Page 61 of The Lovers
Kit
After one more quick check in the mirror to make sure I look dewy, sun-kissed, and not deranged from all the sand and water that got stuck in my hair out at Bachelor Town, I remove the bottle of rosé from the fridge, uncorking it and placing it on the table with two wineglasses. I am one hundred percent certain I want to see where this kissing thing might lead, but I am also nervous as hell.Rosé all day, not so much, but a little definitely can’t hurt. As someone with all the feelings, sometimes all zooming to the surface at the same time, it can’t hurt to have a little depressant in my veins when I’m in a high-stimulation situation.
I pour a glass and take a gulp. I need to stop spiraling over the wordstimulationand the way it immediately brings Julia’s hands into sharp focus in my imagination. Since high school, there have been so many times I’ve wanted to justkiss the girl, but I’ve always chickened out because kissing leads to questions of meaning, it opens up doors to closed closets, and then it leads tomore.
There’s nothing linear about going from best friends to kissing. I don’t know exactly when it became clear to me that I wantedto, and I never got to ask Julia how long she’d been wishing things would change.
They just did, slowly, and then all at once.
I knew, and so did she. And all those sensations and feelings and new, ferocious wants exploded all over my body, firing all through my brain. Then it wasn’t just kissing, and what that meant wasn’t a question we could leave unanswered. And all those feelings merged into a single, overwhelming one.
Fear.
I don’t know how to do this coming out thing. I don’t know what it will feel like when other people are let in on that secret. I don’t know how to say it out loud.
I don’t know who I will become on the other side of it.
I just know that I’m ready toknow.
My phone starts to buzz in the back pocket of my jean shorts, and I yank it out, but my smile fades fast when I see who’s calling.
Mom. Big white FaceTime letters.
I’ve been trying to ignore her texts, since, so far, all of them have been about packing up my childhood bedroom, or thinly veiled attempts to get me to talk to her about her new romance. I know it isn’t fair to give her the cold shoulder while I talk Dad down from his merlot ledge, but I don’t feel ready to face her yet.
She’s bi, and she’s further along in her coming out than I am.
But she’s also my mom, who always preached the Ideal Rom-Com Life Path. She’s also my mom, who used to be desperately in love with my dad. And even though I know she’d understand my fears about coming out, she still cheated on Dad.
And I’m not ready to let her off the hook for that just yet.
I feel around inside my body. My heart and emotions, myinstincts and gut feelings. The compass that spins, spins, spins, and the true north I’m not sure I’ve ever actually found.
A thought sharpens into focus.
I don’t want to waste my chance.
No matter how happy Mom was at times. No matter how much she loved Dad. She was still playing a role, one I understand playing, one I can even understand her keeping from me when I was a kid, but I haven’t been a kid for a long time. I can’t help but wonder, if Mom had let me in on her journey, would it have helped me with mine? Could her honesty have been a push to propel me here sooner, with so much less yearning and time wasted hiding?
I want to blame her, blame Dad, for how long I’ve stubbornly barreled forward on the Ideal Rom-Com Life Path. Always looking for the end with boyfriends, keeping my career in motion but not really knowing where I hope that motion leads; short-term rentals, suitcases of belongings, daydreams of a time when I’ll feel secure in myself, when I’ll be fulfilled, when I’ll actually be theideal.
Mom coming out to me lifted the curtain, showed me the Wizard. My compass has been spinning out because I was chasing a phantom destination. The ideal of my perfect Nancy Meyers parents and the ingenue I was playing weren’t real.
In the Larson family we all have our roles, and we’re all really good at them.
Until we aren’t.
My heart rate blasts off, a rocket on a crash course. I search the room for my cards, finding them on the nightstand. I grab up the deck in my left hand, gulping the last of the little bit of wine I poured myself, setting the glass down on the table.
I exhale a sharp breath, close my eyes, and shuffle.
Swish swish swish.The cards’ weight grounds me and I open my eyes again, watching the shuffle. I feel rooted, secure in my body, every feeling coursing through me but not shaking me up. After another few swishes I don’t feel so lightheaded. I don’t feel so much like I want to pummel my parents with one of their vinyl records. I don’t feel so much like screaming at myself in the mirror. I don’t feel like I have to run away, even though it would definitely make all of these revelations stop revealing themselves.
I cut the deck just as there’s a knock on the door.
Julia.
The whirring inside my heart stops.
