You Know I'd Never by Kara Lowndes

Author:Kara Lowndes [Lowndes, Kara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LGBTQIA+, contemporary, in the closet, coming out, reunited, musicians, second chances
Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
Published: 2021-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“Bess? I need to talk to you.”

I tried to make the words sound authoritative, but I felt like I came across more as a schoolkid trying to talk down to the teacher than anything else. Still, Bess looked up from where she had been making a note of what we needed on the next big order, and smiled at me.

“What is it, honey?”

I took a deep breath. Now, or never. I was going to do this. Once and for all.

On the long walk back from the river the day before, I had trudged with all the weight of a woman who was walking to the gallows. I could still feel Elise’s hands on me, her lips on me, could still feel the heat that had fluttered between us. But, with what she had told me, she had dumped an ice-cold bath of water on to all of it, and now I was frozen to the bone and dripping wet and had no idea how I was going to stop myself catching a metaphorical cold.

All night long, as I had sat on my couch picking at the stain that would never wash out of the arm, I had made excuses to bolster my stance on everything. Of course, I wasn’t going to come out—my parents would kill me if I dared stick a toe out of the closet. Of course, I wasn’t going to come out—it wasn’t like there was much in the way of a gay scene around here anyway, so what would be the point? Of course, I wasn’t going to come out—I hadn’t had a girlfriend in years; how the hell was I to know whether or not I was still actually gay?

These were the things that I had repeated to myself all of last night, until the words had started to lose meaning and I could convince myself that there was nothing to them in the first place. They were soothing to me, those excuses, a protective measure against the big gay villain that hid inside me. I could douse the flames for a while, smother them to silence.

But when I woke up the next morning, my bed empty and my mouth dry, I knew they weren’t going to cut it any longer. I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. Elise had been right; what self-respecting person was going to want to go anywhere near me when I was heaving around all this baggage? It was bullshit, and I couldn’t expect anyone to take it on because I was too scared to…

I looked myself in the mirror that morning, and took a deep breath. There I was. Okay, lips a little chapped, hair a little messy, I’m totally gay, could probably do with buying some new cleanser next time I was at the drugstore. There. That wasn’t so bad, right? I could just slip it in there, make it so I hardly noticed it.

But before I could convince myself that I had suddenly become Ms Cool Lesbian “19, I felt a wave of panic hit me.

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