“That there’s something wrong with me. That I’ll never…” I couldn’t finish.
“Hey, stop. Now, keep your eyes closed. You see him?”
“Yes.”
“Now, just blow him out like a candle. Poof. He’s gone forever. How do you feel?”
How did I feel? I dreaded every time my phone rang, or chimed with a text. What if that were gone? “Still scared. But relieved. Peaceful.”
“So, what does that tell you?”
“I know. I’ve never broken up with anyone, though. It feels like failing.”
“See, that’s the thing about love. You only have to get it right once.”
I grinned wickedly across the divide. “So does that mean you’re going to give it a shot sometime?”
“Yes. I will.”
The intensity in her voice surprised me, and she must have seen it in my face.
“You don’t believe me? I’m hurt, Spencer.”
“No, I just, um, God, I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Mitch lay back and looked up at the ceiling. “No, I have every intention of falling in love. But I’m only going to do it once. And then I’m going to stay in love forever, just like my parents.”
“I thought you said you weren’t sure about falling in love.”
She turned onto her side, propping her head on her hand. “You remember that?”
“Of course I do. It was that night in Oxford, when you told me about your parents.” I blushed. “I like talking to you at night.”
“You don’t get enough girl talk from your roommate?”
“Oh, God, all she can talk about is boys and clothes and whatever girl she doesn’t like because of whatever stupid jealous reason. I swear, she’s like something out of a teen drama show. A bad one. And I’ve never seen her study. How she ever passes a class is totally beyond me.”
“Geez, Cindy. Meow.”
I giggled. “Stop that. I was not being catty.” Mitch just smirked at me. “Okay, maybe just a little.”
“So, I take it you’re not going to re-up for another tour with her, then?”
“Uh, no. I guess it’s back to the roommate lottery for me.”
“You don’t have to, y’know. We could bunk up. In a completely platonic sense of course.”
My mouth dropped open slightly. What would that mean, would she… no, God, stop it. It would be fine. Just like this, separate beds. And I’d get to hang out more with my best friend. My parents would have an absolute cow, but there wasn’t any reason they needed to know that I was rooming with a lesbian. I hadn’t mentioned Mitch’s sexual orientation during the brief conversations I’d had with them, obviously. I’d even been careful to only refer to her as Michelle.
Mitch mistook my thoughtfulness. “Hey, if you don’t want to, that’s okay.”
“No, I, um, that’d be nice.”
Mitch looked at me sternly. “Are you sure?”
“No, I mean, yeah. I’m sure. I’m in. Let’s do it.” I was grinning ear to ear, my anxiety evaporating as I saw Mitch match my expression.
“Awesome!”
I tried to give her an appraising look of my own. “Now you’re not just doing this so you can watch me change, right?
Mitch scoffed at me. “Please, Spencer, I’ve watched you change dozens of times. And I can’t help it if you’re drop dead gorgeous.” She grinned, and we laughed at each other.
“You just behave.” I reached over and turned out the light and rolled away, pulling the covers up to my neck. She’d called me gorgeous. Why had my heart done a flip when she’d said it? I mean it was a compliment, right? I mean, she is a lesbian, so it’s just like a guy saying I was pretty, which I was used to. Except that when guys say it, my brain doesn’t go all fuzzy like it just had.
***
“Check it out!” Mitch busted into the locker room waving some papers.
Carrie looked up from her locker. “What is that?”
“That is my College Algebra exam. Which I got a ‘B’ on. ‘Cause I’m awesome.”
I jumped up and grabbed the exam out of her hand. There was a big red ’82’ circled at the top. “Michelle, that’s fantastic! I’m so proud of you!”
“It’s all because of you, y’know.”
I wrapped her in a hug, not even remembering I was only wearing a sports bra on top until I felt her hands on the bare skin of my back. Heat flooded my body as my cheeks turned red, and luckily for me Mitch let me go quickly. I stepped back, staring down at the floor, but Mitch just whooped again, turning away and letting me regain my composure.
“Kirkpatrick! What’s the racket for?” Coach Holiday came out of her office and Mitch showed her the exam, which allowed me a moment to sit back down at my locker and pull on my top.
I felt her presence a moment before she sat down next to me. She put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “So, how do I say thank you?”
“You haven’t passed anything yet, y’know.”
Mitch’s eyes got serious. “I understand, really.”
“Good, ’cause it’s not just your reputation on the line now.”
“Aye, aye, boss.” She actually saluted me. “I won’t let you down.”
I looked up into her eyes. They were smiling, her eyes. They were stunning, and I just wanted to stare at them.
Mitch let go of my shoulder and pulled away. “You okay, Cindy?”
I pulled away and took a deep breath. “Yeah, fine. Let’s go play.”
On the court we started to warm up, and I kept getting distracted by the way she moved. I’d seen it a hundred times before, and I was always mesmerized by it. Today, though, there was something more. Maybe it was the extra confidence from passing her exam, but she had an extra bounce in her step, a brighter glimmer in her smile.
Mitch was certainly inspired by her success, so we upped our tutoring sessions to twice a week, and occasionally even more than that. And she was confident now, so when I set her problems she didn’t have that look of fear anymore. It was wonderful to see.
But it wasn’t nearly as wonderful as hanging out with her afterwards, with her easy humor and unreserved joy in whatever we were doing, be it playing a game or watching a show.
Mitch shut off the TV after we finished an episode of Buffy. “So, what’s going on with Ethan? You haven’t talked about him much, recently.”
“Well, I saw the doctor, or nurse practitioner, or whatever. The stuff she prescribed makes it not hurt. And after talking with him, he understands that I have to put it on first.”
“Doesn’t sound very romantic.”
“It’s not. And he tried, at first, but I think he’s starting to distance.” A tear formed in my eye. “I don’t know why I can’t be normal. Nobody else has this problem.”
“It’s okay.” She pulled me into a hug. I remembered when I’d balk at any contact between Mitch and I. Now I craved these little moments, any time she touched me was special.
Finally the last week of the season was on us, and I was hanging out with Mitch after our last practice of the year. She was showing me her latest exam, another B, which meant that she only needed a C on the final to make a C in the class, and she would have to completely bomb to flunk the course again. We were going over her first exam for the umpteenth time, the one she’d done so poorly on, and I was confident that she finally had it.
“Alright. You’re going to nail this thing.” I set my pen down just as my phone chimed. I picked it up, and my heart dropped through my chest as I read the text.
Ethan — I don’t think this is working. I’m sorry, but we should see other people.
I let the phone tumble out of my hand and onto the floor, sitting back in my chair as a wash of numbness rolled over me.
“Cindy?” Mitch’s tone was concerned, and she reached down to pick up my phone. She looked at the screen. “Oh damn, I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not. You always hated him. You wanted me to break up with him”
“I hated that he didn’t make you happy. That you for some reason felt beholden to a relationship that you didn’t want to be in.” She reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. “But I’m sorry you’re sad.”
I shrugged her off and spun away. “This just reinforces everything for you, doesn’t it. We should all be gay, right?”
“Cindy!”
She was hurt. God, this was not her fault. A tear formed as I closed my eyes and turned around. “I’m sorry. I just,” the tears began to flow and I covered my mouth with my hand, fighting my emotions.
Mitch stepped forward, putting her hands on my shoulders, and I went into her embrace, sobs shaking loose from my chest. “What’s wrong with me, Michelle?”
“Nothing. You’re perfect. Beautiful and smart and you have such a good heart.” Her hand stroked the back of my head as I leaned on her shoulder. God, this felt amazing. Why couldn’t being with Ethan feel like this? Would I ever be able to find a man where it did? Was I just broken?
I let myself just rest in the arms of my friend, tightening our embrace as I cried on her shoulder. She held me, firmly but gently, whispering in my ear that it would be okay, until I finally settled.
She let me go and pulled away, and I felt a definite loss as she did. Her finger lifted my chin so I was looking in her eyes, those gorgeous, intensely blue eyes. “Okay, Spencer, this is what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna get the girls together, and order pizza and watch ‘Thelma and Louise’ or some other man-hating movie, and we’re just going to chill out.”
Somehow I managed a laugh. “That’s the best you got?”
“Well, we have a match tomorrow, so the options are limited. But after we finish kicking ass tomorrow I’m going to take you out to properly commiserate.”
“Okay.”
Mitch pulled me into another hug, which lasted far too short a time for my taste.
In less than an hour a bunch of members of the team and a few of our other friends were crowded into the room. We didn’t actually watch ‘Thelma and Louise’. I don’t actually remember what we did see, although I put a hard veto on the suggestion of ‘Magic Mike’. There was a lot of gossip and a little male bashing, but mostly I remember sitting on Mitch’s bed leaning against her, letting her hold me as our friends surrounded us, talking and laughing.
Eventually Mitch walked Carrie and meout of her dorm, and I gave Mitch another hug before we walked across the quad.
Carrie gave me a look. “You two seemed cuddly.”
“She’s my best friend. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t say ‘wrong’, I said ‘cuddly’.”
“I was emotionally distraught. And Mitch gives really good hugs. Normal, friendly, platonic hugs. Besides, she knows I’m straight.” Okay, change the subject. “So did you blow off Stephan for tonight?”
“Yeah, I told him a friend needed me. It’s not going to survive the summer anyway. It may not survive finals week.” Carrie had been dating her current beau for just two months, and she was pretty unenthusiastic about him.
But as we talked I thought about what she’d said. I wasn’t a touchy-feely person by nature, but being close to Michelle was so easy. Maybe it was because she wasn’t a guy, and there wasn’t that tension of me trying to enjoy it. I knew what Carrie was implying, but I’d been on almost a dozen road trips with Mitch, and I’d spent multiple nights in the same room or leaning on her on the bus. If she were going to try something she’d have done it.