Jade shrugged. “Dunno. Lots of openings, not a lot of promise. We’ll see how things go.”
“Well, I hope something comes up soon,” Cat said, forcing a brightness into her voice, and Jade sighed.
“Thanks,” she said, pushing away from us both. “Gonna go grab some water real quick. For both of us. You look like you need to pace yourself.”
“I’m good!” Cat protested after her, but Jade went anyway, and it was clearly about more than just getting water, but Cat turned to me with a small shrug. “You have a thing for stubborn girls, huh?”
I hunched my shoulders. “Ah, well… it’s not like I know what kind of girls I’m into. I’ve been repressing that.”
“Who was your gay awakening, anyway?”
I snorted. “I don’t know… I think I just always thought everyone felt like that about girls. And people. I used to think everyone felt the way I did and you just kind of picked if you wanted to be with boys or girls. So I definitely crushed on, like, actresses, girls at school, but I was just like, no, I’ve decided to be straight.”
“That’s so you.I just think everyone is beautiful.”
“Why, who was yours?”
She grinned. “Willow from Buffy. I wrote a self-insert fanfiction where she dominated a girl who was basically me with a different name. And they had tons of sex, but I didn’t really know how sex worked then, so it was just like,they took their clothes off and ooh, yeah.”
“That’s… so you.”
“The writing was terrible, and thank god, because my parents found it but they couldn’t make it past the first chapter, so they didn’t know Willow’s tongue was fully down my throat by the end of chapter two. They got mad at me for writing about demonic TV series instead, which, I guess, I gotta hand it to them, it did make me gay. Maybe they were right.”
“I feel like I need a better gay awakening story myself now too.”
She laughed, but there was something more serious on her face now. “Jade makes for a pretty good one.”
“Ah, well…” I swallowed awkwardly, and Cat sidled up closer next to me, lowering her voice.
“You should tell Daniela.”
I winced. “I’m… I’m trying.”
“Are you?” She looked genuinely inquisitive, brows raised high. I withered more under it than if it had been an accusation.
“I am. It’s just… Jesus, I feel awful. Daniela’s done so much for me. And what have I done for her? Get in the way of her and her crush.”
“She can handle it,” she said. “She’s a big girl. Literally and figuratively. Maybe she’ll be unhappy for a bit, but you’ve gotta step on some toes sometimes, right? Only way to never bump into someone is to never move at all.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have moved at all, if all I was going to do was hurt everyone I ran into along the way. But Cat wouldn’t want to hear me say that. “It’s just… what does it matter?” I said. “Jade’s leaving soon anyway… we’ll have to end things no matter whether I admit to it or not.”
“And will you just keep lying to Daniela when you talk about Jade in the future? If Jade comes around to visit, are you going to play pretend like there was never anything there?”
I wavered, looking down at the floor. She put a hand on my shoulder.
“Daniela’s done stuff for you because she cares about you. That’s it. You don’t need to keep score. But you do owe it to her to be honest.”
I squeezed my hands tightly. “I… I guess. No, you’re right. I know.” I sighed, shaking my head, looking back up at her and loosening my hands—she’d probably caught none of that, and I repeated it while signing. “You’re right. I’ll tell her. I just… don’t know how.”
She smiled. “She’s Daniela. She likes straightforward,” she said, stepping back, relaxing her posture. “Just get her a drink, sit down with her, and tell her you’ve been seeing Jade. You don’t even need to apologize for it, because it’s not like she owns Jade. But maybe to be polite, just don’t brag about how mindblowing the sex is or anything.”
I cleared my throat loudly. “That was not in the cards, no.”
Her smile changed, more vulnerable now. “I think Jade’s avoiding me, which is fair. Can you pass along a message for me?”
“Yeah, of course. What do you want me to tell her?”
She grinned. “That I’m pissed off with her. Going behind my back to repair my friendships for me while she was already halfway out the door? Being all noble and stuff? What a jerk.”
