"You're- you're… what?" Riley sat at the bay window. The look of bewilderment on her face frightened you. You'd practiced this in your head just short of a thousand times. By this point, you knew your lines inside out. The only problem was that, in your head, you were in control. You could create any response you wanted, steer the conversation wherever you wanted. But this was real life now. And in real life, you never hold all the cards.
"I'm gay," you repeated, feeling the word catch in your throat. The "g" sounded too guttural, too abrasive. It's not like you'd never said it before. You had. In front of the mirror over and over again. First quietly, little more than the soundless mouthing of the words. Then louder so that your ears could finally hear it. And louder because you needed your soul to hear it, too. And louder and louder yet until it stopped sounding like anything at all.
"And you have a- a what?"
"A girlfriend, Riley. I have a girlfriend." You'd met her in the art supplies store across town. She went there a lot, you'd noticed, and you'd started going more and more just to see her. The two of you had hit it off right away. You'd joke with each other and make each other laugh. You'd started hanging out every once in a while. And slowly the "whiles" in between started getting shorter. She made you happy. Happier than you'd been in a long time.
Riley shook her head. "No," she said. "This- this can't be."
Paralyzed with fear, you stared at the wall – the spot where Riley had accidently put a whole in it when she was ten. It had been filled in but you could still see the spot where the paint wasn't quite right. You'd known that this was a possibility. That you would finally tell her and things wouldn't be okay. But you'd wanted to badly to believe it wouldn't be that way. Because if it was that way, what would you do? What could you do?
"Maya- look at me, Maya." You do what you're told. You search her face for a sign that your worst fears haven't just been realized. But her expressions are harder to read than you've ever known them to be. "I know you."
What was that supposed to mean? She knows you? You know her, too. Well, you thought you did. Maybe not. Nothing in this world is ever set in stone, it seems.
"I know you," she said again. "How could you… How could this be who you are and I had no idea?" Was that all she was worried about? You feel yourself exhale a breath you didn't even know you were holding. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all. Maybe you could do this.
"Don't beat yourself up. I didn't know either. At least, not for a while."
"But at some point, you stopped not knowing and you started knowing. And I couldn't even tell."
"Tell? Riley, it's not like I've changed. I'm still me. Besides, it's not like it's that big a part of who I am."
"Isn't it?"
"I- I don't know." You'd heard it so many times. That being gay is only a part of you. That there's so much more. And, yeah, there were moments when you barely noticed it. It was there, but only in the background. But there were also moments when you wanted to cover yourself with rainbows and wear it like a coat. Moments when you wanted to scream it at the top of your lungs. Moments when it didn't feel like you were anything else.
You talked to Riley for a little while longer and went to bed that night feeling lighter. It had been getting hard, carrying around that secret and you were beyond happy to finally get it off your chest. You'd never wanted to keep anything from here and hated that you felt like you had to. The conversation hadn't gone like you'd imagined it would. But, then again, these things never do. Riley hadn't reacted badly. But it still wasn't what you'd hoped it would be. You couldn't really tell exactly how she felt about the whole thing.
You walked into school the next day wondering if this would be the first day in a new chapter of your life or simply another page in the one you'd grown accustomed to. You didn't want things to change, but it wasn't really up to you.
"Hey, Maya," said Riley as she walked over to your locker.
"Hey," you replied with a smile, hoping that this was a good sign. That things between the two of you were as normal as ever.
"I want to apologize for yesterday. For how I acted. I kind of made things about me when they really shouldn't have been about me."
"It's okay, Riles."
She shook her head. "No, it's not. I got so caught up in my own feelings that I forgot to say a few things that, now that I think about it, I really wish I would have said."
"Like what?"
"That I'm happy for you." She smiled and you felt a warmth spread throughout your chest. You hadn't realized you'd been so cold. "That I'm really glad you told me." You thought maybe you were still asleep. You'd certainly had this dream enough times before. But you weren't asleep and you weren't dreaming. "And that I love you no matter what."