Because LadyMDSmalls left me a review, I'm going to go ahead and update! I'm so excited there's someone reading, lol! Here's the next chapter, I hope you all enjoy!
Leave it to me to mess up posting my own story! I lost a big chunk of dialogue between Dani and Steve that was so important to the story! Now repaired. Enjoy! Thanks to Friendly Girl for letting me know I had dun messed up!
Blue
I took a cab back to Steve's apartment, letting myself in. When I got there, Steve was waiting on the couch, he stood up and rushed to me the moment I walked in the door.
"Dani-"
"I told you not to touch me," I said as he reached for me.
He let go. "Can we just talk about-"
"No."
"You made me talk about the worst stuff when we first got together-"
"Not right now," I said. I walked past him and grabbed a few of my things, and then went to the bathroom, grabbing all my toiletries. I threw them into my small suitcase that I threw onto the bed. The bed he had just touched me on the night before, the I had sucked him off on. Had loving me just been an act?
"What are you doing?" Steve asked from the doorway.
"I'm going back to DC," I replied.
"You're- you're walking out on me?" he shouted.
"I don't know!" I cried. "I don't know right now! I just need some space from you right now."
"You- you made me talk about-"
"Cumming too soon? The first time we tried? Yeah, I remember that. You have done nothing but try to shape me into something I'm not!"
"What have I done?" he shouted. "I have done nothing but practically worship you- and we can't talk about this-"
"Talk about what? You kissed a man tonight!"
"I did not kiss him! He kissed me!" He pounded on his chest with his fist.
"Fuck you!" I shouted. "Okay, you wanna talk? So swear to me, look me in the eye, swear on your mother and father's graves, only the Holy Bible, are you gay, Steve? Just tell me!"
Steve's lower lip trembled, and tears filled his eyes. His cheeks got red. "Damnit!" he shouted, and swung at the stack of books on the dresser with his bare hand. They hurtled past me with so much velocity, I heard them hit the wall and glass, making me jump, and the glass broke in the window.
I burst into fresh tears. He ran his fingers through his hair and grabbed it so hard, I was afraid he'd yank it out and roared.
I had never seen Steve angry before. He turned away from me punched the wall, and his fist going through the drywall and I was paralyzed with fear.
He turned back around, and I ran into the bathroom, terrified.
Was he going to turn those fists on me? He could kill me.
Oh God…
I locked the door behind myself. Where was my phone?
"Dani, I didn't mean to scare you," Steve said quietly through the door. "I swear, I'm not… I'm not…"
I trembled and started weeping, sinking to the linoleum on the floor.
When I walked out the door with my backpack on and my suitcase paced, I walked past Steve, we were unable to look at each other.
I called a cab, and waited alone in the middle of the night in Brooklyn, wearing my grandmother's dress. My brain did nothing but play a reel of my moments with Steve against my will. And I felt even more foolish and humiliated and stupid. My stomach roiled with equal parts rage and humiliation. I wished I could just die and let the earth swallow me. I had trusted him so much.
The cabbie took me to the train station and the reel in my head wouldn't stop. I thought I had my heart broken with Chad. This was much, much worse. How was I going to tell my family? Lauren would be so smug. Steve did exactly what she said he would. Daddy had been right: Steve was hiding something. That only added to my embarrassment.
I was a stupid, stupid girl, pathetic, do much so no man could ever want me for me.
At the train station, the last train of the night was leaving for DC was leaving at 11:05. I rushed into the train and found a seat.
I saw my reflection in the dark glass of the window I was sitting beside. My eye makeup was smeared and I looked like I was half dead. I got out my phone, and Steve had texted me. Multiple times. I didn't bother to read them, instead I opened the text message to Alissa. All I wanted was my cat and to curl up at home in my bed and cry.
Hey, I'm coming home really late. I'm on a train back to DC. Can I come over and get Lourdes Marie?
I got text bubbles almost immediately.
What's going on? Alissa texted me back.
It's bad. I don't think Steve and I are going to be okay.
When are you getting in?
I checked my train ticket. 2:05.
I will be there to pick you up. What happened?
Tears slipping down my cheeks, I started typing out the text message, but it didn't make sense and was way too long. I deleted it. I saw a part of Steve tonight he's been hiding from me. I think he's been lying. I don't know. I just don't trust him. I'll tell you what happened when I get home.
She texted me a heart. I love you, Dani.
I pulled my suitcase out and found that I had grabbed a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt. Using the skills of changing clothes in public I had learned in marching band, I pulled the shirt over my head and unzipped the dress before pulling the yoga pants on under the dress. I slipped the dress off my hips, and put it into the suitcase. Steve texted me again, but I couldn't bring myself to even read the preview of the message. And now my period cramps were going insane.
The reel of everything with Steve that had seemed so perfect went through my head as I sat on the semi-deserted train to DC, cramping so badly, I could hardly move.
It was so, so late when I arrived in DC. I had tried to use some Vaseline to remove my make-up, but that did nothing for my red and swollen eyes and puffy face. I should have been cried out, but my eyes kept on leaking tears. My contacts were foggy from all the tears.
24 messages from Stevie my phone alerted me as I zipped up my backpack. I had left my Abnormal Psych book at Steve's apartment in my rush to leave. I still had no idea where I was with him.
I felt so weak as I pulled my suitcase off the the seat with all my cramping and body aches. The backpack was worse, and a cramp shot up my back, into my shoulder blade.
Holy fuck, this is bad, I thought.
As I got off the train, it felt like my head was going to float off my neck. So many hypothesis had gone through my head, giving birth to new ones, I wasn't even sure which ones had come first. I just wanted to turn off my brain.
But I couldn't.
My legs almost collapsed underneath me as I went down the steps.
"Dani?"
Alissa was waiting at the depot. She ran towards me and threw her arms around me. I wept in her arms.
At Alissa's apartment in Crystal City, Lourdes Marie came up to me and got in my lap, concerned. "He's gay," I said.
"What?" Alissa asked, getting a glass of cold water for me and some ibuprofen.
"Steve… he's gay. He couldn't swear to me that he wasn't. After he kissed a man tonight and I caught him."
"He kissed someone else?" she repeated, her voice at almost a whisper.
"No, it… he was helping some guy- we went to a gay bar with Nia and her boyfriend after dinner, and he disappeared, and I found him in a parking lot, having just changed a tire, talking to him, and this guy leaned over and kissed him, and… and he kissed him back. And when I asked him to swear he wasn't gay, he couldn't…" a sob came up. "He couldn't swear it."
She handed me the glass of water and a box of soft tissues with lotion in them, according to the box and sat down, her face a mask of unchanging horror. "It's okay that the guy got the wrong idea, but didn't Steve like, get surprised?"
I took a sip of water before dabbing at my raw, red nose with the silky-soft tissue. "He was so nice to him. Like he let him down easy. Would a straight guy do that? After a gay guy kissed him?"
"No. He'd freak out a little, wouldn't he?"
"That's what I thought," I admitted.
"But… you two… you're so in love and…"
"I know, it's just…"
"Dani, maybe he's not gay… not completely. Maybe he's bi? Or pansexual?"
I wiped my eyes. "I don't know. But he kissed him back!"
"Well, no offense, but when a guy is kissed, he usually kisses back if it's someone he's attracted to, even if he doesn't want it. I guess… I guess if a man gets kissed and he's attracted to another man, he'd do that."
I didn't want to imagine it, but my brain did it for me: I imagined Steve, skinny, pre-serum Steve, being kissed in a back alley of Brooklyn by a man in a pin-striped zoot suit, turning around, being pressed against a brick wall. "No!" I shouted, squeezing my eyes shut. The horrific fantasy evaporated.
"It doesn't mean he doesn't love you."
"I keep asking myself that. But he lied. This was such a big thing, though, Liss! Why would he keep it from me? My father's bi and.. And… Liss, we met in a gay bar. And I keep thinking about all these different things about him that were dead giveaways. He knew it. He knew it and he kept it from me. He turned me into his beard! How do I know he's not got gay lovers all over the place?"
"I don't know," Alissa said. "Oh, Dani… I'm so sorry."
My phone chimed. "That's probably him. He won't stop texting me, but I just can't read my text messages from him right now," I admitted.
She hugged me and we sat there on the couch together for so long the sun started rising out the window over her balcony. My back ached, my pelvis was screaming at me on one side, and my head felt spacey. "I just want to go home and sleep in my own bed with Lourdes Marie," I mumbled.
"Okay, I'll call an Uber," she said.
"No, Liss- let me-"
"You've had a shitty night," she said.
"Shitty," I repeated. I had avoided cursing for five months for his stupid ass. "Fuck."
"Yeah, fuck," Alissa agreed, getting her phone out, calling the car.
She helped me get to the elevators with Lourdes Marie in the cat carrier, and we went out to the front lobby. My head was so fuzzy and spacey…
I took a step out the front door, and a sharp cramp shot through my body, my knees gave out from under me. The world blacked out for a moment. Liss was standing over me. "Dani?"
"Oh my God…" I mumbled.
"Dani, you've got a fever," she said. "Did you know that?"
"I've been sick for… for goddamn two months, practically," I grumbled. "Help me get up?
I groaned as Alissa tried to help me up, the pain in my pelvis was so intense, I was afraid I'd shit my pants. She eased me back onto the pavement.
"Is she alright?" the Uber driver asked, window rolled down.
"Dani, I'm worried about you," Alissa said.
"I'm just heartbroken and on my period and stick," I muttered. "I wish I were dead right now."
"No, this isn't normal," she said. "Look, we're going to the hospital, to Joel's. I just want his ER to check you out."
"Fine," I muttered.
She helped me into the Uber and begged him to wait on her. She took my things and Lourdes Marie upstairs to her apartment and came back back. In the car, I felt the shooting pain up my back from my pelvis to my shoulder. I groaned softly. Maybe this was a shitty period and I need prescription pain relievers.
"Hey, Liss?" I asked. "Hey, um… I might need a tampon when I get there. I haven't changed my tampon since last night."
"What if you have toxic shock syndrome?" Lissa asked, horrified.
"Oh shit," I whispered.
In the ER, Joel met us out front.
"Hey, what's going on?" he asked, looking concerned. "Dani, come on, let's get into a wheelchair."
Alissa handed me a tampon. "She needs to go to the bathroom, first. I'll go with her."
Liss and I went to the bathroom and I stumbled into a stall. Once situated, I pulled out the tampon. It wasn't as bloody as I thought it would be. And the blood looked different.
"Everything okay?" Alissa asked.
"Not really."
In the ER, Joel managed to get me bypassed through to Triage ridiculously fast and I found myself in an examining room.
"What kind of symptoms are you having?" Joel asked as we waiting on the ER nurse.
"Besides a broken heart and being sick to my stomach?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Um… well, to start with, I've had the shittiest cold and/or allergies since March. It's like mother nature just wants to fuck with my sinuses and throat. I think it's a sinus infection."
"What else?"
"Like…"
"Like your periods?"
"This is weird, okay… My period's been weird and light since Monaco, but I think that's because of the Plan B pill I took. It's made me really cranky since I got back from Nashville. I guess that's normal. But it really hurts on this side," I said, indicating my left side of my hip. "And I'm dizzy. And my cramps are really gassy, I've had them all week long… I think longer? Is it a ruptured cyst?"
"Are you getting cramps up your back, up to your shoulder blade?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Dani, I'm not an ER examining physician, but what you're describing sounds like an ectopic pregnancy."
I almost fainted, but I heard Alissa cry out.
"I can't be!" I cried.
"Have you had a pregnancy test since you got back from Monaco?"
"No. I've gotten my period, so I didn't think I needed to worry about it."
"I'm going to talk to the nurse about you getting one right away. If it's positive, we're going to send you up to ultrasound to see if your fallopian tube's ruptured, with the bleeding you're having, it probably has," Joel looked like he was about to cry, too. "I'm so sorry. But we're going to confirm it, first. Let me go find the head nurse, I'll be right back. Liss?"
"I'm staying right here with her as long as she needs me," Alissa said. "Dani, I'm not leaving you, understand?"
"We don't know yet," Joel said, leaving the room. "Don't panic."
Steve and I had planned so heavily to avoid pregnancy. I had taken that hideous Plan B pill and it had been hellish, the nausea. I had been so good about taking the pill. And condoms. How many condoms had Steve and I been through? How had this happened?
The nurse came in and gave me a stick to pee on after a few questions. I went to the bathroom and mustered up all the pee I had left in my bladder to soak the pregnancy test, and the nurse took it.
"How do I tell Steve?" I asked. "In a moment like this? I can't even read his text messages right now!"
"It's... let's not think about that," Alissa said. "Not right now."
"Oh God…" I gaped. What seemed like an eternity later, the ER physician came into the room.
"Miss Conyers? Hi, I'm Dr Chaussanpong, I'll be your attending physician. We got your pregnancy test back, and you are seven weeks pregnant, and we suspect it's ectopic. We're going to send you up to ultrasound to see if it's ruptured your fallopian tube and if we can save the tube or if we'll have to operate. I'll be honest with you; these symptoms sound like a ruptured Fallopian tube and a sinus infection."
After all the stress and heartbreak from the last twelve hours, this was making it worse. "I'm not going to survive this," I whispered.
"We're going to bump you to the top of the list in Ultrasound," the doctor said. "But the ER surgeon is going to prep for emergency surgery."
"Liss!" I cried.
Lissa was sobbing, but she took my hand.
The transport tech entered behind the doctor. "Come on," he said. I got up and into the the wheelchair, where the ultrasound tech was waiting for me. I climbed up to the table, and she lubed my left hip with microwaved gel, and started running the wand over my pelvis.
"There it is," the lady said. "Your tube."
"What is it?" I asked.
"I can't say. I'm not allowed," she said. "I can't diagnose." She left me alone in the room for what seemed like an eternity. I was alone with my thoughts about Steve that I couldn't turn off and a possible ruptured ectopic pregnancy.
The ER doctor came into the room and looked at the sonogram. "Miss Conyers, I think we've got enough to diagnose this as a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. If we don't operate immediately, you'll internally bleed to death. I'm sorry about this, but you're going to lose your left fallopian tube."
I didn't have the tears to shed. I was numb.
"The OR is prepped, we're going to admit you to the hospital right now."
"Let me call my…" My words trailed off. I didn't want to call Steve right now… but how couldn't I? He had to know. And my parents… what the hell was I going to tell them?
"We don't have time," the doctor said. "We're going to have the transport tech here in a moment. Don't panic. You're not going to have time."
The transport tech came and whisked me through the hospital halls and brought me into the pre-op room. All I could think about was Steve finding out. How was I going to tell him? He had to find out, even if things were in a shambles between us he still deserved to know. I closed my eyes and the nurses started prepping me and sticking me with needles.
"Close your eyes, honey. This is going to be over before you know it," the nurse said.
I wished I had at least had a chance to text Steve that I was in the hospital as they put the anesthesia mask over my face.
I woke up, my mouth feeling like sandpaper. I had to fart so badly and it hurt to move my torso. I was in a curtained off cubicle, I groaned softly. I saw I was in a hospital bed, so I called the nurse.
A moment later, a guy stuck his head into the cubicle. "Everything okay?"
"What… what happened?" I asked.
"You had a laparoscopic emergency surgery," he said. "How's the pain?"
"I don't want to move," I admitted. "Where are my friends?"
"They're waiting, do you want to see them?"
"Yes, please," I whispered.
A moment later, Alissa and Joel came into the room. Alissa looked terrified, and Joel was looking relieved.
"You made it through," he said.
"What happened? Do you know?" I asked.
"The surgeon's coming in a moment," Joel said.
"We'll sit with you"
"Oh my God, I am so gassy," I admitted.
"Yeah, you're going to have the farts big time," Joel said. "That's part of laparoscopic procedure recovery."
I groaned. "What did they tell you? Was I bleeding internally?"
"I don't know," Joel admitted. "They couldn't tell me those things."
"But you just said-" Alissa started.
"They wouldn't have let us in if the surgery hadn't been successful," Joel said.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"It's three-thirty," he said. "In the afternoon. Just try to sleep."
"I'll sit with you," Alissa said. "Joel, go home and check on Lourdes Marie. And sleep."
"Alright. Love you," he said. "Love you too, Dani." He kissed my forehead before leaving the cubicle.
"You can fart in front of me," Alissa said.
"Thanks," I muttered. "God… this has been the worst twenty-four hours of my life. How am I going to tell Steve?"
"Um… Dani, I did some calling around. I told Steve already, he's on his way. I called your mom and dad, too. Your dad's trying to catch a flight to DC right now. Lauren called me and put me through 20 questions, and she wants to talk to you, if you're ready."
"Liss?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for calling him," I mumbled. "I was too chicken to."
"Anytime."
Alissa's phone rang, and it was Lauren. "How the hell did I miss this?" Lauren lamented. "Am I so into myself I completely missed that you were having ectopic pregnancy symptoms?"
"Lauren, this is all about me right now, not you," I teased.
"I'm sorry I was such an asshole when you and Steve were in town."
"Finally. I'll tell Steve you apologized… If we ever talk again."
"What happened?"
"We… I…" It suddenly seemed so wrong to tell people that Steve was gay. It suddenly felt like I was telling people he was a virgin when we met. I felt guilty to confiding in Alissa. Steve couldn't even say he was gay, yet. As hurt as I was, and as much as I could hurt him by telling everyone I knew he was gay, it would hurt him so much more if I outed him. I had no right to do that, even if it was my big sister. Maybe Steve had lied to me, but we were in the middle of this, we weren't out of it yet. Maybe there would be no 'we' between Steve and I when we sorted this shit out. I was not in my right mind to decide what was a fair way to treat Steve at this point. Hell, I didn't know if I wanted to tell the world Steve had knocked me up with an ectopic pregnancy. "We had a big fight. It was really bad, and we're kind of still in the middle of it. This has been the shittiest day of my life, Laur… I… I don't know where we're going to end up right now."
"Well… if he's too much of an asshole to forget now that you've had an ectopic pregnancy with his fetus and beg for you take him back, I was right about him."
"I don't know if I need to take him back or him take me back right now. Like I said, we're in the middle of this."
"What happened?"
"The fight was really private and there are still so many things we haven't sorted out, yet. It's a problem as a big as an ectopic pregnancy."
"I will chew his Yankee ass out-"
"No, you won't. We've got to figure this out and figure out where things are headed between the two of us. I don't know if we're going to be able to tough it out."
Lauren's end of the line went silent.
"Laur, are you still there?" I asked.
"Uh-huh. You sure you don't want to talk about it?"
"I'm sure. Not yet."
"Then will you tell me if you were using birth control, at least?"
"I've been on the pill since Steve and I started seeing each other seriously, and we were pretty good about condom use until…"
"Until what?"
"Until the trip we took to Monaco."
"Oh my God… I betcha that's when it happened."
"Like within the week of."
"You have a stash of Plan B, don't you?"
"I do, and I took it to Monaco with me, but I didn't take it after that one time we did it without the condom until three days later. I was within the dosage time."
"It's most effective when you take it immediately after," she lectured. "Dani, why didn't you do it?"
"Because I wanted to enjoy the trip, not be cooped up for a day with nausea when I could be enjoying a vacation with Steve in one of the most beautiful vacation spots in the world," I admitted.
She sighed. "Oh my God… you were always the one who had her shit together, and this happens."
"Me? Have my shit together?" I repeated, dumbfounded.
"Yes, you. Momma always said I was the dumb, fat one who'd get knocked up because I was stupid-"
"You have your BSN, you have got to be kidding me!"
"I was pregnant with Matthew when Russell and I got married," she muttered.
"So what?" I croaked. "I basically had the equivalent of an abortion just now and I spent my entire undergrad career in therapy because I thought I was the fattest girl on the majorette line while Mom bitched about how I had cellulite and was showing it off. And the first big fight Steve and I have is probably going to break us up because I've only had one serious relationship before him. Who's the big fuck up now?" Only I could fall in love head over heels for a gay man, I thought. But this time, it wasn't anger or bitterness. Just sadness. I was going to lose what I thought was the best relationship I had ever been in. I thought nobody could ever compare to Steve, yet… he had been dishonest with me.
Lauren sniffled. "Do you need me to come out there?"
"Daddy's already on his way," I said. "I'll be fine."
"No, you won't."
"You've got your own shit to deal with, with Russell and the kids at home. I know your marriage is shitty, but I'm not going to tell you what to do or even ask what's going on."
"Okay," she mumbled. "I love you, Dani. Even if you're keeping things from me."
"I'm not… we'll talk later."
"Fine."
"I love you, too."
"You didn't tell her," Alissa said as I hung up the phone. "About last night."
"I don't know if I have any business outing Steve right now," I admitted. "Maybe I do, I don't know. I'm not in the right headspace to decide. If I do feel justified, I'll do it, but not today."
"That's more mature than I would have been," Alissa admitted. "Shit, I wouldn't know what to do if Joel had a secret life where he gay."
"He already said he'd suck Tony Stark's dick."
"I forgot about that," Alissa chuckled. "He says shit like that constantly, it's all hypothetical. But I doubt he'd go through with it."
"What did Steve say when you called him?" I asked. "Did you tell him what I told you?"
"He… I texted him and he called me directly. He was mobilized, but they're sending him back right now. I didn't tell him what you told me."
"Thanks," I said softly. I knew Liss could keep my secrets.
After a few hours, I was admitted to an overnight hospital room. Alissa stayed by my side the whole time. The nurse gave me a Xanax, and I went for more ultrasounds and the surgeon checked in on me, as well as Dr. C. I told Alissa to go home and get some rest while I talked to the doctor.
"You have one healthy fallopian tube left," Dr C said after she left the room. "Your chances of another ectopic pregnancy are a little higher now, but I doubt it'll happen again. Just use birth control very carefully for the next eight weeks while you recover, it'll help with healing. We don't want you ovulating in that side. And don't have sex. At all. Even with protection."
I nodded. "But… if I wanted to have children one day down the road, I still can?"
"I doubt you'll have fraternal twins, but you will be able to get pregnant and have a fully functional pregnancy if you do what we tell you during recovery, including no exertion or weight lifting." he said in the darkened room. A familiar silhouette darkened the doorway and I felt sick again.
"Hi," Steve said. "I'm Steve Rogers, Dani's... boyfriend. And I'm... responsible for her."
Steve sat with me as Dr. C answered my questions, and asked a few of his own, most had me as the subject, not himself, not even implying himself. He didn't even ask when I'd be able to have sex again. The coldness between us was so evident, it was like a block of ice.
"She's going to be up and doing what she normally does in the next week or so. Just avoid letting her do any heavy to medium exertion for the next eight weeks while she heals."
"But this isn't going to impact her being able to have a baby in the future, will it?" Steve asked.
"No, it won't," Dr. C said.
By the time Dr. C left, I struggled to get the hospital bed in a sitting position. Steve came over and carefully helped me adjust the pillows behind my head, but the care was missing.
"How are you feeling?" Steve asked.
"Stiff. Sore. Gassy. Really gross."
"Yeah." I missed the gentle everyday touches and the way the corners of his mouth would quirk up when he looked at me. I wasn't sure how he felt at all right now. I hardly knew if he was even attracted to me or if this had all been joke.
We sat in stony silence for a long moment. "Okay, so… we're in a bad place right now," he finally said.
"Yeah, we are," I admitted, feeling the tears gathering in my eyes. "What did Alissa tell you when she contacted you?"
"I was really surprised when Tony called me up to the cockpit, saying you had sent me a message through the coms, and when I opened it, it just said that it was Alissa and you were in the hospital. Tony patched me through on a secure line to your phone, and she told me you had passed out in front of her apartment building and she had taken you to the ER, and they found an ectopic pregnancy."
"Did you know what that was?" I asked.
"Dani, of course I know what that is!" Steve barked, making me jump.
"I'm sorry!" I shouted back with all my strength.
He took a deep breath, and calmed his voice. "I didn't mean to raise my voice. But Tony asked me what was going on, and I told him you were going into emergency surgery and Alissa wanted me to come back home for you. But we were mobilized, in the air. Tony said I was so out of sorts, he was going to remove me from the mission anyway, and we got into a big argument about it, and he said that if you were in the hospital for whatever reason, I needed to be there. I guess… I guess he was right. I am not really okay to go into combat right now, I am so distracted by you."
"I'm not the one responsible, you let some little twink kiss you-"
"What did you want me to do, punch him out?"
"Yes! Well, that's what I'd expect of any straight man, Steve."
"Fucking fine," he growled. My jaw dropped. He never cursed, let alone used the F-bomb. I had never experienced this kind of anger and contempt from him before and it scared and shamed me and put me on the defense, things I had never had to be around him. "Okay, you're not going anywhere, so I've got a captive audience. We're gonna talk about this."
I felt that roiling, nauseated feeling again. "Oh shit," I mumbled.
"'Oh shit' is right," he replied, getting up to walk around the room. "What was this about us being partners? Never being enemies? Being a team? Or was all that malarkey?"
I took a deep breath. "I thought I was the only person you'd ever loved. And wanted to be with."
"Maybe I didn't act on it in the past, but in a world of beautiful dames, what makes you think you're the first woman I've ever been attracted to?"
"What about men, Steve? Why did you hide that from me?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Because this world is filled with out and proud gay people. My own father is bisexual, and you knew that! You're around gay men all the time in New York. We met in a gay bar!" I cried.
"Okay, yeah… we met in a gay bar, sure. It wasn't my idea to go to one that night. It was Natasha's."
"But you went along with it."
"Of course. A part of me was curious. I wanted to see how the gay community lived today. It was a big, dirty secret in the forties."
I struggled to sit up, despite my torso raging in pain. "How could you not tell me?" I asked. "Did you think I wouldn't understand? I told you so early on about my father. If anybody could understand, why didn't you trust me? Was I some kind of cover so people wouldn't think you're gay? To fool your team, your family?"
"You really think I was using you? For something? To fool the Avengers somehow? Why would I do that?"
"I don't know, the same reason Bill Clinton passed 'Don't ask, don't tell' in the military. Did you think the Avengers would turn on you if you were gay?"
"I'm not gay!" Steve snapped. "Stop saying that!"
"Why didn't you tell me you were attracted to men, too?" I sobbed, although it hurt.
"Because… because I loved you too much."
"That's not a reason, Steve!" I said.
"If I loved you enough, that part of me would just cease to exist," he said, his voice trembling. "I wouldn't feel those feelings and I wouldn't be a freak, someone with poor moral character, a sinner, someone doomed to hell-"
"How can you say that!" I cried.
"Because that's how gays were treated when I grew up. Gay men could get arrested and sent to jail for acts against nature. You could be institutionalized. You were considered a pervert, a predator, a child molester. That's how you're treating me right now!"
I gasped in shock.
"When we went through that concentration camp in Poland, I saw the men in the striped pajamas with a pink triangle. I found later after V-Day, they didn't get set free or sent home. They served out their sentences for another fifteen years. Oh God! Sent to extermination camps just for loving another person? I was so ashamed of this part of myself, the moment I saw you, and you saw me, you didn't see that. You'd look at me with so adoration, so much joy when you saw me, your face would light up."
"Did you really love me?" I whispered through my tears.
"Did I love you? Of course I love you! I never stopped! That is the dumbest question you've ever asked me! And- Oh my God, it's like you're driving a knife into my heart and twisting it right now!"
I was unable to put it together in that moment.
"I thought if I just loved you enough, that part of me that got turned on by men would just fall away. I'd only feel that way about you, and I was normal again, safe. But when that kid kissed me to say thank-you and offer me sex in return, I… yeah, I kissed him back, but I've done that every time I've been kissed in my life, I just… that's just what I do. But the moment he surprised me, all I could think of was you. How hurt you'd be that someone else kissed me, anybody. How the only person I wanted to kiss and hold in my arms was you, and I realized how desperate he was for companionship, how much it hurt to not have what I have with you. What I thought I had with you. I remembered how lonely I had been when Bucky enlisted and I was friendless and all alone in Brooklyn before the experiment, and God help me, I felt sorry for him. At that moment, all that was going through my head and that I had to be kind, to let him down easy. I'd never tell you, even you're always blabbing on and on about having empathy and compassion for others and how much everybody needs it. And then you appeared out of thin air, it all went to hell. You just assumed how I felt. I'd have told you about him kissing me by surprise anyway, but you never let me explain, you just accused me of being gay, like I didn't love you. I'm pretty sure that hurts more than trying to deny that part of myself that I thought would just fade away if I spent my life worshipping the ground you walked on."
I couldn't speak. It was coming together for me, like when a fog cleared when you were walking and a tree or a house into sight.
He had never not loved me. But I had assumed he had been faking it for some ill-begotten use.
"I have felt attraction towards men before, but I felt it with girls too. When I said I loved you, I meant it. I wasn't lying. I've never lied to you, Dani. I'll swear that on a stack of bibles, my every ancestor's grave, and on the Virgin Mary Herself, I have never lied to you. But, I lied to myself. I was in denial, maybe I kept things from you that I couldn't admit to myself. But I knew you were worth it. Or at least I thought you were."
I looked up at him through my tears, and I saw that his eyes were filled with tears, too.
"Oh my God," I whispered. "Oh my God… Steve, I…"
"I trusted you to believe me," he whispered. "I trusted you."
"I trusted you, too," I said.
"Then when I told you I wasn't gay, why didn't you believe me?"
"Because…" the ugly truth was something I didn't want to admit. "I was afraid I wasn't enough for you. And I needed to be angry at you so I didn't have to..." I couldn't finish my sentence. "It was easier to be angry at you than to look at myself and think I wasn't enough to keep you."
Steve wasn't gay. He was attracted to men, but not just men alone. He was attracted to me, too. I was the daughter of a bisexual, and his bisexuality got erased when he made commitments in love like marriage. When he was married to my mother, he was assumed to be straight. When he married Harland, they all said he was gay, like he chosen a side, like the bisexuality was only a phase between deciding between gay and straight. I myself had felt like I was immune to such a grievous offense against love and sexuality, but I had just done it, to my shame, with the person closest to me.
"Why would you think that?" Steve asked, stunned.
"I thought… you were choosing a side," I admitted. "That I drove you away." I buried my face in my hands and sobbed, unable to face him. "Oh, Steve, how can you even stand the sight of me right now? I just tried to erase your bisexuality. I tried to make your choice for you."
"I did make my choice. I chose you," he said.
The guilt wracked my system. "I'm sorry," I whispered. If that had been a pretty girl kissing Steve for changing her car's tire, I'd have run up to that bitch and punched her in her fucking face and called her a dirty slut for throwing herself at another woman's boyfriend. I would have hugged Steve later and told him he dealt with her in a classy way by trying to let her down easy. But instead, because it was a man kissing him, and he kissed him back, I had doubted myself and tried to push him away so I could be the victim. I was not the victim, but I had made myself the villain while trying to be the sympathetic, mistreated one. "I'm so sorry, Steve."
I heard him sit down, the chair legs scraping the hospital tile. "So what are we going do? What does this mean?"
"How can you stand me at all?" I asked. I had jumped to so many conclusions, unfair ones, when it had all been an innocent case of him trying to help, to be the Boy Scout, and some guy- some person mistaking that as an invitation for sex when it really hadn't been. How many men had tried to put a lot of "I was nice to you, so you owe me sex' tokens in me and it hadn't worked and got angry with me when I didn't reciprocate like they wanted? Why had I just assumed Steve would punch somebody out for kissing him without consent, like some macho barbarian? Steve was better than that. He was definitely better than me right now.
"I'm mad at you right now, but that doesn't change that I love you," he said.
"I love you, too," I admitted, my voice tiny.
"You pissed me off really bad last night," he said. "I'm sorry I hit things and punched a hole in the wall. My landlord's probably going to charge me an arm and leg for that, but I didn't meant to scare you. But I wish you had just asked instead of assumed."
I finally stopped digging the heels of my palms into eye sockets. "I… would you have told me you're bisexual last night if I had asked and not jumped to conclusions?"
"I…" I finally looked at him, sitting in that chair. "I… am… bisexual. Yes." He sighed. "Yes, I'm bisexual… I don't know if I could have put those words together to describe myself if you had asked, but yeah… I'm not only attracted to women. And it's not a choice, because if it were, I'd chose differently because it's not easy to like men. Not in the society I grew up in, not even now. But can you handle this about me?" It looked like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
Oh God… I was a horrible girlfriend and horrible person. And he was asking me if I'd stay with him, still, and I definitely did not deserve him right now. Possibly ever.. "Yeah. I think I can if you're willing to forgive me," I admitted.
"Then, I think we're going to be okay."
There is more, I swear! I hope you're all gonna stick around for it!