8. Jay
JAY
Jay stretched her neck from side to side as she made her way back to her dorm.
The first week of classes had gone by in a blur of possibilities and wonder.
She was taking mostly engineering-heavy classes, but she had a few requirements too that seemed interesting.
Her Psychology of Literature class professor was particularly eccentric and Jay liked his energy.
In all her other classes, the students definitely looked at her as if they were trying to figure something out.
It didn’t bother Jay too much, mainly because she didn’t see a point if she made it easy by just being herself.
At least in her English class, her professor had taken one look at her and smiled, as if to say, “you’re welcome here”.
Both were part of the energy she felt all around campus: the desire to push back against the shifting, oppressive political landscape while still trying to grasp what that would look like in the end.
One of the biggest issues they discussed was the lack of federal protection for gay marriage.
The Alliance meeting the day before had focused on organizing protests and connecting with allied organizations.
Jay had been intrigued, but Michaela had sat quietly during the whole meeting.
When they’d gotten home, Michaela had explained her silence by saying, “I am torn between struggling to just fight for myself and taking on fighting for others. I’m not saying I don’t want to be involved, I just feel like this week I’ve been drinking from a firehose of emotions. ” Jay thought that was fair.
Jay felt her body relax as soon as she made it through the suite doors.
It had only been a little over a week, but she now considered this to be home, and a lot of that had to do with the familiar sounds coming from the bedroom directly in front of her.
She could hear Michaela’s radio and knew that if she walked into her room right now, Michaela would be dancing.
Jay had caught her by accident before classes had started and realized she’d severely miscalculated her attraction towards Michaela.
Seeing Michaela in her underwear, dancing and smiling, had been too much for Jay.
She had been excited to show Michaela the journal, but when she saw her dancing, Jay stopped, frozen between the urge to run away and the inability to take her eyes off her roommate.
Michaela had the type of beauty that glowed from the inside out; it was all of her.
It was the type of beauty no one could ever buy or manufacture.
Jay had backed up slowly and closed Michaela’s door before heading to the bathroom to wash her face, knowing it was bright red.
Now Jay fought the urge to sneak a peek–she wasn’t a creeper–and politely knocked on Michaela’s door before saying, “Hey Mickey, I’m home!
” She smiled at the feeling, like she was a 1950s husband coming home to their wife, relishing in the domesticity of it before admonishing herself not to run away with any ideas.
Michaela was new to all of this. She needed a friend, not some roommate lusting after her.
“Jay!” Michaela said from behind the door a second before it swung open.
There was Michaela, her hair loose and her face deepened with color, in her t-shirt and underwear.
Jay had noticed Michaela becoming more and more comfortable.
Jay had no real complaints; she was excited for her shy friend and loved the view, but the sight before her eyes tested her.
“Are you done with classes for the week, too?” Michaela said, smiling.
That smile all but undid her.“Yeah,” she said, swallowing hard. “Were you ah, dancing again? What is that, the third time this week?”
Michaela looked sheepish and then gave another small smile. “I’ve never been able to have my own space like this before, and well, I love to dance. I always wanted to go out, but Brian—well, we never went out, which I get—”
Jay cut her off before her sweet roommate went off on a tangent about how it had been okay to be an ass.
“So, we can dance tomorrow night, right?” Jay asked, shifting her weight slightly and finally dropping her bookbag to the floor.
She had all but forgotten that she had just come back from class at the prospect of talking to her roommate.
“What do you mean?” Michaela said back, widening the door even more and stepping back as if inviting Jay inside.
They moved into Michaela’s room and Jay sat at her desk while Michaela hopped up on her bed.
Her long, thin legs stretched out in front of her as she leaned back on her arms. Jay smiled at the glimpse of her red toenail polish.
“You know, the Collective–the gang, our posse, our clique,” Jay said, partially serious.
It had been something Davis and Iris had shared at dinner recently, that their group had expanded and that they needed a name of sorts.
Kevin and Callie had spit-balled ideas until they came up with ‘the Collective’. For whatever reason, it stuck.
“Oh yeah, that.”
“Oh yeah, that?” Jay said teasingly, “we are going right?” Sasha was throwing a party at her spot off campus, though it was still nearby.
“I mean…” Michaela bit her full bottom lip and Jay tried not to stare. “I was going to take tomorrow to continue to look for jobs in case I don’t get the writing gig. I haven’t even sent in my writing sample yet.”
“Good thing the party isn’t till night then,” Jay retorted smartly.
“Do you think it will be safe?” Michaela asked.
“What do you mean, because it’s off campus?”
“I mean–for us? It’s great here and all, but like Ms. Cece said, there are still some people on campus who stare and whisper. I can’t say my first week hasn’t been without some tense moments.”
“Wait, was someone being a dick to you?” Jay asked. She leaned forward on her knees, all but standing up in her outrage. She was fine with the stares and whispers, but she was not going to tolerate anyone being an ass to Michaela.
“No, not outwardly. All I am saying is the professors have been pretty good, just some of the students have been a bit, well you know.” Jay raised an eyebrow at her.
“Look, the party is away from the Alliance, and that’s the place I feel most comfortable, outside of our place.
” Jay tried not to preen at that label, because it technically was their place.
But Jay liked the sound of “our place” a whole lot.
What was wrong with her?
“I hear you, but it’s with Sasha, at her place, and I don’t think Davis and Iris would take you, me, Kev, and Callie, somewhere unsafe. At least not without a heads up.”
Michaela looked like she was thinking it over. It was one of the many faces Jay had been adding to the list entitled “Michaela is so fucking beautiful and adorable I don’t know what I am going to do.” And then, she thought maybe other cute people, guys in Michaela’s case, could be an incentive…
“Plus, we might get a chance to meet some people there, like, hot people,” Jay said mischievously.
Michaela was wearing an unreadable expression. “And?” she said finally.
“Maybe it’s time to wash Brian from your system, or at least live a little,” Jay said, shifting back in the chair.
Michaela continued to stare back at her, and then Jay’s heart sank as she saw the panic and discomfort cross Michaela’s face.
“Jay, come on.”
Jay frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Jay—don’t, okay, I know you’re all positive and confident but like, be real. Who is going to date this?” Michaela sat up so she could gesture with one of her hands up and down her body.
“Mickey—”
“Jay, please.” Michaela crossed her arms. “I can’t, okay? I’m mean, let’s be real, I don’t even have boobs.” Michaela seemed to throw this last point out, as if she’d just decided to throw caution to the wind.
“Mickey, you have boobs. I have boobs. Everyone has boobs.”
Michaela looked up at her, plain annoyance on her face. “Jay, come on, you know what I—”
“Sure, sometimes I wear bigger boobs. And I can let you borrow them if you want. I have the Wonderbra and well, it does wonders,” Jay added, trying to inject some humor into the tense moment. Michaela rolled her big brown eyes.
“Jay you know what I’m saying, okay? Please, I am fine with, look can we just—” Jay wasn’t backing down. It was wild to her that Michaela couldn’t see how beautiful she was.
“Michaela, you are stunning.”
Michaela's mouth fell open. Closed, and then opened again with an incredulous laugh.
“I’m serious Mickey, you are so beautiful, and look, I am not saying you have to do anything you’re not comfortable with, you don’t have to find a hottie or anything.
But I don’t want to sit here and listen to you explain to me why you aren’t worthy.
Why you aren’t beautiful. Nope, you are not going to talk about my friend that way. ”
For a tense second or two, neither of them spoke, but Michaela held Jay’s gaze and Jay held hers right back. Then, to Jay’s dismay, she saw Michaela’s eyes fill. Michaela dropped her head in her hands and sat back on the edge of the bed.
Jay slowly approached her and then sat next to her so their thighs touched.
“Mickey, please, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make you—”
“It’s okay.” Michaela looked up, only a few tears having sprung from her eyes. She wiped them away and continued. “It’s just, I am still in the shallows and you keep trying to throw me in the deep end.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it's just, I see you and—” Jay held herself back from saying, I think you may be one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen and I am barely hanging on to being a good person.
If I knew you liked women, I’d be trying to make you mine.
Instead she said, “I just wish you got to see you the way I do.”
At that Michaela looked up at her, her eyes soft and vulnerable.
“You really think someone could?” Michaela didn’t finish the question but she didn’t have to. Jay knew what she meant. Jay also wanted to scream, COME ON! but refrained.
“Am I not lovable, not desirable?” Jay asked, and then realized what she might have implied. Michaela had too, judging from the deepening of the color on her cheeks. “What I meant is, my ex loved me, she desired me. I know for a fact that it is possible.”
Michaela’s eyes moved from Jay’s face and swept down as if in assessment, and then when they rose back up, they stopped on Jay’s mouth. Jay parted them automatically and felt her own face flush.
“And, like, you both what, kissed and stuff?” Michaela said, pulling her eyes up from Jay’s lips and meeting her eyes once more. Jay tried very hard not to do the same.
“And stuff?” Jay said, smiling slightly.
“You know what I mean!” Michaela said and Jay could tell she was trying not to laugh.
“I mean, yes, we kissed and did lots of stuff.”
“And it was okay?”
“It was more than okay,” Jay said, injecting a little flirtation in her voice and Michaela turned her head smiling.
“You know what I meant!” But this brought up some questions for Jay.
“I mean did you and Brian kiss and stuff?”
Michaela didn’t turn back to her and was silent for a few beats. “We sometimes kissed. But mostly I serviced him or we did it, from behind only.”
Jay simply stared at the side profile of Michaela. She wanted to scream, but once again, refrained from doing so. Michaela was obviously embarrassed about it.
“Mickey, look at me,” Jay said gently, taking a hand and using it to turn Michaela’s face towards hers.
She didn’t miss the way Michaela’s eyes flitted down to her mouth and then back up to her eyes.
But she wasn’t going to think about that right then.
“I was in love. Hell, sometimes I still think I love Diana. I broke up with her because I needed space, I needed to know that I wasn’t hanging on to her because the thing was, she absolutely loved me back.
I felt it in her smile, in her touch, in her kiss.
When we made love for the first time, she looked me in my eyes. And you deserve the same. Okay?”
Michaela looked up at her, her eyes wet and shiny. Finally, she nodded slightly and Jay pulled her hand away.
“Now, we don’t have to find anyone at the party, but we can go dance, and you can borrow my boobs.”