Jessie & Elizabeth (abandoned)

16. As Gay as It Gets [Part 3]

TW: queerphobia

It's never the way you're supposed to find out.

It was me waiting for a response to the marriage proposal and finding the answer in the form of a credit-card receipt for a single one-way ticket to Berlin, Germany. Lennox had started to cry as soon as she'd seen my face, like she'd been waiting for me to somehow discover the truth. "This wasn't how I wanted for you to find out," she'd croaked between sobs, and my heart had cracked into seven thousand pieces, one for every mile between here and that stupid city in Europe. Sometimes, I wondered if it would've made a difference had she gotten the chance to tell me herself. I kind of doubted it would've softened the blow.

Still, this wasn't the way Manon was supposed to find out. I didn't think I'd ever forget that desperate sob and the thumping footsteps on the stairs or the way Elizabeth had jumped up to hurry after her.

That was also the way I found out I was in deep, deep trouble. Because at that moment, I knew I'd do anything for any of them, even travel halfway around the world to pay a visit to the biggest asshole alive and kick him in the nuts, exactly like Ma had taught me to. My instinct had told me to go after them, help if I could, but at that moment, Ari had appeared, asking if them being nonbinary was what had upset their sister.

Not much later, Camille had joined us on the couch, pouting because mommy was crying and she was scared and confused and she wanted mommy to smile again.

That night, after the kids had gone to bed, I'd sat there again, now soothing a shaken Elizabeth, her hair in rough tangles and the last remnants of make-up on her pale face smeared into a blur. She'd produced a muffled sound of thanks when I'd brought out the wine, the sweet white one she actually liked instead of the velvety red she pretended to prefer. There'd been silence, and I'd squirmed in my seat, wondering if she needed to be alone, if I was being too much again. I tended to do that when I was in love, and I was determined not to make the same mistakes— especially not with her. With this thing that could never be. This thing I should bury deep inside and get over as soon as possible. Because above all, Elizabeth needed a friend, and it would be selfish to deny her that.

She'd placed the wine glass on the coffee table before us and looked at me — looked so long my breath caught and my skin burned up and I suddenly wasn't exhausted anymore, just ready to flee all this gay panic. Then, she'd lain down, the crown of her head against my hip, her legs draped over the couch's armrest.

"I'm tired, Jessie," she'd said quietly, my name a deep sigh that made my heart beat a little faster. "I just want them to be happy. That's all I ever wanted for them. To have a childhood like mine."

And I didn't know if it was us being friends or us being tipsy or all the things that'd happened, but she'd started to talk, and she hadn't stopped. About climbing trees as a little girl, baking apple pies with her mother, her dad teaching her how to play the guitar, weekly board game nights, hikes and fishing and being on the water with the three of them.

About meeting a boy from the city and running away from home with him because her parents thought he wasn't good for her. And, unspoken, but so tangible in the tears escaping from her closed eyes, the guilt of leaving and not looking back.

It was that night that I swore Connery would thoroughly regret being born if I ever had the misfortune of meeting him.

Hakim had spent the entire day teasing me any moment the kids were out of earshot. "Texting your wife again?" he'd say, his shit-eating grin buried in his beard. Or "keep it suited for general audiences, will you?" or, "I think we should just switch your practice materials to stuff written by Elizabeth". Every time, I'd blushed crimson, trying to hold in the nervous laughter caught in my throat, until the moment he'd asked how my girlfriend was and Ari turned out to be standing behind us and I told him to quit.