She said my name and sighed deeply with a hint of sad apprehension. It sounded like she almost gave up when she discreetly said she didn’t want to hang out with me anymore.
She said “hang out” to describe what we did, and that was almost as hurtful as the rejection that was about to happen.
Instantly, I knew what she was trying to say and interrupted her in a futile attempt to block her from uttering the words she probably perfected in the shower. “Can I just call you tomorrow?”
Her brash answer was no. She was beginning to sound agitated and impatient, as if she were constantly scanning her room for unexpected family members. It was obvious the more I talked, the more she wanted the call to end.
I chose my words carefully as I twisted and twisted at the cord until my fingers turned purple at the tips. “But, we had such a good time and I thought…”
“I’m not gay,” she said calmly with an attempt to muffle her words from possible prying ears.
My heart burst into a million little pieces. I expected some hostility after she sulked in a guilt trip for twenty-four hours, but I hoped for the Angel who was intimate with me the previous evening. It felt like the person on the phone was the evil twin of a familiar songbird. In reality she was pushing me away faster than a kid dodges medicine.
In desperation I begged as if I was only asking a friend for a good day to catch a movie. “What about Thursday? Can I call then?”
She snapped at me with her hands over her mouth to the phone, which only made the whisper sound very loud. “Don’t call me again. I’m not gay!” and click, hung up the phone. That was it for her, pushed over the edge with Thursday. Maybe the request should have been for Friday or Saturday; that’s usually when straight girls go wild. Either way, my mouth stayed open in shock until the receiver beeped. The handset pressed into my hot ear until the beeping fell silent to the lost call. Dramatically I spoke to the nothing on the other end, “Okay, I guess I’ll call you some other time.” Then slowly I hung up the phone.
Escorting oneself through a second heartbreak is not easy.
My happiness with undefined sexuality was satisfying until she came along and disrupted everything. She ran from me, so I ran back to men and lost my “true” virginity to a boy I’d barely known longer than a month. It was easier to be straight; and, to be honest, boys are far easier to please.
My first love came back into my life through his pregnant girlfriend. She heard through the high school grapevine that we were secretly confessing love while I was dating some idiot from automotive science class, who was, in fact, mildly retarded. Part of it was true; Robert and I talked, but he initiated phone calls and confessed things to me about our love. His words were warm and true. She may have been his girlfriend, but I held his heart.
Hormones must have driven her insane because she confronted me at the top of a set of stairs in school. She stood so close to me that her belly linked the space between us as she threatened to beat me up. My inner butch, needing an excuse to escape, didn’t utter a single curse word, but each calculated sentence flew like daggers. Friends were shocked with how eerily calm I was versus my usual vibrancy. When a girl isn’t afraid to fight a pregnant woman, it’s best to walk away. And she did. There is power in confidence, but no matter how strong you are, someone always wants to test it.
She tested it a second time weeks later when she drove to my house after a heated phone call. A shouting match ensued just as my parents came home from work. In their infinite wisdom, they thought it best to bring everyone into the house to clear the air in a civilized manner. Of course my preference was to kick her pregnant lily-white ass.
As everyone seated themselves, my gaze fixated on her sitting beside Robert; I sat crossed legged on the floor, a weakened version of myself. My dad and stepmom were there to mediate our little powwow.
The bottom line was, if Robert said it was over, it was true. Anything else was an obsolete spilling of useless ramblings.
She tried to speak for Robert, but I barked before she could say another word. “You. SHUT. UP. I refuse to hear it from you.” My finger pointed between the two of them as her eyes grew to the size of quarters with my unexpected outburst. “I want to hear it from him. I want it to come from HIS mouth; otherwise it means SHIT to me! Don’t you speak for him again!” With quiet defiance she grabbed his hand and held it in hers. Timidly she spoke, “Tell her, Robert. Tell her you don’t love her anymore.” Her passive-aggressive tactics were pushing my emotional buttons, and had my parents not been sitting there, I would have exploded into a rage that wouldn’t have ended well.
Robert sat quietly for a moment; he never was much on words. He looked down at their intertwined fingers in contemplation, over to her belly, then to me waiting in a controlled fury on the floor. Everyone fell silent, listening to the beat of their own heart with bated breath as he collected his thoughts. My dad and my stepmom watched the young love drama unfold before their very eyes. Even they were in disbelief at the amount of tension in the living room.
Eventually he looked me dead in the eye, gently and quietly cleared his throat, and said he didn’t love me anymore. My parents’ devastation added to my own because they truly liked him. They even went so far as to pick him up, put a red bow on him, and surprise me for my sixteenth birthday. They knew it would crush me, but they didn’t expect it would hurt them too. I could hear their sighs of disappointment as my hands instantly cradled my face in pain and embarrassment. The intent was to bury my tears, but, when the flood came, there was no way to hide them. Yours truly cried the most horrific, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking cry on the planet. Not because he said the words that destroyed my world, but because he was lying.
Deep in the canvas of his soul he painted a picture of unconditional love for me but hid his work of art for the sake of an unborn child. My pain poured so hard and long that I didn’t hear them leave, and I collapsed an hour later from exhaustion. My dad picked me up from the floor and carried me to my room. He excused me from school as my face was so swollen it affected my vision. I became a zombie of an emotional death, completely lifeless on the inside.
That year the heartbreak from Robert and Angel brought minor isolation issues and rebellion. There was no violence to small animals or other radical mischief; rather, fashion was my outlet. My hair was styled in outlandish ways, and Goodwill dresses became my staple for two weeks. Yes, I was a real insurgent trying to rise up against tradition. It’s so clever to use fashion as an understatement.
Amber, my best friend, could not be tempted into these ways, no matter how convincing my monologue was. Her passive, bubbly personality wouldn’t allow my rebellion to begin. She accepted me any way presented, therefore calming my internal uprising. She was my peacemaker, my confidant. Amber soothed my troubled waters and was a bridge back to normalcy. Recalling her nonchalant reaction after pulling a Penthouse from my mattress was relieving and refreshing and a wonderful surprise, considering my struggle and attempts to hide it. Without flinching, she sat down to browse the pages on my bed. She flipped her long blonde hair behind her shoulder and opened the magazine, exposing the photos inside.
“Why do you have this? This is a guy’s magazine.”
I was literally in my closet pulling out clothes when she brought it to my attention. By that time she had already flipped through a few pages. In a panic I tried to grab it from her hands, but she was too quick. She laughed at my attempt. I was extremely embarrassed but glad to be exposed by my best friend and not anyone else. I stood five feet away with my arms crossed in a defensive manner, scared of where this might go, but I explained because there was something accepting in her blue eyes.