Page 66 of Serpentine Valentine
My stomach clenched around the pancakes, threatening to expel them. What could I say without outing Lex? Without outing me?
But how could I lie about this big beautiful thing lighting me up from the inside out.
“Luna isn’t gay,” Flora said, rolling her eyes at the idea. “But seriously, why the hell would you defend that witch?”
Witch. Bitch.
I wished I was both at that moment. That I had the ability to curse them for their horrible insensitivity.
“Lex was assaulted on campus, Flo. How can you call her names?”
“Everyone knows she’s a slut.”
“Like Taya?” I asked, my lips peeling back over my teeth as I took a step toward my old friend. “Seriously, Flora, are you so desperate for male attention you’ll turn your back on women to impress them?”
Flora’s blush was instant, a red traffic light.
I ignored it and stalked forward until I was inches from her face. “How can you live with yourself speaking about a woman who was taken against her will? Do you have zero empathy? This is why victims don’t speak out. This is why abusers get away with it. Because of weak women like you who refuse to acknowledge what makes you uncomfortable.”
“You make me uncomfortable,” she lashed out, juvenile but effective because she’d always been good at cruelty. “Why are you defending her against your own friend, huh? Maybe David’s right, and you are sleeping with her. Are you a dyke now, Luna?”
For one long, suspended moment, I thought about backing down. Tucking my tail, burying my secrets and my truths, and getting the fuck out of there. I didn’t like conflict. I was the peacemaker, always the mediator and resolution seeker.
Some of that was just in my nature, but some of it came from years of blindly obeying my mom or any person with authority over me. I’d basically backed myself into a cage and locked the door.
But I wasn’t going to do that anymore.
Being with Lex, knowing Lex and the enormity of her strength had helped me tap into my own reserves.
I would not let anyone, even someone I’d once thought was a friend, speak so hatefully around me, let aloneaboutme or someone I cared about.
So I shrugged a shoulder the way Lex would have and said, “Yeah, Flo, if being attracted to women makes me a dyke, you can call me that. It’s not an insult because liking women isn’t a crime. And yeah, I like Lex Gorgon. She’s the best woman I know because even when people throw hateful, ugly words at her like you just did to me, she holds her head up high and doesn’t give a damn. I’ll never be even half the woman she is, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be.”
Flora gaped at me. “You’re choosing her over our friendship?”
I laughed, but the sound grated through my throat and came outmean. “Yeah, I am. Because a friend would never call me a dyke for being bisexual. A friend of mine wouldnevercall a victim a witch or a bitch. A friend of mine would never side with a guy who felt me up while I was unconscious. But it’s not about choosing her over you. It’s about choosing to stand up for a victim instead of siding with a bully. It’s about choosingmeand who I want to be.”
“You’re disgusting,” she hissed, her fury eradicating any of the goodness I knew she had inside her to give. “You probably think those criminal Man Eaters are actually doing some kind of good, don’t you?”
“No,” I argued even though I hadn’t given much thought to the vigilante group who’d attacked Jerrod and the fraternity. “You can’t meet violence with violence without starting a war, but this doesn’t have anything to do with them. This has to do with you and me, and why you can’t handle the fact that I was attacked by Beckett or I might like girls.”
“I can’t handle it because it’s not right, and neither, apparently, are you,” she snapped. “To think we’ve had sleepovers together. Maybe you did to me what you’re saying Beckett did to you, and I don’t even know it.”
It was a toxic combination, pride and rage. I knew she was just lashing out because I’d made her look bad and maybe even hurt her feelings. So I didn’t let her splash any more fuel on my fire. There was no point in letting this go on any longer.
I stepped back, glared at David, and nodded at a few of the other guys who had stood silently by while those two tried to hassle me.
“I didn’t beat up Beckett, but I’m not sorry for what happened to him if it means he’ll think twice before doing something like that again.” I spoke calmly, but inside, I was quaking, the tectonic plates of who I was shifting uneasily into new positions. “And if you have anything to say about me being bisexual, keep it to yourselves. I don’t comment on your sex lives, so don’t comment on mine.”
David opened his mouth to spew something nasty, but to my surprise, Ricky, one of the soccer guys I’d partnered with last year in my Jane Austen seminar, stepped forward to clip him with his shoulder.
“Shut up, Dave.” He pushed past him and stopped at my side to offer his arm like some kind of old-fashioned gentleman. “Can I walk you home, Lune?”
I blinked up at him, shocked by his show of support. Moved by it. I cleared my throat to test my voice but decided not to risk it and nodded instead. Ricky’s grin was wide and kind as he slotted my arm through his and propelled us forward past his crew and my old friend, Flo, without looking back.
“What you did was kick-ass,” he said after a few minutes of comfortable silence. “You’d think in this day and age people wouldn’t be so fucking harsh and judgmental. My little brother is gay, and the shit he has to put up with sometimes makes me rage.”
“I, um, I just discovered I liked girls too, so it’s new to me,” I admitted shyly.
