Author's Note: Sorry it has taken me a while to update. It was partially me getting all my thoughts together and partially life. I am applying for summer internships, getting ready to go back to school, and have totally gotten sucked into The Good Wife. This chapter definitely gets into the meat of what LGBTQ+ is in my opinion. If anyone feels I have misrepresented something or needs more information etc., feel free to reach out to me and I can update the chapter. This chapter is very much a set up for the rest of the story. Due to the time it has taken to update and just the subject itself, this one is definitely longer than the previous chapters. As always I appreciate your thoughts :)

Chapter 4:

Riley

I have so many things going through my head I literally cannot hold my train of thought. Thoughts swirl around and around and it feels like I have a million people talking in my head at once. I hear my name kind of fade into my head like someone started calling me while they were really far away and then continued as they walked closer. "Riley!" Finally it bursts through the fog in my brain. My head snaps up. "What? Huh… Oh yea dad?"

"Have you heard any of what I have said?"

"...no." I say hesitantly but I have to be honest. I look over to Maya and expect to see her concerned but she is just as zoned out as I was a moment ago. I don't think she has heard any of this. Maybe she is confused by the english lecture too. Maybe she has never heard of lesbians. I think what I am really scared of is if she had the same question I originally did... is this girl Sappho's Maya? I have been carrying around the poem sheet with that question written on it all day. What does it mean that that is what I thought?

Maya

I am totally stuck in my own mind. I usually zone out in class. But this, this is different. This isn't mind numbing bliss that I usually get for the few hours I am in school. This is filled with thoughts. I have thought after thought running through my mind. I can feel all the nervousness just continue to build up as school ending gets closer. If she starts asking me questions, what am I going to say? Then there are the questions about myself. I don't like that this is all being brought up. I had shoved this way, way….way down!

I start to plan out what she might ask so I can try to figure out what I am going to say and not say. She will probably ask what it means to be a lesbian? That one I can answer. Next will probably be if there are more terms, like what is sapphic? I can give her a broad overview like LGBTQ acronym and what each identity means. My guess she will just be looking for information so she can better understand.

What I really need to do is calm down. Currently, I am not being like exposed or made vulnerable, yet I feel the most vulnerable I have been in a while. So why do I feel like this? I know why... I know that I have things to deal with but I just didn't expect for this to be what forces me to. I don't really need to right now though… right?!

Riley

The bell rings and I am immediately out of my chair. I hear Lucas in the background say "Girls?" But I just grab Maya's hand and start moving through the halls, weaving through all the people. Yes I recognize the irony considering this was her this morning and now I am the one leading. I am on a mission, we need to get to the bay window faster than we ever have before.

I sit down. I thought that the questions would just come once we were in the bay window. But my thoughts still feel like they are moving to fast to catch. We have literally just been sitting here in silence for like 10 minutes. The longer we sit there the more Maya can literally not sit still. Why is she so nervous? She literally looks like she is about to jump up and fly out the window and down the fire escape.

Maya

She grabbed my hand. I am paying way too much attention to that connection, to her hand in mine. I remember a time where I used to think about every single time Riley and I touched, even just slight brushes of the shoulder. I used to recount every time RIley and I hugged, held hands, or talked in the Bay Window every night before I went to bed. Then I read Sappho's poem and learned about the LGBTQ+ community. After that, I stopped. I hit the brakes and put up a huge wall.

I didn't even notice how fast we were moving till we were at the bay window. Now we are literally just sitting here. It has been like 5 years! WHY ARE WE JUST SITTING HERE? I am freaking out. Like a lot. The longer we sit here the more I want to shut down and escape. The only reason I am still in my seat is because Riley has gotten me to a point where escape is not my first reaction. I am so close to losing it though. I can't even look at her because all I can do is look at the exits and think of ways to get out of this situation.

Riley finally speaks. "Maya, why are you so nervous?" That's her first question?! Oh my god… I did not prepare for this. "I'm not nervous. Ha no I just have to um… pee. I'll be back." I literally have to contain myself from running out of the room. I go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. Pull yourself together Hart. You are not being scrutinized. You are just giving information. You don't have to deal with your emotions right now. You still have time. Deep breathes. Count to ten. 1... 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… 8… 9… 10. Alright go. I walk back to her room and steel myself before entering.

Riley

Um… she left. She probably really did just have to pee. That makes sense. Okay. Collect your thoughts. What am I going to ask? Well I was confused by the word sapphic. There are probably other terms I am confused by too. How do relationships work when it is between two girls? Why haven't we seen any same-sex couples? How do you know if you are a lesbian? I am sure the answers to these will lead to more.

Do I ask about my thoughts about the poem? Do I ask about us? I am probably the only one that like questioned that. I don't know why my thoughts went there when I read the poem. I know I don't like seeing Maya with Lucas but that is because I like Lucas. I want Maya to be happy though. But I also know how I react when I see Maya; I immediately feel my heart skip a beat, my mind blanks out, and I immediately feel warm inside. With Maya, I feel calm and happy. I feel safe from everything and that it really is just the two of us. Maya is -

- She is here. I feel my lips pull up at the edges immediately.

Maya

I walk back in. She immediately starts smiling at me. Shit… I am so screwed. I put up my protective wall and facade up for the time being. She cannot see that I am losing it. "Hi Riles." I sit down.

"Hi peaches!" I feel my heart skip. "So… I have some questions." I steel myself for the first question. "What does sapphic mean?" Ok an easy one.

"Sapphic is another way to say that a girl is interested in other girls romantically." That seems to make sense to her as she continues soon after letting my answer settle in.

"So two girls can be in a relationship. Can two boys?"

"Yes. There is actually a whole LGBTQ+ community."

"Can you explain LG..uh… you know?"

"LGBTQ+. It stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer. There is a longer one that is less often used. It is LGBTQQIAAP. This one adds questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, and pansexual. Lesbian obviously is two women. Gay is usually used for two men but it really can be used for girls too. Bisexual means that the person likes both boys and girls. Transgender means that the person does not identify with their birth gender. Queer is an umbrella term which to put simply means that a person is not straight. Intersex means the individual is born with both male and female sex organs. Asexual means that they are not interested in a sexual relationship, which occurs on a spectrum. Ally means that the person supports the community. Pansexual means that the person will date people they are interested in no matter their gender identity."

Riley

Ok that was a lot to take in… I go and grab a notebook because I want to understand and I know that this is too much to process the first time around and all in my head. I literally have zero frame of reference to build from. I feel so ignorant. I hand Maya the notebook. She writes the acronym vertically down the page. She puts what it stands for next to it with the simple definitions she gave me previously. She writes sexual and gender orientations at the top. Throughout this, I watch her hand move. The intricate way she writes in cursive. Then I look up at her to look at her face. Her light blonde hair has fallen a bit forward as she works diligently on this "cheat sheet." It cascades down her shoulders in the most graceful way I have ever seen. I look away before she notices me looking, just like I always do.

"So Riley all of these help describe individuals who have different sexual orientations or gender identities than what is considered the "norm" meaning cis and heterosexual. Cisgender means you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth. Heterosexual means you are straight and that you like only the gender that is opposite from you, so in your case boys."

The diagram has helped a lot. I feel like I can ask questions a little easier now. "So there is sexual orientation which is like" I move my hand to the acronym and move my finger down it. "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, questioning, asexual, and pansexual."

Maya smiles. "Yes Riley." I continue. "So then there is also gender identity." I go back to the diagram. "This would be transgender, questioning, intersex, and that's it?" I look up at Maya as that just seems a lot less than sexual orientation.

"No. Technically there is a lot more gender identities and sexual orientations actually. They are just not included in the acronym. Transgender is also kind of an umbrella term in a way. There are a ton of gender identities, such as genderqueer, gender fluid, bigender, trigender, agender, androgyne, non-binary, and so on."

Maya

I can see that the diagram specifically is keeping her anchored. The longer we talk the more I calm down. She really is just trying to get more information to try to understand. I hand the notebook back to her. I honestly could not deal with her leaning over me to point at the different portions of the acronym. She writes down a few things that she wants to remember. I think specifically more detail about trans stuff. She seems to understand the split. "Sexual orientation and gender identity happen on a spectrum and each person's experience is unique." She is still writing some things. She flips the page and starts drawing some things. "Riles. This is a lot to take in in one sitting."

She looks up at me. "Maya, I know. But right now I have learned there is a whole world out there that I am completely and totally ignorant to. Can you explain what asexual is more?" Riley doesn't like feeling like she doesn't know something, especially when it comes to understanding other people.

"Yea I can. So being asexual is another umbrella term. This occurs on a spectrum. If you were to think of sexuality as a straight line moving upwards, asexual would be at 0 and sexual would be at 100. In the middle is demisexual and gray-a, which can be referred with other terms. There is a sexual portion, which deals with how the individual views the idea of the act of sex, and then there is the romantic orientation. This is similar to sexual orientation labels but only in the romantic way. So for example, homoromantic means that the person only feels romantic feelings for a person of the same sex, Heteroromantic only for opposite sex, biromantic for both boys and girls, and panromantic so romantically attracted to others despite gender identity. Then there is aromantic. These individuals feel little or no romantic feelings for anyone." All while I am speaking Riley is furiously writing everything down. She seems to have figured out the more well known ones by asking about the less well known ones. I mean she is smart. She puts more than two and two together, she reads between the lines. She stops writing and pulls back to look at it. She then looks at me. "I am sure I am going to have more questions but there is always google and I can ask you later too. I think that is enough to process information wise for one day."

I sigh thinking she is done. "Maya how do you know all of this?" My mind literally goes blank.

Riley

Maya seemed so smooth explaining all of this LGBTQ+ information. It made me wonder how she knew all of this, especially when I didn't. I am usually the one that openly knows things. When I ask her about it, I feel like I can literally see the cogs in her mind stop turning. I wait for her to regain her thought processes. "I… ummmm… came acrossed it once while surfing the internet."

"Really? I wonder why I never came across it. What were you looking at?" Again she hesitates.

"Uh… I… well I was reading poetry and came across Sappho's poem." Now it was my turn for my mind to go blank. She reads poetry? Why did I not know this? I thought we told each other everything. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Maya. Guess I was mistaken… That really hurts.

"You read poetry?"

"Yes. I like how the words paint a picture the same way I do with my hands." I am completely shellshocked. I start crying. I don't even totally know why I am crying. The tears just start slowly dripping down my face.

Maya

Oh God Oh God Oh God. She is crying. I fucked up. I made her cry. I hurt her. I immediately scoot over to her. I pull her into a hug. "Riley I am so sorry. I didn't know that the fact that I didn't tell you I read poetry was going to hurt you this much. I like the way poetry makes me feel. It has been an escape and it often teaches me new things."

"Maya I am not mad at you. I mean I am hurt that you didn't tell me. I thought we told each other everything, but obviously I was wrong." I feel my wall crack a bit. "I think the tears are from the fact that I have been super anxious all day but honestly I have been anxious for weeks. This just was the last straw." She then really starts crying. I pull her in again and hold her tight, hoping to hold her together. I then lay her head in my lap and pet her hair to get her to calm down. Her tears finally stop and her breathing settles. I take this moment of peace.

"Riles. I know there has been a lot of new today. I know you have been thinking about a lot lately. We don't need to talk about it right now. I think that honestly after the day you have had… it has been enough. We can talk more later, ok?"

Riley

"Yes Maya that is probably smart. Will you come stay over this weekend and we can talk about stuff and just chill too? I need a Maya weekend."

"Yea I can do that honey."

"Can you sit here with me for a little longer?"

"Whatever you want."

I pull Maya into me and hold her tight. I keep her there for a good 5 minutes. I feel safe. My mind goes completely calm in her arms. She always holds me just as tight back, like she is trying to keep me together. I run my fingers through the hair where my hand lies. She rubs soothing circles on my back. I enjoy this moment of bliss just feeling her. I realize I have lingered way too long and I finally let go. She looks sad. But she says goodbye and exits out the window like always.

Riley AND Maya

I have A LOT to think about.