I rolled over onto my back. Why was she lying to me? What was going on? After that first show, Cece never wanted me around when Unity was rehearsing or performing. She never once introduced me to her friends. Why? What was the chance it’d get back to Southglenn? Wasn’t she proud of me? Was that it? I wasn’t gay enough?
What if she’d rather be with “them” than me? What if she left me? The thought of it made my stomach hurt. Cece was all I had. Without her, I’d be totally alone in the world.
Oh, God. I probed her gentle face, her receptive dream state. What would I do without you?
Stop it, my brain screamed. She’s here with you now. Thats what matters.
I took a deep breath to quell my anxiety. Try to. I needed her. Cece was a part of me now. The me that felt solid and sure and strong. She was the one thing in my life that kept me going, made me happy.
And that happiness hadn't come without a price. I'd given up a lot to be with Cece: my home, friends, family. Maybe even my future family. Plus this sense of belonging I’d always had. The sense of fitting in, knowing where I stood. It might not be so bad if could be like her. Out. Proud. With a new place of belonging in the gay community. With new friends. A new family.
But what I’d lost was insignificant compared to what I’d found. Me. The missing part of myself. And Cece. Knowing love. Being loved.
“Please, God," I whispered into the night. “Let me be loved.”
Beside me, Cece whimpered a little and rolled onto her side. She snaked an arm around my hip and pulled me close. Cece gave me life, she nurtured me, and I burrowed into the warm cocoon of her.
***
Mr. Oleander started off the student council meeting with an announcement: Prom had to be moved back two weeks because the ballroom we usually rented at the Oxford Hotel wasn’t through being refurbished.
Prom. I glanced down the table at Seth, who avoided eye contact not only with me but with everyone else. I’m sony, I sent him a mental message. Please forgive me?
If his dead expression was any indication, his mind was closed to mental telepathy.
After the meeting I had to make a pit stop before art. Exiting the stall, I found Kirsten at the mirror, brushing her hair. “Hello, Holland," she said. Her tone of voice made me tense. “Would you mind if I went to the prom with Seth?”
"He asked you?" My voice rose an octave.
Her face hardened.
“I didn't mean that the way it sounded." Or did I?
“I'm going to ask him.” She pulled her hair up into a ponytail. "I think he should experience what it’s like doing it with someone other than a queer.”
All the blood rushed to my face. “That isn’t funny, Kirsten.”
"Oh, was it meant to be?” she asked.
I started for the door.
“Players,” she said at my back. “Let’s talk about players.”
I closed my eyes. “Leave it alone, Kirsten.”
"At least I only play one side of the fence.”
I whirled on her. “Shut up." My ragged breath betrayed me. “I broke up with Seth, okay? I’m free to do as I please.”
She cocked her head. “So you are." Hoisting her purse onto her shoulder, she shoved by me out the door. Halfway through, she twisted back and added, “And now we all know what your pleasure is. Dyke.”
Thank God I was still in the restroom because next thing I knew I was heaving in the toilet.
I didn’t think my day could get any worse, then Winslow asked me to the prom. At first I just stared at him, stunned. When my voice returned, I stammered, "Wow, I’m uh, really flattered, Winslow. But I, I…canʼt.”
His brow furrowed. "You broke up with that Seth guy, didn’t you?"
"Yeah."
“Oh, I get it." His face fell. “You're already going with somebody else. I knew I should’ve asked –”
“That’s not it," I cut in. “I just can’t go with you.”
His eyes sliced through me like machetes. I realised too late how that must’ve sounded. Before I could retract, or explain, he snarled, “I thought you were different. You're just like the rest of them." He stood, cramming his art supplies into his briefcase. Then he crashed through a row of empty chairs and wound his way to the front, to a seat as far away from me as possible.
Everyone swiveled their heads to stare at me. Especially Cece. She mouthed, What was that about?
I shot to my feet and tore out of there. God! It was all so fucked.
Chapter 23
I dove in at the deep end, driving down through the water.
Burn it off. Force it out. Make it gone.
The hiding, the secrecy, it was tearing me up inside. Why did it have to be this way? Why?
My lungs were ready to explode as I propelled off the bottom and split the surface. Then swam, lap after lap after frantic lap, trying to release it, expunge it, set it free. Set me free.
They got it wrong when they called it “the closet." This was a prison. Solitary confinement. I was locked inside, inside myself, dark and afraid and alone.
When I dragged up the stairs at Taggert House, I found Cece huddled in front of my door, a Tupperware bowl balanced on her knees. She scrambled to her feet and smiled. "Kate's special.” She held the bowl out to me. “Chicken soup for the soul.”
I didn't think soup was going to salve my ravaged soul. Cece shouldered her backpack and followed me inside. I dumped my crap on the floor and shoved the bowl in the microwave. Cece must’ve sensed my imminent implosion because she didn’t ask.
The soup was comforting, or maybe it was the peace I found with Cece. We ate directly from the bowl at the dinette table. The last noodle we slurped together and kissed in the middle. Cece rinsed the bowl and spoons, then retrieved her independent living folder – the bullshit class I should’ve elected – kicked off her shoes, and spread out her homework on the bed.
Now her silence ragged me. I got up and headed for the closet. “Know anyone who needs a prom dress?" I wrenched out the trash bag from the back. In the bottom was the dress that Mom had ordered from a catalog. It was a seafood green strapless number that I'd been dying to burn. Even more so now. I tossed the bag on the bed.
Cece glanced up at me, looking a little intimidated, and opened the bag. She pulled out the dress and gasped. Laying it lengthwise across the bed, she smoothed a hand down the bodice and said, “Okay, talk to me. What happened today?”
“Today, yesterday, tomorrow,” I snapped. “What part of my life doesn’t suck?"
Her eyes widened.
“I'm sorry," I said, calming myself. “It’s just…everything’s gone to hell.”
“What do you mean?”
I told Cece about lying to Leah, the way people looked at me, the student council meeting, Seth treating me like dirt, Kirsten’s confrontation in the restroom. All of it. “She called me a…,” my voice faltered, “a dyke.”
"Ow.” Cece grimaced. “Better get used to it. The best thing you can do is call yourself a dyke. A lezzie, a lesbo, a queer. All the hateful words, use them in fun. Claim them. Then they can’t be used against you.”
Used against me. I’d never been called names before – at least, not to my face. Never realised how much they hurt. How personal it could get. “What did I ever do to her?” I wondered aloud. "I thought Kirsten was my friend.”
“Lesson number one," Cece said, “you can’t always trust your friends. Lesson number two: You don’t have to do anything to be hated for being gay.”
That was the truth, I was finding out.
"But it's their problem, Holland?” She met my eyes. “Not yours. Remember that.”
Their problem. Right. So why did I feel sickened by it? Slamming the closet door, I said, “The topper, the real highlight of my day, was when Winslow asked me to the prom.”
Ceceʼs jaw dropped. “What did you say?”
“I said, ʻSure, I'd love to, Winnie. What time are you sending the limo?ʼ ”
Cece deflated v
isibly.
“Now he thinks I have a problem with punks, like I'm this raging bigot or something.” My throat caught. “Worse than that, I hurt his feelings. Winslow Demming, the nicest guy in world.” I folded my arms around myself, aching from the memory. "It really bothers me, Cece. Not just Winslow, or Seth, or even Kirsten. All of it. Me. I'm so bound up by this secret I just want to die.”
“What?” Cece breathed. “Don’t say that.”
"I could’ve done something important on the student council this year. Promote diversity and tolerance, make a difference at Southglenn. Instead we’re deciding how many fucking balloons to hang in the fucking ballroom." My fiery gaze settled on the dress, on Cece stroking it. Out of habit, I retrieved my backpack from the floor, pulled out my phone and checked it. “What does somebody ‘out and proud’ do about prom? Homecoming, too? All that social crap?”
“We usually go as a group,” Cece said quietly. “If you want, we could go to prom together.”
“Oh, right.” I whirled on her. “Stand on opposite ends of the dance floor and ignore each other?" I shook my head. “I should've told her,” I said, staring at the phone in my hand. “Seth, too. I should’ve told everyone. Not that I wouldn’t have gotten the same reactions. It’s just, all this fear about who knows, who’s been outing me, suspecting everybody, accusing them. What difference does it make who's outing me? I should’ve outed myself.” My eyes strayed to the window, the alley, where William was helping a new tenant-in-transition haul in boxes. “Doing this – hiding it – feels like I’m admitting it’s wrong. Like I’m ashamed. I'm not ashamed. Of me or you or the way we feel about each other. I want the world to know." I turned back to her. “I want to be myself. I’ve hurt people. Leah, Winslow, Seth, my mom. Me, Cease. I hurt.” I pressed a hand to my heart. It felt as if the wound cut so deep it might never heal.
“Oh, God,” Cece whimpered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Why hadn’t I? “Because I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t happy, or that I was sorry I’d fallen in love with you. I’m not. I am happy – with you." I couldn’t hold back the truth any longer, though. “I’m afraid, Cece. I’m so alone in the world that if you left me…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn't finish the thought.
“No,” Cece said urgently. She scooted off the bed and came over to me. "I’m not going to leave you. What makes you think that?"
“Your lying to me. Sneaking around. Going off to Unity to be with them. The only reason I can think of that you’d lie to me is…there’s someone else.”
“No.” Cece gripped my arms. "I’d never do that to you. Never.”
I wished I could believe her. I wanted to believe.
She released me and covered her face with her hands. "Oh, God.” In a small voice, she said, "I have a confession to make. I lied to you. I lied to you big time.”
No, please don’t let her say it. Don’t let her say she loves someone else.
All I could do was try to keep breathing. Keep living. Cece backed away and began to pace, rubbing her knuckles together. Nervous, jittery, the way she gets when she drinks too much coffee. As she passed me, she said, "I've betrayed you.”
My heart stopped beating. Dying, dying.
"I had no right to tell you not to come out. No right. I wan’s trying to protect you. This whole keep-it-a-secret thing? It was all about me. Me." She slapped her chest. “I’m a selfish bitch.”
My brain allowed her words to seep in. A selfish bitch? What did she mean? No she wasn’t. Perching on the mattress, she pounded her forehead with a fist and muttered, "I ruined your life. I ruined your life by not letting you come out. I should’ve just stayed at Wash Central. You’d be better off if we'd never met.”
“That isn’t true," I said. “Stop it." She was going to injure herself if she kept battering her head. I sat beside her and pulled down her arm. “Does this have anything to do with why you transferred? What happened at Washington Central?”
She didn’t answer, just sort of shrank into herself.
A long moment passed. Cece raised her head and slowly met my eyes. Nodded.
“Can you tell me?" I asked. “Please?”
She pressed her hands between her knees. “I don’t want to. You'll hate me.”
“I could never hate you. Please," I pleaded with her. I was so sick of all the lies and the hiding and the secrecy. Wasn't she the one who hated playing games? “Just tell me the truth, okay? I think I deserve that.”
She blinked up at me and swallowed hard. “You’re right. You do." She got up and padded to the closet. Easing the door back onto the runner after my slamming had dislodged it, she said, “Joanie was…my girlfriend. She was the first girl I ever loved. I mean, really loved. Like fireworks, you know?” She glanced over her shoulder at me.
Yeah, I knew now.
Cece added quickly, “Small fireworks compared to you.”
I smiled weakly.
“But I did love her. I won’t lie to you, Holland. I would’ve been with her forever if…if I could have.”
I felt stung, but she was talking about the past. “Go on," I said. "What happened?”
Cece started pacing again, banging her knuckles together. "We met at this arts festival in Cherry Creek. I’d just formed Unity and we got this invitation to do a street performance. Our first gig. Joanie was there, at the festival, working the crowd, getting signatures on a gun control petition or something. She was real active on her political action committee at school. Sort of like you and student council. That’s where we met. We fell in love really fast. At least, I did." Cece found my eyes. “I’m not saying this to hurt you, Holland.”
"I know. It's okay. Just tell me everything.” I shoved the prom dress aside and scooted up against the headboard.
"Joanne went to a different school, St. Mary’s Academy," Cece said. “Think Southglenn homophobia times ten.”
I cringed. I couldn't even imagine it.
“Joanie wasn't out. Nobody was. And the last person to come out there got expelled.”
“Jesus.”
"Yeah, there are still places like that, believe it or not. Dark Ages. Plus, Joanie was just discovering she was gay. Sort of like you. It was the one thing we used to tight about. You can’t have one person who’s totally out and another who’s in the closet. Well, you can, but it won’t work for very long. You can’t go out in public, or be with your friends –" She stopped and looked at me. “But I guess you know that.”
Did I ever.
Cece plucked a pair of jeans off the floor and folded them over a kitchen chair, then stood at the window, gazing out. "In the lesbigay club at Wash Central, I was sort of in charge of helping people come out. Because there are good ways and bad ways and better times than others and things to look for in people, to gauge their attitudes and how they’re going to accept you." She was talking so fast I had to listen hard to keep up. “Everybody’s different she said, turning to me and lowering herself onto the windowsill. "For some gays it’s easier to tell their friends first, because the most important thing is to feel accepted by the first person you tell. And the hardest thing for most of us is coming out to our parents. But there are ways to talk to them so it's not such a shock. And you should always tell them before somebody else does." Cece averted her eyes. She got up and went to the refrigerator, opened the door and scanned the contents. Which were minimal.
Everything she’d said was swirling around in my head. I kept thinking, We should've had this conversation about coming out before. Maybe she was waiting until I was ready. Except I was ready. I’d been ready from the very first day.
Cece shut the fridge and turned. She smiled wistfully and said, “The best thing about coming out is, it’s totally liberating. You feel like you’ve made this incredible discovery about yourself and you want to share it and be open and honest and not spend all your time wondering how is this person going to react, or should I be careful around this person, or what will the neighbours say?” H
er eyes were sparking now, firing. "And it’s more. It’s about getting past that question of whats wrong with me, to knowing there’s nothing wrong, that you were born this way. You're a normal person and a beautiful person and you should be proud of who you are. You deserve to live and live with dignity and show people your pride.”
I welcomed the day I could be out and proud like her. Be strong and sure of myself. It’s what attracted me to her in the first place. "Wow, Ceese." I hugged my knees. “I never knew about your role in the lesbigay club. How great it would be for someone who’s going through this to have a person like you. Sort of a counselor, or a mentor.”
Cece's face went white. She closed her eyes and squinched as if in pain. A connection – there had to be one. "Does this have something to do with Joanie?" I asked gently.
Cece fixed her gaze on the wall above my head. At my portrait of her that she’d had framed and hung over the bed. "I told Joanie all of this,” Cece said. "About coming out, being out. I knew how much happier she'd be with herself if she could just break through her fear. And she understood that. She hated the hiding. But she couldn’t come out at school. There was too much to lose. She was this really smart person, like you." Cece's eyes dropped to meet mine. "She had plans for college and she couldn’t take the risk of being expelled. All her friends were there, too, and she didn't know how they’d deal with it. How she’d deal with it if they weren’t supportive. And her parents…” Cece shook her head. "A lot of times we imagine these horrible things will happen when we tell them. And they usually don’t.”
Yeah, I thought. Then there’s that time they do. I could relate to Joanie’s fear.
“Over the summer, I persuaded Joanie to transfer to Wash Central where people were more accepting," Cece said. “Finally, finally, she decided to do it. But only after she came out to her parents.”
Oh, no, I thought. Did the same thing happen to Joanie? Her parents couldn’t handle it?
“I helped Joanie figure out what to say, how to break it to them. And it went better than she expected. I gave her this brochure for her parents that we keep in the Lesbigay club. It sort of answers the basic questions: Is it my fault? What can I do to help? What questions should I ask my son or daughter? They were shocked, of course. But I think they already suspected. I think parents always know, they just don't want to believe it." Cece's voice changed, "They want to make it as hard on us as possible. It’s such a power trip for them. Anyway,” she shrugged off her rising pique, “Joanie's parents were really cool. I told her they would be. It was obvious they loved her enough.”