The Secret of You and Me - Melissa Lenhardt Page 0,79

courage, pressing my hand to my tumbling stomach. Pretend it’s a meeting and Nora is a stranger. Finally, I stopped and faced Nora. “Hi, my name is Sophie, and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi, Sophie.”

I laughed, mostly from nerves. I inhaled and dove headfirst into my greatest fear. “It’s been one week since my last drink. Some of you are probably surprised by that. Today, I was supposed to get my one-year chip. Instead, I’m back at seven days, thanks to two swallows of beer.” Nora opened her mouth as if to interject, but I held up my hand. “I’ve almost completed my twelve steps, thanks to my sponsor, Todd. But, there has been one glaring hole in my program: full amends to the person I hurt the most. Telling my story is the start.”

I swallowed and met Nora’s eyes. “The summer after eighth grade, my best friend got her first serious boyfriend. She’d had a crush on him for years and was beyond excited. I was excited for her. We’d all grown up together, and for the last couple of years we’d traced with fascination the progress of the happy trail of curly hair growing up out of Charlie’s swim trunks.” Nora laughed. “Charlie was partial to tight jeans, too, and we’d spend lots of time pretending not to see his bulging crotch. He knew we were looking.”

“Yeah, he did,” Nora said.

“You can imagine the excitement when he finally asked Nora out. But, she was nervous, too. She’d never kissed a guy and didn’t want to do it wrong. Lose Charlie before she had a chance to keep him for a while. Since I’d kissed a boy before, I told her I’d show her how.

“I have to confess here: I talked a big game. I’d only ever kissed one boy, and it had been a wet, sloppy disaster. He enjoyed it, I suppose, because he kept at it. The story I told my friend was a little more impressive. There was this way she would look at me sometimes, wide-eyed, almost worshipful.” I closed my eyes, remembering. “I would do anything, say anything, to get her to look at me like that.” When I opened my eyes, Nora was watching me intently. “I’m sorry.”

“I did worship you, Queen Esther.”

I swallowed. “Naturally, I would be able to show her how to kiss, based on all of the false experience I said I had. We knelt on my bed and giggled each time we leaned toward each other. Finally, we kissed.”

Nora’s eyes hadn’t left mine, and her mouth parted slightly.

“It wasn’t a peck on the lips either. After—and we kissed for a good, long while—I assured her Charlie would have no complaint. We didn’t speak of it for four years, but I remembered. I obsessed about it for weeks, about her, about how she made me feel. Eventually, it faded. She had her boyfriend, and I tried to date, kissed as many boys as I could, lost my virginity to one, but no one could make me feel... After sophomore year, I stopped trying.

“My life changed in September my senior year. It was a Friday night at a football game, and I saw my best friend kiss her boyfriend—same guy—like I’d seen her do a hundred times before and I thought, That should be me. I want that to be me. I shocked myself but knew deep down it was the truest thought I’d had about myself in years. Later, when we were alone, I brought up our kiss. I can’t believe I did it. I was young and fearless. As it turned out, she hadn’t forgotten it, either.”

I looked down, the memory of that night sending a pleasant warmth rushing through my body. I didn’t dare look at Nora but felt her unwavering gaze on me. I cleared my throat and continued. “We kept our new relationship secret from everyone. I got a boyfriend, immediately started sleeping with him. Better to have the reputation as a slut than a lesbian.” I grasped my hands, twisting the band, wishing Nora would look away or stop me from continuing, say I understand, no need to go on. She didn’t.

“Those months with Nora were the happiest of my life. We planned our future. College together, moving to a city and living together. There would be no need to ‘come out.’ We weren’t gay, after all. We loved each other. Everyone knew we were best friends, living together would be the most natural thing in the