“You won’t,” I say at her back. “It doesn’t have to be.” Reach out, I think. You have to reach out.
The bell rings, reverberating off the walls and heater vents and fans. We both cover our ears until the echo dies down. She turns slightly and our eyes meet. I see just beyond the outline of her, to the aura of her. It’s blue.
Blue is my favorite color.
“We should go,” she says. “We don’t want to get locked in here overnight.”
I shoulder my pack.
“Can you imagine us having a conversation that long?”
I answer, “As a matter of fact, I can. It’d be interesting.”
She smiles at that. She opens the door and a whoosh of cold air blows in from the hallway. We both suck it up. She holds the door and I start out ahead of her. “Hey.” I turn back. “Can I ask you a question?”
“There doesn’t seem to be any stopping you,” she says.
I curl a lip at her. Then seriously, “Why the lipstick?”
She just looks at me.
“Really. It just seems so…”
“Out of character?” Wide grin. Knowing grin.
Yeah, okay. I get it. She wants people to wonder. She wants someone, anyone, to ask.
Since I did, does she see there’s more to me?
We walk down the hall a ways. “Andi,” she says out of nowhere. “With an i.”
“What?” I stop to let a clique of people pass. My group. Becca, who starts talking to me.
I don’t hear a word. I run after her.
She must hear my clunky shoes. “Andi.” She twists her head over her shoulder. “Call me Andi.”
“Okay.” I come astride her. “Andi.”
“Tam.” She nods once and smiles. “I’m glad to know you.”
We stand close for an instant, a blitz of time. Life goes on around us. The late bell rings and we have to separate. Andi heads off in one direction, me in another. I pivot and call back to her, “Andi.”
She spins around.
“Save me a seat on the train.”
Can’t Stop the Feeling
I stalled around at my locker waiting for the halls to clear. Footsteps sounded behind me and I tensed. A body blurred past. No one I knew. My heart drummed as I walked toward the arts wing.
Keep moving, Mariah. Keep going.
I pulled the crinkled newspaper from my pack. Checked the time, like it’d changed.
Every week when The Bugle came out, I’d snatch one from the bin and slip it into my spiral. At night I’d read and reread it. Not the whole thing; it was boring. The notice on back: GSA MEETINGS, THURSDAY 3:00, BAND ROOM 2.
GSA. Gay/Straight Alliance. Just seeing the word on the page made me cold.
There it was. Band Room 2. The door was closed. I passed it, shivering, and impaled myself on the wall at the far end of the corridor. My chest hurt. I checked my watch. 3:10. It was too late. I’d make a scene with my entrance.
I didn’t have to do this. You don’t have to, Mariah, I told myself. There’s always next Thursday. Next week, next year to hide, to lie, to hate yourself.
Someone was coming. In a panic, I charged into the girls’ restroom. Blocked the door until they passed. Slamming my pack to the floor, I curled into a ball beside the sink and hugged my knees. I buried my head. Damn. Dammit! The floor was filthy; the pipes reeked of mold. I reeked of cowardice.
A toilet flushed overhead and the gurgle of water in the drain next to my ear registered as E flat, G sharp… . I raised my head. Stupid.
This was so weak. I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Calmer. Okay. I wasn’t going. I was safe. For another week.
Band Room 2. What a weird place to hold a meeting. Especially this kind of meeting. I’d spent most of my life in band rooms. I’d been in band since elementary school. Not too many people stayed with band — not as long as I did. A lot of the girls dropped out our freshman year because they didn’t want to be known as “band geeks.” Band geeks don’t get guys, they said. Whatever.
I played clarinet. Not great, just good enough. In middle school I picked up sax and trumpet. This year, for marching band, I was trying tuba. I’d been in enough band rooms I could walk into one blindfolded and identify the smells: rosin, oil, spit, sweat.
At the moment all I smelled was the stench of my own yellow belly.
It was October already. Five Thursdays, come and gone. Five GSAs. I promised myself this year, my sophomore year, I’d do it. I’d push past the fear. My skull thunked against the drainpipe. Lower C. I squeezed my eyes closed.
If anyone saw this — how I spent every Thursday after school — they’d lock me up. They’d call me chickenshit. That was better than what I’d be called if I got caught at a Gay/Straight Alliance meeting.
Pervert. Queer. Dyke.
My throat tightened. I clunked my head over and over. What was wrong with me? I was wrong. It was wrong.
I don’t know when it started. Three p.m. Not the meeting. The feelings. Sixth grade? Seventh? They wouldn’t stop. Hard as I tried, the feelings wouldn’t go away. I’d see girls in class or in the hall and my eyes would latch on to them and my heart would flutter. I’d imagine us alone, at my house, or hers, at the movies, in the dark. Kissing. Touching.
Banish the thought.
All my friends were dating, but I had no interest in guys. How could that be? Why me?
I knew there were others like me. Right down the hall in Band Room 2.
The restroom door flew open and I scrambled to my feet. This girl stopped and did a double take. Her eyes flitted around the stalls, then back to me. “Are you okay?”
I swallowed hard and choked out, “Yeah.”
“Sure?”
No! I screamed inside. I’m dying. Can’t you see? Can’t everybody see what I am? Snatching up my backpack, I raced out the door.
End of the world. That’s what it felt like. I couldn’t be gay. It was against everything I knew, everything I believed.
Every day it built up. Day after day after day. The feelings, the confusion. The loneliness. I’d be talking to my friends and they’d say something like, “That is so gay.” Or, “She’s such a dyke.” Or, “Can you imagine kissing a girl?” Can I imagine it? I dreamt about it.
In my dreams I was happy, whole. I was me. No one cared that I liked girls. I didn’t have to keep up this charade or squelch this giant secret that was killing me inside.
I didn’t have to. You don’t, Mariah. You’re not gay.
If I didn’t acknowledge the feelings, I wouldn’t have to face the fact.
The fact that I was gay.
I tried not to think about it so much. But it was like this constant buzz in my ear, this sour note rising in pitch and volume, making me want to scream.
Thursday again. Thermonuclear Thursday. All week I’d worked on concocting a story. In case I worked up the courage to actually go. I would go. I swore to myself, this was the week. I rationalized, it was the Gay/Straight Alliance, right? I could be straight. The story was — if anyone asked, if I got as far as stepping foot into Band Room 2 at three on Thermonuclear Thursday — that I forgot my instrument. “Sorry to interrupt. I’ll just get my instrument.” Stall around. See what it was like. Go. Or stay. Today after jazz band I left my clarinet in Band Room 2. Accidentally on purpose.
I wasn’t good at lying. I hated lying. I could live without my clarinet for one night. My first clarinet, the one I got when I was eight, was at home in the hall closet. Two keys stuck and the reed was a hundred years old, but I could still practice. I could compensate for its weaknesses.
Sure, Mariah. Who would compensate for yours?
There was the door.
Here it came. That physical dread and a sense of doom that made me sick. And weak. No reason to risk being discovered. No reason at all.
The door was closed. I was late. They’d notice me coming in.
They’d see me coming out. Coming out.
Was I coming out?
<
br /> How did people do this? It was too hard.
Bad plan. I should’ve arrived early so I could check out who was in the GSA. What if there were people I knew?
Not likely. I didn’t know anyone gay. Or even questioning. If only I did. If someone would come with me, support me, hold me up when my knees were buckling because I couldn’t even stand at the door long enough to open it, and I couldn’t stand myself for being such a coward.
My stomach cramped. What if people saw me coming out? Of the meeting, I mean. They’d tag me. Even if I was a straight supporter, it’d be all over school by morning. Mariah’s gay. They’d assume. They’d be right. Everyone would look at me. No one would ever talk to me again. Or they’d ask, “Are you?”
No. I could never admit it out loud. All I knew was this need. To be free. To be me.
The door was a heartbeat away. My knees and hands began to shake.
Without commanding it, my arm raised. My fingers curled around the doorknob and I felt my chest constrict with the pressure. My blood went cold. I didn’t have to do this. Don’t, Mariah. Don’t!
Click. Push.
Laughter spilled out of the room. People, twelve or fifteen, were sprawled on the stage or straddling chairs or sitting on desks. They stopped laughing.
Heads swiveled. I froze. Every bone in my body went brittle. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. There was a prolonged, grave silence.
“Hi.” The tinny sound echoed in my head. Hi. A death knell. I tried to step back, out, reverse the action.
The spotlight was on me. I shriveled in place. That’s why I loved being in band. Because I didn’t stand out; I was part of a group. I needed to blend.
Unexpectedly, the smell of rosin hit me and all my muscles relaxed.
“You looking for the GSA?”
“What?” Did that squeak come from me?
“GSA. I just figured out, that’s Girl Scouts of America,” a guy said. “We should sell cookies.”
“You’ve already given all your cookies away,” another guy quipped. A few people went “Oooh” and howled.
They’d laugh at me. They already were. I stumbled backward.
“Come in. You’re welcome here.” A man stood. Teacher, I thought. Or counselor. I’d seen him around. He had a red beard.
“No, I…” This was a mistake. This wasn’t the way.
A girl, cross-legged on the stage, bounded to her feet and brushed off her jeans. I’d seen her. In the restroom last Thursday. Before that, though. In the halls, the cafeteria, on the bleachers during games. She’d registered on my radar. Gaydar? Was there such a thing?
She approached me with her hand extended. “Hi. I’m Lily.”
“Um… no.” I reached behind me for the doorknob.
She arched her eyebrows.
“I mean, I’m just here to get my instrument.” My heart thrummed.
Smiling, Lily dropped her arm. “Okay.” Our eyes met and locked. For an instant I thought, Possibility?
No. Impossibility.
She said, “Do I know you?”
I shook my head real fast. You don’t know me. No one knows.
She seemed to clue in. “What instrument do you play?” she asked casually.
“What instrument do you play?” a mocking voice sang behind Lily.
Lily whirled. “Shut up.” She turned back to me and rolled her eyes. “Sorry. Asstards.” She smiled again.
I might’ve smiled back. My face was so tight I thought it’d split. I was clutching my backpack to my chest and feeling the crushing weight in my lungs. Instinctively, my field of vision expanded to take in everyone again. Thank God they were strangers. Except the two guys at the far end of the stage. Oh my God! I knew them from band.
In a soft voice Lily said, “You don’t have to be afraid.”
“I’m not,” I said, clenching my backpack in a death grip. “I just came to get my… my clar… clar —“
Lily’s eyes widened.
“… inet.” My voice cracked.
“So,” she tilted her head, “where is it?”
“What?”
Lily laughed. She had this bubbly, infectious laugh that made me want to laugh. Maybe I did, a little. “Duh,” I went.
The storage room was behind the stage. The drummer, he was looking at me now. Nailed. Might as well… “I’ll just get…” I lifted a limp finger and Lily swiveled to look in the direction I was pointing. I ducked my head and skittered around her, across the stage floor. The other guy, Ace or Trace, had rolled onto his stomach. He’d only joined band at the beginning of this year. He hitched his chin off the back of his hands and said, “Hiya.”
I blew out a breathy “Hi.”
“Woodwinds, right?”
My shoulders hunched. A bleak smile might’ve stretched across my lips.
The storeroom was locked. Damn. But I knew it would be. I cursed under my breath. Make a show of it. My rehearsed lie. I wheeled around.
A conversation on the other side of the room had resumed without me, in spite of me. Good acoustics in here. Great. A guy was talking about coming out to his family, how his mom did this whole drama scene, sobbing at the dinner table and accusing him of ruining her life. How his dad offered to hire him a prostitute. Everyone groaned at that.
I did not even want to go there. Telling my family? I couldn’t imagine what Mom would do. She’d go ballistic. Dad?
The dread and fear of exposing myself to them was nothing compared to telling my friends. Did they even qualify as friends? There wasn’t one of them I could trust, or confide in.
Lily must’ve seen how green I got because she piped up, “My mom was fine with it. My dad too. I mean, not everyone has a bad experience coming out.”
“That’s true,” another girl said. “For me it was like this huge relief not to have to hide anymore. Or lie.”
Hide and lie.
“It’s always a relief,” one of the guys said. “Every time you come out.”
You had to do it more than once? I guess he meant to your family, then your friends. Ex-friends. Friends who’d find you disgusting. Sick.
Once would be enough. Once was too much.
Ace said, “So are you… ?”
I couldn’t do this. I ran for the exit.
“Hey,” Lily called behind me. “Wait.” A wall, the restroom, a bank of lockers flew by. “What’s your name?”
I ground to a stop. My whole body was shaking. My balance was rocky, but I braced and turned around.
“Mariah,” I said. My voice sounded raspy. Dry throat. “Mariah Morales.”
“Mariah.” She crossed her arms loosely and let them fall. Like she was nervous. She was nervous? “You can stay,” she said. “You’re welcome.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I can’t.”
She held my eyes for a moment, then nodded. I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me. But she smiled warmly, like she understood. “When you’re ready,” she said. Her voice was steady, and sure.
She took a step back, pivoted, and left me there.
I watched as she strode down the hall, as she disappeared back into the band room.
It was quiet, no noise. No screaming or yelling or running in the halls. No fear, no dread. Just peace. It lingered.
When I’m ready, Lily had said. My eyes lit on Band Room 2. The door was left open.
After Alex
Rachael, I fucked up. I know that.
I’m sorry. I need you.
Please, Rach. I want you back.
<3 alex
I showed Jordan the printout and her eyes slit as she scanned the page. “She can’t be serious,” Jordan said. “She wants you back?”
Teva crooked her neck to read from Jordan’s lap. She screwed up her face. “God. She is such a player.”
“No, she isn’t,” I said.
“Rachael.” Jordan cocked her head at me.
My eyes fell. They dredged across the checkered floor. Peeling tiles and crud in the corner
. Jamba Juice had aged a hundred years. Had I been out of it that long?
“Rachael,” Jordan said.
I lifted my eyes slowly.
“She is.”
No, she isn’t, I argued to myself. She isn’t. She only loves me.
Teva took a sip of her smoothie. “You’re not thinking about going back with her, are you?”
I bent to my straw. No. I wasn’t.
Jordan dug out a lighter from her purse and flicked it, then set the corner of the printout on fire.
“Jordan!” Teva and I cried together. “God.” Teva laughed. She grabbed the paper and flung it to the ground. “You’re a pyro.” She stomped it.
Jordan watched the paper curl, eyes glazing over. “Fire is life,” she said vacantly. Teva’s eyes met Jordan’s, catching fire. The heat between them made my throat close.
My mind shifted to Alex’s words, her letter. Sitting in the dark reading her e-mail over and over. I need you. I want you back. How long had I waited to hear those words? I need you. Missing her. I want you. Wanting her desperately. If it wasn’t for Jordan and Teva dragging me out of my room occasionally, I’d shrivel up and die. I wanted to.
The constant presence of Alex in my life, the notes and calls and nights and weekends together. Being together. Alex and Rachael. We were a couple. Her arm around my shoulders, my waist, her holding my hand, holding me. Kissing me, steering me into a restroom for a couple of minutes alone together before class. Her hand sliding up the front of my shirt. Not caring about getting caught, or being known. That was Alex. She loved me. She loved me for all the world to see.
“We hate Alex,” Jordan said, dropping her lighter back into her bag.
“Yeah,” Teva went. “After what she did to you? We hate her.”
I hate her too. No, I don’t. I hate what she did.
Alex came out when she was thirteen. At seventeen, two years into it, I was still struggling. I was gay, yeah. A lesbian, no question. It was just harder for me. Telling Mom. My friends. Mom didn’t believe it. She said, “How do you know? You can’t know. You’re only fifteen.” Yes, Mother. You know at fifteen. You know at twelve, thirteen. You look at girls and you know. You sit next to them in class and you feel it. The attraction, the desire. You hold it inside because you’re afraid of it, afraid of what it means. You never tell anyone. You hope it goes away. You hope it doesn’t mean what you know it does.