“I just don’t understand why you can’t date Jessie. She’s such a nice girl.”
“Mom”, he said, already getting quite a bit annoyed. “I already have a girlfriend.”
“Oh, yes, the intangible Lily. I haven’t even met her,” his mother looked like she was really mad at him as she dusted the large dark wooden table in the center of their dining room. They never did like eating in its stuffy atmosphere, preferring the much more comfortable simplicity of the kitchen instead. “I do wish you would finally come to your senses and see what a wonderful girl Jessie is. And she comes here so often that surely she likes you a lot.”
After an entire afternoon of spring-cleaning, James was in no mood to listen to his mother’s weekly tirades on the subject of him starting to date Jessie. Mrs. Crover was generally a very decent person, especially compared to some of his friends’ parents, easy to talk to and with a good sense of humor. Still, she just did not understand.
“Mother,” he snapped, roughly pushing back the chair behind which he was going to vacuum. “I’m not going to date Jessie. EVER. So get over it. I do think she is wonderful, by the way.” He could not help but add, “Besides, even if I was single, Jessie would not want to date me herself.”
“Oh? And why is that, dear?” Mrs. Crover inquired, looking quite a bit concerned.
James grinned inwardly. She really did not understand. Well, he might as well break the castle in the sky she built for him and Jessie now, before it brought her nothing but disappointment.
“For your information, Jessie is a lesbian,” he said, watching his mother’s reaction to his words with quite a bit of amusement.
“She is what?” Mrs. Crover asked, clearly unable to believe her ears.
“A lesbian. Well, you know, she romantically and sexually prefers girls rather that guys,” he explained, knowing full well that it was nothing like a need of a definition that has prompted his mother’s question.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang, and Mrs. Crover, still visibly in shock, went to answer it. On the newly washed steps of the front porch there was Jessie. Looking at her now, Mrs. Crover could not help but shake her head in amazement. Jessie was not anything like the typical lesbian stereotype. Tall, but extremely delicately built, light-gray-eyed, red-haired Jessie, with her soft, musical voice and a light, quiet manner, would make a perfect elementary school teacher, which was exactly what she wanted to be after finishing this last year of high school and then college.
Today, however, her usual still cheerfulness was hidden behind a melancholy smile. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Crover,” Jessie said, her light voice reaching some rather odd-sounding notes. “Is James home? I thought he might like to go get some ice-cream with me.”
James’ head popped out from behind the corner. His dark face looked concerned, immediately catching his friend’s mood from the sound of her voice. “Problems, Jessie?”
“Some,” she admitted quietly. “I’ll tell you later. If you want to listen, that is,” she added quickly. He sighed in agitation. The two of them had been friends for how long? Like five years or something already, ever since his family had moved to the small town of Fairfield in Central Pennsylvania. He did not know anyone there at all back then, and the quiet, reserved, sweet Jessie, nice to just about everyone, soon became the very best friend he could have ever asked for. Nonetheless, five years later, she still thought that her very presence there was like a burden on his shoulders, never sure if he was going to be glad to see her or not. Yeah, right! As if he was stupid enough to give up a friend like that!
James did not even glance in his mother’s direction before quickly snatching a jacket from where it was hanging in the lobby. “Let’s go,” he said resolutely and started out the door, sure that Jessie would follow. She always was a follower rather than a leader, after all. Already on the sidewalk, he turned around and, as an afterthought, cried back, “Bye, Mom!”
She did not answer although usually they could hear her cheerful voice yelling her farewells from at least a block away from the Crovers’ house. In fact, it seemed as if she hardly even noticed her son’s exit.
“What’s wrong with your mother?” Jessie asked, catching up to him, but still looking back at the door shut loudly right behind James’s back.
He kept on walking, not wanting to meet her eyes as he said, “I outed you to her. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, so that’s what is going on. No, I don’t mind,” but he knew her too well, and Jessie’s words did not fool him even for a slightest moment. Her voice rang too strangely for her to be okay, and her eyes had this melancholic look in them, like gray rain-clouds covering a clear sky. It seemed like this was one of those days when everything goes wrong, and, as if that is not enough, some invisible evil suddenly adds the last drop to the already overflowing cup of your general misery.
“You mentioned a problem,” he said, desperately seeking to change the subject. “What is it?”
James immediately regretted ever doing this, for Jessie’s eyes became even darker and oddly brighter, as if she was barely holding back tears. When she finally spoke, her voice was so quiet, he had to strain very hard to hear it, “Could we talk about this later?”
James nodded quietly as they walked into the creamery, which was only in a couple of blocks from the Crovers’ house. Upon buying an ice-cream cone each – he had a mint chocolate and she got a strawberry one – they left and walked to the nearest park in complete silence. They went straight to their usual thinking spot right under an old giant pine.
The tree was completely straight, not counting a slight curve right in the middle of its mighty trunk. It was as if the pine had become tired of growing upward and decided to lay back and rest for a while, but its attraction to the bright rays of the sun eventually overpowered its laziness, and the branches once again reached high for the heavens. A small pond with a couple of ducks swimming in its richly green waters nearly washed over the old pine’s roots, but not quite, leaving some room for two quiet human beings to sit in between the elements of forest and water, enjoying the peace and serenity. It was here that James first discovered that, besides working with children, the greatest passion of Jessie’s life was poetry. This spot, so full of nature despite technically being in the middle of town, seemed to give her incredible inspiration.
The two of them sat down right under the pine, and silence covered them like a curtain. It was hardly complete since the ducks quacked loudly, diving and splashing in the water, and other birds melodically chattered in the nearby trees. Jessie looked at some distant spot in the heavens, where a white cloud, resembling nothing in particular by its shape and form, met the absolute of the sky’s blue. Finally she spoke, still not moving her gaze, her voice echoing quietly with an almost impossible sadness, “Stacie dumped me.”
“Stacie did what?” James cried out in a complete astonishment.
“She dumped me,” Jessie repeated even more softly then before.
For a moment, James could not even speak. Stacie and Jessie had been together since the eighth grade, as far as the story went, ever since Jessie had discovered her sexuality. Everyone else thought they were simply friends – close friends, but still just friends. James was the only one Jessie had ever trusted with her secret although he felt certain that she did not really want to hide – otherwise, he would not have told anything to his mother. He was lucky enough to see how their romance developed from the very beginning, his friend’s initial confusion, then wonder at the strength of her feeling for the other girl, and later deep and completely selfless love. He supported Jessie back then and even read several books about homosexuality together with her, trying to help her get used to these new feelings. James thought that Jessie and Stacie were perfect for each other. Too many high school couples broke up after a while, but this particular romance seemed everlasting.
Stacie was nothing like Jessie, and that was part of the reason why they complemented each other so perfectly. Soft, delicate, poetical Jessie and athletic, ever-cheerful, sociable Stacie… Jessie was reserved and quiet, knowing how to keep a secret, but not really wanting to. Stacie, on the other hand, was quite popular; she enjoyed having lots of friends, never being lonely. That was probably the main reason why she was a lot more sensitive about the issue of their sexuality, knowing full well that many of the people she enjoyed spending time with would resent her for being gay. Stacie was the one who wanted to hide while Jessie had really nothing much to lose by coming out, but still did not think that she was in any position to argue with her girlfriend; James did not seem to care that she was a lesbian, while the others were merely her acquaintances, never quite reaching that special niche in her heart that she reserved only for real friends.
“What happened?” James asked incredulously, clearly unable to comprehend something like this happening.
Jessie moved her gaze onto a nearby oak tree, where a gray bird, in what seemed to be a violent rage, was beating the trunk with its beak. Something red was visible right under its nose in one of the wrinkles on the face of the tree, and Jessie vaguely thought that the creature must have caught a beetle or something and was now beating off its hard cover to get to the juicy center. A slow melancholy smile reached her lips; she could definitely relate to that bug right now.
“Her parents,” she answered finally, still not looking at her friend. “You know how homophobic they are. I guess she could not take it anymore.”
“But…” James muttered, still obviously in shock. “That’s no answer. Her parents were homophobic for as long as I know them. I wouldn’t put it past them even to be racist,” he added, feeling his usual logic returning to him, but unconsciously giving away his naiveté towards the issue of race. If he lived anywhere but this quiet suburb, he would have encountered racism often enough not to consider it a nearly eradicated evil. “They weren’t too thrilled when she introduced me to them, you know, either,” James went on, though.
“It’s different,” Jessie explained quietly. “You aren’t – weren’t – dating her.”
He could hear her voice break, but had nothing to counter that remark with. Really, what could have he said? It was completely true that it was not he who was dating Stacie, just as it was true that this conversation took some very strange turn. James got the feeling that Jessie was stating the obvious just to take her own mind off the real problem – her own mind and maybe even his. He shook his head to rid himself of this thought. Jessie was constantly torturing herself with some sort of mind games only she could understand, and it was his job to be the sane one of the two of them. James could not allow himself to be sucked into this game.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, he said evenly, “Can you tell me what happened with Stacie?”
Jessie finally turned her gaze back on him, a bit startled, as if she was so deeply submerged in her own thoughts that she did not really remember about him being there at all. Almost physically dragging herself back to Earth, she began softly, almost inaudibly, “I guess I owe you an apology. After all I dragged you out here myself, but now you have to almost force the words out of me. I’m sorry.”
James winced; this was so typical of Jessie! Still, now was no time to argue. He would have to bring up that topic later, when Stacie will hopefully come to her senses, and Jessie will become as normal as she can possibly get. James nodded, graciously accepting the apology, albeit only temporarily, and silently prompting his friend to continue.
“We were supposed to go out this morning,” Jessie continued after making sure he wanted to listen. “Looking back at it in retrospect, she did look a bit stressed out. I didn’t notice it back then, though. I guess I was so happy to finally see her that I didn’t notice much of anything. Well, you know, she just got back from visiting her grandparents in Delaware.” She looked at James inquiringly so he was forced to nod again. Jessie seemed a bit embarrassed; she blushed cutely before continuing, “I really don’t know what in the world I was thinking. It was a stupid idea to begin with. You know what I did? I asked her to go to the prom with me.” Jessie turned halfway away, her face getting even redder.
James looked at her a bit quizzically. “I see nothing wrong with that,” he said finally after a moment of silence. “I mean I know that she doesn’t want to come out and all that, but she could’ve just said no. What in the hell had possessed her to dump you?”
“You don’t understand,” Jessie answered quietly. “Maybe I don’t either. I don’t know.” Her voice sounded worn out and tired. “Anyway, I didn’t even get a chance to finish asking her out when she fell apart. I mean she completely dissolved in tears. I tried to comfort her, but she pushed me away. Her voice was sort of muffled by the sobs, but I could make out that her parents had volunteered to chaperone the prom so she had to come and obviously she couldn’t do that without a date who is actually male. And then Stacie said that she doesn’t want to be with me anymore. Apparently, she is sick and tired of hiding and being scared and wishes to have ‘a normal life’,” Jessie smirked darkly and then fell silent again.
“But you were so happy together…” James began, hoping to somehow make it all better for his best friend in the whole world.
“Jamie, please don’t,” she whispered piteously, clearly fighting back tears. “If I think about it any more, I’m going to fall apart. I can’t allow myself that.” Her tone was nearly begging.
“Jessie, it’s alright for you to cry,” he said reassuringly.
“No, it’s not. If I start crying about Stacie, I will never stop. Stacie,” she repeated the beloved name, putting so much sadness into that one simple word that James felt his own heart starting to break. Saying nothing else, he silently hugged her and held her in his arms for a very long time while she used every single ounce of her will to push down upon her own tears.
The next day, Monday, went by in a sort of blur for Jessie. She was a real perfectionist, always trying to get the best grades in all of her classes, but now she had hard enough time hearing the teachers’ words, right alone connecting them into something even slightly resembling a coherent sentence. She felt herself floating away from the boring atmosphere of the classrooms, once again submerged in her own world, desperately looking for a way out, but at the same time knowing that it was inevitable for her to drown in the ocean of her sorrow.
The first thunder of this spring shattered in crashing waves behind the glass of the English classroom window. The drops fell heavily in a nearly impenetrable wall. An ideal weather for melancholy – it so perfectly fitted her mood that Jessie felt a sudden urge to cry right along with the nature… But she could not. Not while Stacie was sitting in just two rows to the back. Besides, she promised James to take care of herself. She could not very well break a promise made to a friend. She was anything but a liar.
Her friend’s name made Jessie think of something else. She pulled out a sheet of clean notebook paper and wrote:
I’m here in my home...
Jessie stopped. She was not technically at home. But the rain was driving really hard outside, making her feel calm in spite of herself. In any case, she might as well be home right now. It was not like she could concentrate on her teacher’s words anyway. Besides, the o-sounding syllable would make for a nice rhyme scheme.
I’m here in my home,
My heart like a castle
Closed to the outside world.
No one to judge,
No one to love me –
In this world I am all alone.
See, a nice rhyme scheme indeed.
Hiding forever inside of my dreams,
Never daring to make a sound,
I watch closely as spring’s first rain
Covers the clouds in the sky.
Each single drop in succession
Tears at my soul.
Who is to love or to blame me
If I am forever alone?
I’m the accused and the jury at heart,
Beating myself with the guilt.
If I have no one to love,
Tell me, Rain, why do I live?
The despair of the soul outpoured onto the paper was staring her right in the face now. It was all her fault, was not it? She should have seen – felt – Stacie’s mood. It was stupid of her to ask her to that damn prom anyway. And now everything was lost.
Then suddenly a second thought hit her as she reread the last question of her own poem. What was the point of her life now? Even before, the only thing that kept her going – made her feel alive – was Stacie. She was not merely Jessie’s girlfriend. She was her love, her soul, her life... And now that she was gone, Jessie’s entire existence really had lost its meaning. Maybe she should commit suicide. Putting an end to her life did sound nice. But what about her parents, James?.. Besides, there was this little problem of her being afraid of blood and sharp objects while all the other possible forms of suicide did not seem nearly as full proof. Funny, how most people spend their lives, trying desperately to avoid all imaginable and oftentimes unimaginable dangers, and when someone actually wants to buy a one-way ticket to the other realm, it turns out so difficult to do...
“Jessie. Jessica Klintoff,” Ms. Rosenberg’s uncharacteristically sharp-sounding voice awoke her from her reverie. “I believe I asked you a question.”
“I’m truly sorry, Ms. Rosenberg,” Jessie muttered, feeling her face reddening. She was not used to being singled out of the general mass of students like that. She could hear some not-particularly-well-suppressed snickers from some of her classmates. James shot her a sympathetic glance, but it did not help much.
Ms. Rosenberg’s voice softened. “It’s not like you, Jessie, not to pay attention in class. Are you feeling alright?”
Jessie silently shook her head. It was the truth, after all. She really was not feeling alright, even if her problem was psychological rather that physical, which the teacher most likely presumed. She chuckled darkly inwardly, wondering what Ms. Rosenberg would have said if she knew what exactly it was that her student was contemplating before this interruption. Maybe send her to counseling or something…
“Well, why don’t I write you a pass so you can go to the nurse?” Ms. Rosenberg asked, reaching out to search for a clean piece of paper on her neatly organized desk. It was a high school joke that she should have taught Math rather that English since her mind seemed so logically oriented.
Jessie nodded. It was an easy way out, and she knew it, but she did not have the strength to fight anymore. The nurse would probably ask her if she wanted to go home or maybe rest on one of the cots in her office for a while. She would pick the latter since there was going to be an orchestra practice this day after school, and she could not very well miss it even though God alone knew how badly she did not want to go. But, she was the first violin, after all, and that position came with some heavy responsibility. Anyway, she would lie down on the cot and try to sleep for a while. Maybe then the thoughts of Stacie would stop haunting her. Well, she could hope...
After one and a half periods of trying desperately to fall asleep and pathetically failing, Jessie came to the orchestra practice feeling just about like a squeezed out lemon. Needless to say she was not exactly in the best mood to make new acquaintances when a girl she had never seen before around their school or even town approached her, saying, “Hi! I hear you’re the first violin here. Most people I’ve talked to said that you are really great!”
Jessie raised her tired eyes to look at the girl, trying to figure out what was it that she wanted from her. The new student (and, judging from her words, she was indeed new) was of Asian descent, but was quite obviously born in the United States. Her straight ebony hair hung loosely, reaching just a little bit below her shoulders. Piercing dark eyes looked right ahead at their owner’s new acquaintance, as if speaking in some other, subconscious, language, while their mistress spoke like an ordinary person. It was obvious that the new girl was very self-confident – a character trait Jessie has always envied.
“Hello…” Jessie muttered, not knowing what else to say. Even in her best days she did not know how to react to compliments like that, and now she lacked the strength to even begin to think of a suiting remark. Yet she felt like she should say at least something. After all, that girl did go through the trouble of trying to meet her. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” Jessie said lamely, already knowing the answer to that.
The girl noticed her embarrassment, but seemed to misinterpret it. Well, maybe not entirely, but at least partially. “Oh, I’m sorry. How rude of me! You must think I’m a total jerk. I mean if a total stranger suddenly came up and began talking with me like we were old buddies, I would probably start to question either their or my sanity. I’m sorry. My name is Kristin Michino, and you’re right – I am indeed new here. My Dad just got a new job over at Penn State University so we had to move here. He is a professor of astrophysics,” Kristin explained.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Jessie managed a small smile. She did not want to talk to this girl. She just wanted to take her usual place and drown in the sounds of her own violin. But she could not very well be rude to someone who seemed so genuinely eager to meet her. “My name is Jessica Klintoff. But most people just call me Jessie.”
“I know,” Kristin said. “Sorry,” she added almost immediately, “here I am being all rude on you again. I’m probably having a bad day this way.”
“Tell me about it,” Jessie muttered nearly inaudibly.
Kristin seemed to hear her anyway, though, because she began apologizing once again, “I’m sorry. I should have seen that you aren’t in the mood. Sorry to disturb you. It’s just hard for be sometimes to contain my exuberance, and I often tend to miss other people’s worries. It’s sort of like denial, you know. I guess somewhere deep in my heart I hope that if I don’t notice people’s problems, they will just go away. Anyway, James… what’s his last name…? Oh, yeah, James Crover… well, he recommended that I talk to you. He said he would gladly show me around the town himself, but he’s got a big project in something or rather, and his mother will probably make him clean out the attic as soon as he comes home. But he said you should probably be free to give me a little tour around the whole place.”
Jessie blinked in amazement. What was James trying to do? Well, of course, it would make sense for him to try to distract her, but he could have just as well simply invited her over to help him with that project and maybe the attic instead of practically dragging her into this date with a girl she barely even knew. Then another thought hit her. She should have known. He was setting her up on a date. Boy, is he going to be dead when Jessie gets her hands on him! Suddenly she felt a strong urge to tell Kristin to go to hell. Well, not in those exact words, but with the same general meaning. However, that would have been really rude. After all, it was not really Kristin’s fault that James could be so lewd at times.
“Sure,” Jessie answered, shooting James a deadly glare as he came into the band room in the company of his girlfriend, Lillian Griffin. Walking her there seemed to be a sort of ritual for him. James only grinned at Jessie in return. “If you don’t mind, I have to do something at home for an hour after the practice, and then we can walk around until it gets dark. I know this isn’t a big city, but it’s still sort of scary walking in the park at night.”
“Oh, I totally understand,” Kristin said, her voice sounding quite serious, but her eyes laughing all the while. “To tell you the truth, I used to be really afraid of the dark. I couldn’t even sleep without a light on. Then my Mom made a deal with me. You see, I used to be obsessed with cats, and all I wanted in life was a kitten. Well, my Mom said that she would get me a kitten only if I agreed to sleep with the lights off. I couldn’t resist that offer so now we have an orange-and-white fur ball by the name of Tsuki.”
Somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind Jessie realized that at any other time this story would have seemed rather amusing to her. Now, though, she seemed to have forgotten the location where that little abstract phenomenon that people call humor was dwelling in her soul. She did manage a smile, however, and said in as cheerful a voice as she could possibly muster, “Well, see you at six then in front of the school building.”
Luckily for her, Mr. Randolph, the orchestra teacher, came into the room a moment later and ordered everyone to their respective seats. There was only a month left until the spring concert, and he had absolutely no time to waste.
Feeling great relief, Jessie retreated to her first stand seat, greeting her stand partner, Mike, with a nod and a smile. He returned her greeting just as quietly, for a mere moment taking his serious eyes off the music sheets in front of him to glance at her. She sat down and picked up her violin, tuning it before diving head first into the divine world of Rimsky-Korsakov’s melody.
After the practice, Jessie came straight home. Usually it took her a lot longer to get there from school, but then she also usually walked together with James or Stacie or both. At the moment, however, she really did not feel like talking to her friend while Stacie… Well, she had better not think about her. She still had to show Kristin around the town in about an hour, and it really would not look good if she arrived with eyes red and swollen from crying. Thinking about Kristin just made Jessie angry with James once again. Yes, sure, he meant well, but had he actually considered his actions for a moment, he would have realized how pointless they were. What was he trying to do, anyway? Make her forget about Stacie? No, he knew better than that. Did he just trick her into the role of a tour guide for that new student for nothing then? God, was she mad at him!
The rain seemed to have stopped, but the sky was still low and menacing as Jessie walked into her house. It was rather dark inside – prematurely so since it was not nearly late enough for a real sunset yet. Jessie turned on the lights. Her parents were probably going to work late again. Plus, she had almost no homework tonight. Apparently there was no excuse to get out of the meeting with Kristin. It was not that Jessie was really that much of a loner to object to making new friends on principle, but she had way too much on her mind at the moment. She wanted to give herself up completely to her sorrow and maybe make the grief overshadow the dull pain that has not left her heart since yesterday. Besides, she really did not care much for being railroaded into anything, quite enjoying the freedom of choice and independence she usually had.
Locking the door behind herself although there was no real need for it in a quiet town like Fairfield, Jessie went upstairs and got undressed, turning on hot water in the bathroom. She submerged herself in the glorious liquid and finally allowed her brain to stop working for a while. With eyes closed, she lay there and listened to the sound of water. It was so sweet… the most precious music in the world. The melody carried her away on its inexplicable waves until Jessie found herself dozing off, falling asleep…
She woke up about half an hour later. Panicking at first to find herself in the brightly lit bathroom instead of the usual twilight of her room, she finally managed to realize where she was, and with great relief thought how good it was that before falling asleep, she managed almost instinctively to turn off the water despite having no recollection whatsoever of doing so now. Then suddenly Jessie remembered about her meeting with Kristin and nearly flew out of the bathroom, grabbing her dark red towel on the way. Whew, she still had some time left, but just enough to get dressed and run down to the high school building.
Opening her closet, Jessie tried to concentrate her thoughts on what to wear. If this were a date, she would have probably chosen the blue denim dress her mother got her for her birthday two years ago and a white jacket to go along with it. However, this was not a date. Well, what was it then? Two fast friends just hanging out together? Well, she was meeting a friend or at least someone who apparently wanted to become one. Then what would she wear if it was James instead of Kristin? Jeans probably with that light pink blouse that goes so well with them. Yes, so that’s what she is going to wear now as well. Why would she bother dressing up extra pretty for Kristin?
Setting her choice on the jeans and the blouse, Jessie got dressed in record time and a few minutes later was already running down to the school. She simply hated being late.
Kristin obviously had some different ideas about the appropriate clothes for such an occasion. She wore a short denim skirt and a silky yellow blouse, with new white Nikes on her feet. Perfect for walking, terrible for the weather. Her eyes were hidden behind tiny glasses, so miniscule that they did not cover anything but the eyes.
“Do you really need those or are they just for the looks?” Jessie inquired after greeting Kristin.
“What, I talk a lot so I can’t be smart?” replied the other girl, seemingly offended.
“No,” Jessie immediately backtracked. “No, that’s not what I meant. I was just wondering.”
“Well, then. Yes, I do need them though not as much as you probably do. I saw how you were squinting while trying to read the music sheets in orchestra. You should really think about getting glasses yourself.”
“Why bother?” Jessie tried to seem as cheerful as Kristin seemed to be. “By the time I finish taking the finals, my vision is going to get worse anyway. I might as well go to the eye doctor then rather than waste his time now.”
Kristin shrugged and fell quiet for a while. Jessie did not know what the other girl was thinking and decided it best to wait until she decides to speak again. After a second or two Kristin seemed to awaken from her reverie and said in a quiet, serious tone, “Shall we begin our tour?”
“Sure,” Jessie answered eager to get it over with.
“This our little creamery,” Jessie was saying, coming up to a miniature building with several small tables in front of it complete with a vase of flowers on each. “It’s actually quite famous. When the former President Clinton visited our town, this was the very first place he wanted to see.”
“Really?” Kristin asked with incredulity, the sincerity of which left some doubts in Jessie’s mind. She had never met anyone like this before, anyone that exuberant, that vivid. Surely, that girl could not be for real. But Kristin was indeed real, and she continued in her true Kristin-fashion, speaking quite seriously about the most unserious subjects. “So what did he order?”
“Piña Colada cone.”
“Well, if the esteemed President honored this creamery with a visit for the sole purpose of eating ice-cream, we might as well follow his suit. How about a cone? My treat.”
Her treat? Does she honestly think it’s a date? It would be so much easier for both of them to pay for themselves. However, if Jessie protested now, that might offend Kristin, and another problem adding to the long list of the already existing ones would be the very last thing the redhead needed. So she nodded, and the two of them came in.
The heavenly smell of ice cream hit them from the very threshold. Kristin looked around the small room and stepped right to the counter, examining all the different choices before turning back to Jessie.
“Well, I’m stumped,” she declared. “What would you like?”
“A strawberry cone, please,” Jessie answered politely, indicating her absolute favorite brand of ice cream. James used to kid her about it quite a lot when they had first met, saying that its mild taste perfectly suited her personality. She still liked the ice cream, though, despite the risk of seeming stereotypical or something.
Kristin nodded and called for the sales clerk, a plain looking college student, who was currently busy refilling the dish of chocolate ice cream. “Hello—Frank,” she said, reading his name on his nametag. “We would like two cones – a strawberry and a piña colada one. Hey, what’s good enough for the President is good enough for me,” she winked at Jessie, while Frank rang up the sale, with a huge sales clerk smile never leaving his face.
They chose a table at the farthest corner of the creamery, and spend some time simply talking about life in Fairfield, the school, and the local sights, most of which they have just visited. Then their conversation took a more personal, but still rather formal, turn, and they began discussing the subjects they studied, the colleges they have applied and been accepted to, and their goals for the future.
“I want to major in theatre and become a great actress or a great director, I still can’t quite decide,” Kristin noted a-matter-of-factly, while devouring the last of her ice cream cone. “I’m going to live in New York City in an apartment with a couple of cats—you know, the stereotypical life of an artist.”
“Really?” Jessie was genuinely surprised. Kristin just did not seem like the type.
“Yeah, really!” Kristin pretended to be insulted. “What, you don’t think I look like an actress or a director? I know what everybody seems to think. Like all Asians are naturally gifted when it comes to the math, science, and computer stuff, so that’s the only thing we are supposed to be interested in.”
“That—that’s not at all what I meant,” Jessie stammered, although she had to admit that Kristin did look incredibly studious. It was not just the fact that she was Asian; the illusion of a devoted scientist was mostly due to the glasses. Kristin looked like a young college professor – hip and indescribably intelligent.
“It’s OK,” Kristin said in her ordinary voice once again. “I was only kidding. Anyway, it drives my Dad insane, too. He is an astrophysicist, so he buys into all that stereotypical crap. He wants his little girl to grow up to be a great scientist.”
“And?” Jessie asked, interested in spite of herself.
“And it just ain’t gonna happen,” Kristin imitated the currently popular “cool” slang, her dark eyes glittering defiantly.
At that moment the door of the creamery swung open, and a noisy group of girls their age came inside, Stacie with them. They laughed loudly at some joke while ordering ice cream, and Jessie found herself tuning out Kristin’s words, even though she knew it was incredibly rude. Stacie gazed around the creamery and met her eyes for a tiniest fraction of a second before diving with a new vigor into the conversation with her friends, pretending not to notice. After paying for their ice cream, the group of girls traveled to a large table in the very center of the room, and Stacie purposefully took a sit with her back to Jessie, who followed her every movement with her eyes.
Kristin followed her companion’s gaze and caught sight of a pretty blond girl with hair tied in a high ponytail. The maneuvering with the sitting arrangement did not go by her unnoticed, and she turned to Jessie.
“Old girlfriend?” she enquired, indicating Stacie with her eyes.
Jessie started, partially because Kristin’s voice had broken the reverie state she was in, and partially because she did not feel like discussing her private life with a perfect stranger. That would be way too risky. Jessie was not good with emotional revelations. The only people who she could ever tell her true feelings were Stacie, James, and Rachel, her very best friend throughout the elementary school. Jessie followed her everywhere and had a biggest crush on her, but did not know it at the time, and when Rachel left, it was like a huge hole opened in Jessie’s heart, a hole that was not filled until the day she met Stacie.
Kristin misinterpreted her companion’s hesitation, though only partially, and said soothingly, “It’s alright. I’m also gay. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Oh, no—no. That’s not what I meant,” Jessie stammered, then, taking a moment to calm herself, she continued: “I am gay. And Stacie… she is my ex. She dumped me a couple of days ago, and I guess James thought that setting up this little excursion with you would cheer me up. I’m sorry. You probably thought it was a date.”
“I’ll heal,” Kristin replied cheerfully. “I have to admit, I find you incredibly cute” – Jessie blushed, but Kristin continued, as if she has not noticed – “but, hey, I would not mind just being friends. After all, I don’t really know anyone around here, and your knowledge of the local sights is quite impressive. Anyway, are you OK? Do you want to get out of here?”
“Yeah, I think that would be a good idea,” Jessie answered, glad to change the subject of the conversation. “After all, we’ve already finished our ice cream, so unless you want another cone, we are all done here.”
“Thanks, but if I eat too much ice cream, I’ll have no appetite at dinner, and my parents will eat me alive.”
A pair of green eyes watched Jessie intently as she and Kristin went to the door. Jessie turned around to meet them, but in a moment their gaze was already somewhere else, avoiding the pain in the redhead’s own gray ones.
The next day, Jessie arrived at her homeroom early as usual. She was such a perfectionist, that the thought of being late drove her absolutely insane, and, to her credit, she has never once been late to school unless through the fault of a broken alarm clock. James arrived five minutes later, kissing Lily goodbye, as she sped towards her own homeroom, which was the next door to the right. The boy was pretty sure that his friend was boiling mad at him, but he went straight to her desk anyway, waving his hand in a cheerful greeting. Jessie waved back nonchalantly. She was still angry with him for setting her up, but she did not think it fair to hold grudges for so long, even though she sometimes did. After all, a grudge or his sister, revenge, has never done anyone any good.
“Are you as mad as I think you are?” James asked, sitting down on a chair next to her, which just so happened to actually be his assigned seat.
“No,” Jessie answered, even though she really was. “Just don’t do that again. I know you were trying to cheer me up, but setting me up with a random new girl really isn’t a way to go here. Did you actually think it would work?” She sounded accusatory, even though she made a point not to.
“Well, what would work then?” James replied, beginning to feel angry himself. It was partially because of being chided for honestly trying to help, but mostly, just because he did not like when she felt hurt, and the hopelessness of the situation really got on his nerves.
“Maybe nothing ever would,” Jessie said, burying her face in her hands. After a moment, she raised her face once again and smiled feebly. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, really meaning it this time.
“It’s alright,” James replied, feeling like he was only hurting her even more. “And for what it’s worth, I really did want to help. I saw her hang a rainbow flag in her locker, so I figured she was gay. Come to think of it, it was really stupid; maybe she just really likes rainbows.”
“No, she is gay,” Jessie said, after all, if Kristin had a rainbow flag on her locker, the chances were she was pretty much out. Plus, she knew James would not tell. “She said we can be friends, though. Anyway,” Jessie changed the subject, “how is your mom? I mean, with finding out I am gay?”
“She’ll be fine,” James dismissed her worries with a wave. “After all, you’re not her daughter. It’s really none of her business. She took it much harder when I told her about not making the football team. Remember?”
Jessie managed a feeble laugh. Yes, she did remember. James’ older brother, Rick, had been a football star in his high school days and was now in college on a football scholarship. Both of James’ parents expected him to carry on the tradition. It did not even occur to them that their studious, bookworm-ish son might dislike not only football, but all sports ever created. At least, that was how he felt while being continuously pushed in the direction of football during their freshman year in high school. James ended up trying out for the team and failing miserably, much to his parents’ disdain. Luckily, he soon discovered volleyball, the only sport he could even tolerate. Mr. Crover complained that it was a girlish sport, but seeing as his son was dead-set against any other, eventually agreed for James to play on the team at school. James himself enjoyed the game, but he was not nearly as passionate about it as some of his teammates were, and he was the happiest when, coming home from an exhausting practice, he could submerge himself in the wonderful world of chemistry. He was not really a nerd; he enjoyed modest popularity and disliked the school with all his heart, as any other full-blooded high school student. He just really liked chemistry, while volleyball still remained as nothing more than a way to please his parents.
“By the way,” James remarked a-matter-of-factly, “my Mom apologizes for acting so rude to you the day before yesterday. She said it just took her by surprise to find out that you are gay, and I think she really is fine with it. She said to invite you for her famous lemon soufflé this Friday. Hey, cheer up, girl,” he said, gazing at his friend’s sad face. “Everything will somehow turn out to be OK. It always does. Besides, the souffle is a error-proof way of turning any frown upside down.”
Looking now at his kind, dark-skinned face, Jessie was suddenly filled with a warm feeling of content, if not happiness. This was her very best friend in the whole world, and she was eternally grateful to him, despite whatever mistakes he might have made. He did mean well, after all. And was not the knowledge that someone cared for you enough to go through all the trouble of setting her up with Kristin worth it?
Kristin turned out to be worth it as well. As April grew to a close, and the prom time approached, Jessie began spending more and more time with her. She was not falling in love; she knew that well enough, and she could only hope that Kristin was not falling in love with her, as she did not want to hurt her feelings. However, it was simply nice to have another friend – a female friend – around. Not to mention the fact that she constantly felt a nagging need to take her mind off Stacie or else fall apart crying, as she almost did the Monday after the break-up in English class.
Time did not cure her longing for Stacie. Just the opposite, as the prom night approached and began to loom ominously in the nearest future, it only grew, since Jessie knew the blonde would go there with some guy, most likely Leo Good, a football player, who despite his surname had a longstanding reputation for sleeping with every girl he has ever gone out with. And was not a prom night simply an invitation to have sex?
One evening, while Jessie was having late dinner with her parents, who had a long day at work in the research lab they somehow managed to share, her Mom started talking about the prom.
“Honey,” she began innocently enough. “I know how hard you work at school, but you really do need no have some fun in your life. After all, social activities are very important to a growing girl. I know you have great friends like James, Stacie, and that new girl Kristin, but maybe that’s just not enough. We,” she continued, gazing at her husband, who was too deeply submerged in the scientific article he was reading to even notice, for support, “think you should go to the prom. Now, honey, I know you don’t have a boyfriend,” she went on before Jessie had a chance to protest, “but maybe Stacie or Kristin don’t have a date either, and you could go with one of them. Wouldn’t it be fun to just spend time with a friend at the prom? James has Lily, of course, but you could suggest that all of you go together as a group. And you already have such a nice dress that you’ve never worn out before. That red one with a low cut, remember?”
Jessie certainly did remember and quietly nodded, trying to hold back the tears suddenly glistening in her eyes. She bought that dress in the preparation for a homecoming dance during her sophomore year, expecting to go there with Stacie. Jessie must have spent an entire day at the mall – a quite questionably merry occasion since she did not at all enjoy shopping – and finally stumbled onto this gorgeous long dress, which perfectly outlined her slender figure. She was so sure Stacie would like it and maybe even find it sexy, that she practically flew back home on the wings of rapturous joy. As it turned out, Stacie did not deem proper to go to the dance without a male escort, even though lots of girls went without dates, as she felt her parents might suspect something. She has never even seen the dress.
Mrs. Klintoff waited for a while, expecting her daughter to say something, but when she did not, finally asked her, “Well, honey, what do you think? About the prom, I mean?”
“I was not planning on going,” Jessie replied quite honestly, her quiet voice not betraying a sliver of her emotions.
“But, honey, just think. Prom night is such an essential part of the high school folklore. If you miss it, aren’t you going to terribly regret it later on?” Jessie knew it was true. However, her mother just did not know that she would sooner die than see Stacie playing straight in the arms of a guy, probably kissing him, and maybe even following him at the end of the night to some cheep hotel room. But whose fault was it that her mother did not know, anyway? It was her fault, her own damn fault for being too much of a coward to come out to her parents. Jessie opened her mouth to right at least this mistake of her life, but shut it again. She felt like she was near the edge of a bottomless pit, and a single word said would throw her off the cliff into unfathomable darkness. She just could not bring herself to add another drop to her already overflowing cup of woe.
“Would you at least think about it?” her mother enquired quietly, not wishing to pressure her daughter, and yet knowing that her daughter oftentimes needed pressuring.
Jessie just nodded, unable to trust her voice.
Next day, Saturday, Jessie was sitting with Kristin at her favorite place in the city park and telling her about her mother’s suggestion while fighting back tears, which insisted to run in streams down her cheeks. When she finished, the silence fell over the two of them. Jessie felt beat, defeated, while Kristin just did not know what to say. She hated to see the redhead crying, hated to see her hurt. Right now, looking at Jessie’s tear-stained face framed in the waves of overwhelming red, descending to the slender shoulders left naked by a spaghetti-strapped yellow dress, Kristin let her eyes wonder over the other girls beautiful figure. She was exactly what she dreamed of, and so much more, and that made the knowledge that she could never have her all the more unbearable.
Fairfield had enjoyed nice, warm weather the entire week before, and the weather channel promised a cold front from the west for the next week. This day, however, the chance of rain was supposedly forty percent. As the dark clouds gathered at the horizon, and a thunder was heard somewhere at a rather close distance, that chance rapidly grew to a hundred. Before Jessie and Kristin new it, large, cold drops of the rain began tapping them lightly on the shoulders.
“There’s a willow tree over there,” Kristin said, breaking the long silence and pointing in the direction of the tree. “Maybe we can hide under it from the rain. These pine needles seem to let every single drop through.”
They ran towards the willow, Jessie enjoying the feeling of cool moistness on her shoulders and back, and ducked under the lowest branches. The tree made a neat little shelter underneath, and the girls sat down on the stony ground. The leaves stopped the rain only partially, and their backs and hair still grew wetter with every minute. The park was completely abandoned, as all of its other visitors hurried home to take cover from the sudden thunderstorm. The only audible sound was the rain pounding ceaselessly on the dirty beige surface of the lake and the waves rushing as miniature tsunamis at the shore and nearly reaching the girls’ feet. The spot was so private, so sheltered from the world outside by the long leaves of the willow and the wall of rain all around it, that it created an undeniably romantic atmosphere. Too bad, Jessie thought, that the one I’m here with isn’t the one I love.
Kristin, however, also felt the romantic atmosphere, and a sudden wave of love for Jessie nearly overwhelmed her. It was so pathetic, almost like being in love with a straight friend. After all, being in love with a gay girl who would never see you as more than just a friend was just as hopeless. Still, Kristin had to gather every drop of her will power to keep herself from leaning forward and kissing Jessie. In part to break the silence that seemed to engulf them with relentless sadness, and in part, to break the fragile atmosphere of doomed romance, Kristin said, “Maybe you should follow your mom’s suggestion and go to the prom, after all. I know it’s rather cliché, but perhaps if Stacie saw you there with someone else, she’d be jealous and would decide to return to you. I could go with you. I know by the way she looks at us every time she sees us together that she’s already jealous of you and me, but maybe she the prom would push her over the edge.”
Jessie stared at Kristin incredulously. “Are you asking me out?” she asked just to make sure she understood her correctly. She had to admit that Kristin was indescribably gorgeous. Right now, wearing her white bandana with some black flower design and, of course, her glasses, she looked rather like a super intelligent and hot spaceship pirate from an anime movie, the computer genius type. But Jessie was still passionately in love with Stacie and could not even imagine being with anyone but her.
Kristin nodded and quickly went on, “I don’t think it would be fair of me not to be honest with you. I do like you a lot, but I know that you think of me as just a friend, and I can deal with it. I’d rather have you as a friend than not have you in my life at all. I don’t expect anything of you by asking you to the prom. Lots of girls go with their friends, if they don’t have a date. It won’t even look suspicious, if you are worried about accidentally outing yourself and thereby Stacie. Even your parents can’t be suspicious, since your mom was the one who suggested it in the first place.”
“What about your parents?” Jessie asked, still recovering from the shock of this sudden confession. She really did not need this further complication in her already quite complicated life. On the other hand, how much worse must it have been for Kristin? Does not she owe her at least this one stupid prom night?
“I’ve been planning to come out to them after the graduation anyway,” Kristin answered meanwhile. “So what if it’s a month too early? They aren’t exactly gay-friendly, but I also know that they won’t kick me out on the street or anything like that. Besides, they’d have to be rather dumb not to suspect already. On the other hand, if you want, I can tell them that we are going as just friends, which a). will be the perfect truth, and b). can be justified by citing your mother’s suggestion,” she smiled, straightening the index and then the middle finger of her right hand at “a” and “b”, respectively.
“I think that would be best,” Jessie replied. “I don’t want to get you in any trouble with your parents, even if you are planning to come out to them after the graduation anyway.”
“Does this mean you’ll go with me?” Kristin asked hopefully, crossing imaginary fingers in her thoughts.
“Yeah, sure,” Jessie said, not wishing to say “no” and thereby hurt her friend, even though she really did not want to go the stupid prom. “That would make my mom happy, anyway. Though I do think that your idea about making Stacie jealous is too cliché to actually work. You did not need to make it as an excuse. I would have gone with you anyway. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, babe, you could never hurt me!” Kristin exclaimed, taking her hand and dragging her from under the willow tree out into the rain, which still poured unceasingly down onto the rocky shore, although not nearly as insistently as some fifteen minutes ago. She let go of Jessie’s hand and danced in the rain, allowing the drops to gently caress the skin of her uplifted face. “I love you, world!” she cried out, even though what she really wanted to shout was, I love you, Jessie, but she would not dare, at least not yet. Her shoulder-length black hair completely wet and sticking to her neck, she turned to look back at the redhead and, dimly because of the raindrops on her glasses, saw her smiling. Kristin knew that Jessie too was caught up in the moment of loving the world, the rain, the intricate shapes formed by the branches of the willow tree. At moments like this, when the heart seemed completely filled with joy to the very point of spilling, life was truly worth living.
The next Monday at school went by as usual. Every senior did not seem to talk about anything but the stupid prom, which made Jessie feel even lonelier, despite the periodic cheering up rituals, by this time nearly traditionally conducted by James and Kristin during each period they had together with her. She was sure the two of them made a pact to make sure she smiled now and then, and she did her best to give them some results. Jessie had two classes with each of them, and one with both. The latter was sixth period AP English. As the class was right after her lunch, Jessie managed to get there five minutes early; even Ms. Rosenberg was not there yet. The redhead opened The Twelfth Night on Viola’s declaration of love to Olivia on behalf of the Duke, her very favorite part of what was in her opinion the most entertaining of Shakespeare’s comedies, and started reading, the rhythm of the Elizabethan England words soon consuming all of her senses, so she did not hear when Kristin came by.
The ever-cheerful Asian girl plopped down next to Jessie. “Mr. Randolph must be trying to kill us,” she chattered, so the redhead had no choice but to direct her full attention at her newest friend. “I know the concert is in two weeks, and we have only four more rehearsals until then, but if I practice my flute any more than I already do, I won’t have time to learn all my lines for the play and study for the AP’s, which, I might add, are officially beginning starting today,” despite not wanting to follow in her father’s astrophysics-oriented footsteps, Kristin still took four AP classes that year, English included, which did not make her life any easier, especially when it came to preparing for her last high school theatre performance, The Westside Story, where she played Anita. “By the way, how is your Calculus review going?” she changed the subject, talking almost without a pause.
“It’s OK,” Jessie replied. Calculus was not the subject she was worried about. “It’s actually rather logical. The trick is to memorize all the formulas for revolving a function around some axis. Those can be a pain in the butt.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’m so bad at memorizing stuff. What?” she asked, noticing that Jessie was staring at her incredulously.
“No wonder you have problem memorizing the lines,” the redhead pointed out.
“Oh, that,” Kristin dismissed the idea. “The lines are easy to remember. They are so logical, especially in a musical. The formulas, now that’s another story. Calculus might be logical in and out of itself, but without knowing all those formulas, no amount of logic in the world would do me any good on the AP’s. Hey,” she grinned, “I have an idea. Since you seemed to be so good at Calculus, why don’t you help me out with it?”
At that precise moment the bell, which in their high school sounded more like a gong, rang, and the chatter filling the classroom subsided to a more reasonable level of noisiness, while Ms. Rosenberg, who had arrived about two minutes before, was doing the attendance on her computer.
Jessie nodded, afraid to seem rude by answering aloud after the class has started. Kristin, not wanting to get her friend in trouble, whispered nearly inaudibly, “How about today after school? My parents are away visiting some college friend of theirs and won’t be back until late at night.”
Jessie nodded again, as Ms. Rosenberg took her usual place in front of the class and began the classroom reading of The Twelfth Night.
Kristin’s house was at the edge of the town nestled by the thick forest on three sides, the fourth one having an opening for a small lawn and a driveway. A gigantic – at least looking at it from the bottom up – mountain loomed right behind it, making the whole place look nice and cozy, close to nature.
Kristin led Jessie to her room, which was rather dark due to the trees in her backyard not letting much light through, but nice, nonetheless. A bed covered with a colorful quilt was right under the window, next to the wall on the opposite side of the room from the door. A nightstand with an old yellow lamp stood at the right corner near the door to what Jessie assumed was a closet. A desk with a matching chair was at the left. The closet door was decorated with a printed picture of Sara Bernhardt, and a photo of a gorgeous German shepherd hung on the door leading to the hall. Kristin has already told Jessie some time ago about the dog her parents had since the first month they were married. It was part of the reason why they refused for such a long time to adopt the kitten their daughter so desperately wanted. The shepherd called Skunk for the unpleasant odors he tended to attract, died two years ago, and Kristin still could not quite forgive herself for blaming her parents’ refusal on him until he was already terminally ill. The floor was covered with a fuzzy rug of an unidentifiable brownish-gray color. There was not much random stuff one would expect in the room, so it did show that Kristin has just moved in, but a few things, such as a teddy bear sitting in the corner of the desk and the pictures on the doors made it at least look loved. Furthermore, the black flute case on the nightstand looked so familiar that it made Jessie smile.
Kristin interpreted the smile as a sign of approval. “It did not look like much at first, when I was still missing our old house, but now it’s home, sweet home.”
The two girls sat down on Kristin’s bed, since there was only one chair in the room, and they had to sit together in order to be able to read from the same Calculus textbook. They studied for some time, Jessie dictating the formulas for her friend to memorize and creating funny mnemonic devices to remember them. Some actually worked. By six o’clock, Kristin could recite most of the formulas by heart and required only the minimum of work to prepare for the upcoming AP test.
“OK, let’s try a problem,” Jessie said, flipping the pages of the textbook. “How about number 7.43? It’s an odd one, so there’s got to be an answer in the back of the book.”
“Looks like a washer to me,” Kristin was referring to the method of calculating the volume of the function rotating around the x-axis. She pulled her math notebook closer and quickly worked out the proper integral for the calculation, solving the problem.
Jessie checked the answer at the back of the book. “Hey, that’s right! See, you’ve worked so hard the whole year that you really have nothing to worry about.”
“Well, moving in the middle of the semester didn’t help, though. The BC Calculus program at my old school was a bit different. But you’re right; I think I’m getting the hang of it now. Permit me to express my infinite gratitude to thee, oh fair lady,” she said, thrusting a plastic flower previously laying on the nightstand right under Jessie’s nose. “My aunt Hana’s gift. Uh, she has no taste!” Kristin made her eyes look big as if in shock.
Jessie laughed, accepting the rose. “You’re something else.” At that moment Kristin leaned over and kissed her on the lips. Jessie was too surprised to react, and when the initial shock wore over, she simply waited for the kiss to be over, not exactly responding, but not pulling back either. Maybe, it was better this way. After all, who knows what Stacie was doing – or, at any rate, going to do – with Leo? And she really did not want to hurt Kristin’s feelings. In any case, she agreed to go with her to the prom, and the girl truly did seem to like her, so what right did she have to turn down her love, to continue wishing she was with someone who was obviously not interested in her? It did not feel right to hurt Kristin by refusing her. Besides, the kiss pulled her into a dream-like state, seemingly far, far away from earth. She felt like a bystander witnessing, rather than a participant experiencing it. Maybe being with Kristin was the best way to forget the hurt over not being with Stacie.
Kristin finally pulled back, catching her breath, her eyes wide and dark, as if she has just realized what she was doing. “I’m sorry—,” she started, but Jessie’s lips descending on hers cut her off.
They kissed for a very long time. Kristin was surprised that Jessie responded so well. She did not think she had much of a chance with her, and now this— Well, she was not going to refuse this sudden gift. Kristin moaned loudly, as Jessie’s hand traveled from her cheek down, caressing her skin on the way, until it reached the soft mound of her breast. It felt too good to stop.
Jessie let herself caress Kristin’s breast. All of her thoughts seemed to melt away. She could not think; she could not feel; she could only kiss and forget about anything that was not right there, in the room dimly lighted by the nightstand lamp. Her hands descended even further, tugging on Kristin’s dark green turtleneck.
The other girl broke the kiss. “Wait here for a second. I’ll be right back,” she whispered, even though there was no one else there to hear her except for a beautiful orange-and-white cat, who had walked into the room while the two of them were still studying. Kristin slipped out of the room, taking something out of the closet on her way and leaving the surprised Jessie sitting on the bed.
She came back in a few minutes wearing a sexy lace black bra and a matching thong. “You look gorgeous,” Jessie stated the fact that was undeniably true. Not only did Kristin look gorgeous, but she also looked indescribably sexy.
“Shh,” the black-haired girl whispered, putting her index finger to Jessie’s lips and lying down on the bed invitingly. “I’ve never done this before,” she said quietly.
“Neither have I,” Jessie replied, lying down on top of Kristin and kissing her while trying to undo the other girl’s bra. The bra turned out to be quite stubborn, but after a while it finally let go, revealing the perfect roundness of Kristin’s breasts. Not thinking and, frankly, not even wanting to think, Jessie lowered her mouth, onto the hardened nipple of the right breast and, while caressing the left one with her hand, deeply kissed it. She felt rather than heard Kristin moan, also feeling her own thoughts racing wildly through her head, even as she tried to suppress them. They did not leave, instead washing over her with a newfound strength and suddenly… she stopped. Jessie pulled back and sat up, pulling her hands to her face and shaking her head.
“What’s wrong, babe?” Kristin put a reassuring hand on the redhead’s arm.
Jessie looked down on her beautiful face and shook her head again. “I can’t,” she said, quietly, desperately. “I’m so sorry, but I really can’t. I don’t want to hurt you, but when I was kissing your…,” she blushed, gazing down at Kristin’s breasts, …“while I was kissing you, I could not help but wish that you were Stacie. I’m sorry,” she finished lamely, turning away.
“I thought you liked it,” Kristin whispered, pulling the edge of the quilt up to cover her breasts.
“I did,” Jessie replied. “And I like you. But I don’t love you.”
Kristin could feel her eyes filling with tears and tried her best to stifle the hurt consuming her heart, but without success. She closed her eyes – a bad idea, since it only caused the tears to spill over – and attempted to collect her thoughts, if not feelings.
Jessie turned back to Kristin, seeing, knowing that she is hurt. “I’m sorry,” she repeated once again, not knowing what else to say.
Kristin shook her head. “I did a project for History once on this Enlightenment philosopher, David Hume,” she said, absently staring into the distance and completely surprising Jessie. “There’s one idea of his that really caught my attention. The missing shade of blue – like there is one single shade that a person can never see, but would never know about its existence. Hume used it to illustrate the cognitive process of people. For example, as it is a person would never know what that shade was, but if he had the full gamma of the shades of blue arranged in the order from the lightest to the darkest, it would be easy to notice the absence of one. I liked the idea for a different reason, though. Just imagine, we see the color blue thousands of times each day. It is so ubiquitous. But one single shade forever eludes us, and we don’t even know that it exists, we have no way of knowing what we are missing. Maybe I am your missing shade, and maybe you are Stacie’s. Maybe we are just not meant to be.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Jessie shifted awkwardly. “I’d better go,” she said finally.
Kristin nodded, “Can you find your way to the door?”
“Yeah.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Kristin lay on her bed in silence. She did not want to cry in front of Jessie, did not want to seem weak, to admit her hurt. But as soon as she heard the front door shut behind her friend, she finally let her tears flow.
“There you two are!” James exclaimed, coming towards Jessie and Kristin, his arm proprietarily draped over Lily’s shoulder. He was sporting a stark black tuxedo especially bought for the happy occasion of his on senior prom. Jessie was wearing her red dress and light make-up, but her wavy hair was not long enough to do anything truly extravagant with it. She simply pulled in up in a bun and Kristin later decorated it with tiny white flowers. For herself, her “date” did not even bother to make a pretty hairstyle. Her straight black hair was completely untouched, not counting two tiny white flowers identical to Jessie’s on both sides of her face, matching perfectly the absolute black of her long, elegant dress. Kristin presented her friend with a corsage with a red rose, while Jessie surprised her with a corsage with a white one. Granted, their dresses were not exactly color coordinated, but most couples at the prom did not seem to color coordinate their clothes either. Lily’s curly blond hair was too short to do anything with, but her pretty pink dress, with a pink rose corsage and matching make-up made her look absolutely gorgeous.
“Hi!” she waved, approaching Jessie and Kristin. “I’m so glad to see you.” Since Lily and Kristin shared deep passion for theatre and worked on the West Side Story together – Lily played Maria, having to wear a black wig for that role – they were rather good friends. James, who was part of the backstage crew for the sole purpose of being close to his girlfriend, encouraged Jessie to participate in the production as well, but she declined, having too much work to do for her AP classes already.
“We’re glad to see you too,” Kristin replied, and Jessie nodded in agreement.
“Now, aren’t you glad we talked you into coming?” James asked, nudging Jessie’s arm. “Think about what you might have missed! All these people in fancy clothes stuffed into a tiny gym decorated with what must be carnival balloons. The only other place you could have encountered all this is a circus!”
“Maybe it is a circus, sort of,” Jessie laughed. “See those chaperones on the side-lines? They are about to enjoy one heck of a performance.”
“Yeah,” Lily joined in, “all those kids who sneak liquor into school, the dating fever, all the broken hearts over equally broken dates… Sorry, I really should not have said that,” she apologized, looking at Jessie sympathetically.
“It’s OK,” the redhead replied unconvincingly.
Kristin, sensing the other girl’s discomfort, said loudly, “Come on. Did we come here to talk, or did we come here to dance?” She pulled Jessie onto the dancing floor, and James and Lily quickly followed their suit.
It was not that unusual for two (or more) girls to dance together at the prom. Lots of dateless gals did just that, and nobody seemed to mind them. Of course, none of them were slow dancing. Still, Jessie and Kristin felt relatively safe from the general school homophobia, moving to the rhythm of the music on the overcrowded dance floor in each other’s arms. The redhead was amazed at how easy it was to dance, considering the height of her heals, which from the first glanced seemed impossible to even walk in, but it reality turned out to be not nearly as bad as she would have thought.
Just as Jessie began to relax and allow the melody to slowly take control of her body’s motions, she noticed one of the gym doors open, and in came Stacie and Leo. The six foot two football star was clad in a gray tuxedo, while his date, her beautiful blond hair, which she usually wore in a ponytail, pulled up into a fancy hairdo, looked simply breathtaking in a long white dress with magnificent iridescent sparkles. In everyone else’s eyes, they were a perfect couple – a football player and a cheerleader, such an incredible stereotype, his muscular body accentuated by her slender, beautiful figure. Only Jessie knew that beneath the fitting exterior, the couple had absolutely nothing in common. More than that, since Stacie was gay, their relationship could very well be sexual, but would never be loving. But who would suspect the stereotypical idol of femininity, a cheerleader, in being a lesbian? Their classmates could well picture a gay football player, as, last year, a quarterback, Jimmy Oswald, came out to the whole school and obviously to his teammates. He ended up being driven to the hospital one afternoon following a football practice, being severely beaten. Jimmy refused to place charges, not willing to exacerbate the situation, and finished his senior year in a private school, not risking trying out for the team there. So a gay football player seemed quite possible, whereas a lesbian cheerleader was an entirely different story. Of course, Stacie was not just a cheerleader; she also ran track and even tried out for the soccer team during her first year in high school, but had to drop it when it interfered too much with the cheerleading. After all, the squad and the friends she made there always remained her priority.
Stacie’s eyes swept over the room, meeting Jessie’s for a fraction of a second, discomfort – or perhaps displeasure – briefly registering on her beautiful face, before she the girl turned back to her date.
Jessie winced from a pang of nearly physical pain, and Kristin swirled her around, glancing quickly in the direction of the two newcomers.
“Ah, Beauty and the Prince,” she said, referencing the seemingly perfect characters from completely different fairytales, which together sounded oddly incompatible.
Jessie quickly picked up on the meaning of her friend’s words. “What are you talking about?” she asked with genuine amazement, swirling around once again so as to sneak a momentary glance in the direction of the couple. “Just look at them. They’re perfect. Maybe it’s selfish of me to want her back,” she sighed after a slight pause. “What can I give her that he can’t? They are perfect. She is perfect. What could she possible want to do with me?” she sighed again dejectedly.
“Listen to me,” Kristin replied with such a serious tone that Jessie immediately looked up at her, startled. The black-haired girl turned her dance partner around so that she could not see Stacie and Leo anymore and continued, “You are incredible, and don’t you ever doubt that. Many people would spend their entire lives, not even beginning to measure up to your talents. You play violin beautifully, your grade point average is 4.0, you love to write poetry, and you’re the only elementary school teacher I would want for the kids I’m going to have with whatever woman I’ll end up with. You are so talented.”
Jessie snorted derisively. “One of my favorite anime characters, Arisugawa Juri from Shoujo Kakumei Utena, once replied to a very similar remark, ‘Yeah, but what do I have to show for it? Will I smash the world’s shell?’”
Kristin shook her head violently so that the flowers adorning her hair nearly broke loose. “What do you have to show for it? You have to show you. It’s just that, for whatever reason, your self-esteem is so infinitesimally low that you are the only one who refuses to see your own beauty. Stacie would be the luckiest person in the world to have you, and if she doesn’t realize it, than she must not be half as perfect as you think.”
Jessie shook her head softly, not quite convinced, but too tired to fight back. She rested her head on Kristin’s shoulder and whispered quietly, “I don’t have the mental strength to argue with you right now. Let’s just keep dancing.”
Kristin nodded and led them into a more lively song, while Jessie obediently followed her lead, still keeping her eyes closed and her head on her partner’s shoulder.
Across the dancing floor from them, Stacie’s carefully made-up blue eyes struggled to see the couple behind the rhythmically moving bodies of their other classmates, while at the same time trying not to look directly at the red-haired vision whirling in the arms of a beautiful girl dressed in black.
“Here is your drink,” Leo said, coming up to the table just to the side of the dance floor, where his date was seated. Stacie stared up at him, startled to find him anywhere in the vicinity of the room, which she thought for a while to belong only to the couple she was observing and her own lonely soul. Leo misinterpreted her surprise, and his face lit up with a smile, glowing almost as bright as the brilliant light overhead reflected in his dirty blond hair. “It’s not wine; just some punch. They don’t serve alcohol here.”
Stacie recovered from her surprise and struggled to put a meek semblance of a smile on her face, looking up to meet his blue eyes in a halfhearted hope that it would distract him from asking her to dance at least for a couple of seconds. It did not work.
“Hey, would you like to dance?” Leo asked as casually as he could, trying his best to make a good impression on her while at the same time attempting to seem cool. This was their third date already, and the football player was not used to the idea of a girl not wishing to sleep with him after the very first one. So far Stacie has successfully rejected his sexual advances, and this only served to double his efforts to win her over. It was not that Leo was such a bad guy that he enjoyed corrupting “young, innocent” girls. Quite the contrary, he genuinely wished for a real, loving relationship. It was just that he could not imagine such a relationship without sex, and his reputation tended to attract girls who did not quite share his dream of a true love with 2.5 kids hopefully coming sometime in the far future. Stacie was his first girlfriend in a long while not to jump at the first opportunity to sleep with him, and this turned him on, in all senses of this phrase, more that anything else.
His date smiled at a few of her cheerleader friends, who waved at her from the dance floor, where their respective boyfriends tightly embraced them. They looked glad to see her, and although not a single unpleasant word was said, Stacie knew that at least part of their good mood was caused by the relief at seeing her with an escort of the male variety. Then, glancing briefly at the dancing Jessie and Kristin, Jessie’s head on her partner’s shoulder, she turned back to Leo and struggled to smile, even as her eyes stubbornly insisted on clouding with tears. “Sure,” she said, setting her drink aside.
Leo offered her a hand and led her onto the dance floor, while Jessie, eyes closed, seemed completely oblivious to the world outside of her thoughts. Stacie forced herself to take her eyes off her ex and concentrate on her date. Leo carefully turned her around to face him and put his arms around her, holding her close to his body. Stacie struggled to find some sort of pleasure in feeling the hardness of his chest, the strength of his muscles, but found none. The only thought stubbornly pervading on her tortured mind was how good it would be to lean against Jessie’s softness, to lose herself in the fragility and kindness of the other girl. She shooed away such thoughts. They were dangerous; they brought tears to her eyes. Yet feeling Leo’s embrace merely reminded Stacie of his expectations. It was their senior prom, and surely he would want to sleep with her afterwards. Stacie tried not to shiver in disgust at the mere thought of him touching her body, being inside of her… It made her sick, both physically and emotionally. She’d have to find a way out of it somehow, make up some sort of an excuse. Why am I doing this to myself—and especially to her—anyway? she asked herself silently.
The laughter of one of her friends dancing nearby in the arms of her rugby playing boyfriend reminded her the answer to this question. That was exactly why she could not be out, could not be honest, had to lie both to herself and to everybody else – perhaps to herself most of all. Stacie knew her friends much better than they knew her. They would ostracize her, make fun of her, and make her a social outcast, if they only knew the truth. Stacie did not just think so; she knew so. She also recognized in her mind the truth in the cliché saying that the friends who do not accept you for who you are are not good friends to begin with, but it did not help, considering the fact that they were the only friends she had and, whatever their misgivings, she loved them.
In a detrimental chain reaction, that thought brought about the thought of her parents. Stacie remembered her mother’s stern words, “Are you going somewhere with Jessie again?” She had always put a special emphasis on that last word when reprimanding her daughter about spending all her free time in the company of another girl. Stacie could not stand that tone of voice, perhaps because of the certain accusatory note her mother made so obvious, or perhaps because of the feelings of guilt it unfailingly invoked.
Then her father would pitch in, “That girl has never had a boyfriend in her life. I bet she is a dyke in disguise of a future elementary school teacher,” he would say, making Stacie cringe at the derogatory term that could just as well be replaced with a much less insulting, not to mention simply linguistically beautiful, word “lesbian”. “An elementary school teacher, ha! I would not want my children to associate with such filthy perverts. And I don’t want you to associate with her either, else people would call you a dyke too.”
“But we don’t really know if Jessie is that way,” Stacie’s mother would pitch in, as if in compromise, although Stacie could clearly see that she did think Jessie was exactly “that way”. “In any case,” the older woman would appeal to her daughter, “it’s simply not wise to spend so much time with one person.” Stacie noticed that she deliberately avoided saying “one girl”. “You should diversify,” her mother continued, hoping the big word would impress her daughter with its inherent feeling of importance.
If a mere thought of Jessie, her “friend”, being gay created such a fierce reaction, how could Stacie hope for them to even tolerate, not to mention to accept, her own sexual orientation? That is why she had had to break up with Jessie before the prom, which her parents would surely require her to go to and which they had agreed to chaperone. Back then she has spent three miserable days with her parents in Delaware, during which they continuously nagged her about dating members of the opposite gender, and when later her girlfriend had asked her to the prom, she simply fell apart. Stacie knew how much it hurt her girlfriend and regretted every second of that pain. When Jessie suffered, she suffered as well. She could feel the most excruciating pain she had ever felt in her life throughout their entire conversation, when she broke off their relationship. The hurt had enveloped her body with every word, numbing it to every other emotion, and it was all she could do not to let down her resolve. Stacie loved Jessie with all her heart, and the tears shining bright in her girlfriend’s light gray eyes made her want to tear at her own flesh for making the only human being in the whole world who has ever loved her purely, unconditionally, hurt.
And now Jessie swirled in the arms of another girl. Well, what did she expect? That Jessie would forever moan over her? Still, the pain pierced her heart as a knife. Yes, a knife… The thought was scary, but at the same time terribly, undeniably appealing. A knife through her heart.
Leo’s hand traveling slowly down her back and toward her butt broke Stacie out of her reverie. The music changed once again, and the blond girl noticed a couple of her friends chattering at one of the tables while their boyfriends stood a few feet away, talking amongst themselves. Stacie extricated herself from her date’s embrace before his hand descended low enough and indicated the two groups she had observed. “Why don’t we sit this one out?”
Leo seemed disappointed, but did not risk denying her request. “Sure,” he replied, leading her to the table and then joining the group of his buddies in their heated discussion on the subject of which of their dates was the sexiest.
Stacie sat at her friends’ table, asking, “What’s up?” and instantly regretted doing so, as one of them, Dayna, a bubbly honey-haired girl, replied in a conspiratorial whisper, pointing in the direction of the dancing Jessie and Kristin:
“Have you ever seen anything like that? To think of their nerve to just waltz in here – forgive the pun – and dance! With each other! It’s so disgusting!!!” Then, suddenly remembering, she continued quickly, “I’m sorry, Stacie. I know she was your friend and all, but look at her now! I’m glad you stopped being friends with her. Otherwise, who knows what she might have done to you.”
“Yeah,” April, an African American beauty in a glamorous dark blue dress, pitched in. “Who knows, maybe she had a crush on you or something. To think, all the while you are a normal girl, just being friends with her, and she wants to get you in bed.”
Maryann, a black-haired girl with large breasts and the most gorgeous violet eyes in the world, one of which always seemed to work on the members of the opposite and at times the same gender as a charm, picked up the conversation, completely oblivious to Stacie’s obvious discomfort with it, “I would never be able to be friends with someone like that. I mean, I would always wonder whether she fantasizes about me, you know, that way, or something.”
“Excuse me,” Stacie said briskly, standing up and turning away from the table towards the dance floor.
“Hey, Stace, sorry!” Dayna called out after her. “We promise not to talk about your former friends anymore.”
Stacie did not reply, striding seemingly angrily, but in reality dejectedly, towards the dance floor. Leo, thankfully, was too involved in the conversation with the other guys to notice. Her friends’ words were like the proverbial last drop, and she had to struggle very hard to retain her composure and not to break down in tears. The image of a knife returned, blazing in her mind against a scarlet background. It felt more appealing than ever. Stacie dreamed about it stubbing her heart and taking the life out of her. It would be such a relief not to have to worry anymore about her parents’ or her friends’ homophobia, Leo’s expectation for the upcoming night, which she new her parents had secretly endorsed, and especially about hurting Jessie, which, thankfully, she would not be able to do from the grave. She would even help save some people this way, since she was an organ donor. Obviously, her heart would not be used, but her liver, her kidneys… Yes, it was nearly a philanthropic act. Still, she could not go without telling Jessie how she felt about her.
Stacie strode toward the couple of girls dancing together and lightly tapped Kristin on the shoulder. “May I cut in?” she asked politely, the way she has seen it done in countless movies. Both Jessie and Kristin seemed utterly amazed, but the latter quickly recovered and handed her dance partner to Stacie, moving aside without a single word.
The blonde put her arms around her ex, leading her in a slow dance. Jessie let herself feel the warmth, the exquisite warmth, of Stacie’s embrace before gazing searchingly at her love’s face. “What do you want?” she said, and although the words themselves were hardly polite, the way she whispered them, softly, lovingly, made Stacie melt down inside.
“Could we talk?” she replied with a question, her body reacting instantly to the feeling of Jessie’s closeness and falling into the torturously sweet rhythm of the melody.
Their conversation was quick, but they knew each other so well, that the few words they did say expressed nearly everything they felt. Jessie nodded softly, not allowing herself to get her hopes up, even as a glitter of hope did escape in her eyes. “Let’s go outside,” she said quietly, taking Stacie’s hand, the touch alone sending electricity all over her body. Jessie led the other girl out of the gym and into the school lobby, where Stacie’s parents were involved in a deep conversation with several other parents, teachers, and members of the school staff. They were so engaged, that none of them noticed as two girls left the gym and walked down the hallway. None of them also seemed intent on chaperoning the kids out there doing god knows what on the dance floor. They probably figured that nothing could be done about the misbehavior of various students anyway. The practicality, or lack thereof, of the school administration never failed to amaze Jessie.
The two girls walked down the hallway, trying every classroom door on the way until finally Stacie pulled the doorknob of room 109, and the door, to her surprise, swung open. The room belonged to Mrs. King, an incredible woman with a degree in biochemistry, who has consequently taught chemistry, biology, and a plethora of related subjects, from genetics to zoology. Nobody knew how she found time to prepare the lesson plans for all of her various courses, but she somehow managed, and it truly came as no wonder when she was awarded some sort of a prestigious award from the Cornell University the year before. Since Mrs. King was generally extremely organized and diligent, it was difficult to believe that she would forget to lock the door, especially on the prom night, which was notorious for its mischief, most of which involved sex. Most likely, it was a mistake of the janitor, who cleaned her classroom after the 8th period chemistry lab.
The room was filled with a perpetual smell of burned matches, which Jessie enjoyed immensely, even as Stacie cringed her nose, trying to adjust to the sudden pervasive odor. The blonde felt awkward for the first time since making her decision about being truthful and gazed at the poster illustrating and juxtaposing the human and cat bone structures, which, amazingly, were almost identical. Jessie moved towards the lab table, where Mrs. King kept a threesome of gerbils in an aquarium-turned-cage. The animals were huddled together asleep, completely oblivious anything outside of the world of their rodent dreams. The only movement in their aquarium was the rhythmical rise and fall of their bodies with every breath. Focusing on the gerbils, so as not to look directly at Stacie, as if the sight of her would, like the sun, hurt her eyes, Jessie said quietly, “This must be important.”
She did not sound accusatory or even sarcastic; she was quite simply stating the fact. Stacie took her eyes off the poster and for a moment looked over at her ex girlfriend, unsure how to begin. Then she decided not to waste too much emotional energy and get straight to the point. After all, that would be better for both of them.
“I don’t know what to say,” she stated the first thing that came to her mind. “Except, I think I should be truthful. And if I am to be truthful, I have to say I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry!” The tears filled Stacie’s green eyes, and her voice was at the brink of breaking.
Jessie, catching the strangeness of her tone, looked up in amazement. She still could not allow herself any false hopes, but did Stacie mean that she was sorry for breaking her heart or for the entire act of dumping her? Jessie has imagined this scene thousands of times in her head, but know its imminent reality seemed completely overwhelming, clearing her mind of everything she had planned to say. Finally, she asked her question, eagerly anticipating, but at the same time dreading, the answer, “Sorry for what?”
Stacie’s eyes gleamed with surprise for the briefest of seconds, but the tears shone brighter. “For not being myself and for hurting you. I… I do love you, Jessie,” she whispered, finally allowing a few of her tears to spill. “But you have to understand… I can’t be with you, not in that way. I was wrong to pretend not to love you, to pretend I was interested in guys. I see that now. But I can’t… I just can’t be with a girl, either. It seems that there is no place for me in this world. I’m sorry for hurting you, but it turned out to be for the better. You have a new girlfriend now. I hope the two of you will be very happy together,” the tears were now streaming steadily from her eyes, washing away her light make-up. She continued before Jessie could interrupt her, “Please, don’t say anything. I just wanted you to know the truth. I’m really sorry for all the pain I caused you, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me because I love you. Please, whatever else you remember about me, remember this as well – I love you,” her voice broke off, and, unable to look at her beloved’s open face anymore, she turned away and ran out of the room, slamming the door loudly behind herself.
Jessie stood there in shock, staring at the poster on the door and listening to the sound of Stacie’s heals on the checkered linoleum of the school hall. She was dimly aware that the quick footsteps disappeared in the direction opposite of the gym, where the prom was held. This was the moment Jessie has been waiting for, dreaming about since the day Stacie dumped her, but now that it has finally happened she was overwhelmed by the complete uncertainty of what to do. She did not know what would happen if she took her girlfriend in her arms and wiped away her tears. How would they live? Would they still have to hide? Would Stacie be strong enough to stand up for their feelings for each other, which, considering the immense homophobia of central Pennsylvania, she would clearly have to do to survive? And most of all, could she, Jessie, as her beloved rightly put it, “have it in her heart to forgive her”?
Jessie realized suddenly that throughout her longing for, wishing for Stacie to return, she also fostered anger, overwhelming anger at her girlfriend ever daring to hurt her so. How could she just dump someone she said she loved? Did not she know how much that would hurt? Could not she guess that Jessie would rather die that live without her? And how dare she think that her ex girlfriend cared about her so little as to jump in bed with the first girl she met? Granted, Jessie almost did do that, but during every moment of making out with Kristin she could not stop thinking of Stacie, could not stop feeling her lips, her touches. She was entirely driven by grief instead of physical attraction. This wass why she stopped before hurting all three of them even more. Her love for Stacie drained her soul of every other emotion, so how dare Stacie think so little of it?
Anger swept over Jessie in waves as violent as the waves of the sea during a winter storm. She could not believe Stacie would betray not only her, but also her love, profaning it with empty suspicions, which could never be true. How dare she? The words kept repeating incessantly in her mind until she had to shake her head violently just to rid it of all the crazy thoughts raging in it as a hurricane. Jessie stood for a while with her eyes closed. Her mind was a complete blank, and she wanted to keep it that way, else the violent emotions, be it love, grief, anger, or a mix thereof, would return with a new force.
Then, suddenly, as a silver needle piercing her brain, a single thought came through the shield she built around herself. “It seems that there is no place for me in this world… Please, whatever else you remember about me, remember this as well – I love you.” No place in this world? And what did Stacie mean by remembering her? It seemed too much like saying farewell – not just to Jessie, but also to the world – making the final amends. Before dying?
The thought of suicide was too real for Jessie not to realize how real it was now in Stacie’s mind. The most excruciating, terrifying feeling of fear suddenly overwhelmed her. Stacie just cannot die. Without her, Jessie is nothing – her life is worth nothing. She could not imagine living in the world that does not have Stacie in it. The idea of a suicide, terrifying in and out of itself, now paralyzed her with fear. Jessie realized that, whatever else she felt, whatever else came their way, the only thing she would not be able to bear is Stacie’s dying, not just because she would feel partially guilty, but, most of all, because Stacie was her love, her soul mate.
The paralyzing fear finally loosened its grip, and Jessie was once again able to move. She hurried down the hall and burst out the school door into the still evening air. It was extremely quiet outside, the serenity of darkness contrasting starkly with the sheer panic in Jessie’s heart. She had enough sense to figure out that Leo would have either driven Stacie here in his car or hired a limo. Stacie’s parents’ car, furthermore, was still parked near the door at one of the spots reserved specifically for the prom chaperones, so the blonde had to have run away from school on foot and hence could not be far.
Jessie hurried to her own car, the heels making it excruciatingly difficult to run, even though they posed almost no trouble to her while walking except for making her lower back ache dully. She opened the lock after a few tries, nearly jamming the key in the process. The ignition roared into action, and Jessie drove out of the parking lot, neglecting to even check for the other cars that might be driving by, all of her senses consumed by a tidal wave of panic. Where could Stacie have gone? There is nothing near the school, no tall buildings with an overwhelmingly long ride of the elevator to the roof before the final jump, no relatives’ house with sharp knives displayed in a case on the kitchen counter. So where could she have gone?
Jessie drove around aimlessly, scrutinizing the face of every pedestrian she saw. It seemed like the entire town suddenly decided to take a walk in the fresh May air. Jessie’s heart bit faster and faster with each passing moment, as it might be the one that Stacie chooses to stop her existence in this world. As hundreds of seconds went by, adding up to what seemed like an eternity, the redhead grew more and more agitated, chastising herself aloud for wasting time, for not being with her beloved.
The small building of the creamery, the lights off, appeared at her left, and behind it loomed the tall, dark shadows of the park. That’s it, the park. Where else could Stacie have gone, if not their thinking spot underneath the old pine?
Jessie left her car in the park parking lot and ran onto the path walk making a loop around the whole recreation area. Her high-heeled sandals were carelessly thrown under the front seat, and her feet felt coldness and pain while hitting the harsh asphalt with every step, but she did not care. Finally she turned to run across a small lawn and then through a steep ravine towards the pond. The only park streetlights were located along the main pathwalk, so now Jessie could barely see anything around her in the dim light of the stars and the crescent moon. Thankfully, she knew the way with her eyes closed, and the darkness, which had suddenly enveloped her body, provided a strange sense of comfort. Night, please, or please, don’t let it be too late.
The dark brown bark of the oak felt welcomingly harsh to her touch, tearing and dirtying her white dress, as she climbed as high as she could. She has never really climbed trees before and surely never that high, but all the fears now seemed somehow insignificant. After all, was not the danger, the possibility and closeness of death, the point? Still, it was strange how she was nonetheless painstakingly careful while crossing the streets on her way there. Did it really matter if she would die under the wheels of a car or by jumping off a high tree headfirst onto a stony pond bottom? Well, maybe it did matter after all. Maybe, she just wanted to die on her own terms. Not that this was perfect either. It was not a knife through the heart, which would have been so much more full proof. Still, there was nowhere to get the knife from, and dying while being at least spiritually close to her beloved seemed like the next best thing. At first, she tried to climb their pine, but it provided nearly no holds near the bottom of the trunk, so she had to settle for the old oak nearby.
Stacie got up to the branch she wanted to get to and stood up on it to her full height, holding onto the trunk to steady herself. The water underneath was dark, glistening softly and sending gentle ripples through the bright reflection of the moon. She did not think about the suicide anymore. That was already decided; why dwell on the subject? Nor did she think about Stacie and Kristin, her friends, or her parents. If her life was filled with pain, at the very least her death can be happy, it can come as a comforting numbing of her brain. She focused on the things surrounding her, the oak, the pine nearby, the water underneath, and the quiet night sounds of the forest.
Suddenly the stillness and serenity of the evening were broken with a loud cry, “Stacie! Stacie!” The blonde turned around, nearly losing her balance in the process and hugging the tree so as to keep herself from falling.
A slim figure in a blazing red dress ascended quickly from the ravine several yards in the distance, running out from the shadows of the tall shrubbery onto the small opening at the shore of the pond. Several curls broke free of her beautiful hairdo, and the little white flowers seemed dangerously close to yielding to the insistent pulls of the evening breeze. But what caught Stacie’s attention the most was the look of pure despair on her ex girlfriend’s face.
Jessie noticed the white dress, standing out clearly in the green background, even in the treacherous and uncertain light of the moon and the stars. She ran towards the tree and gazed up with the a look of such worry, that it made Stacie want to cringe if not for her sudden inability to draw her eyes away from that gaze. The blonde was surprised to find that Jessie followed her here, but what made her truly incredulous were the tears glistening bright on the other girl’s face.
“Stacie,” Jessie whispered almost inaudibly, unable to bear the sight of her beloved preparing to prematurely end her life, but at the same time incapable of looking away. Her voice was soft, but the silence of the evening gave it a stronger ring, so it had no trouble reaching the ears it was intended for. “Stacie, I’m begging you not to do this,” her voice was on the verge of breaking, and the tears streamed again down her face.
“Why not?” Stacie replied, feeling oddly embarrassed at having anyone – even her dear beloved – witness such a personal moment. “Jessie, look, I don’t know how you knew or why you followed me here, but this is what I want.”
“I know how you feel. Believe me, I do. I felt like this myself many times,” Jessie was nearly choking on her tears. It was hard for her to speak. But she knew that a moment’s hesitation might end in tragedy. Stacie had to listen to her; she just had to. Otherwise, everything would be lost.
Stacie felt her own eyes also filling with tears. “Than you know why I’m doing this. You have to just let me go. What use is there for me living? What have I ever done with my life, except lie? Sure I get straight A’s, I am a cheerleader, I run track… But it’s not enough. Can’t you understand this?”
“I can. Stacie, of course, I understand. But…”
“I know why you understand,” Stacie interrupted her. “See? I even hurt you – I hurt the only person who I’ve ever loved, who has ever really loved me. And now… Why should I live? What possible purpose can I have in this world?”
“Don’t talk this way, Stacie. Don’t you know that without you this world is not worth living in? I can’t live without you, Stacie.”
“I wish I could believe that, Jessie, but I know you’re just saying this to dissuade me. You have a new girlfriend, and I have no one. I don’t blame you, really. I mean, what did I expect? That you’d wait for me forever?” she emitted a short chuckle, but the tears in her eyes only spilled over faster with that motion of her head. “Jessie, don’t feel responsible for this. You’re not. I’m doing this for myself, because I really have no other choice. And forgive me for everything,” her voice was gravely serious.
“I won’t forgive you!” Jessie cried out, startling and completely surprising Stacie. “Do you hear me? Don’t you dare leave me now! I won’t survive it! Stacie, I swear that if you jump off that tree, the sun won’t rise to see me living!!!” Her voice than grew softer, more reasonable, but her eyes still retained the steel resolution of her decision, startling, scary. “Stacie, listen to me, Kristin is not my girlfriend. She never was. And do you know why? Because I can’t even imagine loving anyone in my whole life as much as I love you.” Her voice almost broke once again, but she willed it to be even while saying softly, “I love you.”
Stacie looked into Jessie’s light gray eyes silently. Could this be true? There was such earnestness, such honesty, such gentleness in that soft, pleading gaze. However, this seemed just too good to be true. “How can I believe you?” the blonde whispered, feeling that her disbelief might be insulting, but unable to trust Fate to be so kind. Her entire future, or perhaps lack thereof, was based on the answer to that question.
Jessie shook her head slowly with a melancholy smile. She replied with another question, “Would I lie?”
Stacie finally let herself to dissolve in sobs and tears, holding on tightly to the trunk of the old oak both for support and comfort. She felt dizzy with joy and sorrow and a myriad other emotions that so overwhelmed her, that she could not for the life of her distinguish them. The only one of them that finally broke free of this whirlwind of feelings was love, but was it her love for Jessie, Jessie’s love for her, or simply the abstract concept love she did not know.
The redhead knew that Stacie believed her and allowed her love a moment to cry in peace, before pleadingly softly, “Baby, please come down.”
The blonde nodded silently, still too shaken down, not quite trusting her voice to reply. She began slowly descending the tree, holding the trunk and the branches so tightly, she thought it a wonder they did not break. It was so much more difficult that climbing it up in the first place. Stacie was rather acrophobic, and the fear of falling was now slowing down her progress downward, even as it had actually added to the excitement on the way up.
Jessie stood at the base of the tree immobile. With Stacie’s every movement, she was enveloped with wave after wave of fear that the blonde would change her mind, or that she would slip, and everything will be over regardless. Jessie was barely breathing, irrationally scared that the force of her breath alone might be enough to make her beloved lose the holding on a branch or the trunk. Only when Stacie’s naked feet finally touched the safeness of terra firma, did she permit herself to breathe. The two of them just stood there for a moment, gazing straight into each other’s eyes, and then simultaneously moved to embrace each other.
They held each other for what seemed like eternity. They felt like the world stopped around them, or maybe they stopped while the world was still madly whirling around them, threatening to engulf them at any minute, but at the same time oddly creating a safe harbor.
Finally, Jessie let go and whispered softly, “So, what now?”
“I don’t know,” Stacie whispered back, as if afraid that their fragile harbor will be shattered from the sound of her voice. “I do know that I want to be with you, though. I don’t want to hide forever.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Jessie replied seriously.
“I know, but I don’t think anything can be worse that what I’ve gone through today.”
“I know how you felt, and I agree; nothing really can be much worse than wanting yourself dead. I know,” she sighed sadly.
“I can’t tell my parents, though,” Stacie said suddenly. “I know it’s bad of me to lie to them, but please understand, they’re my parents, and if they found out I am gay, they would quite literally disown me. I might tell them later, but not now.”
Jessie did not want to bring Stacie down, but she had to be realistic, “Do you really think they are going to be any less homophobic later that they are now?”
“No,” the blonde answered with sorrowful seriousness, “but later they won’t have to pay for my college. I know this is selfish, but I can’t do it any other way.”
Jessie nodded. She really did understand. It was not just a matter of college; Stacie needed time to sort out her own feelings, maybe even to prepare her parents for the news, and, of course, to prepare herself for their rejection. “Could we tell my parents, though?” she asked. “They will probably mind at first, but I think they will get over it if we just give them some time.”
“Sure, we can, my love,” Stacie replied, smiling at her adoringly. “Sure, we can. And not just them. I don’t want to hide anymore, at least not from most people. Let’s be roommates in college, and tell all our new friends there about us. It’s a huge university; I’m sure my parents won’t know anything.”
Jessie smiled. The idea of living with Stacie, of sharing a room and perhaps a bed with her, filled her with such joy she felt compelled to embrace her again. She hesitated, fearing that a hug might not be quite appropriate at this stage of the conversation, but then hugged the other girl anyway. Stacie happily took her into her arms as well. “I love you,” Jessie whispered, pulling back after a minute or so. She felt joyously exhausted from the seemingly never-ending hurricane of emotions that picked her up in its whirlwind today, as a real hurricane must have picked up Dorothy from Kansas in The Wizard of Oz. “So what do you want to do now?” she whispered, experiencing an odd sense of dejà vu, but too tired to pay any heed to it.
“Why don’t we take the first step towards our new life?” Stacie said with a brilliant smile. She knelt down to pick up her high-healed shoes, which she had left at the roots of the tree before climbing it. The blonde put them on and turned to face Jessie again, her eyes glittering almost as brightly as the sparkles of her dress.
“What do you mean?” the redhead asked, losing herself for a moment in the greenness of those beloved eyes.
Stacie offered her hand to Jessie as a reply in an old-fashionably chivalrous way and said mischievously, “Lady Jessica, I believe you owe be the last dance.”
The music slowed down once again, and, tired from dancing alone while surrounded by a couple of hundred moving bodies, Kristin made her way towards an empty table, deciding to sit this one out. It has been more that an hour, the prom night was dragging along with excruciating slowness and boredom, and Jessie still has not come back from her little rendezvous with Stacie. Could this evening possibly have been any worse? Remind me never to say this again, she told herself as the answer to her question approached the nearby table in the form of the three most annoying cheerleaders in the entire squad. At least, the others did not take the cheerleader stereotype the media have been trying to feed the teens for the last decade literally.
Maryann, April, and Dayna separated from the dates, who have decided to cheer up their buddy Leo after he was suddenly abandoned by what would soon be his ex girlfriend, and sat at the table next to Kristin’s with a glass of punch each. Maryann’s escort, a hunky basketball player, Danny, kissed her on the lips before taking a step back to join the guys and accidentally brushing against Kristin’s chair. “I’m sorry,” he said without a hint of awkwardness, flashing the girl a brilliant smile. Kristin nodded dismissively; the night was bad enough as it is without getting into an argument with a jock, who actually did apologize. Danny smiled again and moved over to the guys, this time picking his way carefully through the jungle of chairs and tables.
Unfortunately, this seemingly minor incident brought the attention of the three cheerleaders onto Kristin. The black-haired beauty heard Dayna’s undisguised comment, “Danny is so damn polite, Maryann. You should talk to him. I mean he really shouldn’t associate with people like that. I’ve heard they have like whole communities or something. People might think he’s one of them if he hangs out with that girl.”
“He doesn’t hang out with her,” Maryann went on the defensive. “He just apologized for bumping into her. That’s all. He doesn’t even know her.”
“Whatever, Mary,” April interjected. “She’s still a disgusting little dyke, and I, for one, don’t want to have anything to do with her. Why do people like that even come to the prom?”
“People?” Maryann asked with genuine surprise. “You mean there’s more than one? I mean, there’s, of course, Jessie Klintoff, but are there really more of them?” She looked around suspiciously, as if expecting to see everyone on the dance floor dancing exclusively with the members of their own gender.
“Of course, there are,” Dayna rolled her eyes in a you-can’t-be-this-dumb gesture. “Like that girl, Martha, from our Precalc class. I mean have you ever seen anyone dress that badly? She is such a diesel dyke.”
“Yeah, or Matt from the Thespians. Uh, actors!” April said, as if that one word gave enough of an explanation to consider Matt to be gay.
“You know what I think?” Dayna asked and, without waiting for an answer, continued. “I think those lesbos are just scared of real men, so they try to find themselves fake ones. I mean, if one of them felt a dick like Harry’s in them, don’t you think they would drop the carpet-munching once and for all?”
Kristin gritted her teeth and stood up slowly, menacingly, turning to face the group at the neighboring table. The girls shut up, but Dayna looked up at the Asian girl, as if daring her to react. Kristin resisted a sudden urge to throw her own punch right into the cheerleader’s face, her mind for a split second drawing an incredibly fulfilling picture of the red liquid soaking the fabric of the golden dress. Come down, she told herself. Don’t stoop to their level. It was like being back in the elementary school, when Kristin had never reacted to the bullies’ comments, telling herself that she was better than them. In reality, her decision was in great part motivated by pure old-fashioned fear, but acknowledging that fact would not be the best of encouragements. This time, however, she was all grown up, and she’d be damned if she let these feminine versions of bullies put in the last word.
“Dayna I believe it is,” Kristin said, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible, which was rather difficult to do since she was boiling with rage.
“Yeah, what’s in it to you?” Dayna replied. The malice in her voice was mixed with pretentious sweetness, like deadly poison in a bottle of chardonnay.
“Nothing, in fact I couldn’t care less, if it wasn’t for accidentally overhearing your little conversation about me in particular and my gay brothers and sisters in general. Well, you know what? I don’t give a damn what you say. I love who I love, and maybe if you just stopped playing a dumb, popular cheerleader for a second, you would realize that that’s more that you could ever say about yourself.”
She turned to walk away, but Dayna was on her feet in a second, yelling at her, “Dyke! We’ll see what you’ll say now! Why don’t we take this outside?” her voice was threatening. “Or are you so into chicks, that you’re also chicken?” she added under her breath. All the eyes in the radius of about five yards were on them now, but the loud music prevented any of the chaperones or students on the dance floor from hearing the argument.
“For your information, I’m proud of being into chicks,” Kristin replied, wallowing in her righteousness and outward composure. “As for being scared to fight you, well, maybe I am afraid, but not of you. I’m afraid of stooping to your level,” without waiting for a reply, Kristin turned on her heel and went towards the dance floor, hoping that James and Lily would help her to cool off a bit. Dayna lunged in her direction, her hands clenched in fists, but Maryann and April held her back, whispering in her ear that it was not worth ruining their evening over.
“Way to go, girl,” Kristin heard a female voice telling her admiringly, but was to steamed to reply.
“Yeah, you showed her!” a male voice pitched in.
Kristin turned around to see a couple of kids she did not know, but had seen regularly in the school halls, giving her a thumbs-up sign. She smiled in their direction and continued on her way, suddenly feeling incredibly warm inside for having someone, two total strangers, support her cause. It was worth it just knowing that there are some good people left in this world after all.
James was leading Lily in a slow dance while she was quietly whispering, “One, two, three. One, two, three,” into his ear. Her theatre experience made her a very good dancer, which was more than one could say about her boyfriend, who despite having been involved in practically every school production due to her influence, did not feel capable of moving to the rhythm of the music if his life depended on it. If I can do this now, AP’s will be a breeze, he told himself, but it hardly helped. James was rescued from the evil clutches of dance music when Kristin came up to the two of them.
“Sorry to bother the loving couple on their one and only prom night, but have you seen Jessie? She left to talk with Stacie a while ago and still hasn’t returned,” Kristin was not really worried; she just needed someone to talk to in order to keep herself from going mad with jealousy. She knew it was selfish to distract James and Lily from their prom experience, but simply could not help herself.
The dark-skinned boy readily jumped at the opportunity to stop the dancing torture. “No, I haven’t seen her. Have you?” he inquired, turning back to Lily. She shook her head. “Well, we can help you look for her, if you want,” he continued. “Did Stacie really want to talk to her? Wow!”
“Yeah, she did,” Kristin answered, trying to keep the dark notes out of her voice.
“I wonder what they are talking about,” James said without thinking, then looked at Kristin apologetically. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK. It’s not like I expected from Jessie anything more that friendship,” the Asian girl smiled melancholically, knowing full well that it was not exactly true. She did expect something more, hoping against all hope that maybe she was not Jessie’s missing shade after all. How incredibly, intolerably stupid!
“Come on, girl,” Lily said, putting her arm around Kristin’s shoulders. “She loves her. You know that. It’s really as simple as that. And hey, bet there are going to be a lot of cute gay girls at the U. next year. I’m even going to buy you a nice rainbow-colored bracelet to wear so that all of them can recognize you from miles away,” she smiled soothingly.
“Lily,” James whispered in a mockingly shocked tone of voice. “If all the girls at Penn State are chasing after Kristin, who is going to be left for me?”
“Guess, silly,” Lily replied, rising on her tiptoes to place a quick kiss on his lips.
“Well, still,” James pretended to not being entirely convinced. “Think about what you’re saying. What will Kristin do with all these female admirers chasing after her? She goes to the library, there’s a girl just waiting to ask her out; she goes to English 30, there’s another one; and I don’t even want to think about the dorm showers,” he lowered his voice in a mocking shock. “Poor Kristin. Being the center of attention isn’t always easy, you know.”
“I think I’ll manage,” Kristin replied, smiling despite the dark feelings still floating in her head. Perhaps, this temporary amnesia, at least on the topic of Jessie, actually was the true goal of James’ little comedy routine. If so, hanging out with the redhead was definitely having a bad effect on him, if he picked up even her tendency for mind games.
“It looks like we won’t have to go look for them after all,” Lily interrupted Kristin’s train of thought, nodding in the direction of the entrance. Jessie and Stacie stood in the doorway, looking around the room in search of their friends. Both of them were in a rather sorry condition, the dresses torn and dirty and the hair beginning to come out of its perfect hairdos, but the expression of happy content on their faces testified to the fact that they have finally resolved all their differences. James waved, catching their attention, and in a minute the two girls joined their friends just off the side of the dance floor.
“And here we were worried the two of you have abandoned us forever,” Lily joked, thereby adroitly saving Kristin from the necessity of starting the conversation.
Jessie and Stacie exchanged a glance. Lily had no idea how close she was to the truth. “We’re fine. We just had to have a little talk,” Jessie replied, not wishing to lie, but definitely not feeling up to telling her friends the whole story. “I’m sorry to have abandoned you,” she continued, gazing at Kristin apologetically.
The black-haired girl tried to stifle the hurt she felt, telling herself, Kristin, get a grip, and then saying out loud, “It’s OK,” even though it really was not.
“Could we talk?” Jessie asked her, wrinkling her forehead like she always did when asking something she felt she had no right to ask for.
“Yeah, sure,” Kristin managed a smile that did not seem at all genuine. “Excuse us for a sec,” she told everyone else, and the two girls moved a couple of meters aside.
Stacie stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say to her girlfriends’ best friends. She was never particularly close to them herself, but they were always on very friendly terms with each other. Besides, the awkward silence they were suddenly submerged in intruded upon her brain, filling her with a very uneasy feeling.
“So, how was your Calculus AP?” she managed with a feeble smile.
“I think it was OK,” James jumped readily at the topic since the awkward silence was not exactly pleasurable for him either. “The multiple choice part was really easy, especially in comparison to what I had expected. The free response was trickier, especially the calculator part. I ended up finishing it without the calculator during the no calculator time, since I don’t think there’s a rule against that.”
“Yeah, that calculator free response section was a killer,” Stacie responded, smiling silently. The academics never failed to provide interesting topics for conversation in high school world. It was sort of like the weather or the sports everywhere else. “What AP do you have next?”
“Physics,” Lily replied, since she and James were in the same Physics class. “I’ve heard the free response there is really hard.”
Their conversation went from there, touching upon every Advanced Placement test the Princeton University has ever come up with and then dissecting it on the basis of its level of difficulty. Meanwhile, Jessie and Kristin sat down at the empty table several feet away, out of their earshot.
“Kristin,” Jessie began. “I really don’t know how to say this—”
“Save it,” the other girl replied quickly. “Just tell me, are the two of you back together?” Jessie nodded silently, so Kristin continued, “I know you love her. You made it more than clear on many occasions. I knew someday you would return to her. I wasn’t expecting anything from you. This prom date thing was just a friendship kind of deal, that’s all. Don’t be guilty about breaking a date or anything. You know, it’s really not like that,” she lied shamelessly, but it was better that way. Kristin knew Jessie would torture herself with guilt over leaving her behind anyway, and these entirely untruthful words might nonetheless provide a sort of counterforce to that guilt.
The redhead smiled softly. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t a real date, but I feel like I should apologize anyway. And thank you, thank you for everything, but especially for always listening to me and understanding me,” her smile radiated warmth, and although at that particular moment Kristin simply could not bring herself to understand her completely, she found herself slowly melting in the gaze of those light gray eyes.
“You’re welcome,” she whispered, afraid that the full sound of her voice would betray the tears threatening to consume her.
“So I guess I’m not her missing shade of blue, after all,” Jessie smiled again, this time so radiantly that Kristin could not help but smile back.
“Guess not,” the black-haired girl echoed, trying not to sound nearly as melancholic as she felt and failing miserably. Jessie’s sharp musical hearing picked up the note of sadness in her friend’s voice and looked at her piercingly, but decided against saying anything. After all, what could she say that would not upset Kristin even more?
Instead, she announced casually, “We should probably go back before they miss us too much.” Kristin nodded quietly, not trusting her own voice and moved to get up, but Jessie held her back for a moment. “Do you think we could still be friends?” she asked, wrinkling her forehead again. Kristin looked uncertain and hurt for a second, but finally nodded silently, lowering her eyes to hide the pain in them.
As the two girls approached the group of their friends, the three were just talking about the upcoming Physics AP. They agreed that all would be fine if they just were not required to memorize the hundreds of formulas, each necessary for at least one problem. Of course, some were rather simple, like the one from Newton’s Second Law. Everyone knew that one, but what about the formula for the Doppler effect? Yeah, that was a killer.
Kristin jumped eagerly into the conversation. Anything to take her mind off the emotional pain she felt. “The Doppler effect is easy compared to all the thermodynamics calculations.”
“Oh, we didn’t see you come back!” Lily exclaimed, turning to them with a brilliant smile.
“Did you talk?” Stacie asked Jessie and then glanced at Kristin apologetically. It was as if she could look straight into her soul and see the pain there, and the feeling of being so transparent to the person she wanted to hate was anything but comforting to the black-haired girl. What was worse was that Kristin could not really hate Stacie; she understood her too well. After all, they were kindred spirits, both loving Jessie so much. Not hating her hurt even more, or perhaps not more, but differently, desperately.
Stacie saw the pain in Kristin’s dark eyes, and guilt swept over her. After all, it was her fault that the other girl was hurting as she was. She gave her the hope of love by dumping Jessie and than shattered that hope into tiny pieces by claiming the redhead’s heart back. Kristin must hate me so much now, she thought. Stacie knew that focusing on that hurt would only embarrass the other girl even more by dragging her feelings out into the open. The last thing she probably needed was Stacie’s sympathy. Therefore, the blonde quickly said, gazing at her girlfriend, “Jessie, I believe you promised me a dance. I think my parents are still in the lobby, but even if they were here, it’s not like they would be able to actually see us with all those people on the dance floor. So how about it?” she offered the redhead her hand in a chivalrous gesture.
Jessie accepted her girlfriend’s hand. “Excuse us,” she told the others. “The night is still young.”
A group of high school students whose band has won the first place in the school talent show that winter and hence the honor of playing at the prom stroke up Beatles’ Money Can’t Buy Me Love, and Stacie pulled Jessie out onto the dance floor, saying to her on the way, “Come on, baby, I will literally rock your world,” and waving goodbye to the others.
“Bye, you two!” James and Lily yelled after them in unison and than broke into a peal of laughter as they realized that they had just said the same thing at the exact same time. When they stopped laughing, James looked at Kristin and immediately grew serious once again.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
She nodded, somehow managing a falsely light smile. “Go dance, you two. I’m fine. I just want to be alone for a while.”
“Are you sure?” Lily was not entirely convinced that abandoning a depressed person at the prom was such a good idea. On the other hand, she did understand the need to be alone so, when Kristin nodded again, the blonde put her arms around James’ shoulders, silently nodding towards the dance floor. James reluctantly accepted the offer, put his hand on his friend’s arm for a moment, and then allowed his girlfriend to lead him away.
Left alone, Kristin looked around the gym aimlessly, taking in the sight of several hundreds of moving bodies in their best evening clothes. She could not bear being around so many people at the moment. She really did need to be alone. Kristin went out into the school parlor, where the chaperones were still conversing on various subjects instead of doing their true work. They did not even look her way, not that she wanted them to. The less attention she attracted to herself, the better.
Kristin headed for the school’s main entrance and went outside. The cool evening air greeted her with its light embrace, and she felt momentarily better. She sat on the steps of the school, looking around, just taking in the night, focusing on it, becoming one with it. Kristin did not want to think about anything else, fighting desperately to keep her mind blank. The night songs of cicadas filled her ears. The streetlights poured steady, soft light on the red brick face of the school, the flagpole in front of it, a small stature of a mountain lion, their school mascot, and the large silver letters announcing “Fairfield Area High School” glistening on the wall. Above, the crescent Moon was already high in the sky, and the bright stars courtly surrounded her, interspersed randomly in the black velvet of the sky, ready to obey her every command.
Kristin had no idea how long she was sitting there. She knew there were people coming in and going out of the building the entire time she was there, but she did not care who they were. In fact, while the night consumed all her senses, it did not seem to her that anything actually existed in this world except for herself and the Moon, unified in a perfect whole. And if some people did exist after all, well they certainly did not matter. If they could even for mere second be absorbed into the beauty of the night, they would corrupt its perfection with their senseless worries. The Moon and Kristin could only laugh at them from high above, secure in the niche of complete serenity. At that moment, neither of them had any worries, any feelings, any pain. Kristin felt nearly relieved to realize that perhaps that meant also not having a heart, which was, after all, irreversibly broken. It seemed to her like she was one with the emotionless Moon; they completed each other.
Kristin broke out of her reverie when she felt someone’s body plop down on the steps next to her. It turned out to be James. Guess, he did not go home yet, even though the prom must have been almost over by now. James also looked up at the moon and quietly said, reciting his favorite one of Jessie’s poems,
“O, pretty face of distant Moon, That silver crown in pitch-black sky, Phantasmagorical creations Do sing their praise to you at night. The demons living in the trees Reach up to you with branchy hands, And fireflies, as stars on Earth, For you light up exuberant dance. Accelerating to the sky, The effervescent nightly breeze, Reaching the zenith of its might, Blows feverishly through the trees. Nebulous figures of the night Find a niche within the dark— The equilibrium of Nature Their most eclectic spirits binds. O, Moon, this nightly reverie, As evanescent as yourself, Brings out enigmas of the dark, Enticing even ghosts to dance. But as the blackness whirls around, Contrasting your pure, silver shine, Ephemeral nature of the night Gives birth inevitable to the Sun.”
Kristin forcefully pulled her spirit, which seemed to have been floating around, down to Earth and turned to her friend, smiling sadly. “Is ‘phantasmagorical’ even a real word?” she asked for the sole purpose of saying something, anything.
“Ne,” James replied lightly. “‘Phantasmagoric’ is, by the way, but not ‘phantasmagorical’. It just sounds so cool… ‘Phantasmagorical creations.’ Creates for a nice rhythm, too.” He fell quiet again, and she did not feel like breaking the silence this time. The two of them just sat there for a while, each taking in as much of the feeling of the night as they could, then James turned to Kristin once again and said with caring seriousness, “I’m your friend, right?” She nodded, looking up at him with amazement at this sudden topic of conversation. He continued, “I just wanted to tell you that I’m always here for you if you need to talk. So is Lily. You’re our friend, too, and we really care about you. So don’t shut us out. We’ll always be happy to give you a shoulder to cry on, and between the two of us, it yields four shoulders already.”
He smiled, and the care and concern in his voice made Kristin return that smile. “Thank you,” she said. “I will talk to you eventually. I just need to sort some things out first,” she looked pleadingly at him, almost begging him with her eyes to leave her in peace until she is ready to talk.
“I understand,” he nodded to her relief. “Are you going to be okay here?” She nodded and whispered, “Thank you,” again.
James got up, brushing off his black pants. “See you Monday,” he said. “Prep up for the Physics AP.” James turned around and started walking back to the school lobby, where Lily was waiting for him patiently. He hoped he was doing the right thing by leaving Kristin to sort out her feelings alone, wishing she would not think of doing anything stupid. He had to go, though; it seemed like the best way of helping her at the moment.
Kristin followed her friend with her eyes as he disappeared behind the school front door. She could guess what he was thinking and shook her head bemusedly. No, she won’t commit suicide. God, how cliché would that be! She just needs some time to be alone with her feelings, submerging herself in her pain, and perhaps even getting a sort of release, a license to feel free, at the end.
Kristin looked up at the Moon still shining high in the sky. The night was amazingly clear, and no cloud dared to profane her “pure, silver shine”. The Moon was surrounded with a belt of pure light. It was blue, the most exquisite, unimaginable shade of blue.
