Page 101 of The Other Side of Paradise
She snorted. “Shane was pretty quiet too,” she said. “He’d make a few stock comments, but that was it.”
Wait, seriously? I’d thought it was just a me thing. “So it’s a thing guys do?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t slept with them all,” she said, hands up, and I laughed.
“I know. You barely sleep with anyone.” I paused. “I still can’t believe you got into this with Brooklyn.”
“Uh-huh… me neither, honestly,” she said, and honestly, I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t know how I’d gotten into this with Allison. It was weird that Ryan and I had so much in common all of a sudden. “Have you been with anyone queer before Allison?”
“Like a bisexual guy or something?” I shook my head. “No. Why?”
“I feel like you should probably try,” she said breezily. “I don’t think you realize how much you hate gender roles.”
What, she was on that again? I scowled. “I thought you were the one telling me how I’m all old-fashioned like Grandma because I want guys to approach me.”
“Youseem more upset than anyone that it’s ‘supposed’ to be guys approaching you,” she said. “Is it that you want guys to approach you, or is it that you feel like you’re not allowed to approach them?”
Oh… huh. Now that she mentioned it. Ihadbeen thinking things likesee how easy it is for me to flirt with Allison, flirting with a girl is easy and fun.Maybe that was, like, a gay thing. Ryan went on.
“You don’t like guys being emotionally unavailable, you want soft sweet romance from both parties, and you enjoyed being able to reverse it with Allison, where she makes it clearshe’s interested and you approach her,” she said, nursing her drink with both hands. “And it sounds like you don’t dislike men in bed, it sounds like you dislike men being stereotypically manly in bed.”
“Do you think?” I said distantly. I had never thought of it like that. But I had enjoyed being able to approach Allison… knowing she was interested in me felt great. Being able to do something with that, making a move, knowing she’d be receptive, had absolutely lit me up. Was that what it was about? Gender roles? “Um… so… what?” I said. “Am I straight and just want a guy without the toxic masculinity?”
She gave me abe-seriouslook. “I want you to take a minute thinking about the things you’ve done with Allison and tell me if you’d describe another woman as straight if she did that.”
I looked out over the water, doing as she’d said and thinking about it. I still wanted to wear that strap-on I’d gotten earlier and fuck her with it while we made out. Was that straight?
Yeah, no, that definitely wasn’t straight. How about that?
“I think I’m not straight,” I said, and she shrugged.
“Cool, yeah, me neither.”
“Seriously? What are the odds of that?”
“Like I said, there’s a lot of bisexual women,” she laughed. “Sometimes we just don’t get to realize it without other people helping us see it. Would you have realized if you didn’t have a bisexual sister who dragged you into a group of queer girls, one of them with a crush on you?”
I mean, I guess. But still… “It just feels like an arbitrary label,” I said. “I feel like everyone’s alittlebit bisexual, you know?”
“I don’t think everyone is, but I think a lot of people are at least a little flexible. Some people are completely straight, somepeople are completely gay, a lot of people are more to one side or the other. Some people are smack-dab in the middle.”
I felt weirdly… seen? It was nice, when she said that, like hearing someone say my name or the name of the place I lived. Huh. “I think that’s me,” I said, and she looked at me in surprise.
“Smack-dab in the middle? Seriously?”
I fussed with my drink. “I don’t know,” I said, only working it out as I was saying it. I’d had tons of female friends, and I’d never thought about it like that, but I guess I didn’t really have the… language. If I thought of some of the ones who’d meant the most to me—ones who I’d attached to likeI want to be your best friend and hear literally everything in your life—and I wondered how I’d react if they’d asked to kiss me? I’d probably have said yes. “I mean, girls are really cool,” I said distantly. “I just never thought of it as, like… attraction.”
Ryan was quiet for a second, looking back out over the railing, before quietly, she said, “I think I like girls better.” I looked over at her, but she kept her gaze on the water, going on. “I still like guys, but it just feels a little more… right, with a woman.”
It was actually kind of cool being in this thing together with Ryan. Even if she was my boring sister. Maybe she wasn’t that boring after all. Maybe all of us were a lot of amazing things that we just never shared with each other because we were scared of not fitting in. “Yeah?” I said, and she gave me a tired smile back, nodding.
“Yeah. I think…” She sighed. “I’d like to have a girlfriend. Once I’ve had some time to… well… recover.”
Recover… right. From tomorrow. From leaving all of this behind.
Allison had been a safe place for me to dig up something I thought I’d never find. I was just supposed to throw that away?
I’d die before I put this thing away, filed it tidily into a box to be forgotten like certain members of my family probably wanted. It was just a bittersweet feeling thinking about having a girlfriend right now when I realized the girl Iwantedto try dating was the one I was saying goodbye to tomorrow.
