26. Michaela
MICHAELA
“What do you want to know?” Jay said from underneath Michaela.
They were on their makeshift double bed, the one they hadn’t moved since Thanksgiving.
Now with finals approaching, both she and Jay were busier than ever between work and school.
Their little bed had become the only place they really saw each other, one-on-one after dinners when they fell into bed and slept together, naked.
This had been something Michaela hadn’t thought she’d become comfortable with, but Iris had suggested it as part of getting used to each other intimately.
Jay was on her back with Michaela resting on her stomach so that she could turn her head and see Jay while they lay there together.
They’d done more of the same, making out until things got too hot and heavy, though Michaela was happy at how much more comfortable she’d gotten, even to the point of touching and licking Jay’s breasts.
Needing something to distract her while her body cooled down, she had decided to ask Jay about something that had been on her mind since Thanksgiving.
A curiosity that had evolved into an uncertainty she couldn’t ignore.
She wanted to know about Diana. More importantly, how Jay felt about Diana.
“I don’t know, like what is she like? How did you both meet? What made you fall for her? Stuff like that, I guess,” Michaela said, staring at the ceiling, her cheeks burning.
“Mickey, look at me,” Jay said, and Michaela turned her head. “Why are you asking? Because if this has to do with your body—”
“No,” Michaela blurted out, though that wasn’t entirely true or untrue.
“Because you know how I feel about my body,” Jay said seriously, but this made Michaela smile.
“Yes, Jay, we know how you feel about your body.”
“Okay then, how could I not be into yours?”
Michaela pondered this. Jay was so much more petite than her, and she didn’t have to work nearly as hard to remove and hide hair, appear graceful, feminine. And—
“Mickey, answer me, before your mind goes to ugly places,” Jay said, somehow both stern and soothing.
Taking a centering breath Michaela said, “I just want to know about her, okay? To feel like she's an actual person, instead of this idea I feel like I have to compete with.” Michaela let out a small frustrated sigh because she hadn’t been able to really work out why she needed to know about Diana at all.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” she finally conceded.
She had talked this out with Iris, who had just encouraged her to be open and honest, even if she didn’t have all the right words yet.
“Okay, I can tell you about her,” Jay said finally, reaching a hand down to entangle in Michaela’s hair, her fingers carefully sliding over her scalp so as to not mess up her twists. Michaela felt her eyes close at the touch.
“I met Diana when we were young—kids, even. My parents worked for hers on their family orchard. I knew of her and her sister, Julia, but we didn’t really have a reason to interact.
Somehow, I feel like her mother liked it that way.
I can’t say I really noticed her that much, until one day, I did.
I was in high school and she was still in middle school, eighth grade.
I had worked out how I felt about girls, which my father found confusing as hell because I was also coming into my own as a girl. ”
Michaela turned her head slightly to nuzzle Jay’s stomach, a sign that she understood.
She had been thinking lately about how she had always had an attraction to women but also an aversion to them.
She had been marginally aware that she would feel like a fraud pursuing one, but hadn’t understood why.
Instead, like Jay’s father, she had held on to the idea of there only being one different thing.
In her case, Michaela had held onto being attracted to men, because being gay had made sense to her, especially what she knew then, as the only thing different about her.
She was pretty sure she was very gay still, just not in the way she’d originally thought.
And that was taking some time to get used to, so she could empathize with Jay’s father, who was probably thinking something like, Okay, but you still like girls, why not just remain a boy?
But Jay, like Michaela, was never that boy who liked girls and now Michaela understood that.
Jay continued, “Anyway, so when I think about seeing Diana, really seeing her, it feels like it was the first time. Our eyes locked, it was this whole thing because I was attracted to her right away. But what stands out to me the most was I could tell by the way she looked at me that she was attracted to me as well. From then on, whenever my parents were on the property, I went with them. I was there mostly to help them but also for the chance of bumping into Diana. And one day I did, and then I did again, and again.” Jay paused for another moment, her fingers still massaging Michaela’s scalp in slow circles.
The motion helped relieve the small tingly sensation that Michaela was feeling at hearing all of this.
She wasn’t sure what she felt, except intrigued and empathetic.
She could hear it in Jay’s voice, the joy that someone had looked at her and felt attraction; Michaela understood it so well. She hoped everyone did.
“Anyway, we started dating. Kissing, making out. I had so much fun hanging with her and Julia when I could. They treated me like any other girl, not the Mexican immigrant who had old clothes and never bought lunch. Whose parents worked on the orchard. They were a safe space for me, and, I imagine, I for them. Julia is gay as hell, as she likes to say, and a tomboy. That’s when it started to hit me that gender and sexuality were separate things, I think?
Like there were different ways to express gender and it didn’t always indicate who you wanted to sleep with?
How if I could be a girl and Julia could be a girl, what girl meant was different to both of us and that was okay?
So in the end it just didn’t matter to me, wear a skirt or don’t, just bring your best self.
But anyway, Diana—I fell in love with her.
She thought I was hot shit, and while I always knew it to be true,” Michaela couldn’t help but roll her eyes and smile, “it was nice to have someone see me for the way I saw myself. To love me for myself.”
Michaela felt warm at the idea of someone loving Jay that way, so young and early in her life.
She briefly wondered what it would have been like for her if she had met Jay in middle or high school.
She would have figured things out sooner, and would have known what it meant to be loved like this.
But perhaps that’s not how it would have worked, because Jay needed something from her relationship with Diana first. The thought both warmed and cooled her.
“Why did you break up with her, then? I know you’ve told me, I just don’t understand, I guess.”
Jay was quiet for a moment, still making small circles on Michaela’s scalp.
“I don’t know how else to explain it, outside of needing to experience and see more.
To know that I wasn’t latching on to the first person who saw me for me.
Maybe it sounds stupid, but I felt like I owed it to myself—and honestly to her, to know that if I were to stay, it would be because I wanted to and not because I was afraid not to. ”
Michaela took this in. This is why, Jay had said, she’d been so reluctant to pursue something with Michaela.
Because Michaela might just want to stay with Jay because of the safety.
The difference was that Michaela understood what she and Jay had because she hadn’t had it with Brian.
She knew what the alternatives were. Here was Jay, in a second relationship and free in it.
Michaela free for the first time. But Jay hadn’t said the thing Michaela had secretly been hoping to hear.
She hadn’t said she also left Diana because she hadn’t been in love with her enough to think they could go the distance.
“Do you still love her?” Michaela asked quietly. She was partially ashamed at the sharp stab of jealousy that followed the words. But she needed to know.
Jay kept slowly and carefully massaging Michaela’s scalp the way she loved.
“Yes,” she said after a while. The stab of jealousy felt like it had twisted to maximize damage.
It pried open her fears about not being enough, not measuring up to Diana, the idea that Jay wasn’t all hers.
And now those fears were free to escape through the open wound.
Jay, as if sensing something, said, “I don’t want to hurt—”
Michaela closed her eyes as they burned.
“Of course it hurts, Jay.” Her voice was more forceful than she’d intended, but her heart was racing, and she was both trying to calm herself and express how she was feeling at the same time.
“You’ve just told me that while you’re with me, you want to be with someone else. ”
Jay sat up immediately, causing Michaela to have to sit up. Before Michaela could turn away from her, she felt Jay's soft hand on her face, gently turning her chin to face her. Michaela refused to look her in the eye. She felt like if she did, she would come apart right then and there.
“I never said that, Mickey, I am with you because I want to be with you–”
“As well,” Michaela almost spat out. “You want to be with someone else as well.”
Jay was quiet for a moment, still holding Michaela’s chin. Michaela refused to look up. “Michaela, you asked me if I still loved her and I never want to lie to you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you.”
“Do you want to be with Diana, though? Still?” Michaela pleaded.
Her eyes filled with tears, and while she needed to know Jay’s answer, she was already wishing she could go back to just a few minutes ago, when they were blissfully coming down from a post-makeout high.
She wanted to be that Michaela who had everything, not the Michaela now who felt like she was losing it.
It was Jay who had given her something, and it was Jay who was taking it away.
Jay dropped her hand from Michaela’s face and let out a long breath. Michaela squeezed her eyes shut and felt the first warm tears fall. “I don’t know,” Jay finally said. Michaela felt her heart break. She also felt angry.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Michaela said, this time looking Jay in the eyes. She watched Jay’s face crumple.
“Mickey, listen–” Jay began.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Michaela said again, coolly.
Jay opened her mouth and then closed it. Michaela could tell even in the darkening light that her face was flushed. Jay looked daunted, shocked, and for some reason the sight only made Michaela feel angrier. “So you don’t know if you want to be with Diana?”
“Mickey,” Jay’s voice had gone soft and pleading now, “I don’t know—I am confused, I’m trying to—”
“And now you’re confused?” A small part of Michaela knew what Jay was trying to get out, but the rest of her didn’t care. It was a wounded animal lashing out.
“Not about how I feel about you!” Jay shot back.
Michaela felt her own eyes widen, and she stared back at Jay, who looked equally shocked at the angry delivery.
Taking a breath, Jay said again, “Not how I feel about you. Okay? You don’t think I feel like shit about all this?
I keep asking myself how it could be possible for me to feel so strongly about two different people, and what that means.
It makes me feel gross and like an asshole!
” Jay said, dropping her head in her hands.
For a moment, Michaela wanted to reach out and grab her wrists, but she didn’t because she was hurting and she didn’t know what it meant, either. The lack of answer only cemented her heartbreak.
“I think I just need to be alone. Need some space. I’m going to sleep on the couch,” Michaela said thickly. She knew the real crying was only minutes away.
“Mickey, wait, please, can we still talk, I don’t want to lose you, and I feel like I am losing you,” Jay said. This time her voice did shake.
Michaela was weighed down by a sick vindictive pleasure she didn’t like, followed by guilt at the truth of her next words. “I don’t know Jay, I am hurt and confused. Let’s just, have a break? You obviously have things you need to work out, and I just need some time.”
Jay lifted her head from her hands but when she did, Michaela turned her gaze away. Looking Jay in the eyes now would be impossible, not when she was trying to hold back the ugly crying she knew waited for her.
“Okay,” Jay said with a sniff that tugged on Michaela’s heart.
“I will go sleep on the couch though, you stay here, I’m the one who messed up.
I am the one in the wrong.” Jay stood up.
Michaela heard her moving about the room swiftly, all the while trying to convince herself to tell Jay she hadn’t messed up, and that she wasn’t in the wrong.
But even after Jay said “goodnight” and moved to their bedroom door, the words wouldn’t come.