"So who else knows that yer gay?" Joss kept her eyes more on the table than on Bonnie as she asked the question. I guess getting back to how things used to be is going to take a little time.

The older woman shrugged. "I guess that depends who Lorraine and my sisters have told."

"I don't expect yer to know about them." Joss waved a hand in dismissal. "I just meant the people ya do know about."

"Well, other than you and Lorraine, there's my parents and my sisters, of course." Bonnie ticked them off on her fingers. "My friend Andy. His father, and his partner Eric. Chahna, of course. Other than that, just my friend Tara and her husband, Ned."

There was a moment of silence, where Joss looked at her expectantly. Finally, the younger woman cleared her throat. "That's all?"

"Yeah." Bonnie didn't bother to hide her confusion. "You thought there'd be more?"

"Well ... a few girlfriends, at least."

The brunette's eyes widened. "Oh." She swallowed. "No. Chahna was my first. I've always been way in the closet." She summoned up a faint smile. "Until recently, I assumed I always would be."

"What changed?"

"I ... I hid my sexuality because I was afraid of the way people would treat me. I assumed it would ruin my life. And then I met you ... an open lesbian. And yes, people made comments. But you were ... free ... in a way that I wasn't. It took me a few months, but I slowly realized that denying who I was, was hurting me more than other people's bigoted opinions ever could." Bonnie flushed as she came to the end of her impromptu soliloquy. "So uh ... thanks for being you."

"Yer welcome." Joss gave a throaty chuckle. "Though I gotta admit it wasn't like I had a choice about bein' openly gay. I'm no good at pretendin' to be somethin' I'm not. So I figured I may as well just tell folks and get any drama outta the way from the get-go."

Bonnie smiled, but the expression faded as a thought occurred to her. "Speaking of telling people ... is it okay if I ask you not to tell Kim, or anyone else? I'm ready to come out of the closet, but ..."

"But ya want to be the one who decides when to tell people." Joss nodded. "Don't worry, I won't go blabbin' about ya to anyone, and certainly not Kim. I ain't even told her I know ya." She gave a wry smile. "I figured she'd just give me a lecture about ya not bein' trustworthy, if I did."

"Well ..." Bonnie spooned up some tiramisu, but did not raise it to her mouth. "If I was still the Bonnie that Kim knew, she'd be right." She sighed. "And I haven't exactly been honest with you about my sexuality, so maybe I'm not as changed as I thought I was."

Joss shook her head. "Not the same thing. Ya didn't lie about yer sexuality ta hurt me. Ya just weren't ready ta talk about it." She paused, then added. "Reba said a couple of times she thought you were gay ... or at least a curious straight girl."

"She did?" Bonnie set down her spoon, her dessert forgotten. "But we never even met. How did she come up with that?"

"Reba always said there were only two reasons fer a straight woman to knowingly become friends with a lesbian." Joss nibbled her bottom lip, looking uncomfortable with what she was saying. "Either she wanted a trophy; 'look how tolerant I am, hangin' with a homo'; or ... she wasn't as straight as she claimed."

Bonnie exhaled softly. "That's ... rather cynical."

"That's what I called it." Joss's expression became an outright grimace. "She said if I thought otherwise, I was kidding myself."

"For all she was right about my being gay, I don't agree with her rule. I'm sure a straight woman and a lesbian can be friends just because they like each other's company, with no other ulterior motive." Bonnie paused. There's more to this than just one disagreement. "Did you and Reba have different opinions about a lot of stuff?"

Joss sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Reba ... tended ta assume the worst of things. I don't do that. She told me a few times I was too much of a dreamer."

"Well, I definitely don't agree with that. I mean ... yes, you are a dreamer. Your whole family are dreamers. 'Anything is possible for a Possible', right? If that's not dreamer-talk, I don't know what is." Bonnie smiled gently. "But, unlike Reba, I think that being a dreamer can be a good thing. Look at what Kim's accomplished, because she lived that motto. Or look at yourself, for that matter. You were what, eighteen when you landed a job at NASA? Could you have done that without dreaming? Hell, isn't NASA itself all about chasing a dream?"

Joss looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then smiled teasingly. "Fer a lib'ral arts person, yer pretty smart."

"Ha. Ha." Bonnie deadpanned, then made a wry face. "Just be glad you're talking to me now, and not six years ago. I would have said much worse things than just calling you a 'dreamer'."

"Yeah, Kim's told me some stories." Joss propped her chin on her hand and stared across the room. "It's funny how you 'n' her were enemies, and ya both turned out ta be gay. Maybe if ya'd known Kim was a lesbian in school, yer woulda been friends."

It would have been easy to make a neutral but seemingly agreeable response. A simple 'maybe' would do the trick. But it would be dishonest. "It probably would have made me worse."

"It would?" Joss looked surprised, then thoughtful. "... I guess if ya were tryin' to stay in the closet then being friends with a lesbian wouldn't be the best plan, huh?"

"Right." The temptation to simply agree was so strong that the word was out of Bonnie's mouth before she'd even thought about what to say. But she couldn't let it stand alone. I made a promise to be honest with Joss, and a lie of omission is still a lie. "But it wouldn't have just been that. I mean, that crush I mentioned ... it was a pretty huge deal for me all through high school. I was pretty much totally irrational about it." Bonnie forced the words out, her eyes fixed on the tablecloth as she spoke. She'd already admitted her previous attraction to Joss's cousin, but not how all-consuming it had been. "If I'd known Kim was gay, too ... I'd have probably done everything I could to force her away, because I would have been terrified of what would happen if I let her get too close. I wasn't exactly rational about my feelings for her, back then."

There was a long, long moment of silence. Finally, Bonnie glanced up. Please don't hate me.

"Just how big a deal was this thing with you and Kim?" Joss croaked at last. The younger woman's face was pale, but her tone wasn't angry, just stunned.

"There was no 'me and Kim'." Bonnie hastened to explain. "We did cheerleading together, and we shared a few classes, but we never hung out ... I made sure of that. But I admired her courage, and determination -" And her ass. "- and I was convinced that it would ruin my life if anyone found out I was gay. Making her hate me was the best way I could think of to keep her away. It was stupid, and selfish, but I was a pretty stupid, selfish person in high school."

Silence fell again, and the brunette waited anxiously for Joss to speak again. The Montanan's expression was blank, giving no real indication of her thoughts. Dozens of scenarios danced through Bonnie's head, most of them painful.

"... are you sure we aren't just friends because ya feel guilty about how ya treated Kim?" Joss's return to her earlier question was not what Bonnie had anticipated, but the strained, quiet way in which it was asked certainly was.

"No!" The honest and heartfelt answer was an easy one to offer. "I won't pretend that I don't feel guilty about how I treated Kim. But it has nothing to do with my being your friend. I like you for you, Joss. You're smart, you make me laugh ..." A sudden thought crossed Bonnie's mind. There's a reason she's insecure about this. "... something like that's happened before, hasn't it? People wanting to be your friend because of Kim?"

"A couple of times, yeah." Joss bit her lip. "... next to my dad, yer pretty much the most important person in my life right now, ya know? And hearin' all this stuff tonight, for the first time ... it makes me wonder if I've been stupid to trust ya so much."

Bonnie reached across the table and grasped the younger woman's hands in her own. "Look, I'm not going to pretend that there aren't any similarities between you and Kim. A lot of the things I liked in her, I like in you. You're brave, honest, and generous to a fault. You're intelligent and funny, like I said earlier. You're someone I know will always have my back when I need you." The brunette squeezed gently with her fingers. "But aren't those qualities that we all want in our friends? I know that one day I need to make amends for the way I treated Kim. But I'll make those amends with her. I like you because of who you are, not because of who your cousin is." She sucked in a breath, then plunged on. "Honestly, when we met, Kim being your cousin was number two on my list of reasons not to be friends with you. Number one being that I thought you were a student."

Joss's eyes widened at that, and she actually managed a weak chuckle. "So that's why ya were so freaked about that sweater."

"Yeah." Bonnie gave a rueful smile. "I'm not usually so excitable about fashion, not even when it's Club Banana."

The Montanan nibbled on her bottom lip once more, then gave an emphatic nod. "Okay, I believe you. I trust you. Maybe ... maybe just because I want to. But ... well, I do."

Bonnie let out a breath she didn't even know she had been holding. "Thank you. It means a lot to me. You're ... well, our friendship is as important to me as it is to you. I don't want to lose it."

This time it was Joss's fingers giving the reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry. Yer stuck with me."

"I think I can live with that." Bonnie smiled, and savored the genuine, if slightly tentative, smile that the younger woman offered in return. The brunette took a breath, realizing with surprise that she felt better than she could ever remember. Telling the truth had been painful, but it had been the right thing to do.

I finally feel ready to start living my life, instead of the life others expect from me.

Author's Notes: For various reasons, NaNoWriMo isn't going so well, in terms of words produced. I have, however, managed to squeeze in this update, and do a few other scraps of writing as well. So yay for that, I guess!

Hope all you American folks have a good Thanksgiving - some friends and I are getting together on the coming weekend to eat turkey and pumpkin pie and watch movies that were massive critical or financial failures (cinematic turkeys, in other words). It turns out that I own a disproportionate number of such films on DVD. :)