Truth

“Tell me a truth,” she said.

“Tell you the truth? About what?”

“Not the truth. A truth. Tell me something true about yourself. Something I don’t know.”

“Truth?”

“Truth.”

“I hated you in high school.”

That got her attention.

We lay together atop the bedspread, not really doing anything, our fingers intwined. I had been looking up at the popcorn ceiling and thinking of nothing in particular, simply enjoying the animal warmth of her hand, her shoulder pressing into mine. Then this question. She had a habit of doing things like this. When we met again – or, depending on how you look at it, for the first time – in college, she didn’t say, “I remember you from Hendricks High.” She didn’t say, “You look familiar, did we go to school together?” She didn’t say, “Why are you wearing that dress, weirdo?”

She said: “I was just reading about sky burials. They sound badass. I’d like to be eaten when I die, how about you?”

I’d like to be eaten when I die. By you, my love.

She sat up halfway, taken aback. “You hated me?”

I thought about it. “Not with an adult hate. Not like I hate abuse or discrimination or people who kick puppies. The way you hate things when you’re young because you’re scared and insecure and things are going on in your downstairs that make you want to dance, or scream, or cover yourself in gasoline and set yourself on fire. Or maybe all of them at once.”

“You have a way with words,” she said, not sarcastically.

“With you I do.”

She snuggled in closer. “Do I bring that out in you?”

“You brought a lot out in me.”

“Yep.” She squeezed my hand. “So why did you hate me?”

I tried to order my thoughts. “Do you remember what I looked like in high school?”

She thought for a moment. “Sullen. Quiet. Bookish.”

“How I looked, love.”

“You were a little heavy.”

“That’s very diplomatic, thank you. I was the fat kid with the babyface reading Stephen King books in the back row. That, and glancing furtively at the beautiful girl with the spiky blue hair who sat a few rows ahead of me. The confident girl who wore leather jackets with Blade Runner and Buckaroo Banzai patches sewn into the shoulders. The girl who was openly, proudly bisexual. The girl who took no shit from anybody, and kissed anyone she damn well pleased.”

“As long as they said ‘yes’,” she said. “I like to kiss.”

I know a cue when I hear one.

We kissed. We parted.

“I’d have kissed you back then,” she said. “If you’d asked.”

“I didn’t want to kiss you,” I said. “I mean, I did – I dreamed of kissing you – but it was more than that. It was this ache...”

She slid an arm behind my head, supporting it. “It’s okay, love. It’s okay.”

And like a perfect idiot, like a machine made to do nothing but angst, I felt myself tearing up. Like I hadn’t done this enough. “I wanted to be you. You were so confident. About your gender, your sexuality, your identity.”

“Love, I was scared to death half the time.”

“I know. But that version of me didn’t see that.”

“Truth?” she said.

“Sure.”

She kissed me again. “You were a little bit of an asshole in high school.”

I laughed, and the tears went rolling down my cheeks. I wiped at them. “Yes, I kind of was.”

“I thought you might be gay, back then,” she said.

“I thought I might be gay, too. Then I thought maybe I was trans. Or maybe I was ace, and all I wanted was to cuddle pretty people, if I could ever find anyone who wanted to cuddle a fat, confused nerd.”

“I’m still not seeing the part where you hated me.”

“You made it look so easy,” I said.

“Made what?”

“All of it. You seemed so together, so...” I hunted for a term. “So one-pointed. There I was in the back of the class, juggling spaghetti. Did I want to be a boy, a girl, nothing at all? Was I gay, or bisexual, or straight, or ace, or just broken? It burned inside me. It burned me up.” Seriously not going to tear up again, nope, seriously not. “It hurt.”

“Truth?” she said.

“Sure.”

“Did you ever hurt yourself?”

“No.” I turned on my side so we were facing each other. “But if there’d been just one more grade of high school...”

“Right?” She mimed wiping sweat from her forehead. “And college?”

“A revelation,” I said. “Suddenly I wasn’t the weirdest person in the room anymore. Suddenly I could tell people I thought I might be a boy and a girl and not be treated like I had the plague. Suddenly I had a future.”

She kissed a tear away from my cheek. “You always had a future, love. Even if you didn’t see it. Want to know the truth?”

“From you? Always.”

“When I met you, I wasn’t sure I had a future either.”

It was my turn to be surprised. “You didn’t?”

“You remember Katie?”

“Your ex? Sure. She came to a few of our parties, didn’t she?”

“Do you know why we broke up?”

“Um. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t.”

She didn’t tear up. That wasn’t her style. But I could feel that energy in the air. Pain has a frequency all its own. “She was emotionally abusive.” She pauses. “That sounds so dictionary, doesn’t it? She didn’t believe in bisexuality. She hated the idea of me being with a man, and she got jealous any time I talked to one. She used to tell me I was hurting the lesbian community.”

“Jesus.”

“I was just about to give up on relationships for a while – I thought maybe for good – when I met you. And then...” She rolled her eyes, then looked into mine. “Then everything.”

“Then everything.”

We lay together in silence for a long moment.

“Truth?” I said.

“Sure.”

“When did you know it was going to be okay? I mean, between us? When did you know we were going to work out?”

By way of answer, she took my hand and placed it on her stomach. “This. When I could let you touch me here, and not flinch away. You’re the only person I’ve ever been with who I trusted that way. Who my body trusted that way. You’re soft and kind and gentle, and I trusted you from the moment I met you. Body and mind.”

“I’m so glad.”

We kissed again.

“Your turn,” she said. “Truth?”

“Truth.”

“When did you know it was going to be okay? For us, for you. All of it.”

I looked into her eyes, eyes I never tired of looking at. “When did I know?”

“Mm-hmm.”

I smiled, and this time the tears that gathered were the good kind. “When you introduced me to your friends. When you said, without hesitation, ‘He’s my girlfriend.’ That’s when I knew.”

She kissed the tears on my cheeks. “Truth?”

“Truth.”

“You are.”