Stuck In Her Head by Kylie Wang & Liana Tang

Author:Kylie Wang & Liana Tang [Wang, Kylie & Tang, Liana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION
Publisher: Earnshaw Books
Published: 2023-10-23T21:00:00+00:00

16

Drifting

Naomi

I do not have feelings for her.

The harsh thought slammed into her mind, like a train that rammed into a doll house of sticks. Naomi felt the regret crawling under the skin. They were back at school, crowding outside the classroom, waiting for the teacher to let them into first period math. Emma stood next to her, twirling her finger around a strand of hair, the other hand hugging her thick homework binder. When their elbows bumped into one another, a jolt of electricity jumped throughout her body, but it only made Naomi recoil. Right, just think of something else. Code. Code….ah… what did she do last night?

That happened last night. The raindrops splattered down and stained the streets with mud and wet leaves, and her best friend opened a window that let Naomi glimpse the terrifying abyss inside her heart. And then she showed Naomi the terrifying heights the same night and—she kissed her—and Naomi’s brain tripped into a knot and she lied. She lied in the worst kind of way.

Then one of them—she didn’t remember which one—said she had to go, and Emma hugged her again and ran into the station without looking back. Afterwards… Naomi must have gotten home somehow, because the next thing she remembered was lying on her bed, her face buried into the blanket as if that would help her wrap her mind around the events.

It wasn’t as though she felt weird about Emma. She was a great friend, and Naomi loved her... she just didn’t see her that way.

Naomi didn’t—maybe couldn’t—see anyone that way.

There was a word for this: “aroace,” a term she discovered after hours of browsing on her computer in incognito mode. The word was still sharp and unfamiliar on her tongue, but the more she thought about it, the more it felt like unearthing old history about herself, like opening a box of the baby clothes she used to wear. Aromantic asexual: used to describe someone who experiences little to no romantic or sexual attraction. It still seemed too daunting, too big to commit to a whole new identity all of a sudden.

But at the same time, it would explain a lot of things—the way she look askance whenever characters stripped half-naked on TV, the way she would pick a random boy in middle school when everyone started asking about each other’s crushes, the way she laughed so easily at celebrities’ drama and heartbreak as though she had always known, deep down, that it would never happen to her.

Naomi still couldn’t believe it. None of it felt real. She didn’t actually lie to try to help her friend. Or, perhaps Emma didn’t really mean it. Any moment now she would reveal it was just one big, elaborate prank as they awkwardly laugh about the aftermath. Anything, as long as it meant that this situation right now wasn’t real.

And Emma didn’t secretly want to die.

Naomi sighed. She didn’t have the strength to hurl her confession like a slingshot, ignoring the sound of whooshing air as it pierce its target.

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