Chapter OnePAST
I think my pacing is alarming Mack.
She’s sitting on my bed with her hands pressed together in a praying pose on her lap and one eyebrow quirked as she watches me go around and around my bedroom. I’ve been doing it for a while now. It’s not that I’ve backed out of telling her or anything. More that, now the moment is finally here, I can’t seem to remember a single word in the English language.
She tucks her hands in the pockets of her oversized Nike hoodie—a men’s one she found in her favorite shade of teal last year—then takes one hand straight back out and sweeps her long braids back over her shoulder. She’s stressed, I’m stressed, this is stressful, and I wish I didn’t decide to do it today, but I did. I’m committed now, and I’m going to.
Eventually.
“You could write it down?” she suggests finally, and I give my head a vigorous shake. “No problem,” she says, half to herself, as I resume my pacing.
“Okay,” I say, stopping in the middle of the room. I’m facing my wardrobe, which means I can only see Mack out of my peripherals, but right now I like it that way. “It’s actually not a big deal. I know it’s not, because it’s you, and I already know it can’t go badly.”
“Great.”
“It’s just … I need a second to…”
“There’s no rush.”
I know what I want to say. Or, rather, what I should say. It’s not a complicated point to get across. I’m bi. It should be easy to spit out. It’s only two syllables. And it’s Mack, so it’s not like I need to explain the concept like I probably will when I tell my parents, which is a huge plus. It’s not even one of those facts I think I want to keep to myself forever, like the fact that I’m almost definitely in love with Mack. I want people to know I’m bi. I’m ready.
But I can’t say the words. For some reason, they feel huge, and intimidating. Like jumping into an ice bath all at once.
So, I decide to wade.
“You know how, last year, everything Alice Kennedy did annoyed me?” I ask.
Mack nods. “I noticed, yeah.”
Her eyes are locked on me. I’ve always been fascinated by the color of her eyes. They’re brown—but such a dark, rich shade of it that if you take a few steps back, you can’t tell where her pupils end and her irises begin. They’re like spilled ink, I told her once, staring at her in a sort of stupor. She hated that. I meant it as a compliment, but it probably would’ve landed better if I’d just stuck to telling her they’re beautiful. Which they are.
Back to Alice Kennedy. “She did annoy me, but she also didn’t. I didn’t hate her at all. I just … have you ever thought about someone all the time, and all you wanna do is talk about them?”
“Avery.”
“Right. Like Avery.” Also known as Mack’s summer camp crush from last year. “Um. But I couldn’t really talk about Alice the way I wanted to talk about her, because I didn’t want you to know the things I thought about her. So, I thought, hey, if I only bring her up to complain about her, no one could think that’s weird. And it doesn’t really make sense saying it out loud, but it made sense at the time, and it felt safe. Safe-er.”
Mack won’t tear those eyes away from me, so I focus on the wall to get the rest out. “Because I didn’t want her, or anyone, to know that I actually thought she was perfect. I mean, god, everything about her was flawless, you know? So I pretended she drove me up the wall whenever I spoke to you about her. Just so you didn’t realize.”
Mack is giving me a funny look, but she’s cautious in her answer. “So I didn’t realize … you didn’t hate Alice?”
“So you didn’t realize I had a crush on Alice.”
I’m fairly sure Mack suspected what I was getting at before I spelled it out. But she waits until I say the words to react. “Oh my god,” she says. “Oh my god, Ivy, you like girls?”
“I do,” I say, like it’s truly no big deal at all. Like this isn’t the most momentous thing I’ve ever told anyone.
Mack shrieks and jumps to her feet. “No. No, no way, congratulations!” And before I know it, she’s wrapped me in a bear hug, and we’re jumping on the spot in the middle of my bedroom floor. “This is amazing, this is amazing,” she chants, and I’m laughing with her, and I’m utterly weightless.
For one naive second, I even let myself wonder if she’ll say something about us. It’s not that I expect her to or anything. It’s that, for just a second, everything is so perfectly wonderful I can almost believe something like that could happen to me.
But, instead of confessing her undying love for me, she just lets go of me and flops back down on the bed. “Oh, man,” she says. “This is huge. I’m so glad you told me this. Oh!”
I rub my upper arms right where she was hugging me a second ago and sit beside her gingerly. “I was worried you might think I’m copying you,” I admit, and she blows a raspberry at that.
“Not for a second. Anyway, you like guys, too, right? Or do you?”
“No, I do,” I say, and she nods eagerly.
“So, what are you thinking? Pan? Bi? Questioning?”
I grin. “I’m thinking probably bi? If I don’t have to lock that answer in permanently.”
Copyright © 2024 by Sophie Gonzales
