Chapter 13 #2
I waited a long moment before I spoke. “I know.”
We looked at each other, and there was a sudden understanding between us.
We had crossed some invisible bridge—a bridge that, deep down, I had probably known was there all along.
I unbuckled my seatbelt, shifted my body toward hers, and lowered the music without asking.
This was a moment that deserved our full attention.
“Are you okay?” I asked in my gentlest voice.
Aubrey was shaking, but she was doing her best to hold her own. “You make coming out look really easy.”
I held her eyes and willed every atom in my body to show her that it was okay. “It shouldn’t have to be hard.”
“I know it’s not my business, but could you tell me the story? Of how you came out?”
And suddenly I was talking. Talking in a way that I hadn’t talked in a while, excavating my own heart, handing over the pieces that I thought might mean something to her.
“And then Mom came into my room the next morning, after she’d found the letter I wrote her, and she sat on my bed and just rubbed my back for a while.
I woke up and she was doing this really deep breathing, like she was meditating or something, and I wasn’t sure if she knew I was awake but then she said, ‘I love you, honey. It might be an adjustment, but I love you.’ Then she gave me a kiss and left for work. ”
The longing was back in Aubrey’s eyes. “You’re really lucky.”
I nodded meaningfully. “I know I am.”
She chewed her lip. “Did you know my dad is gonna be on College Gameday in September? It’s all anyone can talk about, is how good the Reckoners are looking.
People from ESPN are calling all the time.
Southern Living is doing a feature on our house.
” She paused, and her voice trembled more.
“And behind closed doors, my parents barely even speak to each other. They sleep in separate beds, they eat their meals at different times, and every few weeks they get into a massive, blowout fight, and then Mom leaves to stay with her sister for the weekend, and then she comes back and acts like nothing ever happened.”
I swallowed. I had the sudden urge to reach for her hand, but I stopped myself.
“There’s, like, this unspoken rule that we’re supposed to be the picture-perfect family that represents everything Rustin stands for,” Aubrey went on.
“We have to look right, dress right, sound right … and everything comes back to football, to Dad’s career, even when he’s being a narcissistic asshole.
The only person who gets it is my sister, but she’s in grad school in Nashville, just trying to stay above it all.
She only comes home when Dad makes her. Usually for some publicity stunt. ”
“That sounds like a lot, Aubrey.”
She steeled herself, her eyes still hooked on mine. “And all the while, none of them knows I’m hiding in the closet of our ridiculous mansion.”
“Does anyone know?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.
“No one knows.” She picked at her perfect violet nail polish. “Not even Emma and Candor.”
I let that settle into my bones. Here was this prim, put-together, incredibly burdened girl, and she was sharing her truth with me, even though I hadn’t done anything to earn it.
I wished I could tell her how much that meant to me, how much I wanted to make things easier for her, but I didn’t know how to convey the gravity of those sentiments.
“Well … now I know,” I said lightly, “and I’m always available to talk about hot girls and shit.”
Aubrey snorted. “Thanks, Scrooge, that’s such a comfort,” she said, sounding more like herself. “Okay, let’s get moving.” And like the flip of a switch, she squared her shoulders, checked her mascara, turned the car off, and opened the door.
“Wait, what?” I asked, feeling whiplash from the sudden shift. “I’m sorry … just … pause for a second? You just came out to me in a Target parking lot, and now we’re just gonna flit through the aisles like it’s a chill weekday afternoon?”
“I don’t flit,” Aubrey said. “I walk with purpose. And yes, I’m obviously feeling out of control right now, so I need to walk those pristine, perfectly organized aisles with a caramel macchiato in my hand.”
“You are truly one of a kind, Cotillion,” I said with a shake of my head.
We ambled through Target with all the time in the world, nursing our coffees as we took turns pushing the unwieldy red cart.
The space between our bodies felt different now.
Gone was the standoffishness and tension; instead, there was an easy familiarity between us, almost like I was breezing the aisles with Emma and Candor.
Except with Emma and Candor, I didn’t feel this kind of sweet magnetic pull, this urge to reach over and touch them—like I was doing with Aubrey right now.
“They’re the same thing,” I said, watching her fret over whether seafoam or sage linens was the better choice for dorm bedding. I stepped closer and tickled her side in an effort to make her move.
She squirmed and smacked my hand away, her brow still creased with concentration. “They are not.”
“It’s just green! Light green!”
Aubrey dropped her jaw theatrically. “Lord, you are so uncouth,” she pronounced, shoving me away.
An hour later, laden down with shopping bags, we trudged back out to the car. I watched a bead of sweat roll down her neck and wanted to follow it down to her lower back. Our arms brushed as we loaded up the trunk, and I wondered if her skin was tingling like mine.
“So, where to?” she asked as we settled into our seats.
I hesitated, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. “Any chance you could drop me off at the Cricket? I left the Caddy there.”
She set her jaw. Nodded. “Yes.”
“You can drop me around the corner if you’re worried about someone, like, seeing—”
“No,” she cut in. “That’s fine.” She looked uncertainly at me. “Baby steps, right?”
I smiled. “Baby steps.”
She punched the Cricket’s address into her GPS, revved up the engine, and sped out of the parking lot with a determined expression.
“So … when did you realize?” I asked, picking up where we had left off.
She told me, and it was like listening to a familiar bedtime story: the spark, the doubt, the internal reckoning.
“And then I dated this guy back in Arkansas before Dad got this job. It was kind of my last-ditch effort—like maybe my feelings were just latent or something, and here was this objectively hot guy who could help me unlock something. But, like, he’d hold my hand and write me these little notes during class, and I couldn’t feel anything.
Even when we kissed and fooled around, I found myself thinking about my friend Polly instead.
So I went for a run one afternoon and went down to the creek and just stood there staring at the water for like an hour.
And then I sat in it. Like, full-body sat.
I know that sounds absurd, but it was the only thing that calmed me.
And I watched this woodpecker for a while and it hit me, like, That woodpecker doesn’t give a shit if I’m gay, and I started laughing and—I don’t know—I guess that was when I came out to myself. ”
I smiled wryly. “The woodpecker doesn’t give a shit, but plenty of other people might.”
“Exactly.”
“So … What’s your plan? I mean, are you ever gonna come out publicly?”
“Of course,” she snapped, her voice taking on the edge I was used to.
Then her face softened. “Sorry. I mean.” She took a steadying breath.
“Yes, I’m going to come out. I made myself a promise right before we moved here: that I would just get through graduation, bide my time during the summer, and come out when I got to college.
” She took another deep breath. “I’m almost there. ”
“But you’re going to Rustin, right?”
“Absolutely not,” she said quickly. “Gramick.”
I thought I’d heard her wrong. “What?”
“Gramick University, up in Philly,” she clarified. “It’s far away, it’s private, they’re not in the SEC, and as far as I can tell, they don’t give a shit about football, which means nobody will give a shit who my dad is.”
I couldn’t help the smile pulling at me. “You’re coming up north?”
She shrugged self-consciously. “You won’t be the only Yankee around here, Scrooge.”
I laughed. “I guess not.”
“I did a lot of research,” she said with a note of justification in her voice. “I only looked at schools that had high ratings of LGBTQ acceptance. And I just, I don’t know, I liked Gramick’s vibe. And there’s this really neat queer bookstore in Philly that I want to see.”
“And your parents were okay with that?”
“They don’t know why I chose it. I gave them some line about the academic excellence or whatever.
All my dad cares about is that I’ll still be cheering for the Reckoners.
” She shrugged again. “And I mean, it’s not like they don’t have the money for it.
They can pay the tuition, and hopefully that’s the last thing I’ll ever need them to pay for. ”
“You’ve really thought about this.”
“I think about everything,” she said matter-of-factly. We turned onto Route 29 and cruised past the familiar farmland that neighbored the Frisky Cricket. “Can I ask you something? Did you ever have a crush on someone here? Like, before you moved away?”
I laughed as I remembered. “Do you know Emily Caldwell?”
Aubrey grinned. “Of course.”
“She had me in a choke hold all through sixth grade,” I admitted. “What about you?”
She tilted her head back, thinking. “Probably Abbie Ziegler.”
I pictured our old classmate. Sweet smile, crooked nose. “She was cute.”
Aubrey blushed. “Yeah, well.”
She swung into the Cricket’s parking lot and pulled up right next to the Cadillac. I watched her eyes rake over the building, the Pride flag, the front door. There was something breathless in her expression.
“You know…” I began, “we’re having another big party this weekend, for the Fourth, if you wanted to come. The theme is ‘Independence Gay.’”
Aubrey smiled appreciatively. “Thanks, but I’ve got the Chamber of Commerce barbecue on—”
“Before you come up with an excuse,” I teased, “you should know we’re having the party on Friday. Hatch didn’t want to compete with the fireworks on Saturday.”
Aubrey lowered her eyelashes to refute me.
“First of all, not an excuse. My attendance is required because the mayor and city council and alllll the important people are gonna be there.” She paused, biting her lip.
“But … let me think about it.” She met my eyes again, letting me see the openness on her face.
“I really do want to come. I’m, like, itching to see it. But I’m just…”
“Worried,” I finished with an understanding nod. “I get it. Truly. But if anyone picked up on you being there, you could always spin it like, Football is for alllll Americans and I’m here as an ambassador of that spirit.”
Aubrey laughed genuinely. “Look at you. Ever thought about a career in PR?”
“Why, are you looking for a publicist?”
We grinned at each other, and I knew what this was, knew it was flirting. My stomach wouldn’t stop fluttering and the skin behind my ears felt hot.
“Well … thanks for the ride,” I said, slowly opening the door. “And for saving me from Grandpa.”
“Thanks for the conversation.”
“Conver-gay-tion.”
Aubrey rolled her eyes, but she was beaming. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Tell Abbie Ziegler I said hi.”
“Shut up.”
I climbed out of the car and hovered there for a moment, my hand on the door. I didn’t want to say goodbye to her, and I could tell she didn’t want to say goodbye to me, either.
“Think about it,” I said at last, gesturing behind me to the bar.
“I will,” she promised. From other people, those might have been empty words, but from her I knew them to be true.
“Bye, Aubrey.”
Her eyes lingered on me, sparkling blue and full of something new. “See you later, Louisa.” She bit her lip, smiling up at me. “Stay gay.”