Chapter 2 #2
Simone felt like the worst human being alive, or quite possibly in history.
The kindest thing she could do was put an end to Bree’s suffering.
“Listen,” she said, “I’ve been super stressed about not having a job, and this has been a good distraction, but I’m not looking for anything more than that. I’m really sorry if I led you on.”
“If you led me on?” Bree snapped. “We’ve been seeing each other for like, two and a half months now. You sleep here half the time.”
“Yeah, because we’re friends,” Simone said, as though it were obvious, and another wave of nausea crashed through her.
“THIS IS NOT WHAT FRIENDS DO.” Bree waved her arms around at the den they’d created in her bedroom: the half-drunk mugs of tea on the bedside tables; the rumpled and twisted duvet; the sex toys and laptop chargers lying across the mattress.
Simone knew it was true, that what they’d had was romantic and sexy and real, but she kept her mouth shut. Clenched her jaw and pushed it all down, like her mother had taught her to do.
Bree dragged her fingers through her hair and released an exasperated sigh. “You know what? I refuse to be gaslit by someone who can’t admit what the fuck they want.” She huffed a laugh. “God, I was going to ask you to be my girlfriend.”
My girlfriend. The words hung in the air like an apple, shiny for a second before it withered and died. “Sorry,” Simone mumbled, turning her gaze to the floor.
“Oh, babe, I’m good,” Bree replied icily, grabbing Simone’s laptop and thrusting it at her. “You’re the one who’s gonna spend the rest of her life lying to herself.”
In the excruciating minutes that followed, Simone silently gathered her belongings from the bedroom and the bathroom.
Her bones were heavy, her movements sluggish.
Her body didn’t want to leave the nest they’d built together, but her brain said, Hurry the hell up.
She opened the laundry hamper and fished out the crewneck sweater she’d stained with tomato sauce when they made pizza the other night.
Unplugged her phone charger from behind the bedside table.
She trudged to the foyer and slid her feet into her loafers, which had been lined up neatly next to Bree’s.
She let herself out of the apartment.
Simone was so distraught over the following week that she tanked her interviews for two jobs and applied to zero more.
Her head wasn’t in the game. It wasn’t even in the same city as the arena.
All she could think about were Bree’s last words: “You’re the one who’s gonna spend the rest of her life lying to herself.
” Believing the lie had always seemed easy enough since she’d started kissing girls in university.
Then she’d met Bree, and it hadn’t seemed so easy anymore.
Had it ever really been easy? Drinking to make those kisses “okay”?
Window-shopping on the apps for partners she’d never actually get to try on?
All of it left her with a longing in her chest. Dating men hadn’t been so easy, either.
Not one, but two guys she’d really liked had broken things off with her because she seemed to have a wall up, they’d said.
These thoughts kept her up at night, clouded her every waking moment, made themselves utterly impossible to ignore—until one morning, Simone broke down crying in the shower, exhausted from yet another horrendous night’s sleep.
What if she’d never be able to find true love with anyone until she was honest about who she really was?
Her arms hugging her naked torso, she spoke two words that scared the shit out of her, but so softly that she herself couldn’t hear them over the pounding of the water.
She hadn’t died. Hmm.
With a deep breath, she said the words again, a little louder this time:
“I’m bi.”
Her heart thudded against her rib cage with the force of a thousand suns, but still, she was alive.
She stayed in the shower for a long time, repeating the words like a mantra, until the rivulets running down her cheeks were a mixture of hot water and her own tears.
When she finally got out and dried off, she felt lighter than she had before the breakup with Bree.
She quite possibly felt lighter than she had in her whole life.
Fuck, maybe she did need to come out. And not just to herself and her bath products.
Though Simone was generally a self-starter, she knew that with this goal, she’d need some kind of deadline to hold herself accountable. She also still needed a job, desperately. A girl could only eat so many boxes of mac and cheese before she perished of scurvy.
The solution to both problems materialized on a bright November morning, when the air was cool and smelled faintly of overripe leaves.
Simone was sitting outside at a coffee shop, scrolling through LinkedIn, when she came across the listing for the Rainbow Museum job.
Her heart was racing by the time she’d finished reading the description.
She filled out the application, vowing that if she got the job, she’d come out as bisexual in time for her first day of work.
She spent a full minute hovering over the “submit” button before she finally worked up the courage to press it.
There was a whooshing sound and a confirmation message.
Suddenly, Simone was scared. Maybe she wasn’t ready to turn her life upside down. She prayed the Rainbow Museum was already inundated with applications, and that hers would end up in the slush pile. While she was at it, she prayed to be launched into the sun.
The week before Christmas, she got an offer.
She would start after New Year’s.
“Exciting life update,” she wrote in her Instagram caption, beneath a selfie she’d taken on the roof of her apartment building.
“I’m thrilled to share that I’ve accepted a new job as marketing project manager @TheRainbowMuseum, a new destination dedicated to celebrating 2SLGBTQIA+ pride all year round!
In the spirit of pride, I think it’s time I finally tell the world… I’m bi!”