Chapter Thirty-Two
“I have something I want to tell you,” I say, staring at my hands in my lap, weaving and unweaving my fingers. I try to relax against the cushion behind me, but that only makes me bend back at an odd angle. I scoot up to the edge of the seat, but that feels too formal.
My couch has become the least comfortable place on the planet.
“What is it, honey? Is everything okay?”
“I… I’m, um…” I practiced, said the words over and over in the bathroom mirror, rehearsed them with Kristen and Hannah, but now they fail me. Suddenly just coming out and saying “I’m gay” seems impossible.
“Sweetheart, it’s okay. You can tell us any—”
“My parents don’t call me ‘sweetheart,’ ” I say, happy to break character.
Kristen huffs and pinches her nose, leaning back in her armchair across from me. “Clarity, I know your parents. They’re going to be on the edge of their seats, concerned and invested in what you have to say. I was playing the part, which you seem to continue to fail to do.”
“Well, just give her a moment to get her bearings,” Hannah tells Kristen from the armchair next to her.
“She’s had like six chances to get her bearings.”
“Well, this is still practice—”
“I’m not ready,” I blurt, wanting them to stop this eerily parent-like bickering. “Maybe it’s the fact that we’re staging it now. Me, coming out in my living room… it’s just too real.”
With both my parents out of the house this afternoon, I decided to invite Kristen and Hannah over to help me rehearse my coming out. I figure going through the motions, finding the right words in advance, might make the moment itself less scary.
After the committee meeting yesterday, Hannah invited me to her parents’ diner to study.
It wasn’t until we were halfway there that I registered I’d be meeting her parents.
Then her sister showed up and the whole evening was…
special. Meeting Hannah’s family, being welcomed by them, inspired me.
I appreciate that Hannah has kept our relationship a secret from them, but I realized I want her to be able to share more.
I want them to know who I am to Hannah, which will only be possible when I reveal the truth about who Hannah is to me to my parents.
Which starts with me coming out.
“Crap,” Kristen mutters when her phone starts to ring, thankfully breaking the silence before I’d have to. She shuffles in her seat to pull it out of her back pocket. “Double crap.”
“What?” Hannah asks. She leans over the arm of her chair to try to see her screen.
Kristen presses the button on the side of her phone, ignoring the call. “It’s Vincent.”
“Why didn’t you answer?” I ask. She never ignores his calls.
She stares at her phone for a second. I assume she’s looking at her lock screen wallpaper, a selfie of her and Vincent from the skate show.
“I just don’t want—”
Her ringtone blares again, the melody filling my living room.
“Hey, babe,” she says, her voice jumping to an octave I’ve never heard before.
Hannah and I catch each other’s eye. She raises her brows, but we both stay quiet.
“I’m with Clarity—well, I’m at Clarity’s house.
We’re just hanging out, nothing special,” she says, picking at the lining on the edge of her cushion.
“Well, no.” She frowns, her eyes darting to Hannah and then to me.
“No, we can’t—well, we’re hanging out. It’s, uh, girls’ day.
Girls only,” she says, stumbling through her words.
“What’s he asking?” I whisper.
“No, Vinny, babe, I’m not—We’re about to have dinner with her parents and they’re super strict about boys. I’m sorry. I’ll call you later, okay?”
Her face pinches in a way that makes me uncomfortable. She’s lying to him to cover for the fact that she’s here with me and Hannah.
“Okay, bye,” she says, her voice clipped.
Hannah and I stay quiet, watching as Kristen pulls her phone away from her ear and stares at it, like she’s waiting for something to happen.
“All good?” Hannah asks, tentative and slow.
She sucks in a breath and looks up at us, her eyes wide like she might’ve forgotten we’re in the room. “Yeah, everything’s fine. He and Maurice are hanging out and he wanted to see if Clarity and I would come join them…”
The way she trails off leaves Hannah and me wondering if she’s going to say more. But Kristen just sits there, blank, like she doesn’t know where to look or what to say.
“Thank you for covering for me,” I say, though I know it’s not nearly enough.
“Anytime,” she says quickly, forcing a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
I hadn’t acknowledged the added pressure of telling Kristen the truth and asking her to keep my secret. The longer it takes me to come out, the longer she’s going to have to lie to Vincent.
Hannah and I have the same lunch period, but we never sit together. I wish we did, but even she agreed that either of us switching tables might draw attention.
So I sit across from Kristen and Vincent, picking at my leftover chicken tikka masala in between glances at the table where the field hockey team and girls’ soccer team sit together.
Today, Hannah’s wearing her hair down. She has on her only pair of earrings, gold studs, and they catch the light coming through the cafeteria windows whenever she tucks her hair behind her ear.
She’s flanked by Olivia and Rowena, talking to some girls I don’t recognize. Her eyes are bright, and—
My watch vibrates.
HANNAH: This cute girl is staring at me from across the cafeteria and idk what to do. Gotta tell her I have a gf
I resist the urge to look over my shoulder again, knowing that would be a bit obvious, and reach for my phone instead.
CLARITY: How cute are we talking?
HANNAH: hmmm, idk…
HANNAH: Look in a mirror
I blush at the compliment, folding my phone toward me as if I can fold her sweet words right into my heart.
“Who got you smiling like that?” Vincent asks.
I snap out of my lovely lesbian stupor at the sound of his voice. “What?”
“Obviously, it’s Maurice. I bet they’re flirting,” Kristen says, flashing me a wink. “Aren’t they adorable?”
“I don’t know if ‘adorable’ is the word Maurice would use,” Vincent admits to Kristen. “But he has been different lately,” he says to me.
“Different how?” Kristen asks before I have the chance to.
“Like… how he was when he started dating Marissa.”
Marissa, his last girlfriend.
Vincent dunks one of his chicken tenders into the barbecue sauce he brought from home—which I kind of respect—leaving Kristen and me to have a quick exchange with our eyes.
I raise my eyebrows: This is bad.
Kristen widens her eyes: What are we going to do?
I glance to the side: How should I know?
Considering how I bombed my pretend coming out, I don’t see myself attempting the real thing anytime soon. Which means Maurice is still critical to me conducting my secret relationship in peace.
What I really want to know is how he could’ve possibly caught real feelings for me, girlfriend-level feelings, when I’ve kept him at arm’s length.
Maurice and I haven’t hung out alone at all, which has been intentional on my part.
Having Kristen with me when I see him is the closest thing I have to a safety net.
Now that she knows the truth, there’s no way she’d leave an opening for anything to happen between us.
We haven’t seen each other since the skate show. So I know I’m due for a date of some kind… I just assumed slowing down the pace of us spending time together would make it harder for him to catch romantic feelings.
“Maybe we can hang out this week?” Kristen offers, looking at Vincent.
“A double date or something?” I add.
I catch Vincent’s face shift: his brows low, smile slick like he’s about to play one of those pick-four cards in Uno.
“I have it on good authority that he’s planning a date for you.”
“Oh.”
Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up!
“Since when!” Kristen shrieks, swatting his arm. “How could you not tell me, the matchmaker, of such a development?”
Her eyes dart to me, flaring like a silent signal to brace myself.
“I didn’t realize I had to report back to you on their business,” Vincent says, leaning in obnoxiously close to Kristen.
“Vin, come on, focus,” she says, gently pushing his face a few inches back.
Vincent frowns. That’s not like her. The Kristen I know—or the one I’ve gotten used to—would’ve seized the opportunity to steal a kiss with him sitting that close, or to stick a potato chip in his mouth.
“What exactly did he say?” she asks, her tone a bit too serious.
Vincent shrugs, frowning at his side salad like it’s the one giving him the third degree.
“I don’t know. He mentioned minigolf this weekend.”
“Minigolf?” Kristen says, looking at me, her brows raised. To Vincent, she probably looks surprised, but I can tell it’s her silent way of asking me what I’m going to do.
“Saturday,” I say, racking my brain for a good excuse.
“Saturday is Clarity’s birthday,” Kristen chimes in. “I’m sure she has plans with her parents.”
As much as I appreciate the save, it creates the perfect opening for something I’ve been meaning to do.
“Actually,” I say, dragging out the word, happily dramatic. “We are all busy this Saturday.”
“We are?” Vincent asks.
“Hannah invited us to a Halloween party. I think the friend or girlfriend of one of the field hockey players is throwing it—a girl named Valerie—”
“You’re going to a party at Valerie’s house?” Vincent asks, his voice dripping with disbelief.
“Despite what you may think, I’m not a hermit,” I say, defending myself around a forkful of chicken.
“No, I just mean, you do realize that there will probably be drugs and alcohol at this party, right? I mean, if weed makes you uptight—”
“It doesn’t make me uptight,” I hiss. “And I don’t live under a rock. Yes, I know there are ‘drugs and alcohol’ at parties.”
“Hey, I just didn’t want you to walk into something you weren’t prepared for.”
It takes everything in me not to accuse him of knowing that feeling every day when he leaves his house, but I gracefully manage to hold it in.
“Do you want to go or not?” I ask, focusing on Kristen and struggling not to lose my patience. “You and I always spend Halloween together. I figured this is something new we can do, our first and last high school Halloween party.”
“Well, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of impossible to resist,” she says, smiling.