“First off, I’m glad you’re okay. But still, if I wasn’t as out of it as I was, I would’ve stepped in sooner-I should’ve,” she sighed out. “Full disclosure, she was right, I’ve slept with a lot of straight-but-curious women. There’s a proper time, place and most importantly, person for that though. It needs to be something they choose to do.”
“Of course.” I stopped myself from inquiring about her ‘body count’ when it came to what we were discussing. I knew it was rude to ask someone to kiss and tell, but ‘a lot’ was so vague… It could’ve been five, fifty-five or five-hundred.
She stared at my ceiling. “Most lesbians I know avoid bi-curious women ’cause it doesn’t end well… But I’m never looking to ‘turn’ anyone. And yeah, if a girl who’s questioning her sexuality wants to experiment with me for a bit? I’m all in.”
“Makes sense.”
“Anyway, I know for a fact you don’t need anyone to white-knight for you. Which is why when you weren’t turning my ex down right away, I guess I was drunk enough to wonder if you were interested… Hindsight is always 20/20 though and I can keep talking about what I could’ve done differently, but what’s the point? So, I’m going to apologize instead.” She let out another deep, airy sigh. “Cass, I’m sorry for putting you in a situation where you were harassed in your own home. But you do know I would’ve never let anything bad happen to you, right?”
This was the saddest I’d ever seen or heard her. Apparently, it wasn’t only good emotions that were contagious because looking at her actually hurt. Her heartfelt apology caused my own heart to pause. The word ‘harassed’ sounded too harsh for the less-than-ten-minute ordeal. “Gray, it’s not that deep… There’s no need for an apology, especially not from you. Let’s just drop it, okay?”
“It is a big deal though.” She refused to back down. “How about this-” She turned to face me, resting her left cheek on my pillow. “Imagine you brought home a boyfriend and after you told him I’m only into women, he kept trying to convince me to have a threesome… Would you have been okay with that?”
“What? Of course not.”
“Then while I was leaving, after I clearly said no,” she continued. “He grabbed my arm, pulling me back to physically make me stay… Even if his intention wasn’t to hurt me, would you have been okay with that?”
“Absolutely not.” The thought of a nameless, faceless person doing what she described had me gritting my teeth. “You’re right, it was a big deal.” I was retracting and revising my statement. “What happened was a big deal, but I forgive you… Thanks for saying sorry.”
She smiled at me, but it wasn’t the smile I’d grown so familiar with.
“Stop beating yourself up though,” I said as I pinched her cheek. “I’m not a snowflake, I’m fine… Also, if it makes you feel better, know that the things I regularly hear from all sorts of people while I’m working are much worse,” I added. “Compared to what I’m used to, last night was nothing.”
“Cass?”
“Yeah?”
“Why would you think something like that would make me feel better?” She asked and I blinked, realizing how stupid my words were. Before I could reply, she rolled closer and cuddled into me. Her tattooed forearm was resting on my clothed tummy, her forehead was pressing on my shoulder. “I love you, you goof.”
By now, I’d told her I loved her plenty of times, but this was the first time she said those three words to me. To clarify, it didn’t bother me that before today, she’d never said it back. I knew the word ‘love’ was a loaded one for many people. But language was already so intrinsically limited, so inherently flawed. I’d always found it strange that using certain words was prohibited until a time quota was met. Moreover, based on statistics from the (fallible) internet… On average, it took three to five months for romantic love to blossom. And since platonic love wasn’t as complicated as ‘the sexual, might-marry-this-person-someday’ kind, it was logical to assume that love between friends came sooner.
“I love you, too, Gray.” I got more comfortable. I snuggled closer to her. Shutting my eyes, I reveled in the release of oxytocin.
I’d always hated the marketing slogan: ‘things you didn’t know you needed until now.’ Since it aimed to brainwash consumers into thinking that superfluous frills, items they’d gone all their lives without were essentials. Now that I was cuddling with my roommate for the first time ever, I had to admit that I was wrong. It was, in fact, possible for a person to go a long, long time without something that turned out to be crucial, indispensable.
‘Cause apparently, I was able to do it for more than twenty-seven years.
. . .
After her breakup, Gray had started hanging out with her friends even more often than before. So, I wasn’t surprised when I came home from work to find her playing some new video game with Pink Ranger’s girlfriend. The two of them were on our couch, completely absorbed by the zombies / aliens on the screen. The night-and-day difference between their outfits made me giggle. Side by side, one was in streetwear with non-identical socks on, while the other was in corporate wear.
Meanwhile, all by herself, Pink Ranger was sitting at the dining table. Dressed to kill in a blush blazer and skirt, she was disinterestedly watching from a safe distance. Away from the sounds of gunfire and grenades. My roommate turned into a ‘pod person’ whenever she was holding a controller, so I understood why our petite, strawberry blond-haired guest looked like she was dying from boredom.
After greeting the two busy gamers, I sat down with Pink Ranger and kept her company.
Though Gray would never reveal her best friends’ secrets to me, she talked about them all the time. Which meant I was aware of the basics when it came to each one of them. Like I knew that Pink Ranger worked in Acanthis, an international shipping and logistics company based in our city. A successful business that her girlfriend (who was currently screaming childish profanities at our TV) was set to inherit in the future.
I liked all of Gray’s friends, but I looked up to Pink Ranger in particular. I’d always seen myself as someone who was passion-driven, but she was next level. Type A all the way. The unanimously crowned overachiever of their friend group… The fact that I secretly hero-worshipped her might’ve been odd since the two of us were the same age (she was actually younger than me by several months). But just because we were born in the same year and we were now sitting in the same room didn’t mean the lives we’d led up to this point were one and the same.
Everyone had their own struggles and solutions, their own conflicts and coping mechanisms.
A while back, Gray had used that quote about the two mice and a bucket of cream from ‘Catch Me If You Can’ to proudly describe Pink Ranger. Apparently, her childhood wasn’t a rosy one and if she hadn’t ‘churned some butter’ real quick, her life would’ve ended before it started. My roommate had followed up those idiomatic expressions with a list of her friend’s academic achievements… All the things she’d done on her own to reach where she was. The knowledge that against all odds, someone my age (who I knew personally) was living out their dreams through their own determination hit different. Like it revitalized the optimist in me more than any celebrity triumph story ever could.
Nevertheless, I knew that it’d be foolish of me to blindly believe that because things had worked out for Pink Ranger, they’d ultimately work out for me, too. Life wasn’t a fairytale and I wasn’t naively ignorant of how the world worked. I was well-aware that different people had different skill sets and different ethical boundaries. Simply put, there were things she’d accomplished that I could never do, while there were things I’d resorted to that she would never do.
That being said, I could still make her one of my role models. She was very intelligent, so though there were no direct links between our industries, I found our shoptalk in Apartment 202’s dining room illuminating. We were just discussing my ‘career’ though. Apparently, the main reason she and her tall, brown-eyed brunette girlfriend were at our place on a weeknight was because she was ‘working on not being a workaholic.’
In spite of her unfamiliarity with my industry or the gig economy in general, she gave me a lot of sound advice. Our mature conversation kept getting interrupted or derailed by childlike yelling and laughter… But it was clear neither of us minded the racket. I was certain she found her girlfriend’s antics as amusing as I found my roommate’s.
Hours later, when our two guests were leaving (after four ‘just one last, please’ games), Gray told them to enjoy ‘playing with their parrot.’ Which wasn’t a phrase I’d heard before. Confused and curious, I asked if it was code for something sex-related.
“Yup. I’m sure you know the term ‘spread-eagle,’ right? It’s exactly like that, but since they’re gay, of course the bird has to be colorful,” my roommate explained with a straight face. With no prodding, Pink Ranger’s girlfriend nodded to back up the bizarre statement. “Later, one of them will be lying down on their bed, while the other-”
“Gray!” Pink Ranger yelled. “Cassidy, don’t believe these two doofuses. It’s not a euphemism. We have a real parrot at home.” She was being nice to me, but she was clearly fighting the urge to laugh as well. “Word of advice from one friend to another? If your roommate tells you something that sounds far-fetched, Google it. I’ve known the kid for years and I adore her, but she fancies herself as a comedian 90% of the time.”
With beet-red cheeks, I began laughing, too. Gray was the youngest among her friends. I was used to them affectionately referring to her as the ‘kid’ (actually, although she’d deny it until her dying day, she was practically part of Generation Z). Anyway, based on the ‘colorful eagle-thing,’ I was realizing how ill-informed and ignorant I was about so many things in the LGBTQ sphere. I was willing to keep learning though.