If she can be understanding about this, hopefully she can be just as understanding about what I have to tell her.
As I bring our plates to the table, my stomach twists into knots, full of nerves that have nothing to do with the meal.Maybe I should wait until we’ve eaten. Maybe I should wait until tomorrow.
Maybe I should just—
No.
It’ll only get worse the longer I drag it out.
I take the seat across from her, the table between us feeling like a barricade.
“Molly, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”
Her fork pauses midair. “Okay,” she says slowly, cautiously. “What’s up?”
Taking a breath, I stare down at the food on my plate. It looks and smells delicious, but I suddenly have no appetite, the aroma instead making my stomach turn again.
“It’s nothing bad. Or…Idon’t think it is. It’s just something I’ve been figuring out.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
I force myself to look up and meet her blue-eyed gaze. “I’m bisexual,” I blurt. “I only realized it recently. I just…I thought you should know. I didn’t want to feel like I was hiding it from you.”
Silence.
Her fork clinks softly as she sets it down. “Oh.”
The hum of the fridge fills the quiet. The sound of a car passing outside. The faint tick of my mom’s old wall clock. All of it feels painfully loud.
I wait, but she doesn’t say anything else for several long, tense seconds.
Finally, she lets out a shaky breath and forces a small smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Okay. Wow. Um…I mean, that’s…good that you’re being honest with yourself.”
I want to believe she sounds sincere because I never thought of her as homophobic. My best friend is gay, and she and Bodie have always gotten along well. We’ve both seen the shit he’s hadto put up with from too many people in this town, and she’s always seemed supportive.
However, as her face scrunches with whatever thoughts are running through her mind, now I’m not so sure.
“But?” I prompt.
Her fingers start fidgeting with the edge of her napkin. “It’s just…I don’t know, Jackson. I could tell things have been kind of off lately, but I didn’t think it was because of…this.”
“It’s not,” I say quickly. “I mean, it’s not about anyone else or anything. I just didn’t want to keep it from you.”
Maybe I should have.
She bites her lip, looking anywhere but at me. “I just don’t know what that means forus. You say it’s not about anyone else, but someone had to have made you realize this, right?”
Okay, fair point.
“And if you like guys too, that’s kind of like double the competition.”
“Double the competition?” I repeat incredulously.
Okay, so maybe she’s not homophobic, but she might be biphobic. Or maybe I’m just being overly sensitive because all of this is so new.
But to me, it sounds like she just expects me to fall into bed with the first man who shows interest. We’ve been together long enough that she should fucking know me better than that.
“That’s not how it works,” I tell her, my voice starting to rise in volume with how agitated I’m getting.
