“My… Twitter account?”
“That’s the one. The early days of Saskia Saltmarshe. The unfiltered ones.”
Saskia's expression remained blank, but Kivi could see her clench her jaw. Yep. She'd cottoned on to what Kivi was saying.
“I must say, you fooled me, Saskia. All that enthusiasm about Cass and Felicia’s wedding, all the smiles and being nice as pie… I would never have had you down as a homophobe.”
Saskia flinched. Kivi’s words had struck her. Good.
“Knowing I was gay, as well. I thought you thought that lesbians were disgusting? Aren't you worried that I'll somehow… I don't know, infect you? With my lesbian spores?” She wiggled her fingers mockingly.
“Don't be ridiculous,” Saskia muttered, her cheeks turning pink.
“Ridiculous? You thinkI'mbeing ridiculous? Did you havenoself-awareness? Couldn't you see that those postsyouwere making were ridiculous?”
“You think I'm prejudiced,” Saskia murmured. “You dug out my teenage social media account. I don't believe this.”
“Neither do I!” Kivi hissed. “I could hardly believe my eyes. I was so wrong about you. I thought you were a good person. Chippy now and again, perhaps, but not abigot.”
“You think I'm a homophobe,” Saskia murmured.
“Well, aren't you?” Kivi said indignantly, waving her arm in the air. “Because your social media posts give a pretty good indication of what festers inside your head.”
Saskia snapped back to Earth.“Kivi, pray tell,whenwere those posts from?”
“The mid-2000s, something like that. See? Your prejudice has gone unchallenged for so many years, the rot will have well and truly set in now. Don't you see? It's people like you, attitudes like yours, that drove Gareth and Drew into early self-inflictedgraves?”
Her voice broke on the last word. Oh, fuck. She wasn't going to cry. Saskia Saltmarshe didnotget to make her cry.
“Kivi!” Saskia actually looked furious. As if she had any fucking right.
“They killed themselves because people were against their sexuality. People like you, withyourso-called opinions and world views. Well, let me tell you something aboutme-”
“Kivi!That was fifteen fucking years ago!” Saskia finally exploded. Her face twisted, and it was faintly terrifying. “I was a bloody teenager then! Presumably, while you've been working yourself up into a froth all day thinking I'm the rainbow version of Cruella-de-fucking-Vil, it didn't occur to you that my viewpoints may havechanged?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Saskia
Kivi stopped mid-flow.
Thank God for that. Saskia's wrath tended to do that to people: take the wind out of their sails and render them mute, normally through sheer terror. The trouble was, once she got started, she had difficulty stopping. As was the case now.
“You're an intelligent woman, Kivi. Surely you realise that very few people are the same at thirty as they are at thirteen. I made a mistake – several mistakes – but I am not that person now.”
“What, so you did a complete one-eighty, did you?” Kivi's face wrinkled in scorn. Back on her feet and ready to continue fighting. “Went from raging homophobe to loving ally overnight? You expect me to believe that?”
“I do, because it’s the honest fucking truth.” Saskia's words spat out of her like bullets. “It didn't happenquiteovernight, but my thoughts changed quite drastically when half my family came out as bisexual.”
“Halfyour family? Don't exaggerate.”
“Well, my mum and my brother. They're about the only people I regard as family.”
“They both came out to you?” Kivi still didn't look convinced. “At the same time? Knowing how… against them you were?”
“I don't think it was exactly the plan. But they did. And it forced me to think,properlythink, for probably the first time in my entire life.”
“And? What thoughts went through your head?‘Oh, I get it now: gay people are actually human beings, just like straight people!’”
