Chapter 13
In less than a week, Jay was flying into town.
Was I supposed to act like nothing had happened between me and Tristan?
Or: I could tell Jay, act like it wasn’t a big deal, my lips collided with your friend’s but, like, ew, I hated it?
I knew I’d broken a rule, but also the rules between us weren’t explicitly defined.
On edge, I kept checking my phone to see if Tristan had texted at the same time I was trying to distance myself from that afternoon.
He didn’t text. I decided this was a good start, avoiding each other.
There was no one in my life who could give me the guidance I needed, so I googled, “I kissed my bf’s best friend, I’m poly, what should I do?
” The only relevant result came from Reddit.
Most of the commenters urged the girl seeking advice to jump in front of a train.
I couldn’t even jump in front of a train because they were doing construction on the Red Line again.
I decided to do real research. I went to the library.
There were only two books available on nonmonogamy, both memoirs by married white women with dreamy one-word titles. I picked one up, flipping through it.
Why did I feel like I was being sold something?
“Bored in your marriage? Thinking about murdering your husband? Not so fast. Try nonmonogamy! It’s ethical, it’s more interesting, and it will spice up your stale sex life so you can keep doing all the mononormative nuclear family bullshit you were just trying to escape! ”
Then the rhetorical questions: Can they love each other and these new people? Can they stay true to their marriage and their evil-ass desires? Can they make the impossible work?
If polyamory was impossible, why wasn’t it impossible to be with one person for forty years?
Why wasn’t it impossible to spend $30,000 on one day and then get divorced and always have to remember that time you went into debt to make out with your now ex in front of your mom?
Why wasn’t it impossible to watch forty thousand Gazans being slaughtered and then attend your friend’s paint-and-sip party?
“Everyone” was nonmonogamous, yet no one was saying anything I cared about.
I’d sought out these kinds of books a year ago and had the same deflated-cum-rage feeling that nonmonogamy was just an add-on in the game of monogamy that you could purchase for your character for $3.
99. It was new age couple’s therapy, a chic personal essay in The Cut, a sexy plot point in a novel.
It was Gwyneth Paltrow and her $1,000 coochie crystal, it was a hot-pink “pleasure is political” mug (which, yes, I bought, but whatever!
!!). It was cool so long as you didn’t take it seriously.
I put the memoir down. A bloodcurdling scream tore out of a toddler in the middle of story time. I wanted to thank the toddler for being honest, for not suffering through a boring story like the other kids.
On my way out, I saw a book with the word “GREEDY” in colorful letters, glimpsed on the cover the words “want,” and “too much.”
My pulse popped in my eardrum. Was this the story I was searching for? I reached for it.
It was about bisexuality. I tucked it back on the shelf and left.