“Maybe that’s the problem. I always cared more about what you were going through than you cared about me. Maybe that’s why it was hard to tell you the truth.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“No, I’m not. Because while I loved you, Nya, I couldn’t turn that off just because you found out I was a girl. Do you know how badly that hurt me?”
“Why did you bring her?” Nyako asked accusingly as her voice rose hysterically.
“Because, she needs to see what she’s done. She needs to carry the weight of your pain too. It’s not fair for you to hold it all on your own. I’m here to carry it with you, but she needs to own the weight of her actions, Nyako.”
Her chest heaved heavily as she faced me. I gripped her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “No one said that this would be easy, but I’m telling you that it is necessary. It’s essential for your growth, healing, and breakthrough. Don’t carry this weight on your own, sweetheart, or it will leave you stooped and broken.”
I turned her back around to face JoJo, whose bottom lip trembled, and her eyes were filled with sorrow and regret.She was a little taller than five feet, with ginger-colored skin, thick, bushy eyebrows over beautiful cognac-brown eyes hidden behind thick glasses. Her hair spiraled out to her shoulders in a mass of corkscrew curls, hinting at her mixed parentage along with her coloring. She no longer wore the braces that Nyako mentioned she wore two years ago.
She was a beautiful girl, but she clearly had body image issues the way that she wore her clothes extremely large on her already bulky frame, and how she curved her back in, closing in on herself.
“JoJo, this woman has every right to be angry with you about what you did to her. I’m less concerned about why you did what you did than I am with the fact that you did it. She’s come to mean a lot to me in a short while. What I realize is that I can’t love her properly until she’s gotten closure over the bullshit you pulled on her. Now, I’ve prepared us a wonderful meal. I know that Nyako’s not feeling it, but we’re gonna sit our asses down at the table and enjoy this meal and talk about this. You understand?”
JoJo’s eyes widened as she stared at me with partly opened lips and nodded.
“Good. Let’s go.” I took Nyako’s hand and led her to the table, where I pulled out her chair and helped her into her seat and then did the same thing for JoJo, whose real name was Josephine, not Joseph; that was her father’s name.
We sat at the table for a while, and I watched Nyako mess over her food as we listened to JoJo discuss how she wanted to be a model at one point, but all the smaller girls teased her and told her she could never be one.
“I was on there looking for someone who had a lot in common with me when I stumbled across Nya’s profile. She was gorgeous, and I couldn’t believe that we had so much in common. It was like a no-brainer. I had every intention offriending her and just trying to be a friend. I built that fake profile, and before you knew it, I had reached out to her, and she accepted it. We talked all night long, and I couldn’t believe it when she reached out again the next day. It was so easy talking to her because she understood me in ways no one else ever did.”
“I didn’t understand you. I didn’t even know you,” Nyako spit out bitterly.
I reached under the table and grabbed her hand to squeeze it.
“Sorry. You’re right, but it doesn’t change the fact that I fell in love with you.”
“Did it occur to you that she wasn’t gay?” I asked.
“I wasn’t either. I mean, it wasn’t about sexuality for me. It was about how she saw me, how she poured into me, and how she made me feel. Nya, I loved you . . . It wasn’t intentional what I did. I wasn’t even trying to hurt you, but you’re so easy to love.”
Nyako glared at her for a moment before the tears fell again. She angrily swiped at them before she looked at me.
“What are you feeling, baby?” I asked, grabbing her hand again.
“Drained. Confused. Angry. You could have reached out to me as yourself and initiated a friendship.”
“I didn’t think you would want to be my friend. You’re you and look at me.”
Shaking her head, Nyako stated, “I’m not about to do this with you. I’m not about to pour into you to make you feel good about yourself because you’re a victim. You’re not, JoJo!” Her tone was heated, and she clenched my hand.
“I know that, and I apologize for that. I didn’t want just your friendship, Nya. I wanted your love. I realized that I was falling in love with you, and I had never experienced anything like that before. I wasn’t gay, and I hadn’t had feelings for a woman, . . . but I had them for you. I was baffled, and I didn’t know what to do with it but lean into it.”
“Didn’t you realize I’d want to meet eventually?”
“Yes. I wasn’t sure what I would do.”
“Who was the man I was speaking with whenever we spoke once a week?”
“Josh, my next-door neighbor. He was just as invested in us as I was. He wanted to see me win,” JoJo answered simply and sadly with a shrug.
“You’re a beautiful girl, JoJo. Why didn’t you try to find someone who would love you for you?” I asked.
“People don’t see me. When they find out that I operate an ice cream truck and live in a trailer park with my parents and little brother, they just shut me out. It’s like I don’t matter.”
