hand, which very clearly caught her off-guard, and said, “Evan. You used him.” I looked up at her, eyebrows furrowed and heart in my stomach. “How could you use him?”

  “I… I didn’t-” she stuttered. I could tell my reaction had surprised her. Knowing we had feelings for each other was supposed to be the big shocker, but I’d been processing that possibility since our moment in the pool the previous night. Riley using Evan, however, was out of left field. “I didn’t mean to,” she said at last. “He’s my best friend, so I thought… I was sure you’d never– and I thought that maybe he would be different, because he’s my best friend and I love him.”

  I just stared at her, my mouth very quickly going dry. I could tell she was panicking, as though the full weight of what she’d done was finally crashing down onto her.

  “I thought I was doing the right thing,” she squeaked out. “I thought you’d never– You were with Josh, and I thought maybe it wasn’t girls, it was that you were my friend. And he was my friend, too, and he liked me.”

  “Oh,” I breathed out, feeling slightly sick. “Oh, I can’t do this.” I stood up and ran a hand through my hair, then began to pace back and forth while Riley watched me from the bed. “I don’t even know what I am, Riley! I can’t deal with this, too.”

  “I screwed up, I know,” she pressed, getting to her feet, too. When I didn’t stop moving, she grabbed at my hand and spun me to face her. “Kayla, calm down.”

  “How am I supposed to calm down?” I blurted out. “I don’t know why I feel this way, or when I started to feel this way, or… if I’m even allowed to feel this way. He’s our best friend, and you’re…” I tried to force the word out, but in my panic, it caught in my throat. Riley bit her lip so hard it turned white as she watched me. At last, I managed to say it. “You’re… gay. He’s head over heels for you and you’re gay.”