to do; you still came to the bonfire with me.”
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it!”
“Skye!” I say. “She told you I was gay, even when I didn’t want her to. What makes you think she’d be bluffing about outing me to everyone else?”
My hands grip the throw pillow by my side. Shane’s quickly gathering things to leave the room. Living in the same apartment may be one open conversation, but he’s ending it now, and I don’t blame him.
Skye’s silent. Megan’s silent. I’m silent.
The door clicks as Shane enters his bedroom, and I grit my teeth.
“Megan,” I say. To make the conversation more serious. “I didn’t know where I wanted this to go, but I do now. I’m sorry I was running thirty minutes late on a call and you took that as me blowing you off for my boyfriend, which you said menacingly, but for your information, he is officially my boyfriend. But I’m sorry about a lot of things. I’m sorry I never stood up to you, and gave you this perverse superiority, where you think you can control what happens in my life. You were always pissed I told my parents first, and you next, so I’m sorry for that. Because really, you should have been the last one I told. Because every single memory about me coming out is tied to you. How you claimed you always knew. How you started quizzing whether or not every guy in my vision was hot. How you felt you needed to push me further and further out of the closet, like that was the thing holding me back.”
I stop, and give her one last chance to interject.
“There was one thing holding me back from being myself, and you know who that was?”
She scoffs. “I can guess.”
“You.” I let the word sing out. “I think we’re done here.”
“I think we were done a long time ago.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The only thing I regret, days after my fight with Megan, is this:
I let her have the last word.
She’s a debater at heart, and she knows how to flip the subject over and attack the jugular. She’s not one you battle in words (or with fists either; she’s got the strength of an MMA fighter), but I held my own.
I said what I needed to, which I’ve never done before.
Beyond that, I’m looking at the positives: I leave for Florence in two days, and today’s the first day I get to see Pierce since I passed out, since he got stuck in Leeds longer than he planned and we never got to have that practice session. I’m still losing weight, but I’m eating more, if for no other reason than to not pass out. I still feel funny sometimes, but when I do, I take a nap. And naps fix all things.
Right now, I’m just getting back to the flat after an especially distracting practice session. But when I stop to check mail on my way up, I see a package. I take it in my hands, and glance at the label from the bottom up.
It’s from America. Kentucky.
The address isn’t my mom’s.
My hands start shaking, to the point where the contents of the box start shaking too.
I take large steps to the apartment. The thudding of the contents of the box matches my heartbeat. I fling open the door and set the box and my oboe case down on the coffee table. Then I back away from it.
Shane jumps up. “What are you doing?”
“She really got the last word.”
“What?”
I snap out of it. “Sorry. Megan.” I gesture to the couch, where I made the call that ended our friendship. “She sent me something.”
He bounces on the front of his bare feet, looking between me and the box.
“Are you going to—”
“I don’t know!”
“Avoiding it won’t stop—”
“I know!”
“Then open it!”
I sigh. “Fine.”
Shane darts into the kitchen and brings back a butter knife. I ignore the bits of curry and lamb on the serrated bits. (I can only identify this because it was our dinner last night.) I cut into the tiger print duct tape, and the anticipation builds in my chest with every pull of the knife.
I open the flaps, one by one, delaying the process as long as I can.
It’s a scrapbook. A red bound folder with a picture in the center. The picture is one I haven’t seen in years. It’s of our middle school homecoming dance. It’s the first picture of all three of us.
“Wait, is that you?” Shane asks. “And her?”
I