(no subject)
I stare at her, my mouth wide open. “You’ll what?”
“That’s what you said right? You want me to kiss you,” she stands up from her chair and walks around the table.
“Yeah, but Jenna, I didn’t really mean it. I mean, I did. But I don’t want things to get awkward.”
“Things will be fine. Besides, I want to kiss you.”
Freeze. What? Did she really just say that? Clearly she must have some different idea then what I do. But the whole time I’m thinking this I’m watching her come closer and if I don’t stop her then she’s going to kiss me.
“Jenna, wait,” I grab her shoulders. She was already starting to pucker up.
“What?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“But I want to.” I look at her and she quickly follows with, “besides, you asked me to.”
I nod then. I’m not forcing her to do this. It’s more like she’s offering really. She walks forward, slowly until we’re right next to each other. She leans forward on her tip toes while closing her eyes. She purses her lips and waits there for me.
I lean down and allow our lips to touch then close my eyes. We kiss like you see in the movies, moving our lips around each other’s. A few seconds into the kiss Jenna opens her mouth slightly. I follow suit. I’m not finding this kiss appealing but I figure that maybe I haven’t gotten into the kiss enough to actually feel something. Her tongue enters my mouth, twists with my tongue and then pulls out. I venture into her mouth, run my tongue along her teeth then slide in further
Jenna’s mouth tastes like chocolate. The roof of her mouth and tongue are colder than mine, it’s obvious she was just eating ice cream. The front of her teeth are smoother than I expected I’d be. When she slides her tongue over mine the bottom of her tongue feels strange, bumpier that I would have anticipated.
It’s then that I realize that I’m analyzing the kiss, not enjoying it. I pull away.
Jenna’s eyes immediately shoot open. “What’s wrong?” she asks just as I say, “this is so wrong.”
“What? Why? What did I do?” Jenna looks as though she’s about to burst into tears.
“No, you didn’t do anything.” I grab her and pull her into a hug.
“But you didn’t like it!” she’s becoming hysterical, breathing hard and shaking. I try to keep her still but she starts hiccupping from the force of her breathing.
“Jenna, it has nothing to do with me not liking it.”
“Then what?” she pulls her face from my chest. It’s already stained with tears.
“Jenna, it has nothing to do with you. I think,” I hadn’t said the words out loud, had barely allowed myself to actually think the words. “I think,” I start again, “that I might be gay.”
Jenna starts howling, “was the kiss really that bad?”
What? It takes me a minute to realize that she thinks she just turned me gay. “Jenna, no. I’ve been thinking about this since New Year’s.”
“But I thought you liked me!” she’s only catching some of what I’m saying so I stand there holding her waiting for her to just calm down.
When she’s finally stopped shaking, I lead her out into the living room and sit down beside her on the couch.
“Jenna, I’m sorry I did that to you.”
She’s still sniffling and giving the occasional hiccup.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to kiss me. I’m sorry, but I thought maybe that kissing you would mean I was straight but it didn’t work. I didn’t feel anything, at least, not like I should have.”
“But, but,” she’s blubbering again. “I thought you liked me. At New Year’s, I thought that kiss was special. You realized when we kissed that you were gay? That makes no sense.”
“No, no! Not our kiss. When I kissed Kevin.”
She stares at me blankly. “You kissed who?”
“Laura’s bofriend, Kevin. During spin the bottle.”
“You’re in love with Kevin?” she starts crying again.
“No, no. Jenna, you’re not getting it?”
“Not getting what? I thought you were secretly in love with me all this time.”
This shuts me up and I have to seriously think about what she just said.
She continues as if what she said is no big deal, or maybe it is and she’s too embarrassed to stop. “I thought that our New Year’s kiss was special. I thought that we were finally sharing our feelings. I thought we could finally be together.”
“Whoa what?”
“But now you’re saying you’re gay. And if you’re gay then that means that you didn’t think that our kiss was anything special. And if you didn’t think it was anything special…” she trails off then and starts crying again.
“Jenna, Jenna, settle down.” This isn’t the reaction I expected at all. I mean, I figured that maybe kissing her wasn’t the best idea but I never thought she’d go off the deep end like this. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.” I thought that she would be supportive. We’ve been best friends ever since I can remember.
“I thought you loved me!” she wails.
I grab her shoulders and pull her away from me so that I can look her in the eyes. “Jenna, I do love you. But I don’t love you love you. C’mon, we’re best friends. You’re practically my sister.”
“Then why did you kiss me? This makes no sense, Ethan.”
“Okay, which kiss are you talking about? Are you upset about this kiss we just had or the one on New Year’s? Because you were drunk for that one and-“
“Both,” she tells me scowling.
“Jenna, we kissed on New Year’s because you wanted to. It wouldn’t have been anthing more than a peck if you hadn’t made it more.” I’m getting defensive now. This is not all my fault.
“I know, I know.” Her mascara is smeared all over her cheeks. “But when you asked me to kiss you just now I thought that maybe you were telling me that it did mean something. I thought, I thought,” she throws her hands in front of her face and bursts into tears again.
"Jenna, please, you’re being ridiculous.”
“No, you don’t get it. I’ve been in love with you since probably freshman year. I was just waiting for you to feel the same and I thought you finally did. I thought you did. But you don’t. You’re gay! You can’t love me.”
Say what? “Jenna, what the hell are you talking about?’
She wipes her eyes smearing her mascara across the bridge of her nose. “Can you leave now? Please?”
I’m stunned. I really, really hurt her. “Jenna,” I reach out and touch her cheek but she jerks away.
“Just go,” she whispers and then walks quickly out of the room.
I grab my stuff and leave her house praying that I didn’t screw shit up too badly.
January 26th, 102 total days till graduation, 81 days left of school
Even swim practice isn’t helping me quit thinking about how much I’ve hurt Jenna. Granted, at least now that I’ve said that I’m gay out loud it doesn’t seem so hard to believe. I’m starting to accept the truth about my sexuality but I can’t get over what I may have done to Jenna. I end up leaving practice early and just sitting in the locker room because I simply can’t deal. I try calling Jenna but she’s not answering her cell phone. When I try her at home her mother tells me that she hasn’t gotten home yet but she’ll let her know I called.
When practice ends all of the guys flood noisily into the locker room. One of the guys slaps me on the back, “Coach is pissed man. Why the hell’d you leave?”
“Couldn’t think.”
“You’re not supposed to think. Just swim,” a couple guys crack up laughing.
I just sit on the bench stupidly wondering what the hell I can do to make things right. I need to talk this out with someone but Jenna’s my go to girl for talking and obviously she’s not an option. I glance up and see Danny standing right next to me. He’s just pulled his boxers on.
“Dude, can we talk?”
He looks at me surprised. “Sure, mind if I get dressed first?” he jokes.
“Uh, yeah, right,” I respond awkwardly.
When he’s done changing he sits on the bench beside me and we wait for everyone to clear out. Finally he turns to me and asks, “what’s going on?”
“I think I fucked things up with Jenna.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I told her I think I’m gay and she took it really hard.” There I’d said it again. Each time I said it I accepted it a little bit more. I glance at his face. I can’t read his expression exactly. It’s balancing somewhere between laughter and concern. “This isn’t funny,” I snap.
“Am I laughing?” he asks now with a completely straight face.
“I need help.”
“You wanna make things right with Jenna?”
“She’s my best friend.”
“Then what do you think the problem is?”
I sit there for a second debating just how much I should tell him. But the truth is I already told him my biggest secret and he didn’t seem phased. “I kissed her,” I confess. “I used her to see if I really was gay or straight.”
“So then tell her you’re sorry. You’ve been best friends forever. It might take some sweet talking but I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“But I’m not sure it’s that simple.”
“Or you wouldn’t be talking to me about it,” Danny says with a smile.
I smile back sheepishly, “sorry, I need someone.”
“No worries, I offered my ear before.”
“She said she loves me.”
“She said what?”
“Yeah, exactly. And when I asked if she’d kiss me I guess she took that as me coming onto her.”
“Shit man,” Danny says shaking his head.
“Exactly.”
We sit in silence for awhile just thinking about my situation. But I’m not getting anywhere just thinking. I didn’t sleep last night trying to think of a solution but no matter how hard I thought, no matter how long I didn’t come up with anything.
“I don’t know what to do, Danny. She’s my best friend ya know?”
Danny nods and rubs his temples. “That’s rough man. I don’t even know what to tell you.”
“I just need to work through this, in my head. I thought maybe talking to someone would give me some ideas but I just keep thinking about how it would normally be Jenna I talk to.”
“Well maybe you need to start with something simple. Tell her that you’re best friends and didn’t realize she wanted anything more.”
I nod. It might not be the best advice but at least Danny is taking me seriously. “I don’t know what I’m going to say but I know I need to talk to her.”
“Well then just talk to her. Maybe you shouldn’t script it, just go over there and let her know what’s going on.”
“How I feel,” I joke.
He starts laughing, “awkward as hell I’m sure, but yeah.”
We drift into silence again.
“Hey Danny, are you gonna tell all the swim guys that I’m gay?”
He shakes his head and laughs, “no one knows I’m gay so why the hell would I tell them about you.”
“Wait, what?”
“Well you didn’t honestly think you’re the only gay guy in this school did you? You know some estimates run as high as ten percent of the population is gay or lesbian but most just won’t admit it.”
“Kinda hard to believe.”
“I don’t think it’s really that high but still, it’s nice to know that I’m not totally alone ya know?” He stands up and grabs a hold of his duffel bag and backpack. “So you good then?”
“Yeah, thanks Danny.”
He leaves the locker room. I let the door click shut before I stand up. I’ll give Jenna one more day but tomorrow I drive her home so she’ll have to talk to me. It’s the best I have right now so it will have to do.
15,500 words