Page 66 of These Secret Years

Chelsea is beautiful with long boho braids she keeps up meticulously, a fit body stacked with curves, and skin the softest, most beautiful shade of pale brown I’ve ever seen, smooth all over like satin. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. But that’s not what I was referring to. For the record, I’ve never heard anything bad about you, and I think you’re great.”

“But you’re asking if I’m what? Bi? Queer?”

“Curious. I’m asking if you’ve ever been curious. Maybe I should start this by saying, I’m not questioning you. I’m questioning me.”

“Oh. Yeah, you totally should have opened with that.”

“Now I know better for next time.”

She laughs. “Well, if you’re asking as my friend, I would say, yes. Of course I’m curious. I don’t understand anyone who isn’t, really. Especially girls. Girls are so pretty. Actually, I find more girls attractive than guys, but I like a penis. A real one, not a silicone one, although there’s a time and place for those too.”

I let out a tense breath. “I guess here’s what I’m trying to say. When I got to school last fall, I wasn’t sure whether I liked girls or guys, or if I liked both or honestly neither.”

“Okay,” she says with no discernible judgment whatsoever.

“But, I mean, I like you. A lot.”

Her laugh is soft. “I like you, too. You’re one of the hotter ones.”

“I can’t possibly disagree with you more on that⁠—”

“Have you seen yourself play violin?”

I swallow hard on a sudden uprising of bile. Rubbing my eyes, I try not to let the trigger activate in full, but the tightness in my chest and the swirling nausea threaten to get me all at once. “Not since I was in eighth grade orchestra.” Suddenly, I don’t care whether she gets upset with what I’m about to say or not. Whatever shred of self-preservation I still possessed disappears with the need to either change the subject or self-destruct. “Anyway, what I’m saying is I still have other interests. And none of that means I want to break up or stop seeing you, but it sort of means I might want to explore other things, too.”

“Oh.” She pauses a moment, then asks, “Hey, are you all right?”

She’s good at picking up on my mood swings, even over the phone, and my mood has definitely swung. “I’m fine, but it’s like—maybe you don’t want to be boyfriends with someone who doesn’t know what the fuck he wants.”

“Okay, okay, slow down. I do want to be your girlfriend, but it’s more important to me that we’re friends. I hope you know that.”

“I didn’t know that,” I snap. “That’s why I called.”

“Well, then let me say it again for the record. You’re my best friend. I admire you. I like you. I love you. And if you’ve got some shit to figure out, then let me help, because that’s what friends are for.”

I take a massive breath, and my body relaxes in the seat again.

“That’s the only label I’m gonna insist we keep,” she adds. “Friends.”

I nod to myself, trying to appreciate her and how amazing she is, and how lucky I found one person I genuinely feel like I can trust after feeling manipulated and used for so long. It’s not easy to accept at all.

So much of this past year for me was about retaking my freedom. Getting control back in any way I could manage it. I don’t consider myself a controlling person in general or someone who would act the way I did tonight with Knight, but it was the only way I could think to be with him when I very much wanted to be with him. Giving him blow jobs and not letting him touch me was weird, and it made me feel like I was trying to be Adrian—not myself.

Unlike Adrian, I want to be touched, but I want to decide who does it and when and where, and I guess that also means I have to set the terms and control the situation—but also be able to get away and stop it at any time.

In nine months, I’ve managed to ruin my body by exerting way too much control over it, refusing to listen to what it wanted and forcing my will onto it instead. Tiny mutilations and not nearly enough food for someone six feet tall because…why?

I hang my head and try to breathe. I ask Chelsea to give me a minute, and she says it’s fine.

Because I thought it would make Adrian stop.

“I think…I think I thought no one could possibly want me like this.”

“Like what?” she asks softly.

“Bony and dressed in shit clothes. Letting my hair grow and never dealing with it and all these stupid stamp tattoos.”

“I like your tattoos. And you’re not bony. You’re thin. And you know it’s always the tall, skinny, white guys who’ve got the big dicks.”