Page 70 of Fade into You
I nod and smile. Clear my throat and try to find the right words. “Bird, I… I’m glad you told me that, and I’m one hundred percent behind you. Really.”
“Thanks,” she says quietly.
“But—”
“But?” she echoes.
“You might be ready to accept who you are, but I guarantee you’re not ready for the shitstorm that will come if anyone finds out about us. And I’m trying to be a goodfriendto you by—”
“No!” she shouts. “Stop saying that. Silas and Kat? They were my friends. Both of them. I cared about them. I still care about them, but I never felt for either of them the way I feel about you. You know we’re not ‘just friends.’ And you know this isn’t some cheap thrill for me. Right?”
Reluctantly, I nod again because I do know.
“Jessa, all I can think about is you, and how getting to know you has introduced me to one of the most incredible people I’veever met.” She moves closer to me now, and I don’t have the strength not to accept her outstretched hands. “And she’s secretly kind and caring and has one of the best hearts I’ve ever met. I fell for your heart, Jessa, I fell for who you are at your core,” she says, her hand pressed against my chest, my heart fluttering beneath it because I know that I’ve fallen for her too.
“If that means I get to duck airborne tots with you, I’m okay with that. What I’m not okay with is never kissing your lips again, never feeling your hands in mine, never being close to you. If you want to protect me from something, protect me fromthat.”
These are the kinds of words I never fathomed would be said to me. Like the poetess she is, she finds words that touch me so deep that I can’t hold both the worry and the sound of them in my mind, that I can’t stop my hand from touching her face, curling around to the back of her head, snaking into that soft hair, and pulling her toward me. The sweet smell of sorbet and honeysuckle fills my head as I lean in and we kiss, the movement electric. I can barely come up for air before she’s on me as well, my back against the counter, her body soft and warm on me, and for a moment I want to fall into her, and her into me and we become one and… I really wish we weren’t in a bathroom, because I want so much more but I don’t want it in the dollar-fifty theater crapper.
She pulls back and smiles in this flirty, mischievous way that fills me with happy trembles. “See, that wasn’t so bad,” she says, and lays a trail of kisses down my neck that pulls an involuntary gasp out of me before she rests her head on my shoulder, hugging me tight.
“Jessa, I don’t want to push you into anything, but if you do want to be together, I want to be with you.”
“I just worry about school….”
“If you want, we can take our time figuring out about school. I can wait until final bell to hold your hand, but it will be very challenging.”
She’s proposing, what? Secret dating? She’s suggesting an “us” is possible. For once the shame and disgust at myself peels away and I want an “us.” I want more.
“Okay,” I say in a measured tone.
“Okay to what?” She’s gonna make me say it.
“Wanna go steady?” I could not be more awkward.
She laughs. “Sure, Jessa, we can go steady. And later we’ll start a nuclear family, but who’s gonna be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen?”
I laugh too, at the old turn of phrase, at how she jokes but makes it not mean, at how relieved I am that I don’t have to hide from her or my feelings anymore. And soon as I’m laughing, I’m crying, too. She pulls me back in for a hug, one hand stroking my hair, and I cry for what feels forever because something awful is draining out of me right now, something like hate and anger and shame and all the horrible things I have ever told myself about myself. And she’s there protecting me, absorbing all that emotion, and there’s no judgment and I’m not scared that a week from now this will become ammunition against me. I’m not scared at all.
“It’s been really lonely,” I choke out between sobs.
“I know,” she says quietly, her hand soft and comforting inmy hair. “I know you’ve had a really hard path. But I wanna walk it with you—if you let me.”
“Thank you,” I say.
She’s smiling at me, and I know I must look wretched but she doesn’t seem to care, because she loves something deeper than everything I try to paint on each day, and that feels really good.
I could stay here in this weirdly bright black-and-white-tiled and fluorescent-lit bathroom, but a movie must have let out, because two kids come in shrieking and sticky-looking, followed by a harried mother, hands full of discarded coats and a giant movie popcorn tub.
“Wanna get out of here?” Bird asks, sly smile on her face. I want to kiss her, but my nose needs blowing and I grab a couple of brown paper towels and let her lead me out of the bathroom.
I’m in a trance, forgetting everything but Bird as she holds my hand, guides me out of the garish neon lobby, into the lot, my appropriated chair empty and alone as the doors to the store opened early, the store clerk tired of the waiting masses and ready to start their evening, Dade’s game purchased by another nerd. We’re in the car, she’s driving, putting in Tori Amos, and we sing together as she drives us around the city, no real plan but to be together. We stop to make out by the park, lonely playground structures watching our illicit embrace. We sing until I’m hoarse. Crying out lyrics so much louder than they’re meant to be.
She uses my phone to call her mom to tell her she got a ride home, and I get her back way later than promised, our laughter a constant, our hands squeezed together like holding on to a lifeline. She sneaks off in the yellowed shine of my headlights,curves and movements sparking something in my heart, something new and happy, something that feels like I belong to something bigger than just me. Something beautiful—all from one little Bird.
I show up at Dade’s the next morning, tail between my legs. He’s downstairs, painting a miniature ’67 Chevy Impala a deep black, the chrome already sprayed and his lower-level room reeking acridly from the chemicals.
“Aren’t you supposed to do that outside?”
