Page 52 of Unstoppable You

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’m good with whatever.” She stood there with her shoulders up near her ears as if she didn’t know what to do with herself.

“You can grab some cups out of the cabinet.” I pointed to where my coffee cups lived.

She took two out, laughing at the funny pictures and sayings on them.

Once the coffee had brewed, she poured two cups and then grabbed creamer from the fridge, adding it to her cup.

“Me too, please.” She dumped just enough in and handed me the cup as I babysat the eggs and sausage.

I had her cut the avocado and mash it with a little bit of lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper before toasting the bread.

It was nice to cook with someone. Connor never had. I’d had to be responsible for nearly all of his meals if I wanted to eat real food. He would have lived on pizza rolls and beer and microwaved chicken nuggets if I’d let him.

James added a dash of hot sauce to her toast and I did the same.

Since I didn’t have a dining table, we both sat on the couch. James winced.

“You would have wrecked your back. That’s the side that Connor sat on.” She shifted in her seat, making a face.

“It’s…very worn in.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna get a new couch.” We were mostly silent as we ate. The food revived me, and I was feeling pretty great even after my wild night. I hadn’t gotten to cross anything off my list though, which was a bummer.

“What’s that face?” James asked and I must have been frowning.

“Nothing. I was just determined to cross off one of the things from my list last night and I didn’t. It’s fine.”

You win some, you lose some.

“Sorry about the bar. We can probably find you a place to dance on it.” That made me think of the grungy bar that I’d gotten wasted at the night that Connor had sent me the dick pic. They’d probably let me. Should have gone there last night, but then I wouldn’t have ended up at Sapph with James.

“It was a cool place. Sapph. Do you go there a lot?” I asked.

“Not a lot, but it’s one of my favorite places in the city. It’s nice to have somewhere to go where I feel comfortable.” That made sense.

I was silent for a moment while I tried to decide how to ask my next question, and if it was a question I was even allowed to ask.

“When did you…” I trailed off, hoping that she got the gist.

“When did I become a lesbian?” She raised one eyebrow and set her empty plate on the coffee table, taking her coffee with both hands.

“I wasn’t going to ask it like that!”

She grinned at me to show she was teasing.

“I’m messing with you. Um, it was in college. Remember how I told you the girl I had a crush on that picked my roommate? It was her. She was my lesbian awakening.” James wiggled her fingers.

“Is that how it works?”

She snorted. “I don’t know how it works for other people. I feel like…there was always this voice in the back of my head, but it was so quiet. It was speaking, but I couldn’t translate. Does that make sense? And then I was finally away from my shitty family, saw this girl at orientation and my entire world changed. I’ve never been hit by lightning, but that’s what it felt like. One minute I was absolutely straight and the next minute I wondered what the hell I’d been thinking all those years. It was like something shattered.”

I guess I’d been through something similar, with the whole Connor thing. The life I had planned for myself had vanished the second I caught him fucking someone else. All the dreams of a wedding and kids someday and buying a house and holidays. Just like that.

But would I even have had those things with Connor? Whenever I’d asked him about marriage, he told me that it was “just a piece of paper” and we could just be together without “all that.”

“Wow,” I said to James. “That sounds like a lot. Did you have anyone to talk to about it?”

She shook her head. “Not really. I ended up panicking and searching online until I found the campus queer organization and showed up at their door the next morning. I guess I wasn’t the first person to freak out and end up there.” She told me how nice and welcoming they’d been, and how she’d broke down crying because suddenly her entire life made sense.

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