This Wild Love: A Lesbian LBGTQ+ Romance Collection

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

What does she want?

Why does she want to come over?

Why would she even want to talk to me after what happened today?

Let alone see me?

The questions whirled in my mind, and like a tornado through a wheat field, ripped through my composure. All at once I was panicking, worried, nervous, and excited to be seeing her.

This was not what I thought would happen. I thought we would never speak to each other again. I thought it would be all scorched earth. Salted earth. Whatever the metaphor is.

To put it as simply as possible, I thought our friendship was over… and now she was coming over.

I tried to analyze her voice. I played the message back. She sounded upset. Of course she was upset… I mean, it was me that had upset her.

She probably wanted to get angry at me. To tell me how betrayed she felt… how I’d never told her for all this time.

How could I have kept it a secret from her?

Why wouldn’t I have trusted her? Have told her?

Weren’t we best friends? Weren’t we supposed to share our lives with each other?

Yes, that was it. I was certain of it. I felt a tremendous guilt sucking on my insides, like a black hole placed inside my body.

She was probably coming over to end our friendship officially, to tell me that she couldn’t believe how selfish I’d been, that I’d hide this from her.

That we were friends and I should have been honest with her from the start.

She wouldn’t understand, and she’d say it was my fault.

And… and maybe it was my fault.

Maybe I should have just been honest, just told her the truth.

How would I feel if I thought I knew my best friend, but it turned out I actually didn’t?

That they were actually fundamentally different to how I’d conceived of them this whole time?

Wouldn’t I be angry?

Wouldn’t I be upset?

That was the only explanation. It had to be.

I didn’t dare hope for another. Hoping for a miracle can only lead to disappointment. I once entered a raffle where the grand prize was a trip to Disneyland. I put the ticket in my drawer and never took it out. I didn’t dare hope to win. Instead, I expected to lose.

To this day, I still don’t know if I won anything.

Sometimes, I hate the way I am.

I steeled myself mentally. I tried to calm my nerves, tried to level my emotions. She had something important to say, wanted to say it, and then she’d be off.

That was it. That was all there was to this.

I erased the message from the machine – can’t have Mom asking me any questions – and started to tidy up the house a bit. I put the empty bottles in the recycling, laundry in the basket, scooped up the broken glass and wrapped it up in newspaper before throwing it in the trash.

I was in a state of half-panic, half-confusion as I did my best to make the house as presentable as possible, even though I knew that Jettie had been here a thousand times before and wouldn’t care if there was a sock on the floor or whatever.

When I was done and out of things to tidy up, I ran downstairs to get dressed when I heard her car pulling into the driveway.

Without thinking, I threw on my pajama pants and a t-shirt. No underwear, no bra, but it wouldn’t matter for this.

“Kathy?” I heard Jettie call from outside.

I downed my beer, left the bottle on the kitchen counter, and then went to the door and opened it.

There she was, framed and silhouetted. I could tell she’d been crying – her eyes were puffy and red – but she still looked as gorgeous as ever.

I tried to stop myself from smiling, but I couldn’t. Every time I saw her, she just ignited positive emotions in me.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“I didn’t know if you’d open the door,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“After what happened today.”

I died of embarrassment and awkwardness a thousand times over in the blink of an eye.

“I… I’ll always open the door for you, Jet,” I said, instantly regretting it. How desperate and cheesy does that sound?

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said quickly, and led her in. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Got anything bad?”

“Beer,” I said.

“Yeah,” she told me, and so I went and got her one. She went straight to my room, knowing the way, and when I came down there, I saw her sitting on my bed, looking at my crumpled up towel I’d left there.

“s**t, sorry,” I said, handing her the beer and the picking up the towel and hanging it on my door. “Just took a shower.”

“The wet hair was a clue, but I wasn’t certain,” she said, a small, wry smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

I tried not to laugh – God, I don’t even know why, I just didn’t want to – but I did, anyway. It’s not that her attempt to lighten up the mood was particularly funny, but she just made me want to laugh.

She made me want to express positivity. Everything was better when she was around.

God, what is wrong with me?

How can I feel this way so strongly?

How could I have ruined my friendship with her the way that I did earlier?

I suddenly became very self-conscious about the way I looked. My wet hair was down my right shoulder, my n*****s were poking through my t-shirt, and my pajama pants were an old pair that had a few embarrassing – but unavoidable for a teenage girl – stains on them.

She could tell that I was self-conscious, because she said straight away, “Don’t worry, babe. You look good.”

I chewed my lower lip. I was taking my cues from her. She’d have to begin this conversation.

“I noticed that photo of us on your birthday at the beach was broken.”

“Our birthday,” I corrected her. “Yeah… I dropped it.”

“Do you remember that day?”

I snorted a quick laugh. “Of course I do, Jet. It wasn’t even that long ago.”

“Do you remember all the details?”

I paused, wondering what she meant. She couldn’t possibly have heard…

“Yeah,” I said. “Of course. It was one of the best days of my life.”

“Me too,” she said, beaming a smile at me.

We sat in silence for a moment and both sipped on beer.

“What did you want to talk about?” I eventually said.

Was this going to be the goodbye?

Was this going to be the last time I ever saw her?

“Kathy,” she said, and then she paused. Tears began to well in her eyes. “Why did you just run away today?”

“What do you mean why?” I almost yelled, spreading my arms. “Why do you think?”

“I wasn’t trying to pry. I wasn’t reading over your shoulder.”

“That will teach me to keep a diary,” I said, looking away, unable to keep eye contact with her. God, if only I hadn’t been writing down my feelings while waiting for her at the coffee shop.

If only I hadn’t written how excited I was to see her today.

How sad I was that we’d be splitting up soon, that she’d go to college in California while I’d stay here.

If only I hadn’t written that I was in love with her, in big block capitals.

I was happy when I had written it, as though putting it into writing for the first time formalized it, somehow.

Made it real in my brain, somehow… ended the uncertainty.

But she came in, and I didn’t see her. I couldn’t shut my diary fast enough.

She read the page over my shoulder.

When I realized she was behind me, it was too late.

Who the hell keeps a diary in the twenty-first century?

If I’d been journaling into an app on my phone, she’d have never been able to read it. The whole reason I did it in a book was because it felt more secure, so that if I ever lost my phone, I wouldn’t have to worry about somebody reading it.

Look at how that backfired.

I got up and ran out of the coffee shop, blowing off my lunch date with Jettie, and walked home by myself. It took me nearly an hour.

“I know it must have been hard for you… for me to find out like this.”

“How could you know?” I asked, and then regretted my barb. But Jettie just took it in stride.

“Kathy, I wasn’t unhappy when I read that.”

“You looked unhappy.”

“I was just shocked. I never suspected.”

“What, never suspected that I was a lesbian?” I said. “That I was in love with you? That this whole time, I’d been hiding it from you? Lying to you?”

“I don’t think you were lying to me,” she said softly.

There was another pause, and we both sipped from our beers.

“You’ve been in love with me?”

“Yes!” I cried, burying my burning face in my hands. “Yes, okay? I admit it. It’s true! Are you happy now? You got me to say it.”

“I am happy,” she said. A moment later, I felt an electric touch on my hand, and looked up to find Jettie’s fingers wrapping around my own. She pulled my hands from my face. “I am happy.”

“Why could you possibly be happy?”

“Because, Kathy,” she said. “This whole time… I’ve been hiding something from you, too.”

The world fell away beneath my feet.

I couldn’t talk.

I couldn’t think.

What?!

Silence. We sat in silence together like we had so many other times before.

But this time was like none of those other times.

I tried to quiet my racing mind. In the flash of an eye, I had mapped out every conceivable possibility, like some kind of time traveler watching timelines branch out like a gnarled, leafless tree. In my mind’s eye, I felt like I had watched myself live out every conceivable life.

The happy ones.

The sad ones.

The good ones.

The bad ones.

The bittersweet ones.

The horrifying ones.

I felt like I was going crazy.

“You’re confused,” she said.

“You’re damn right I am.” With my reply, I had let my emotions show in my voice, get the better of me.

I needed to calm down. I needed to not panic.

Breathe.

“I need to think of the right way to say it,” Jettie said. She always was quite careful with her words. She wasn’t like me. Words just poured out of me when I got emotional.

I remember once being told by my English teacher that I wasted words. Well, Jettie was the opposite to that. She was prudent with her words. Concise. Spartan.

“I… I actually am nervous,” she told me.

I glanced away from my own fidgeting hands to observe her for just a second, the longest I could bear to look at her. “You don’t look it.”

No, she didn’t look nervous at all. Jettie was a picture of calm beauty. She looked unflappable. She looked as if she neither got too high, nor too low. It’s how she always looked.

I had always looked up to her.

She sucked in a deep long breath, and she did it slowly. I watched out of the corner of my eye as her ample breasts rose and fall. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to say what I want to,” she said with a slight shake of her head.

“Just say it.”

“On the way over, I quickly scribbled down a poem.”

I raised an eyebrow. “While you were driving?”

“Yeah,” she said sheepishly. “Dangerous, I know, but… but it was just… it’s just…”

“What is it, Jet?”

“I read those words in your diary: I’m in love with my best friend.”

I blushed furiously. My ears must have looked like burning orange bits of coal.

“I wanted to put my own feelings into words.”

My own feelings.

“What feelings?” I asked.

“Here,” she said, retrieving a folded up piece of paper from her bag. She held it out to me, and I noticed the paper was shaking ever so slightly in between her fingers.

I took the piece of paper, gingerly unfolded it, and saw scrawled in messy writing that there were a few short stanzas.

“Please read it, Kathy,” she implored.

I nodded, and gulped, and began to read:

So long I’ve run away

From what I feel inside.

I’ve tried to tell my heart

That it is all a lie.

I’m so afraid to say

The truth of who I am.

This love inside, it burns

For that I should not have.

I’m different but the same.

I yearn for love like you.

Kathy, we are the same.

I am in love with you.

I read it, and then I read it again.

And then I read it again.

I didn’t look up. I couldn’t bear to. I didn’t dare to.

I didn’t know if I’d be able to hold her eyes. My heart was swelling, my stomach doing backflips. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I refused to believe this could be true.

All this time? We were the same way?

All this time? We didn’t know?

How could I not have known? How could I not have noticed?

“It’s not exactly Shakespeare,” she said, and I let out a small, quick laugh. “But, you see,” she said, softly, scooting closer to me on the bed, her palms rubbing against her knees.

Wow, she really was nervous.

“I didn’t want you to run away today, Kathy. I’m sorry if I seemed shocked or upset. I’m sorry that I didn’t respond the right way, that I violated your privacy, and that you couldn’t tell me in your own way.

“I wasn’t shocked or upset, even if I looked it. I was, truthfully, surprised. I was surprised because I’d been thinking about you in this way for a long time. And I didn’t know you felt the same way. I was surprised because I know how big this is, how important this is, and that just so carelessly I read something – without even thinking, without even stopping to consider if I should read it – and it turned out to be… well, you know.” Her voice trailed off.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said, stammering.

“Just say what you feel.”

I finally looked up and met her eyes. “How did you write all this while driving?”