Everything Leads to You

She’s looking at Ava so I introduce them.

“That’s quite the stack you guys have,” Laura says, her eyes darting from Ava to me. She’s holding a suede jacket with fringe and a pair of pink sunglasses.

“It’s for a film I’m working on,” I say.

“Cool,” she says. I can tell she wants to see, but I don’t have time to show her everything and explain it all, so I just say yeah and smile and wait for her to walk away.

“Great finds,” Ava tells her. “I love the fringe.”

Laura looks down at the jacket as though she’d forgotten about it.

“Thanks,” she says to Ava. Then, to me, “I didn’t see you at graduation.”

“Yeah, Charlotte and I left right after the ceremony.”

“You aren’t very sentimental, are you?”

“Only about some things.” I wait for her to respond but she doesn’t, so I say, “Well, it was nice to see you.”

She laughs like she gets the point.

“Okay, Emi,” she says. She looks at Ava one more time, and then she says good-bye and walks away.

I turn back to the artwork and shake my head at Ava.

“Was she looking at me strangely?” Ava asks.

“She probably thinks we’re dating,” I say. “Laura and I went out for a while junior year.”

“Oh,” she says, and she blushes a deeper red than usual.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I just didn’t know you liked girls. Well, I thought you might, but I wasn’t sure.”

“You weren’t?” I ask, but I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. People talk about coming out as though it’s this big one-time event. But really, most people have to come out over and over to basically every new person they meet. I’m only eighteen and already it exhausts me.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just figured you knew.”

She shakes her head no.

“I’ll put it this way,” she says. “When you grow up in the desert and the only people you’re allowed to hang out with are the people who go to your mom’s church, and the girl you think is in love with you turns out to not be in love with you at all, there’s a tendency to feel a little bit alone in the world.”

“But I mentioned Morgan.”

“Morgan isn’t always a girl’s name,” she says.

She locks eyes with me, her blush fading. There’s a confidence in the way she’s looking at me that makes it difficult to know what to do or say next. Especially when all the things I want to do and say are not the things I should.

“Yeah, well, this Morgan is a girl,” I finally say, remembering the strands of this conversation, pretending that what we’re actually talking about is Morgan and not what Morgan represents about me. “We had this on-and-off relationship for the past year, and she didn’t want to let me go, but at the same time she wanted to date other people and it was just really confusing.”

“Oh.” Ava nods in understanding and then shakes her head in sympathy, her gaze broken, her blush returning, all traces of confidence escaping.

And I realize that what I’ve said makes it seem like I want to get back together with Morgan, when I don’t. Especially not now, with Ava standing here next to me in Goodwill, a pile of portraits at her feet, her hair pulled to the side in a ponytail, a wisp of it fallen on her graceful neck, her eyes wide and vulnerable, clearly embarrassed by presuming that I’d find her attractive just because I like girls.

In the conversation we’re not having, the one that actually isn’t about Morgan at all and is instead about Ava and me, I would be saying, When you look at me this way I want nothing more than to kiss you. I would be saying, Maybe I did know you figured I was straight. Maybe it felt safer that way. I would be saying, Could this be a good idea—you and me?

Instead I say, “But I finally got over her.”

Ava, looking at the bin of small pieces of art instead of at me, asks, “Do you see her a lot?”

“Yeah. She’s working on the film. She kind of got me the job.”

“How can you do that? I don’t know what I’d do if I had to see Lisa again.”

I shrug. “You’re probably still in love with Lisa,” I say. And then, “I’m ready for something new. Someone new, I mean.”

She reaches into the bin, moves a few framed pictures aside. I can see a smile tug at the corners of her mouth but she still doesn’t look at me. She lifts out a small portrait of a woman in a thin green frame.

“I’m not in love with Lisa,” she says.

A buzz comes from inside her purse. She sets the portrait on top of the pile and pulls out her phone.

“Hello?” she says, and then she turns to me, her hand flying to her mouth. “Yes,” she says. “Hi, Theo.”

I stare at her with my eyes wide, not breathing until she says, “Yes, of course I’m still interested. Yes, I can come right now.”

She hangs up.

“They want me to come in and read for the part. I can’t believe this.”

“You’re perfect for it.”