Luke
Sometimes Ryan sees a vaguely ominous shape in a puddle or something and thinks the world is ending or trying to tell him something. Not sure how much he actually believes that and how much he just likes messing with me, but it’s super not science-y for someone so… science-y.
Because my brain interprets almost everything Ryan does as awesome even when it’s annoying, I like that about him. That he can be so studious and academic one minute then crazy the next. He knows how to enjoy life, when to take things seriously and when to have fun.
Me? I have no idea whether things are random or destined, whether the world is order or chaos. Or both or neither. If Lydia wasn’t getting along with her girlfriend these days, it was only a matter of time before I walked in on them having a dramatic emotional scene. We did live together. Could be totally random.
Maybe it was a blessing. Supposed to distract me from my own problems. Perhaps show me what not to do. Maybe there was a reason this was happening. I would learn from it, grow. Mostly though, it was annoying. Especially when I walked in mid-fight and they both glared at me and acted like I was inconveniencing them.
Yeah, that was really annoying. I wanted to point out that they were in my room, but it looked like all either one of them needed was an excuse and then they would murder the first person to piss them off, so. That sucked. And yeah, I wanted them to work things out, but covering up my murder together and bonding over their dark secret was not what I had in mind.
“Don’t you dare, Chambers,” Lydia warned me. “You’re the one who hides Clueless under your bed like it’s a dirty magazine.” When you put it that way, it sounds bad.
I raised my hands in surrender. There were lots of DVDs I kept under my bed and maybe it’s kinda girly, but Clueless was also really good. It was a replacement copy actually, because Rose took a bunch of our best DVDs to school freshman year and they either never came back or were scratched or missing one of the set. Now I hid the best ones away. And they weren’t always under my bed; the hiding spot moved because Rose was crafty.
My sister Rose cared about gentrification and saving the planet, but she didn’t care about saving her DVDs from messy, careless college students.
“Uh, I can get the DVD,” I offered weirdly. They got distracted before they could grab it and leave, but the DVD case rested on my bed. Even if this was a good distraction, I didn’t need them fighting in my room.
“We don’t need your help,” she responded icily. I was glad Lydia didn’t come from a family of secret of ninjas. If she did, I would definitely be dead by now.
Alicia sent her girlfriend a dirty look. Never seen her do that to Lydia before, had I? “You don’t have to be mean, it’s his room.” At least they knew that, so now maybe they could go to Lydia’s room instead.
“I noticed the jockstraps and glamour shots of Ryan,” Lydia remarked wryly even though my room was clean and a lot less weird than hers. She was better at dirty looks but Alicia held her own because of acting. And by dirty, I meant mean. Not sexy. None of this was sexy. There were a lot of things that weren’t sexy these days.
“I can leave,” I said. Mostly I meant, I’m leaving. Be the change you wanted to see in the world, I’d heard that before.
“You probably know more than me anyway,” Alicia addressed me, so I stopped trying to leave, even though I still wanted to. She shook her head. “Trying to get you to tell me anything when you were coming out was impossible—” Now she was talking to her girlfriend again. “And he was there holding your hand and meeting your parents, hearing every detail.”
“This isn’t about that,” Lydia dismissed while I wondered if I could sneak out.
“Are you sure? You’re still not talking to me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Lydia told her girlfriend, pacing around in the small space. She made a frustrated noise. “I keep thinking this is because you heard me say something dumb.”
“This is something I already worried about.” Great, not only were they fighting in my room, but I wasn’t sure I even totally understood what they were fighting about. I was sorta interested in hearing this anyway, so I stuck around.
“And I didn’t know that!” Lydia exclaimed because she did know what they were fighting about and that obviously bothered her.
“Just like I don’t know what’s going on in your head,” Alicia countered.
Lydia threw her arms up in the air for a moment. “I don’t even know what’s going on in my head. I feel dumber than Luke.” Real nice. I thought about pointing out that I was still here but that was probably why she said it.
I thought that was all for a moment and everyone would stop being weird in my room but then Lydia made a frustrated noise. “The biggest fucking mistake I ever made was trying to make my parents happy.” She sounded so sure of that even though it made me frown.
Guess it made sense though. Her parents wanted a different daughter, one who was quiet and sweet and straight. That last one was the deal breaker for her ultra-religious parents, obviously. While I really don’t want to think about this, there had been a time when neither Lydia nor I had been ready to come out. To buy time with our parents, we said we were dating each other.
Her parents believed that we were dating. It worked but it didn’t make her happy. She wanted them to stay in her life, but it was like she was giving up herself in order to do that. Because Lydia didn’t pretend, she didn’t hide. If you couldn’t handle her, that wasn’t her problem. Until it was her parents who couldn’t handle her.
“I never should have even tried to be something different for someone else,” Lydia said. “I just got so confused because they were my mom and dad.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Alicia said softly.
“Now they’re nothing,” Lydia said simply.
“No—"
“Yes. And it’s fine.” Before anyone could question that, she continued, “I mean, it’s not but. I think we’re all going to be much happier without each other.” She stepped closer to Alicia. “No one makes me do anything I don’t want to do, that’s something I will never forget again, it was the worst. I would never want to put you through that, ask you to give more than you can.”
