“I know. I know,” she says, too fast, too defensive. “It’s just…I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives wondering if you’re checking out guys whenever we go out or if you’re going to realize one day that maybe you want something I can’t give you.”
“Molly—”
“Maybe we should take a break.” As she cuts me off, she finally looks up into my face, a sadness and a fear in her eyes. “Just so we can both figure things out.”
There’s no malice in her tone, but the damage has been done.
The realization hits me harder than her words. If she sincerely believes that I’d fuck up a year and a half long relationship just because I might be attracted to menandwomen, then she clearly never trusted me at all.
I always thought Molly was one of the good ones. However, as I stare at her across the table, her once pretty blue eyes are now filled with something ugly.
I’m seeing her in an entirely new light.
And it’s not flattering.
We’ve been together a fucking year and a half. And, sure, we both admitted moving in together last year was probably going a bit fast, but we were both desperate to get out of our parents’ houses. She wanted to live on her own, wanted more freedom. I just wanted to get away from my dad.
Now it looks like that’s exactly where I’ll be heading back to.
But I can’t even care right now. I don’t feel like fighting this anymore.
“Yeah,” I say as I push my chair back and stand. “That sounds like a great idea.”
She looks surprised, like maybe she expected me to argue. Her eyes follow me as I round the table. “Jackson, wait—”
But I’m already heading for the door. I grab my keys off the counter and pause just long enough to peer back at her. “I’ll be back for my stuff tomorrow.”
With a small nod, she frowns and says, “I’m sorry, Jackson.”
The words hang hollow in the air.
I’m surprised that the fact she doesn’t mean them doesn’t hurt.
I step out into the night, and the quiet hits me hard, but in a way that feels lighter, something similar to relief. Like the space I’ve been carving inside myself finally has room to breathe.
Streetlights blur in the sheen of mist on the pavement as I walk to my car, the air sharp and clean against my skin. The quiet stretches out around me, not empty but open.
For the first time, I don’t feel like I’m running from something. I don’t feel guilty for wanting to stay away instead of fixing things.
There hasn’t been anything to fix for a long time.
I slide into the driver’s seat and rest my hands on the steering wheel, my reflection caught faintly in the windshield. My own eyes look different somehow.
I think of Professor Kendall then, his calm voice, the way he leans against the edge of the podium when he talks about a line of poetry like it’s something sacred. The thought shouldn’t bring comfort, but it does. It reminds me that there’s still more to want, more to discover. That this version of myself doesn’t have to apologize for existing.
As I start the engine, I realize that tonight might not just be the end of something.
Maybe it can be the beginning of something too.
“Did you hear he’s gay?”
“I heard he’s bi.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“You know Molly McCarthy, right? She’s fucking hot. There’s no way a guy who’s into girls would leave that.”
Those are just some of the things I’ve been hearing in the halls this past week. A bunch of homophobic and biphobic bullshit. It pisses me the fuck off.
