Page 4 of Reckless Youth
Although sometimes I’m desperate
For something I can’t have.
And alone in my feelings and worried that it’ll end.
It wasn’t the last time he’d write a song about heartbreak and despair. Of confusion over who he was and what he meant to the world.
As he finished the song, our gazes snagged, and I reached for his hand. I was scared to ask the question, but the opportunity was there. So, I took the chance.
“Sage, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
I heaved in a breath. “Are you gay?”
He swiveled his head in my direction, his eyes wide as he stared at me in the dark. Because I was nervous, I continued to babble.
“It’s okay if you are. I mean, a lot of people are. It’s cool if you are and if you like other boys. It doesn’t change how I feel about you or anything.”
I stopped to take a breath and he started to laugh. In fact, he nearly doubled over laughing like I’d said the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his life. My feistiness got the best of me, along with my embarrassment, so I shoved him hard on his shoulder. He fell to his side with a grunt-snort.
“You jerk. I was trying to be a good friend. Geesh.”
When he finally finished laughing, he sat back up and hiccupped. And then there was silence.
I waited, quietly fuming over his audacity to laugh at me when I was trying to be serious and hopefully open the door for him to come out. My wait continued until he finally spoke.
“I don’t think I’m gay. Maybe bisexual. I don’t really know ‘cause I’ve never kissed a boy. But sometimes…I want to.”
His admission to kissing – alluding to the fact that he had kissed a girl – threw me for a loop and I gasped.
“What? Does that mean you’ve kissed a girl? Who? How dare you keep something like that from me! I’m supposed to be your best friend.”
The tone of my voice was teasing, but inside I was a tad bit hurt that I didn’t know about this development until now.
Sage lifted a shoulder nonchalantly. “Happened a few weeks ago at Wendy Conner’s birthday party, the one you couldn’t go to ‘cause you were in Atlanta for that dance thing. It was one of thoseTruth or Daregames. I chose the dare.”
When I gave him the look that said, “And?” he wiggled his eyebrows and continued.
He smiled but spoke with indifference. “And I slipped her the tongue.”
“Sage Hendricks, you little devil,” I teased, but my eyes dropped to his parted mouth. It made me wonder what it felt like to kiss him.
In fact, the previous school year, my friend Chloe casually inquired about whether I’d kissed either Cam or Sage yet or slept with them. I was appalled at the time that she’d even think that of me or of us. They were my friends, and let’s face it, I was fourteen and didn’t have those desires at that point in my life.
But now, not even a half year later, sitting here in the dark summer evening talking about such things, had me considering Sage with a different perspective. I was seeing him for the first time as a cute boy who had experienced French kissing other girls.
And it made me jealous.
Tossing the thought away, I asked him the next question on my mind.
“Would you ever want to kiss me? Or Cam?”
The answer I received wasn’t anything I had expected. But certainly, changed things in the years to come.
“Maybe.”
Chapter 3
