"Bisexuality," Professor Chen said, "is a valid sexual orientation. Not a phase. Not confusion. Not someone who 'hasn't decided yet.' It's an attraction to more than one gender that exists independently of relationship status or current partner."
She paused. Looked around the room.
"Many bisexual individuals face erasure—from both straight and gay communities. If they're in an opposite-sex relationship, people assume they're straight. Same-sex relationship, people assume they're gay. But bisexuality doesn't disappear based on who you're dating. It's not contingent on behavior. It's an orientation."
The air in the lecture hall felt thick. Too warm. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead—a sound I'd never noticed before but suddenly couldn't ignore.
Someone raised their hand. "Is bisexuality genetic?"
"We don't have a clear answer," Professor Chen said. "Current research suggests sexual orientation is likely influenced by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental factors. But there's no single 'gay gene' or 'bi gene.' Human sexuality is too complex for simple determinism."
Another hand. "Can it change over time?"
"Sexual fluidity is real for some people," she said. "But fluidity doesn't mean choice. You can't choose who you're attracted to any more than you can choose your eye color. What can change is awareness. Acceptance. Willingness to acknowledge what's always been there."
My pen was shaking slightly. I set it down before anyone could see.
You can't choose who you're attracted to.
But I'd been trying. God, I'd been trying. Trying to want Emily the way I wanted Alex. And I had wanted Emily… but that was fading.
"The important thing to understand," Professor Chen continued, "is that sexual orientation—whether heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, or anywhere else on the spectrum—is a normal variation of human experience. There's nothing to fix. Nothing to cure. It simply is."
Normal variation.
She clicked to the next slide. Started talking about hormones and neural pathways.
I couldn't hear her anymore.
My brain was stuck on that Kinsey Scale. On the wordsbisexuality is a valid orientation, not a phase.On the fact that I'd spent my entire life telling myself I didn't have time to think about any of this—that attraction to Alex was confusion, a fluke, something I'd grow out of if I just tried hard enough with someone else.
But I hadn't grown out of it. It had only gotten louder.
Class ended at 10:50. I packed my stuff slowly, waiting for the room to empty. Didn't want to walk out in a crowd. Didn't want anyone to see my face and read whatever was written across it.
Outside, the October air hit cold against my neck. Leaves blowing across the walkway, students cutting between buildings with backpacks and coffees, the hum of a campus that didn't know or care that my world had just tilted sideways.
I didn't go back to the dorm. Couldn't sit in that cinderblock room staring at the wall while my brain ate itself alive. My body needed to move. Needed somewhere that didn't require me to think.
The Riverside boathouse was a ten-minute walk from the science building. Down the wide sidewalk past the parking lots, across the access road, down the gravel slope toward the river.
When I got there, I used my ID on the reader to get in.
I headed upstairs to the erg room and it was almost empty.
Almost.
Remy sat on the floor between two Concept2s, back against the wall, laptop on his knees, earbuds in. His cox box headset sat next to him on the rubber mat—dented, held together with electrical tape, the same one he'd been using since freshman year. A half-eaten protein bar balanced on the arm of the nearest erg.
He looked up when I came in. Pulled one earbud out.
"Bro. You look terrible."
"Thanks."
"I call it like I see it." He looked back at his screen. "Thought you had class till eleven."
"Got out early."
