Not A Temporary Love | Finley & Harlyn #1

Chapter 12

Harlyn

What are you supposed to Google when you think you might be gay? Maybe I should just Google that question. The cursor has been blinking in the blank box for ten minutes now, taunting me. I've been thinking about this for over a week. How do I know? How do I actually legitimately know if I'm gay? Or bisexual? Or whatever I am? I know there are quizzes. I know there are articles. But I also know that they'll say that I might be gay. May be bisexual. I want to know for sure.

"Harlyn?" Mum calls. I jump and close the tab so fast you'd think I was looking up how to murder someone and get away with it, not staring at a blank Google screen. I'm an idiot.

"Yeah Mum?" I answer.

"Elly's here."

I call back that she can come up whenever. I'm decent. Not that Elly's never seen me in boxers. It wouldn't be the end of the world. A few minutes later, Elly pushes through my door and dumps her bag on the floor. It's packed with books and her laptop.

"Gosh, El. Did you bring the whole library?" I ask, moving some of my things out of her way so she can join me on the bed.

"Haha," she deadpans, sitting crisscross against the headboard, her knees touching my thigh. "I have an exam this week, and I have to ace it." She wrings her hands, knuckles cracking.

"Why don't you ask Dad for help? It's kind of what he does for a living," I suggest.

She drags her bag closer to her and starts pulling things out. "You know as well as I do that if I ask your dad for help, he'll give me a hard time - again - about studying accounting at Kent instead of Christ Church where I could've had him as a professor."

I shrug. "He's not wrong."

"Yes, I know he's not. And he also knows I had my reasons. And as much as I love your Dad, I think he's said that to me at least once a week for the last year and a half." She opens her laptop and the screen lights up, making her dark skin shine. "I don't think I can handle getting through that before actually getting help."

"Fair. Just a suggestion."

We go silent, each concentrated on our respective computers. I forgot that the next tab I have open is Finley's blog. I've been working through his posts since Saturday, reading them whenever I've had a free chance. Max was right. He's an excellent writer. He describes things so vividly that I forget it's his first time seeing them. It's like he's walked by the Canterbury castle every day of his life or actually lived in the Royal Pavilion. He should get British citizenship just for how deeply he researched Buckingham Palace and how lovingly he writes about it. It's like he's writing a sonnet for a long lost love.

"What are you working on?" Elly asks.

"Oh, er...Nothing at the moment," I say. "Just reading Finley's blog. I'm on the last one."

"Oh yeah. I forgot I was going to read it when I got home on Saturday. How is it?"

I turn my laptop on my knees so we can both see the post I'm reading. It's a short one, a quick update about meeting his host mom's family and their class trip into London Friday. But it sings. The reverence he gives to the Globe Theatre is palpable. Elly gives me an open mouthed stare when we finally finish reading it.

"I know," I say, mirroring her expression.

"I want someone to write about me that way," she says.

I hold up a finger. "Oh, he does. I'll let you read it yourself. But blog post two is all about his first week and all the people he's met. You get a whole paragraph to yourself."