Ship It(61)

She reaches across the table and holds my hand. And I try to be okay with that, I really do, but it feels so weird and so public, and so strong a declaration to the world. It feels like this is who I am and I have no idea who I am.

I pull away gently.

“Okay, no PDA, got it,” she says, but I feel like I can’t stop hurting her feelings.

“It’s just that I’m not… like you,” I say.

“What, out?”

“No…” What are words? I never have them when I’m around her. “You’re just so…sure.”

She examines me. “What do you mean?”

“About your sexuality, like, how do you know?”

“I don’t know, it just feels right.” She shrugs like this is no big deal, instead of literally the biggest deal ever. “Did it feel right to you? Last night?”

I remember kissing her. I remember the feeling I got in my stomach. Wanting more. But what if I was just going along with the moment? What if I just got carried away? It seems ridiculous to base this whole huge part of your identity on something so squishy as a feeling.

“I don’t know how you can be so confident,” I say.

“I’m confident?” she asks incredulously.

“Yeah.”

“Claire, you’re the most confident person I’ve ever met.”

I stare at her. Literally, what.

“Look at you!” she continues. “No one I know is as comfortable in their fandom as you. It’s like you don’t even care if the whole world knows Demon Heart is your favorite show and you ship SmokeHeart and you write fanfic and you think about their dicks all the time….”

“I don’t care. Why would I care?”

“Because it’s embarrassing! Fanfic is embarrassing! Demon Heart is embarrassing! All of it. Everything about this is embarrassing.”

My heart is thudding in my chest as I pull away from the table. “You’re embarrassed by Demon Heart?”

“Well, yeah, Claire. I mean, obviously.”

I just stare back because of course I know what she means, but I need to hear her say it. “So you’re embarrassed of the show, you’re embarrassed by all this.” I wave around us. “Does that mean you’re embarrassed by me, too?” I already know the answer is yes.

“Claire,” she says softly.

“No, be honest, Tess. Are you embarrassed by me?” I get a little louder. There’s adrenaline pumping through me, now.

“No! Of course not. I like you.”

“But you think the things I like, the things we both like, are… what? Too childish? Too uncool? Or is it that liking anything is embarrassing? The only cool thing is to keep yourself safely detached and protected by actively disliking literally everything? Is that it?”

Tess gestures emptily, but she doesn’t have anything to say. “I don’t know what to tell you, Claire. It’s not fair, it’s just… how I feel.”

“But it doesn’t have to be that way,” I say. “Why should liking Demon Heart or fanfic be more embarrassing than liking the Buffalo Bills or Bruce Springsteen or like, America’s Test Kitchen?” Or Jasper Graves, I think, remembering Forest.

“See? That’s what I mean,” Tess says. “That’s the kind of confidence that you have that I wish I could figure out how to get. If my friends knew I liked this stuff, I would never stop getting shit for it. I have no idea how you keep friends when you talk about this. They must be amazing.”

And there it is. That’s the difference. Because Tess knows what I wish wasn’t true—that sometimes you have to make trade-offs. And maybe there are high schools where proudly loving gay fanfic of a cheesy science fiction show won’t get you branded a social outcast, but Pine Bluff High isn’t one of them. And apparently neither is Tess’s high school. So Tess chooses to lie low in order to maintain some kind of social status, and I’ve chosen to stand proud, but as a result, my friend group consists of Joanie Engstrom, my parents, and the internet. But at least my life isn’t a lie.

“Tess…” I say hesitantly. But you know what? Screw it. This is honesty hour, right? “I don’t really have any friends.”

She searches my face, and I can’t really take it. Why doesn’t Claire have any friends? she’s wondering. Because she’s a weirdo disaster who can’t relate to people, she’ll determine. And she’ll walk away.

“Any friends at all?” Tess asks.

I shake my head. “There’s a girl I sit next to on the bus. And I’m on okay terms with my middle school librarian, but…”

Tess laughs a little, because yeah, it’s funny. But she catches herself, because it’s also not.

“I used to have friends. I used to not worry all the time. I used to go outside and play with kids. I used to talk to people at the bus stop. But then I moved to a new town in sixth grade, and I didn’t do so well making new friends because I was awkward, and liked books too much, and I wasn’t pretty or rich, and my parents were liberal, and then before I knew it, the transition period was over and it felt like my window of opportunity had passed and I just… I never made any. And then it was settled. That was it. My new reality.” I shrug. “Now, my whole life is basically inside my own mind.”