JENNIE

“That has to ,” I said. “How long have you known?”

“How long have you known?” he asked, hitting me with that piercing look again.

The meaning there was clear. He wasn’t going to admit anything for sure until I was admitting something to him for sure. I suppose that was fair.

Still, it was difficult. The only person I’d ever admitted this to was Lisa, for obvious reasons. It’s not like I was going to get any of the benefits from Donghyuk that I got from her.

And I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong about admitting this to a complete stranger. Like maybe this was part of some plot to get the goods on me and then he’d blab it to the school.

Yet at the same time it felt easier with him. He was practically a complete stranger. I mean sure I knew him in the same way everyone knew everyone else when you went to a school in a town as small as ours, but I didn’t really know him.

Somehow admitting it to him didn’t seem nearly as potentially disastrous as admitting it to someone I knew and cared about. For example see how long it took for me to admit my feelings to Lisa and she was the one I had the damned feelings for in the first place!

I took a deep breath. Tried to calm myself down though I’m not sure how good a job I really did.

I felt lightheaded. My scalp started to tingle and not in a good way. I couldn’t believe I was actually about to do this. I couldn’t believe I was going to admit a truth I’d been reluctant to even admit to myself as recently as a few weeks ago.

“Yeah, I’m into girls,” I said. “Mostly. I mean I’ve had a few experiences with guys, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t nearly as into it as I was with…”

“With your friend?” he prompted, then sighed. “Man, you’re so ing lucky. I don’t even have something like that. The moment I breathe a word of something like that to someone on the team or one of my friends they’ll…”

His voice caught. I was surprised to realize that Donghyuk, manly Donghyuk, studly Donghyuk, Donghyuk who was the envy of every guy in the school for all the girls he could pull and the desire of all those girls who wanted to be pulled, was on the verge of tears as he thought about the disaster that would hit him if anyone had even an inkling of an idea that he wasn’t straight as an arrow.

My heart went out to him. In a way it made me feel better about my situation. It was like I was looking at it from the outside and for some reason that sort of put things into perspective. Made me realize that maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought they could be.

I reached out and hesitated, then put a hand on his shoulder. He looked down and smiled. A single tear ran down his cheek. His hand came up and wrapped around mine.

His hands were huge. They were rough. Probably from playing football since he was in the peewee leagues. I knew because I’d been a cheerleader for those same leagues.

It’s like we were being set up for our roles in high school even back before we knew what those roles were or what they would mean. Before we knew whether or not we even wanted to play those roles.

I knew I was tired of hiding from who I was, and standing here with Donghyuk on the verge of tears spilling his guts to me opened the floodgates on my end.

I started talking and I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. It’s like this needed to get out, and my brain wasn’t stopping me.

“I don’t know if you should envy me all that much,” I said. “I think I royally ed things up with Lisa.”

“Lisa?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up. “The cute girl in the band? The one who plays the clarinet?”

I blinked a couple of times. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he knew who Lisa was. Again, small school where everybody knew everybody else even if they weren’t exactly BFFs.

Also he called her cute. Weird. I guess I’d spent my whole life being attracted to her on some level. I knew I wanted her. Needed her. It was like a fish swimming in water and never stopping to think about the wetness surrounding it, or someone breathing their entire life without really stopping to think about what the air was.

It just was, and it was the same way with me and Lisa. The attraction was just always there, and hearing someone else talking about her like that felt odd.

Nice, but odd.

“Yeah, well I’ve ed things up with her,” I said.

“Oh yeah? How’d you manage to do that?”

I was surprised at how easy it was to talk to this guy. At the beginning of the night I figured I’d hate him. I figured he was every bit the he played on TV.

Now that it was just the two of us back here though, suddenly glued together by the secret we’d shared with each other, he seemed a heck of a lot nicer than he’d been before.

Maybe there was something to that. Maybe part of the reason I’d been so keyed up this entire time was because I was so worried about my secret getting out.

Maybe I’d be able to loosen up if I just let that secret out. Let the world know the truth.

Yeah, that was crazy talk.

“So is there anyone special for you?” I asked.

“Well I don’t know about that,” he said, looking down.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I asked. “Surely there’s got to be someone out there that turns your crank. Come on. I told you all about who I had the hots for.”

He sighed. Looked through the pool house. I could hear the party still carrying on over on the other side of the place, but most of the noise was blessedly muted over here.

This seemed like the kind of spot that had been deliberately set up for a bit of private entertaining. It was enough to make me pull away from the hot tub thinking about what might have gone on in there over the years.

“That’s the thing,” he said. “I haven’t been able to find someone I connect with, y’know? I mean sure there are guys who are totally hot, the locker room is torture trying to keep my eyes front and center, but there’s no one…”

He trailed off, but I could understand what he was saying. I knew I’d gotten lucky finding Lisa so early in life and knowing she was the one.

Now I knew I’d won the ing lottery by finding her and having her interested in me. And I’d gone and maybe thrown it all away because I was freaking out over everything.

Freaking out because I was into Lisa. Though to be honest it’s not like I’d ever given guys much of a chance. I’d always been about her and only her.

I laughed. It didn’t have any humor to it, but what else could I do? I might’ve royally ed up my