Blue Jeans and Sweatshirts

by Jo Ramsey

  “Raising a teenager isn’t easy.” Dad sounded confused. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want you. How can you even think that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because all you do is complain about me and tell me everything I do wrong.” Now that I’d opened the bottle of crap that had been building up, I couldn’t stop myself. Not that I actually wanted to. The hell with consequences. For once, I was going to say what was on my mind.

  “You aren’t trouble.” Mom set her plate on the coffee table. “I don’t even know what to say right now.”

  “Then listen to me. Please. I’m sorry for yelling, but I need you to really hear what I’m saying.” I took a deep breath. “You guys work a lot. You’re tired all the time. I get it. Stuff’s expensive, and you’re trying to give me a good life or whatever. But you take it out on me. You get mad at me for stuff that isn’t my fault, and you get annoyed every time I try to talk to you because it might be one more thing you have to deal with. I feel like I can’t say anything to you.”

  “Holly.” Dad shook his head. “Sometimes we have a lot on our plates.”

  “I’m a single parent,” Aunt Imogen said. “I work, I take care of Evan, and you know about all the stuff I have going on with Timothy. Sometimes I wish I could ignore the world when I get home from work, but I don’t. If Evan needs me, I’m here for him.”

  Evan opened his mouth and closed it again.

  “We’re here for Holly too,” Mom said.

  “If you’re here for me, then don’t sound like I’m a nuisance when I tell you I need to talk to you,” I said.

  “That’s rude,” Dad said.

  Aunt Imogen made a noise that sounded almost like a growl. “I see what Holly means. Yes, she sounded rude, but you aren’t letting her say what she needs to say, so I don’t exactly blame her. If you want her to respect you, it might help if you show her some respect.”

  This was taking way longer than it should have, all because my parents couldn’t be quiet and listen to me. I was about ready to give up. Telling them about Chastaine wasn’t worth the aggravation.

  But they were going to find out. I didn’t doubt it for a second. Gossip and rumors always got back to the adults somehow, and this was one piece of gossip that someone would want to make sure Mom and Dad heard. I had to tell them, because no matter how difficult this became, it would be a whole lot worse if I wasn’t the one who told them.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about being rude, but I keep trying to talk to you right now, and you keep interrupting me and acting like you don’t want to hear it. Like Aunt Imogen said, just because I’m your kid doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be respected too.”

  “Go ahead and tell us what’s going on.” Mom folded her arms.

  She didn’t look or sound much like she was actually willing to listen, but I decided I’d better take what I could get. At least no one said anything else.

  Now that they were all waiting for me to get started, though, I had no idea what to say. I didn’t think coming right out and telling them I was a lesbian would go over as well as it had with Aunt Imogen, but I didn’t know how else to go about it.

  So I started the same way I had with Aunt Imogen. “I have a girlfriend.”

  Mom and Dad both just stared at me. I didn’t know if they completely understood what I’d said.

  “You thought I was going out with Nathan, but we were faking it.” I took another breath. “I don’t like guys. I never have. You think that’s how it’s supposed to be, that I should have a boyfriend or at least want one, and you think it’s not such a good thing that Evan’s gay, so I didn’t want to tell you this. Lying and pretending really sucks, though, and people at school—”

  Mom held up her hand, and I immediately stopped babbling. Even though she’d interrupted me again, this time it was kind of a relief.

  “Are you telling us you’re a lesbian?” she asked.

  I nodded and forced myself to keep my mouth shut.

  “How long has this been going on?” Dad said.

  I didn’t know what he meant. “Me being a lesbian?”

  “This is the first we’ve heard of it.”

  “I just said I didn’t want to tell you before.” At least, I was pretty sure I’d said that somewhere in my blurting. I couldn’t remember for certain. “That doesn’t mean it hasn’t always been true. I didn’t think you’d accept it, so I was hiding it.”

  “Why wouldn’t we accept it?” Mom’s voice shook a little.

  “You don’t accept a lot of things.” I bit my lip. Now that I’d started the discussion I actually wanted to have, I refused to let myself get sidetracked into more crap about how Mom and Dad acted.

  “How long?” Dad asked again.

  “Holly, what I think your dad wants to know is how long you’ve known you’re not straight,” Aunt Imogen said.

  I wasn’t sure if that was what Dad was asking, but at least it was a specific enough question that I could answer it. “Since, like, elementary school, kind of. I mean, everyone started having crushes, and I never had a crush on a boy. Only on other girls. I didn’t really figure out what that meant until middle school.”

  Aunt Imogen nodded and gave me a tiny smile. “So this isn’t anything new for you, even though it’s the first time your mom and dad have heard about it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why didn’t you….” Mom trailed off. “Never mind. You’ve answered why you never said anything before. Why are you telling us now?”

  “Nathan told everyone we broke up,” I said. “Some kids at school started saying I was going out with another girl because she and I hang out together, and Nathan got upset. He told me I had to decide whether to keep pretending we were dating, and I said I didn’t want to pretend anymore.”

  “What does that have to do with this?” Dad rubbed his forehead. “I wish you’d given us a heads-up that we’d be having a discussion like this when you called about dinner.”

  “You wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it here,” I said. “You would have told me to come home and talk there, and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted Aunt Imogen here, because she’s been through the whole coming out thing with Evan.”

  Neither of my parents said anything, which meant I was right.

  “I’ve heard rumors at school that Holly’s a lesbian,” Evan said. “People always have to find something to talk about. And you know how that all works. Someone says something in front of their parents, and it starts going through the adult grapevine. Holly wanted you to hear it from her.”

  Aunt Imogen raised an eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t going to say anything.”

  Evan shrugged. “I had something relevant to say. I’ll go back to acting like I’m not in the room now.”

  “I want to make sure I understand all of this.” Mom frowned. “You’ve known for at least five or six years that you like girls. You were afraid to tell us, and you’re only telling us now because people are spreading rumors, and you were afraid they’d get back to us?”

  “Pretty much.” She’d said it a whole lot more clearly than I had. Maybe I should have rehearsed while we were waiting for Mom and Dad to show up.

  “How long have you had a girlfriend?” Dad asked. “You were cheating on Nathan?”

  “No, I wasn’t cheating. I told you, he and I weren’t really boyfriend and girlfriend.” I paused. “And he knew about my girlfriend. I told him. He still wanted to pretend he and I were dating, because he has reasons. I’m not telling you what they are.”

  “We don’t need to know,” Mom said. “Answer your father’s question.”

  It took me a second to remember what Dad had asked besides the cheating thing. “Since last month. We were friends, and it just kind of became more.”

  “Who?” Mom asked.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell them about Chastaine. I would be outing her, and she hadn’t told me whether that was okay. Plus she probably hadn’t told her parents yet, and I wanted to give he
r time to do it instead of pretty much guaranteeing my parents would tell them.

  “She isn’t out,” I said. “She’s nice, and she and I get along really well. That’s all I can tell you.”

  Dad narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you think we should know?”

  “I think she deserves to come out when she’s ready to, and that means I’m not telling anyone who she is until then.” It occurred to me that they would probably hear about Chastaine through the rumor mill, but I couldn’t control that. I could only decide I wouldn’t be the one to give her away.

  “Maybe Holly can ask her girlfriend if it’s okay to give you her name,” Aunt Imogen said. “I agree with her right now, though. If the girl hasn’t told anyone she’s a lesbian—”

  “She’s bisexual,” I said. It seemed important to make that correction.

  “If she hasn’t told anyone she’s bisexual, it wouldn’t be right for Holly to out her.”

  “All right.” Mom picked up her plate again but didn’t eat anything. “Holly, you don’t have to tell us. Whoever the girl is, if you like her, she must be a good person. I think this is going to take time for us to get used to.”

  “It does take time,” Aunt Imogen said. “As long as you’re willing to try, though, you’ll get there.”

  “Of course we are.” Dad looked at me. “We love you, Holly. I don’t know if you realize that, but we do. This is… let’s say unexpected, and I can’t really say I’m happy about it. But you’re still our daughter.”

  “Thanks.” I swallowed a lump that rose in my throat. At least they weren’t going to kick me out of the house or anything. I wasn’t about to kid myself that they would be magically okay with everything right away, but they weren’t yelling or accusing me of causing problems. That was a start.

  Everything after that was kind of anticlimactic. Aunt Imogen heated up everyone’s food, since it had gotten cold while we were talking. I managed to finish the teriyaki strip I’d been picking at, along with one chicken finger. I refused to try eating anything else. No one pushed me to, either.

  But neither of them said anything during the drive to our house, and when we went inside, Mom just said, “By the way, I called Lorraine this morning. You have an appointment Tuesday at three. Do you think you can get there on your own?”

  “Yeah.” The counseling center was only a few blocks from a subway station.

  “Okay.”

  Dad turned on the TV, and he and Mom sat on the couch, and that was it. I stood there for a couple of minutes, but neither of them even looked at me, so I went to bed.

  Chapter 9

  FRIDAY MORNING, I skipped the donut shop again. It was partly because I didn’t want to have all the food there tempting me, but mostly, I wanted to avoid Nathan. I saw no way he and I could still be friends. If he’d acted like the breakup was his idea or something mutual, maybe we would have ended up okay, but he’d told everyone I broke up with him. He had to have known that would just add fuel to the rumors. He was so pissed off he probably didn’t care. And I was so pissed off I didn’t trust myself to be in the same room with him.

  Chastaine showed up at school at the same time I did. “I didn’t feel like dealing with drama,” she said as we walked into the building together. “A couple people called me last night and said Nathan’s being a jackass about you and me. If I’d seen him, I probably would have smacked him.”

  “Same here.” I hesitated. As much as I wanted to complain about Nathan, I had something more important to tell her. “Um, I came out to my parents last night.”

  “Really?” Her eyes widened. “Wow. How did it go?”

  “It could have been worse.” We headed upstairs to our lockers. “They asked a bunch of questions. We were at Evan’s, so he and his mom helped out. They wanted to know who my girlfriend is, but I didn’t tell them. I didn’t think it would be fair to you if they outed you to your parents.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to talk to them this weekend.” She hesitated. “Maybe tonight. That’s kind of the weekend.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were your parents upset?”

  I shrugged. “Probably. They usually are. But they hid it pretty well. They said it’s going to take a while for them to adjust, and that’s okay. At least they didn’t tell me to get out of their house or try to convince me I’m just confused.”

  “That’s something.” She sighed. “My parents might not take it so well, but I don’t really care. They dealt with everything they found out after I reported Jim. They can deal with this. I’ll let you know when I tell them so you can tell your parents who I am.”

  “Thanks.”

  We reached the junior lockers. Hers was down the hall from mine, since lockers were assigned in alphabetical order, so I stopped at my locker and she kept walking. That was okay with me. It gave me time to get my head back together.

  She came back over to me a few minutes later. “Did you bring your card for Natalia?”

  “Crap. No.” Evan and I had cleared off the coffee table so we could eat, and my card had gotten lost somewhere among all the other supplies. “I hope Evan has it.”

  “If he doesn’t, you can write her a note or something.”

  “Yeah, but I think she’ll like the card better.” I took out my phone but decided not to bother texting Evan. He wouldn’t be able to go home and get the card if he didn’t have it. There wasn’t enough time.

  Fortunately, when Evan and Guillermo tracked us down in the library a little while later, Evan held out the card without a word. “I didn’t even realize you’d forgotten this. I’m glad I found it.”

  “Me too.” I stuck it between the top two books on my pile. “Thanks for helping me out last night.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What happened last night?” Guillermo sat beside Chastaine.

  “I came out to my parents.”

  “Awesome.” He grinned. “And you survived. Even better.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. I’m good at the surviving thing.”

  We took the cards to Mr. Houseman, who told us he’d heard from Natalia’s mom that morning. She was still in the hospital, but the doctor was sending her home the next day instead of making her stay through the whole weekend. Mr. Houseman still didn’t tell us what was wrong with her, and we didn’t ask, even though I really wanted to know. He had to play by the rules.

  I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and by lunchtime, I was dizzy and had another headache. I didn’t want to put too much food in my stomach, but I ate half a chicken patty along with an apple, and I didn’t feel huge afterward. I actually felt better after I ate, mentally and physically. But I wasn’t about to start going overboard with food again. I’d had a big enough lunch that I wouldn’t have to eat much for supper.

  By the end of the day, I was glad it was Friday. Chastaine asked me to come over to her house, but I turned her down. The whole week had been crazy, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone else. I just wanted to go home and relax until Mom and Dad got there, so that was what I did.

  Chastaine called me that night to let me know she’d talked to her parents. “They weren’t thrilled, but all Dad said was that at least they wouldn’t have to worry about me getting pregnant.” She snorted. “I guess he has a point.”

  “At least as long as we’re going out.” That sounded kind of negative, but I couldn’t help it. She and I had only been together a month, and I still had trouble believing she actually liked someone like me, especially when I thought about some of the guys she’d dated.

  I didn’t say so to her, though, because she would have gotten on my case for insulting myself again.

  “Yeah, well, I think now that you aren’t playing beard for Nathan anymore, we can say we’re exclusive.” She paused. “To the other people who know about us, I mean. Not only to each other. We talked about it the other day, so as long as it’s still okay with you, it’s okay with me.”

  “Um, yeah.” My heart jumped a little, and I barely manag
ed to hold back a huge, foolish grin.

  “I’ve done the whole dating but not committing thing,” she said. “It’s different with you. Like I told you, I haven’t gone out with anyone else in months. I don’t want to see anyone else.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Good.” She paused again. “Do you want to come over tomorrow? Bring some of the clothes I gave you, and I’ll help you put together some outfits for next week. You’ve lost a lot of weight, so some of the things you might not have wanted to wear will probably look awesome on you now.”

  “I haven’t lost that much.” I couldn’t remember how long it had been since last time I’d weighed myself. It had been a while, because I hadn’t wanted to take a chance on Mom finding out I was using her scale, especially after the whole counseling thing. I’d probably lost more since then, but I could only tell Chastaine what I knew for sure. “Like fifteen pounds or something.”

  “I think it’s more than that.” She cleared her throat. “Um, I know you hate it when I say stuff like this, but I think you should really consider not losing any more. You looked fine before, and you look great now.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t believe her, but I knew better than to argue. “You saw what I had for lunch.”

  “Yeah, and I was glad to see you eat something that looked like an actual meal instead of a snack.” She was quiet for a moment. “Sorry. Like I said, I know you don’t like me talking to you about this. I just worry. I want you to be healthy.”

  “You and everyone else, apparently.” I was ready for a change of subject, but I couldn’t think of a new one, so I said, “I have to go. Mom’s calling me.”

  “Okay. Come over tomorrow around noon, and text me if you aren’t coming.”

  “I will. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  I hung up and turned off the volume on my phone. It would still vibrate if someone called or texted, but I’d be able to ignore it. I didn’t want to have a conversation with anyone else that night.

  Saturday, I ended up not going to Chastaine’s because Mom wanted to take me clothes shopping. She had an ulterior motive, of course.