Don’t pull away again, I willed her silently, and even though I wanted the kissing to last forever, I didn’t mean just physically. We had fallen together so naturally, like we were supposed to be sitting on her bed making out. Like it was pre-destined. I wanted this moment between us, this feeling that she would finally be with me, to last and last.
Her mouth got hungrier and her tongue ran across my own. The fingers that had previously been content to rest in the soft tangles of my hair were more searching, tugging at the individual strands like she was trying to hold us together. She didn’t need to bother; whenever this spell broke, whenever we stopped, it wouldn’t be by my choice.
I had never been kissed like this, the kind of kiss where you find yourself horizontal across someone else’s bed with no idea how you’d ended up that way. She wasn’t quite on top of me so much as above me, but there was a danger in the switch from upright to reclining. Her hand was starting to find its way under the hem of my shirt, and I was in no real hurry to stop it, except that there was this huge subject we hadn’t talked about that was tainting the whole experience.
Five more minutes, I thought. I’ll just let this go for five more minutes and then I’ll be the practical one.
Twenty minutes later I was shirtless, and we were under her quilt. I had just barely forced myself to stop her from unbuttoning my jeans. My lips were so raw that they tingled as I told her that we were going to have to talk before things went any farther and then she was lying next to me, her hand on my hip as she waited to hear what I was going to say.
The problem was that I was lying next to her topless and out of breath with her hand so heavy on my hip, and the tingling that was buzzing through every part of my body had pretty much disabled my ability to think, let alone speak. Hey eyes were like honey, so sticky sweet and full, and I would have done anything if I could just push my hesitations away and kiss her again. If I could just forget what everything meant and just enjoy the feeling of finally knowing that no matter what happened next, at least she wanted me as much as I wanted her. And even if I could get my thoughts straight, which was becoming even more unlikely now that her fingers were swirling light circles across my bare flesh, what was I going to say to her? Gee, Lennox, does this mean you are ready to be gay after all? Can I be your girlfriend?
Closing the gap between us, she kissed the corner of my mouth before nuzzling into my shoulder and wrapping her arm around my chest. I could feel her skin against my bare breasts and I suddenly felt how naked I really was.
“What does this mean?” I asked, the words coming out of me so quickly that they were almost a buzz.
Her pause broke my heart. The silence of it told me there wasn’t going to be a happy ending and I reached over to grab my shirt. Not feeling like I had the strength to commit to getting dressed, I draped the flannel over myself to try to lessen the vulnerability.
“Nothing has really changed,” Lennox answered, but the huskiness of her voice confirmed that everything had. “I want you and I like being with you, but I can’t give you much more than this. I can’t be gay.”
Fog clouded my vision and for a split second, I was so angry that my brain actually felt like it was fizzing. It was like the inside of my mind was a Coke that had been shaken up.
“What does that even mean?” I asked. “Your tongue was just inside my mouth. Your hands were freaking everywhere,” I stammered, not able to go on as the tears welled up in my eyes. With a hard swallow, I got out that one important question: “What do you mean you can’t be gay?”
A strand of her dark hair fell across her eyes and she didn’t bother brushing it away as she looked down. I could feel her eyes settling on me as she thought about how to form her words. I wanted to kiss her then, wanted to let her know that I understood how hard it was for her, but when she reached up to place her hand on my face, I pushed it away.
“Answer me,” I pleaded.
When she looked up at me, when our eyes met, that thick, blanketing warmth was gone from her eyes and defeat had settled in its place. “It means that I could do this. Here,” she said gesturing to the two of us first and then to the confines of her bedroom. “I could be with you in some secret way that wouldn’t be fair to you, but I can’t be your girlfriend. I don’t want to be out. Not to anyone.”
Would that be so bad? I wondered, heart jumping at the thought of nights like this with she and I wrapped up in each other’s arms. Would it really matter if anyone knew? I could picture us making eyes at each other when no one was looking and letting our hands brush against each other’s under the lunch table. And what was the difference, really, between a date and two friends hanging out? We could still be together.
This time it was me who reached out, my hand resting along Lennox’s angled jawline, my forehead against hers. “I don’t care if anyone knows as long as we know,” I said and I parted my lips to seal the deal with another kiss, but she pulled back.
“That would be great,” she said, “Until you wanted to hold hands in public or talk about your relationship to the people that mattered to you.” Her eyes clouded over and I let her words sink in. I thought about loving someone the way I was starting to love Lennox, wanting someone the way I wanted her, and never being able to share my feelings with Marley. Never being able to whisper or giggle as we gossiped about the date night I’d had the night before. Never being able to dance together at prom or cuddle before school.
“Trust me,” she said, and I noticed the bottom rim of her eyelid was turning red. “This never works.”
Her words hit me so hard that they knocked the air from my chest, and it felt like an inflated balloon was keeping me from pulling air into my lungs. She’d done this before and hadn’t told me.
It wasn’t that she’d had experiences before me that bothered me; what had happened before me was none of my business. It was that she’d left me so desperate in my own wondering, so lost trying to figure out if I was imagining a connection between us. She had known she was attracted to girls, known she wanted me, known I was pining for her like some sort of idiot, and had just let me flounder alone in my feelings like something out of a Drake song. There was nothing left to say. She was right; it could never work. Without a word, even as she asked me not to leave, I got dressed. Gathering my bag, I left her house, crying the whole way home.
Chapter Twelve
Lennox
The minute Hannah left my room, every muscle in my body was tense, urging me to rush after her. Was I really going to let her leave? Why? Because of some boys that lived three hours away? Because I was scared of what might happen if I admitted out loud that I was attracted to girls? Even as I stood there, not moving, I felt like I was doing what could end up being one the stupidest things I’d ever done.
It was like something out of a bad movie; I literally rested my head against the door, my palms flat against the wood, as I talked myself out of, then back into, then finally out of chasing down her car and professing my love.
I knew I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t just Dalton and Nick. They weren’t the only homophobes in the world. I lived with two other ones, two that I depended on for a roof over my head and clothes on my back. Two that might never speak to me again if I went chasing after some girl. Two whom I’d promised I would keep my hormones in check as long as I was around to humiliate them so that they wouldn’t have to start over again because they didn’t want people to know their daughter was an abomination.