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She didn’t wait for me to answer; she just turned and started walking. I thought about calling after her again, but it was getting close to the top of the hour, and I didn’t want to be late for my next class.
I was going to have to do something about this. There was no way I was letting Margie think she wasn’t good enough for me. I really had enjoyed hanging out with her—she was so refreshingly down to earth compared to Siobhan and Miriam and some of the other folks in our circle. They weren’t bad people, but you had to put up a façade when talking to them.
It wasn’t like that with Margie. I felt like I could actually be myself with her. She wouldn’t have cared if I wasn’t wearing cool clothes or didn’t have cool friends. She was just looking for a genuine human connection. And that was much more valuable than social status.
I walked to my next class feeling a little guilty. Of course, Siobhan and Miriam’s behavior wasn’t my fault, but I still felt responsible. It made me not want to hang out with them anymore. Siobhan hadn’t been my favorite to begin with—I found her a little obnoxious in other ways, too—but I could probably talk to Miriam and tell her to be nicer.
I just wanted to make this work. And maybe, just maybe, I was hoping I did have a chance with Margie.
As I sat down in the chair in the lecture hall, I thought back to my previous relationship. She’d been someone a little like Margie—someone I felt like I wanted to protect. Maybe I was a “fixer.” Maybe I kept wanting people whose lives I could somehow fix.
It was all too much to think about, anyway. I let myself get sucked into the lecture, which was about product placement, and tried not to think about Margie.
But it was difficult. I could still see her hurt face, the anger bubbling under the surface.
When I got back to my apartment, I lay down on my bed, tired. I was done with classes for the day, but I still had practice with Kaitlyn in the evening. And I had a ton of homework to do, as always, as well as studying, since I had a stray midterm to take care of. And then I was supposed to call my mom, because she was organizing a graduation party for me and wanted my input on some of the decorations or whatever. And I had to Skype my friend who was studying abroad in Prague. There was just way too much to do.
I sighed. I couldn’t sit still; I had to get up and get started. There was no way I was going to cancel on Kaitlyn; canceling previous obligations was one of my least favorite things to do. I wanted people to be able to count on me.
I put all my things away, made some tea, and settled down to do a bit of reading for class, enjoying the sunlight filtering in through my windows. I was getting into the reading, which was surprisingly pretty interesting, when my phone pinged with a text.
My heart dropped like a stone in my chest when I’d read it. It was Kaitlyn, asking about the songs she wanted me to look at. Fuck. I’d totally forgotten—and I’d told her at Miriam’s birthday that I would have them ready for this practice session.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I had to put off this reading now. Instead, I scrabbled around in my pile of papers until I found the notes and lyrics Kaitlyn had given me.
I didn’t like having to switch gears like this, but I only had a couple of hours to get these songs ready. And that was if I skipped dinner… which I would probably do, so I could pick up a pizza on the way back from Kaitlyn’s place.
I groaned. When had life become like this? I was a second semester senior—I was supposed to be carefree and ready to graduate. Instead, I was swamped in all this work, unable to even think about graduating.
I texted Kaitlyn back and assured her I would have the songs ready because damn it, I wasn’t going over unprepared.
I was going to get all my work done… if it was the last thing I did.
MARGIE
I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been.
As soon as I left Brianne and her friends, I walked to my entomology class. There, I tried to get lost in the lecture about butterflies and moths—which should have been fascinating—but I couldn’t. I was thinking about so much.
One, the fact that I’d gotten my hopes up. I thought I could make friends with Brianne and her crew, but that was clearly not going to happen. A couple of them were nice, but why would I want to hang out with people who weren’t nice to me? I wasn’t going to try to prove anything to them—not that I had anything to prove, anyway. And Brianne herself had apologized, but what kind of person was she if she kept the company of people like that?
I may have been desperate for friendship, but I wasn’t going to allow people to disrespect me.
Two, the fact that everyone seemed to think I was a lesbian. Maybe it was because “everyone” so far was just gay people, but it didn’t matter—it had set me on a train of thought I couldn’t get off of. Maybe I really was into women.
Nah, no way. There wasn’t a chance of that. Was there?
I mean, I could think women were beautiful… but that was just because it was normal for women of all orientations to find women beautiful. There were a lot of gorgeous women in the world and I could appreciate that even if I was straight.
Except I had dabbled in looking at lesbian smut before, and I’d been into it, kinda… But that didn’t mean anything, did it? People were into all kinds of things in erotica they weren’t into in real life. And surely sexual experimentation was common.
If I examined myself honestly, it just didn’t make sense that I was gay. Bisexual maybe, but that was pushing it, because I didn’t find women even a fraction as attractive as I found men. The guys on campus caught my eye much more frequently than the girls.
But did I want to actually do anything with them? I wasn’t sure. I’d fooled around with guys, and I’d had sex in a drunken one night stand back at Amherst, but I wasn’t sure if I found sex that interesting. On the other hand, when I fantasized about doing it with women, I wasn’t that interested, either. Sure, it felt good, but…
My mind wandered back to Brianne. I didn’t want to feel like a lost puppy who was just following someone who was kind, but that was what it felt like. I felt a sort of fondness for her because she’d shown kindness to me. And it seemed like she still wanted to be my friend. The conversation we’d had before I left had been heartfelt, I could tell, and I knew she really did feel bad. I just couldn’t stick around—my emotions would get the better of me. I had to leave and cool off.
I needed to text her if I wanted to salvage my first actual friendship since coming to Beasley.
