“That is such genuinely horrible reasoning.”
“Okay.” I avoid her eyes. We were together for over a year, and I knew the whole time, but somehow I don’t regret staying quiet. I wish she’d figured it out somehow. I wish it didn’t feel like this duty I have, to inform everybody.
It’s not that it was easy to keep it a secret, either. I remember every time I almost spoke up. Images flash by lightning-fast: every time I lay beside her, kissed her, or held her in my arms, I felt an invisible wedge between us. And every time, I backed down from the plate instead of stepping up, for fear, and I felt choked. It isn’t easy, keeping quiet.
But it’s still easier. Easier than walking around as myself.
“Look, Claire, if I’d told you . . .” I realize I don’t want to finish that sentence. Too late.
She crosses her arms. “What?”
“Well, the thing is, I knew if I told you, you’d make it a big deal.”
“It is a big deal.”
“Not to me. When we dated, you were the only one I was interested in, of any gender.”
“So you’re pretending it’s not an issue?”
“Don’t do that,” I say sharply. “Stop ignoring what I’m trying to—don’t derail this.” I don’t snap often, but Claire has a unique talent for yanking it out of me. She makes me feel so much. It used to be exhilarating.
“I’m not derailing.” To my surprise, her voice softens. “If you purposefully don’t talk about something, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. If anything, that means it matters more.”
I open my mouth, then shut it again.
Is she right?
If they dragged me onto The Confessor, would they have to pay me ten thousand dollars to face the swim team and say “I’m pansexual”? Twenty thousand to look Valentine in the eyes and say it? Fifty thousand to stand on our auditorium stage, walk up to the podium in front of the school, and say who I am? Because I haven’t done it for free, that’s for sure.
I’ve been telling myself that this is as much for other people as it is for me. After all, I go to church with kids from this school. I’m in a locker room with the swim team every day after school, and I don’t want them to feel like they have to worry about anything. I’ve been thinking, it’s simpler this way, it’s better for everyone, it hasn’t come up. But of course it’s come up. It comes up every time they call each other fags, joking, jostling, and I stay quiet.
Suddenly, my silence feels like suffocation.
“And I’m sorry,” Claire says, “but let me be honest: it feels weird for me. I’m not saying you being pansexual is weird, but I feel weird about it. We broke up, and you’ve been treating me like—like I’m nobody. You don’t say anything that matters. You look right through me. So we go from a hundred to zero overnight, and you turn into this stranger, and since then, I’ve been looking for a reason why you called it off, trying to come up with anything, because you never had the decency to explain. And now this, too? I don’t know. There’s more and more evidence that you’re a whole different person than I thought you were.”
“Wait.” This conversation is veering off the course I’d expected. “You want to know why I broke up with you? That’s what this is about?”
“Yes! I want you to tell me what I, quote, can’t compare to, unquote.”
“I—what?”
“That’s what you said in May,” she says, anger choking her voice. “?‘You can’t compare.’ To God knows what. You don’t remember?”
“Of course I remember.” I close my eyes. “Jeez, Claire, I wasn’t saying you can’t measure up to something or someone. I was starting to say, you can’t compare yourself to other people, but then you were crying, and you tore off, and—”
She draws back, indignation glowing in her eyes. “I do not compare myself to other people!”
“Are you kidding?” I burst out. “That’s all you ever do. Don’t you see it? Don’t you see how obsessed you are with everyone else? You used to talk about Olivia and Juniper like they were your biggest rivals, like they were teams you needed to take down in your next tennis tournament. And I—” I swallow hard. “I started counting it, I started keeping a mental list of it, and it was driving me insane. You treat everyone like measuring sticks for your own self-worth, and if we’re being honest, I broke up with you because I hoped you’d work it out, but you obviously haven’t. Look at you, talking to me as if my sexuality is some sort of personal insult to you. I didn’t ask for this, okay? It’s not like I asked for it!”
The stairwell is a megaphone. The words seem to go on forever. Twirl and leap off the stone.
I rock back on my toes. My fingers are wound in my hair. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
She’s crying now. Claire calls herself an ugly crier, but I don’t think it’s ugly. I still remember the things she used to say about herself. The worst mental list I ever kept: ? “God, I’m stupid.”
? “Sorry, I’m so hopeless.”
? “Ha. I look even worse than I thought I did.”