I must have picked up my phone over a hundred times with the intention of texting or calling Kate, but each time I remembered her asking for space and did nothing. I was not sure that was the right course of action; wouldn’t it be more meaningful if I fought for her, made her talk to me so we could fix things? But it seemed creepy to badger her into talking to me when she had very explicitly asked me not to, so I kept away. Even though it was making me a nervous wreck.
Making matters worse, my sister did not keep quiet about what she had witnessed, and went straight to my parents to tell them that Kate and I had broken up and that it was my fault. I took exception to the breaking up part, mostly because I wasn’t sure if we had actually been a couple (How many dates did it take until two people were in a relationship? Was Kate my girlfriend? Had I lost my girlfriend before I’d realized I even had one?).
My parents were understandably worried and tried to get me to talk about what had happened, but I stone-walled them until they backed off. I wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened between me and Kate, mostly because I was still trying to figure it out myself.
When I replayed our last conversation in my head, I replaced different parts with other things I could have said at the time. I could have immediately agreed to go to prom with Kate, keeping my misgivings to myself. I could have encouraged her to go with Jenny’s group, explaining that prom wasn’t something I was interested in but insisting she go and enjoy herself. I could have taken a few more seconds to figure out my thoughts instead of spilling out the half-formed ideas I had stupidly shared with her. My reflections weren’t helping, though, instead highlighting all my mistakes and making me feel worse about my actions.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Marie what had happened with Kate, but she found out anyway. Not all of it, but enough to be worried about me. I wasn’t sure who had told her, if someone in my family had let her know or if it had been Jenny. However it had occurred, Marie called a few hours after Kate had left my house and tried to give me advice, which I did not appreciate.
“You have to go over to her house and talk to her. That’s the only way you two are going to get past this,” Marie said over the phone.
I sighed. “And how am I going to do that?” I asked with no enthusiasm. As if I hadn’t been thinking about how I could fix things with Kate for hours now.
“Go up to her and say, ‘Kate, of course I want to take you to prom. Let me make all your prom fantasies come true,’ and then take her to a hotel and do what you have to do,” Marie said matter-of-factly.
I hung up on her without a second thought.
So Marie was no help. Surprisingly, her little brother called me a few minutes later. He must have been listening in on our conversation, because he kept the phone call short and sweet.
“I’m sorry that you’re having trouble with your girlfriend.”
I didn’t bother correcting him that Kate was not my girlfriend.
“But I wanted to tell you that I’ll always love you. Okay, I have to go work on my reading. Bye, Haley.”
That short show of affection made me feel better, even if just for a few minutes. That kid was something special.
The worst was the next day at school. I had been trying to get a glimpse of Kate in class, but she must have been avoiding me. She got out of first period history early by giving the teacher some sort of note just as class began. I was excited to see her, and hopeful that I could talk to her or give her a note or even just a smile, but she was gone before I had the chance. The short glance I got of her wasn’t very encouraging. Her hair was in a low ponytail, and she just seemed…sad. And I was the one who had caused it.
After third period, while I was at my locker, going through the motions like it was a regular school day and not as if my world was crumbling, I got a text message from an unknown number. It wasn’t too hard to figure out who it was from.
Unknown number: stop fucking things up with my best friend. i warned her you were a waste and now you’re a jerk on top of it. fix it or end it.
After saving the number as “Enemy number 1,” I sent my own text to Marie.
Me: stop giving out my number to people who hate me
Just a few seconds later, I got a response.
Princess Bananahammock: she said she wasn’t going to be mean. was she mean?
Before I could respond with the perfectly snarky reply I had ready, a voice from behind me had me turning around. My momentary hope that it was Kate was dashed when I saw Marie standing there. My disappointment must have showed on my face.
“Sorry,” she said apologetically. “No luck, huh?” she asked. I just shook my head. She pulled me into a hug, and I let my chin fall to her shoulder. I had never felt lower than I did standing in the middle of the school hallway getting a pity hug from my best friend.
That was yesterday. Today was turning out to be just as horrible. I’d overslept, so Eddy had to wake me up so we wouldn’t be late to school. I barely had enough time to get dressed and ready before my sister was dragging me out the door to the car. Throughout the entire ride to school, she complained about how late we were and how she was going to miss her presentation for first period and how I was sabotaging her scholastic achievements. I tried my best to tune her out, but only succeeded in focusing my thoughts on Kate, wondering if I would see her today. It had taken a supreme effort not to call her last night, but I’d stuck to what I believed was right and had given Kate the space she’d asked for.
When we finally got to school, I was so relieved to finally be free of the sisterly nagging that I jumped out of the car as soon as I parked. Right when I had cleared the back end of my car, my sister called out to me.
“What?” I snarled, not in the mood for any more of her criticisms. “Did I not park fast enough fast for you? Are we too far from the door? Do you want me to carry you on my back?” I said, each word increasingly louder until I was screaming at her. I was having a mini meltdown, but I didn’t care who saw.
Eddy stood in front of me with a patronizing look on her face. I wanted to smack it right off. Instead she said, “You’ll thank me for this one day,” and pushed me.
Right into the path of an older sedan. Which hit me.
The car wasn’t going very fast, so it wasn’t like I flipped over the hood or anything. The contact was just enough to bump me off my feet. I lay on the parking lot asphalt, dazed. I vaguely noted that the car had actually hit my backpack, which I had slung against my side. The several thick textbooks in it had cushioned the blow so that the car hadn’t directly hit my body. Good thing, too, because I did not want to find out if my bones could withstand a direct hit from a moving automobile.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” a voice interrupted my thoughts. A very familiar voice. Worried blue eyes came into my view, hands hovering over me, not sure whether to touch me or not. I turned myself over onto my back and looked up at the person who had hit me.
It was Kate.
“Hi,” I said, more happily than I should have. I was just so glad to see her, to have her talking to me (even though it was only to apologize), that I couldn’t pretend otherwise.
“Haley, I didn’t mean to hit you! Oh my god, are you okay? Don’t move. Let me call an ambulance. You could have broken bones or internal bleeding. Don’t move. Don’t move!” she ordered in one of the shrillest voices I had ever heard.
I was pulling myself up into a sitting position, and she obviously did not agree with that course of action. But I didn’t feel any broken bones, and after taking a deep breath, the lack of any pain probably indicated no internal bleeding, either. After taking an inventory of my body and finding it all in good shape, I stood up. Kate protested the entire time, wanting to call for an ambulance, but I waved that idea away. Except for a few scrapes on the palms of my hands where I had tried to brace myself after I fell, I was fine.
We had attracted a crowd that seemed disappointed that I was fine. While they dispersed, no doubt hoping that a major accident on school grounds would have canceled school, or at least delayed it a bit, I stood with Kate, unable to take my eyes off her lovely face.
Her lovely face that looked like it was about to burst into tears at any moment.
“Kate, I’m fine,” I tried to soothe her, but all that I was able to accomplish was to get her to scrunch up her face more in an effort not to cry.
In between sniffs, she said, “I don’t know what happened. I saw you park, and I wanted to get just a quick look at you, because I missed seeing you and talking to you, and then all of a sudden you were flying backward right into my car, and I tried to stop but it was too late, and then you were on the ground and I thought I had killed you or maimed you, and I still think you should go to the hospital because your insides could be collapsing right now and we’re just standing here talking.” She ended with her arms waving helplessly in the air.
That reminded me: where was my sister? A quick look around showed no trace of her. I sort of understood what she had tried to accomplish with the stunt she’d just pulled, and it had sort of worked because Kate was talking to me again, but she could have done so without almost killing me.
Though now that I was standing in front of Kate again, it didn’t matter all that much.
“Kate, my insides are not collapsing. I’m pretty sure I would notice that. You just bumped me a bit, and I fell mostly because I was off balance and surprised. Look, my arms and legs and everything else are all working and in tip-top condition.” I demonstrated by running in place and doing a couple of jumping jacks and a few air punches for good measure. Kate’s eyebrows became a little less scrunched up, so I figured my attempts at placating her were working.
“I thought you said you don't work out. That was an impressive display,” she said with a slight wobble in her voice. I let out a quick laugh.
“Let’s go somewhere,” I said, surprising us both. “Let’s go to breakfast. We can skip history and go get pancakes instead,” I elaborated, getting more excited (and hungry; I had missed breakfast after all).
“You want to skip school and go get pancakes rights after I hit you with my car? Did you hit your head when you got knocked down?” she asked, moving to inspect my head for damage.
I smiled and shook my head. “My head feels great. I feel great. Just hungry. So if you want to help, take me to get breakfast. I’m feeling more like an omelet now, so let’s get going before I change my mind again.”
When Kate didn't move or answer, I made one last plea in the most pathetic voice I could muster. “Please, my stomach is so hungry. I missed breakfast, and there’s already been so much excitement this morning…” I trailed off, leaving her to fill in the blanks on her own, which she did with impressive speed.
“And I’ve kept you standing here and arguing.” She huffed out a breath one more time and finally gave in. “All right, where do you want to go for breakfast?” Before I had a chance to answer her, she added, “But only if you let me know right away if your head starts to hurt or anything like that, okay? Your health is much more important than French toast—which is what I want, so please pick somewhere that has it. Deal?”
I of course took that deal.
My suggestion was a little diner that my family sometimes went to, only a ten-minute drive from the school. It served some awesome French toast. We sat in a booth in the back, and only after we’d ordered two French toasts with orange juice did things get awkward. It was the first time we’d been alone since our terrible conversation in my room. At least, alone where she wasn’t checking for life-threatening injuries and I wasn’t giving driving directions.
In a role reversal from the usual dynamics of our relationship, I spoke first.
“Thanks for coming with me to breakfast, Kate. I know you said you didn’t want to talk to me for a bit, so it rea—”
“That was a stupid idea,” Kate interrupted. I shut up and waited for her to talk. I did not want to get my hopes up, but I could feel them rising all the same.
After a sigh, she continued. “It wasn’t fair for me to shut you out like I did after you were so honest. I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you didn’t do anything wrong. I just didn’t like what you said, and instead of discussing it like normal people, I shut you out. It wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry.” She reached for my hand that was resting on the table between us, and when I didn’t move it away, she lightly held it. I gave her hand a slight squeeze and then entwined our fingers together. It was amazing how such a small gesture could feel so right.
“No apologies necessary.” I couldn’t help smiling what I knew was a goofy doofus smile.
She reciprocated with her own dazzling smile, and I had to contain myself from jumping over the table to kiss her. Hopefully that would come soon.
“When you said you weren’t comfortable showing affection in public, I panicked,” Kate said. “I was afraid that you had changed your mind about dating me, or about being with girls in general. Which makes no sense, since I’m the bi one and you’re the lesbian, but that’s how I felt. But I later realized that was me projecting my own fears and insecurities onto you, which was totally not fair. I just like you so much. I’ve liked other people, including boys, in the past, but no one as much as you, and it got me wondering if those feelings were dishonest.”
She paused and I didn’t interrupt, but I couldn't help playing with a packet of sugar on the table as I waited.
“Well, maybe not dishonest, because they felt real at the time. But so much of the world is black and white, or at least people make it out that way, that it was hard being in my own little area distinctly colored gray.”
Kate had been talking to the window mostly, but now she turned to me. She really was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
“But I’ve got to trust myself and my feelings. And I’ve got to trust you. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but right now I like you and you like me, and it’ll drive me crazy to second-guess those two things. So I’m just going to go with it, with how you make me feel, for as long as it lasts. Did all that make sense?” she asked finally.
“Perfectly,” I truthfully responded. Because that was similar to how I’d felt at the beginning of all this. I’d been so worried about Kate’s motivations that I’d almost talked myself out of getting closer to her, which would have been the biggest mistake ever. I would never have gotten to know her and talk to her and kiss her and fight and make up with her, which would have been a tragedy.
Before I could elaborate, our food arrived. With a look, we agreed to put our conversation on hold to eat. Outside of a few remarks about how good the French toast was, we ate silently, content to know that the biggest obstacle between us had been cleared.
As I ate my delicious breakfast, I sneaked glances at the girl in front of me. In some ways I felt I knew her, and in others she was a total stranger. But I was learning that was the great thing about dating someone—finding out all the basic things about her, like favorite food or color, and then going deeper and finding out what made her the person I wanted to spend all my time with. We’d only scratched the surface, and it was scary and exciting and thrilling. I couldn’t wait to find out more.
“Hey, Kate,” I said with a mouth full of French toast. She looked at me with her beautiful eyes in anticipation of my question. “Do you want to go to prom with me?”
Her smile gave me the answer.