The only time I was envious of Liam in high school was when he got to spend New Year’s with Kennedy.
My girlfriend.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t spend the night with my girlfriend. She and Liam carpooled to Cassandra’s house, and I drove myself to Tanner’s small gathering with our usual crowd…everyone coupled up. Lana and Meghan, Tanner and Erick. And that left me and Riley by default.
This is so going to get awkward tonight.
Since Tanner’s sister was in college, she was our one degree from getting our hands on alcohol. Seven six-packs of various beers, a bottle of Absolut Vodka, and a bottle of champagne. The sight was like seeing the sunset in the Grand Canyon, and I was pretty jealous I gave myself a no-bad-habits rule. The party swarmed around the alcohol, except for me. I wasn’t about to ruin any chances in my swimming future because I wanted to get buzzed on New Year’s when I was seventeen.
Riley poured herself a Solo cup of vodka and orange soda. I was a little shocked she did that, especially when she refused to drink soda. Not just during swim season but in life. She didn’t like all the sugar and thought flavored sparkling water was better tasting anyway.
“Are you a soda drinker now?” I said with a playful laugh.
She looked up at me with a straight face. “Are you super straight edge now?”
Yup, she definitely isn’t in a good mood tonight. Drink away, Riley. Drink away.
“When I have ever not been straight edge?”
“Two summers ago at Lana’s pool party.”
“Why does everyone keep bringing that up? I only puked one time in my life. It was needed to repair my broken dreams.”
“Well, wanna drink?”
“Nope. I’m not putting any toxins in my body until after world champs.”
Riley laughed as she swallowed the first sip of her drink. “Yeah, because one drink is really going to ruin your chances. It’s New Year’s Eve. Live a little.”
“Why aren’t you being supportive?”
“I’m not not being supportive. I just think it’s a little extreme. This one night is not going to mess up a meet seven months from now.”
“You can think it’s ridiculous as much as you want, but I’m not gonna drink. Thanks for your support, though.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll leave you alone now. Clearly, you just want to argue.”
I left her at the table of alcohol and joined Tanner and Erick. If she was going to judge me for not drinking, I didn’t need her by my side anyway.
I texted, How’s your night? I miss you.
She responded five minutes later with a picture of just her, Liam, and Gabriel. Liam had his arm around her shoulders with a goofy face, and a thumbs-up formed his other hand. Gabriel towered over them in the background as if he’d photobombed at the last minute. But my eyes went straight to Kennedy in a black cocktail dress hugging her athletic body, ending halfway to her knees. She was so incredibly hot and beautiful. Her silky light brown hair. Her natural beauty with just the right amount of makeup. The dress fitting perfectly around her to show off her built arms and amazing toned legs. Her flawless smile with her straight white teeth. Those beautiful light green eyes looking back at me.
She texted, We miss youuu!
I replied, OMG. Why are you so beautiful…and incredibly hot? My brother is so not even worthy to be in the same picture as you. Shoo him away. Gabe can stay.
“Hughes, phone down,” Tanner said. “Live in the present. Come play a game.”
Tanner brought out the cards, and a game of Kings ensued. It was inevitable that I would get harassed for being the only one who didn’t have a drink in hand, but peer pressure I could handle. The parties that separated Kennedy and me? I couldn’t handle that. Half of my mind was in the game of Kings, trying to accomplish my mission of getting Erick and Lana drunk—the two people who were the funniest. Erick broke out in a one-man Broadway show, and Lana dropped a bunch of swear words she never usually said. And the other half of my mind was at Cassandra’s party, just wanting to be next to Kennedy for midnight.
The more the night grew, the more I wished I had something to drink. Everyone was tipsy except for me. The couples started getting touchy with each other, leaving me and Riley awkwardly alone on opposite ends of the room.
When the countdown started ticking away at the bottom of the screen, all the couples paired up, leaving me and Riley not sure what to do with ourselves. I daydreamed at the TV, knowing that Kennedy was watching the same thing at her party, wondering who she was going to kiss at midnight. My only guess would be Grant. It was no secret he liked her and would try everything he could for her kiss.
“What’s wrong with you?” Riley said when she approached me.
I knew that my sulk wasn’t going to help my case of proving to her that I wasn’t dating anyone.
“Nothing. I was just…daydreaming.”
“About whoever you were texting that made you all smiley?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I do because I think it’s funny how defensive you get when someone asks if you’re dating someone. It just really confirms that you’re dating someone.”
I wasn’t falling for it. I knew Riley. She’d given me plenty of signs that she still liked me, and I highly doubted she would have been happy for me if I got into another relationship. Honestly, I would have been a little jealous if she got into one, so I used that to set the bar on her jealousy.
“Look, Riley, I’m sorry if homecoming gave you false hopes about us—”
“Oh, you mean the fact that we slept together, and then you left me and promised me that you’d make it up to me later, and then every time I tried making plans with you, you made up some really bad lie?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Okay, Riley, I’m not,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
“Know what I think?”
“What’s that?”
“I was way too good for you. I would have done anything for you, and you wouldn’t have appreciated it or noticed at all.”
She downed the rest of her drink and left me for more alcohol. Her comment really stung. A sober woman’s thoughts were a drunk woman’s words. Even though I knew she was clearly drunk, so her mental filter wasn’t in operation at all, the words still hurt. All because she was overstepping her boundaries into a part of my life I didn’t want to share with her anymore. Now, I was the bad guy. I already got flak from my friends for breaking up with her for something as stupid as her having too many feelings for me. I didn’t want it coming from her too when we had a pretty civil breakup.
With two minutes left, Erick popped the champagne bottle. Everyone oohed, and he went around the room to fill everyone’s empty flute glass. We raised our glasses and heard the crowd on the TV start to count down twenty seconds to midnight.
“Twenty seconds to get your lips ready,” he said, making a point to eye both Riley and me.
The two of us exchanged looks from the other sides of the room. We had less than twenty seconds to decide if we were going to be the only ones at the party not to have a New Year’s kiss. After her comment, I couldn’t have cared less.
We all crowded around the TV, clutching our flutes, starting the countdown from ten. The closer to midnight, the closer the couples get to each other. Riley looked at me. I looked at Riley. It was almost like the year before when we dated, except we were eager to kiss and ring in the New Year together back then. Now, all I wanted to do was make out with my new girlfriend, who was so unbelievably beautiful in her picture. I would have probably cried and cursed the gay gods if I couldn’t kiss her in that dress.
“Three, two, one,” the party chanted along with the TV. “Happy New Year!”
“Auld Lang Syne” played on the TV as flashes of various couples kissing passionately in Times Square played. Meghan kissed Lana, Erick drunkenly kissed Tanner, and the two began to make out in their own corner. And Riley and I exchanged one last glance.
“Okay, Sister Mary Quinn and Sister Mary Riley,” Erick said over Tanner’s shoulder. “Go fucking kiss already. Jesus!”
“Yeah, it’s not like you guys have never done that before,” Lana said.
“It’s fine, really,” Riley said. “I’m not crying about it.”
The whole party looked at me. Again. Because I was the bad guy, and Riley was the poor innocent girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and just deserved love. Like the female version of Ted Mosby and I was just callous Robin.
“What?” I said to everyone.
“What did you do now?” Tanner said.
“I did nothing. She’s been in a mood all night. Look at her.”
So they did.
“Yeah, no, I’m not playing this game,” Riley said. “Who needs another drink?”
Lana and Tanner raised their hands.
I texted Kennedy, Want to know what we should do? Ditch our parties and be together.
I didn’t need to put up with Riley’s jealousy when I could just sneak off with Kennedy.
She replied, OMG why didn’t I think of this before?
Because we’re clearly dumb. My ex-girlfriend is in a bad mood and taking it out on me, and I want to leave. I can be at your house in an hour?
She texted back, Cassandra is in a bad mood too. Melanie is voming all over the deck. So it’s perfect timing for us to bail on our parties. Meet me at my house. 1:00 sharp.
Where you lead I will follow.
I left Tanner’s party forty minutes after she texted me to make it less suspicious. Riley and Lana were the two drunkest at the party, to the point where every word out of Lana’s mouth was “fuck,” which I thought was hilarious, and all of Riley’s words strung together, which wasn’t hilarious at all.
By the time I arrived at Kennedy’s house promptly at one o’clock, her red Jetta sat in the driveway. I texted her to let me inside, and fortunately for me, she greeted me still in the dress. The first floor was dark, and the only light illuminating the house came from her bedroom upstairs.
“Your family is asleep?” I said as my hands reached for her waist so I could marvel at her body in that sexy dress.
“They just went to bed. I told them I was staying up for you to come over.”
“Please, never come out to your parents so we can keep this up. I’m not allowed to have girls sleep over without being forced to leave the door wide open.”
“I will stay in the closet forever.”
“Good. Now, this dress that you’re wearing…”
“I was about to take it off. Do you wanna help me?”
I actually became speechless. I was a teenager who just got into a new relationship with a beautiful girl. So the thought of helping her take off her dress really did things to me—to my mind and everything below my waist.
“I can definitely help.”
She wiggled her eyebrows up and down and grabbed my hand, and the two of us ran up the steps to her lit-up room. Right when we stepped inside, she shut the door and locked it, and I pushed her up against it. She backed into it, breathing into me as my lips fell on hers, begging my tongue for entrance. I ran my hands all over her body as my tongue met hers and my hands felt every inch of her in that incredibly sexy black dress. We made out against her door for a few minutes, kissing each other passionately as the whole night brewed more lust and emotions we needed to release.
Then I pulled away and said, “Kissing you is really amazing, but I want to get out of these clothes. Do you mind donating some for me to sleep in?”
“Of course.”
She fished out a soccer T-shirt and flannel sweatpants for me to wear. She changed in the bathroom into her PJs, I changed out in her room, and we met each other again in the bathroom so she could hand me her mouthwash bottle while she brushed her teeth.
“I have to admit that seeing you in my clothes is sexy as hell,” Kennedy said with a mouthful of foamy toothpaste oozing from her lips. She spat her toothpaste out and washed her mouth with clean water. “Keep the shirt and wear it all the time at school, please.”
“I would definitely get looks from your teammates.”
“It would be funny.”
“Our sleepovers have really changed a lot since last time,” I said. “We wore each other’s clothes all the time, and now it’s suddenly sexual.”
“Yeah because we’re seventeen and apparently super hormonal, which is pretty accurate. Let’s jump in bed now.”
As she headed to her bed, she ran her hand from one side of my back to the other. I quickly finished gargling the mouthwash so I could join her.
She jumped on her bed, pulled down her covers, and patted my spot. When I lay right next to her, she cuddled up beside me, nestling her head between my neck and shoulder, draping her arm over my torso. Her bed got a million times more comfortable with her on me. I closed my eyes, breathing in the smell of her room and her hair, feeling our breathing slow down into the same patterns as we fully soaked in the scene of us cuddling with each other for the first time. It was just as amazing as making out with her, except way more intimate. The more we cuddled and breathed in and out together, the more I just wanted to squeeze her and rub her hair.
“Can I ask you a really personal question?” Kennedy said after a few moments of silence.
“No.”
She laughed. “Please?”
I let out a long sigh. “I guess.”
“How did you come out?”
No one had really asked me that question before. Everyone in my life was there to watch me go through it. I came out so many times, sometimes each coming-out blurred into one story. Being gay, or any part of the queer community, you had to come out to every person in your life who you wanted in your life. I wish I could just send a memo out to the world that I was gay so I could stop coming out, but unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way.
So, I told Kennedy about each time I came out. I first told Liam in March of sophomore year when we both found each other staring at this gorgeous college-aged girl at the rec center. He caught me looking at her legs and butt, and I caught him looking at her boobs.
“Were you just checking that girl out?” he asked.
“Um, maybe.”
He smiled so wide. “Oh my God. Are you…”
“I think so.” I knew 100 percent I was. Because Lana made me excited to dissect dead animals, and every time Meghan slipped me her tongue, I felt electricity spark underneath my underwear. “But don’t tell anymore, or I’ll punch you in the dick.”
“Well, that explains everything. This is so awesome!”
Liam was the easiest. A few days later, he told me that I should probably tell Gabriel, which I knew was going to be awkward because for those two years I suspected that I was gay, I tried everything in my power not to be. I wanted to like boys. I thought Gabriel was the most attractive boy I’d ever seen. During Christmas break sophomore year, Gabriel and I had a Christmas movie night where we watched A Christmas Story, Home Alone, and The Grinch. It was just the two of us on the couch in his basement. We’d been cuddling the whole night, and then halfway through Home Alone, he made a move, and we made out for the rest of the movie. It didn’t just happen once, but it happened a handful of times in the span of three months when we scheduled movie nights that really turned into make-out nights. Sometimes he tried to go further than making out, but I always shot down the proposition. I liked kissing, and I liked kissing Gabriel, but even as I was kissing him, he didn’t give me butterflies or the same rush of electricity below my pants like Meghan did. When we kissed, I pretended that he was a girl like Meghan or Lexa from The 100 or Alice from The L Word, but the smell of his boyish cologne always ruined it for me.
So, Gabriel and I had a movie night again a few days after I told Liam, code for “I want to make out.” Right when he leaned in for a kiss halfway through the movie, I pulled away.
“Gabe, I, uh, I need to tell you something.”
He frowned. “What?”
“We can’t keep doing this. The friends with benefits thing.”
“Why not?”
I swallowed the large growth in my throat. “I like you…as a friend. A really good friend and you’re really cute, and kissing you is fun, but I don’t like you like that. I, um, I…I’m gay.”
It was the first time I said the sentence out loud. I’m gay. Saying it left a weird taste on my tongue and a wild springing beat in my heart, as if saying those words made it frolic inside my rib cage because I was finally free. I finally put that label on, and it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Liberating, if anything.
Gabriel laughed. “Nice joke.”
He leaned back in to resume kissing, but I backed away. “No, really. I’m gay. I like girls.”
“How? We’ve been kissing since Christmas—”
“Because I never kissed a boy before, and I thought kissing one would make me realize that I’m not gay, but I am. I’m so sorry. God, I’m an awful person.”
And then I cried. What Gabriel should have done was tell me to fuck off for leading him on, but after a few moments of swallowing the information I gave him, he hugged me tightly in his built arms, realizing that my tears confirmed that I was gay and terrified of it.
He was mad at me for leading him on, yes, and I think he thought that he was the one who “turned me gay,” but we talked about it again a few weeks later, and he told me he would always be my friend no matter what.
If I thought Gabriel was going to be hard to come out to, I knew my parents would be the largest hurdle I had to jump over. Their generation wasn’t really accepting of the new political correctness wave happening in my generation. While Lana, Tanner, and Riley shared with me their successful coming-out stories, Erick and Meghan shared the ones we hear way too much about. Meghan’s mom had treated her differently ever since she came out when she was in eighth grade. They barely had any kind of relationship, Meghan said, and that prompted her to live with her dad since he was way more supportive. After Meghan chopped off her hair, bleached it blond, and started dressing more masculine, the only form of communication she had with her mom was on holidays when she and her two younger sisters were forced to spend time with her. No wonder Meghan hated all the holidays.
As for Erick, his home life was even darker. His parents were very Catholic, and when they found out about Tanner shortly after they started dating, Erick said they screamed at him in Spanish for hours. One day, he came home to find all these crosses nailed to his bedroom walls to expel the gayness out of him. They even sent him to a therapist that we later found out used aversion and shock therapy, telling Erick the reason why he spent his evenings with the Hayeses wasn’t for the support he wasn’t getting at home but because his attraction to Tanner was an addiction. And Erick told us once when he was drunk that his therapist spent one session shocking him to pictures from Playgirl. The last half of junior year, we watched our good friend Erick fall into a deep depression. I never thought I would live to see the day that Erick Iglesias didn’t have his mischievous smirk on his face, but there was a dark period where he never smiled. Luckily, the school psychologist, Mrs. Gulati, intervened one day at the tail end of junior year when Erick had a mental breakdown in her office. She immediately called in Mr. and Mrs. Iglesias and demanded they find Erick another therapist. They obliged, but Erick was still scarred from his first therapist, and he grew a huge resentment and hatred for his parents. It wasn’t a surprise that he was going to hightail it out of Aspen Grove the second we graduated from high school.
Luckily for me, my story was nowhere near as depressing as Meghan and Erick’s. It just kind of happened to me a few days before junior year homecoming. I already asked Riley to the dance and planned on telling my parents we were just going to go as “gal pals.” The four of us were eating a nice family dinner at the table, and my mom asked us about our homecoming plans. Liam told them that he was taking Jennifer—his girlfriend at the time—and they were meeting at Kennedy’s house for pictures and dinner. Then it was my turn to say my plans.
“I, um, I’m going with Riley Scott,” I said, using my fork to line up my peas in a vertical line just so I could avoid giving them eye contact.
“Oh, really?” my mom said, her tone slightly disappointed. “Did Gabriel find a date?”
My mom really wanted Gabriel and me to date. Sorry, Debbie. The most that would ever happen with Gabriel would be his tongue down my mouth and his hand reaching for my jeans that I immediately swatted at like a pesky housefly.
“He did,” I answered.
And his date was, like, a huge upgrade from me. He asked his girlfriend at the time, Aimee Byrne, this really beautiful senior with wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes, and 70 percent sexy legs. They started dating a few weeks after I came out to him, and they lasted for nine really intense months. They were all over each other, so it was no surprise when he told me he lost his virginity to her. I told him that my coming out to him was a blessing in disguise because he got Aimee Byrne, one whole year older than us and a total track star babe.
“So, no real date this year?”
I stopped playing with my peas as the tension covered the dinner table like a white tablecloth. From the corner of my eye, I could see Liam watching me, waiting to see if I was going to use this opportunity to come out. I’d come out to him about seven months before and managed to keep it a secret from everyone except him, Gabriel, and my queer friends at school.
This is the time to tell them, I told myself. Tell them now because you’ll come out to the whole school at the dance.
“I, uh, she’s, um, she’s a real date.”
“Of course, honey, I get that. But, I don’t know, every mother just hopes her kids can go to a school dance with someone who they really like, that’s all. I just figured you and Gabriel would go again since you guys get along so well. But if you want to go with friends, then go with friends.”
I swallowed. Hard. So hard that I could feel the emotions creeping up to my throat and eyes. “I do like her,” my voice lowered. “She’s not really my friend. She’s, um, she’s a real date. I asked her to the dance because I like her. Not as a friend.”
Silence.
They’re going to hate me. I’m such a freak.
“Quinn, do you like girls?” my dad asked.
“Some of them. Not all of them.”
My dad laughed. “Same here, hon. Same here.”
I finally looked up at him to see his heartwarming smile. And then I looked at my mom, afraid that I would forever crush her dreams of me marrying Gabriel Báez, the cute, chivalrous Puerto Rican boy next door from such a nice family.
“Quinn, how long have you known?” my mom said. Her light brown eyebrows raised in more of a nurturing way than an angry way.
And that was when I broke. “A long time,” I said and started to cry. “A really long time.”
A few months after Kennedy Reed kissed me.
Mom pushed herself out of her seat and took me into her arms. “Oh, honey, no, why are you crying?” As she wrapped her arms around me, I continued bawling in my palms. I heard my dad’s chair screech across the hardwood floors followed by his warm, giant hand on my back.
“Honey, it’s okay,” Mom said.
“I’m sorry!”
“Sorry for what?”
“I’m sorry that I’m gay, and I don’t want to marry Gabriel. I’m sorry!”
“Quinn, put your hands down and look at us,” my dad said.
His voice was stern, and anytime his voice was stern, I knew better than to disobey him. So, I did just that, feeling my face turn bright red at the same time my eyes swelled up. Mom and Dad squatted at my eye level.
“Quinn,” my dad said so seriously it made me sob harder, just terrified of what his next words would be. “There’s nothing you can ever do that would make your mother and I love you less. You shouldn’t ever be sorry for who you love, all right?”
“We don’t care if you don’t want to marry Gabriel, sweetie,” Mom said. “I always thought you guys had something special, and that’s why I really supported it, but if you don’t like him, then you don’t like him. I’m just so happy that you’re finally going with someone who you really like. That makes me really happy.”
“You mean, you’re not embarrassed that I’m gay? Because I am. I know for a fact I’m gay. It’s not some stupid high school phase.”
“Not in the slightest bit. I’d be embarrassed if you were a bully or going around school shouting derogatory terms at people, or maybe if you ended up pregnant, but at least that’s not going to happen, right?”
“Not unless a girl I date has magical powers or something.”
Mom smiled. “But I’m not embarrassed that you like girls. Everyone loves differently. There are so many ways to love, and we need more love in this world. Whatever form that might be. I am worried that you’re going to face some awful criticism in your life because people are assholes, but you’re not going to get that from us.”
“If anyone gives you any criticism, they’ll have to deal with us,” Dad said. “And you know that we’re protective mama and papa bears.”
I wiped my eyes. “I know.”
“We love you, hon,” my mom said and kissed my head. “Always remember that.”
I nodded, and the two swallowed me in their protective mama and papa bear hugs.
“I wanna join. I wanna join,” Liam said and squeezed himself in our group hug. “I’m so proud of you, sis.”
The four of us hugged in a tight family embrace for at least a good minute. And then afterward, we got frozen yogurt as a family.
“Wow, that’s kind of an adorable story,” Kennedy said, hugging me tighter. “I’m really glad you had a good experience.”
“Yeah, I’m so freakin’ lucky. I don’t even know what I would have done if my parents were like Erick or Meghan’s.”
“I didn’t know you and Gabriel had something going on, but it all makes sense. As to why Cassandra doesn’t like you. She’s had a crush on him for the longest time, and she always got jealous when he would say he was hanging out with you and not us.”
“Well, at least there’s a somewhat logical reason.”
“Did you guys ever…you know, do it?”
“No way. He tried a few times to go down my pants, but I always batted his hand away. I just really like kissing, but kissing him, there were no butterflies in my stomach like there were for Meghan and Riley and you.”
“Aw, I give you butterflies?”
“Just looking at you gives me butterflies.”
She smiled and clung to me tighter. “Good. I’m glad. And you give me butterflies too. Since we were eleven. That was how I knew I liked you. Those stupid butterflies.”
I kissed her on the lips and then pulled away when a question popped into my head. “When do you plan on telling your parents?”
I felt her shrug in my embrace. “I don’t know. This is all so new to me that I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
“If you’re not ready, don’t force it. And I’m sure your parents will be fine. I mean, your mom is a psychiatrist, for crying out loud. I’m sure she gets anxious, depressed queer kids all the time.”
“I didn’t tell my parents I was dating Ian or Dominic until after we broke up,” she said, which I found odd because she went to homecoming with both of them. “I don’t want them knowing my dating life. So, when I feel like they should know, I’ll worry about it then.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“In the meantime, I would greatly appreciate it if you made out with me.”
“I can do that.”
I rolled on top of her, and we made out for an hour before the tiredness kicked in and knocked us asleep with her as the best little spoon I could ask for.