“Okay, fine, bury it,” she says. “Dig up something better. I meant what I said earlier, about your mind being too cloudy to see the real truth. But maybe that’s not Cam’s fault. You know what I’ve noticed about you two whenever you’re together?”
Sunny leans across the table. I can’t help scooting my drink to one side so I can meet her in this halfway huddle.
“What?” I ask.
“You don’t look at yourselves when you’re around each other,” she says. “Like, of course you’re always giving eachother these yearning sidelong glances. But whenever you two pass by a mirror or a window reflection, you clam up. You both look down at your feet. It’s like you’re afraid of what you look like together. As a couple.”
I just stare at her.
“And maybe that’s what’s holding you back,” Sunny continues. “That, right there, that’s the cloud. You guys started this hunt at one point and now you’re here at this new point, but you won’t connect the two together. And I think you sort of need to. If you want to finish it.”
She stands from the table. I watch as she pulls a small slip of paper from her pocket. It’s Beiye’s number, I realize.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Sunny says. “I have a very cool club to look into and a very hot girl to ask out on a date.”
I give Sunny a salute. “Bye, Tin Man.”
“Oh, you’re still the real Tin Man,” Sunny calls over her shoulder. “I call Dorothy now and forever.”
“Fine,” I say, relenting. “Bye, Dorothy.”
“Bye, Tin Man!” Sunny shoots me a coy smile. “Hope you get that weird-ass heart of yours fixed soon.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I’m squished into the corner of my room with another flower in my hand. This one’s from our side yard, not the park. But I hope it will do the same job, will be my little oracle and tell me what I should do now.
Tell him how I feel.
Let him go for good.
Tell him.
Let him go.
Tell him.
“Let him go.” I sigh and drop the now-bare flower stem next to me. “Fine.”
I let my head fall back so it’s resting on the mattress. There’s the ceiling, and there’s Cam’s curling hair, and he smells so good, and he’s kissing me hard, drawing my mouth open and closed like he’s coaxing something out of me. And then I have to go and ruin it like a complete dumbass.
I groan and snap my head up. I keep ruining things. Maybe it’s best to leave Cam alone for good, like the flower said. ThenI can’t hurt him anymore. Then he can find another girl to start over with. And maybe I can start over too.
I study the flower stem a moment, then pick myself up off the floor.
“Screw oracles,” I say. “I’m telling him.”
I find myself in the mirror across the room and lock onto my reflection. It’s not my job to decide what’s best for Cam. He can be the one to decide that for himself. I think about what Sunny said at The Beanery. This is about me clearing my own head. This is about my real truth.
The truth is…maybe I’m not the exact kind of gay I thought I was two years ago. Maybe I was too chickenshit to tell Cam I liked him directly, so I sidestepped and made the smartest move I could think of at the time: come out as a lesbian with the hope that Cam would put two and two together.But it’s never actually been about being a lesbian, I realize. It’s about liking Cam. It’s always been about my feelings for Cam.
Cam has always been himself—goofy and charismatic, eager and sincere. I’m guilty of so many things when it comes to him…but calling him Cameron that day in my room doesn’t mean I don’t know who he really is. It was a miscommunication, not a misgendering. And I would hate for him to walk away from all this thinking we didn’t work out because I secretly wanted him to be someone else.
I wanthim, exactly the way he is.
And this time I have to tell him that. To his face.
I start riffling through my things, searching for Harvey’s flyer, for Julia’s notebook, for the box with the necklace and scroll. They all belong to Cam. I want him to have them, todecide what he wants to do with them. It’s time for him to get to hold all the pieces of the puzzle.
