“Is…” Riva stammered. “Is that okay?”
“I get why you did it,” Daisy said
slowly.
“Okay. Well, I mean, she’s fine. I’m
grounded, so I don’t know when you can come over again, but she
likes you. She said she doesn’t want you sleeping over if we’re
dating, but I don’t think she minds the idea of me dating a
girl.”
Daisy swallowed. She’d wanted to be with Riva
Corley for so long that it seemed like hearing Riva talk so
casually about the two of them dating ought to make her jump up and
dance. But Daisy was learning lately that things often didn’t feel
the way she expected them to. The truth was, she felt wary. She
knew Riva well enough to know that she often did what other people
wanted, sometimes without even being aware of what she wanted.
“If we’re dating…” Daisy repeated. “Are
we?”
“Aren’t we? That’s what you wanted last
night, right?”
“But it’s not what you wanted last night. Did
you change your mind?”
Waves crashed in the background. Daisy tried
to breathe in rhythm with them, calming the sudden thrumming of her
pulse.
“I broke up with Benton,” Riva said after a
long moment.
“And I think that’s great. But that doesn’t
mean we’re dating.”
“Do you…” Riva’s voice trembled. “Do you not
want to anymore?”
Daisy sighed. “I like you, Riva. Kissing you
was even more amazing than I thought it would be. I liked hanging
out with you, too. I’m at the beach right now, thinking of the last
time we were here together.”
“Then what’s the matter? Why do you sound
like you’re telling me something I don’t want to hear?”
“I’m just…” Daisy searched herself, trying to
make sure she had her own feelings right. “After what happened last
night, I’m nervous. I’m not sure if I trust you to know what you
want.” She thought of Iris and Emmy. “I said I’d do that thing with
you and Benton because I was being selfish. I wanted to kiss you so
much that I didn’t think it through. But I don’t want to be your
experiment.”
“You’re not!”
“Okay. So what do you feel about me?”
There was a long pause at the other end of
the line. “I know we have something.”
“What? Do you want us to date? You want to go
to school and hold my hand and answer people’s questions about
whether you’re a lesbian?”
“I don’t see what this has to do with anybody
else. It’s none of their business.”
“They’re going to make it their business,
Riva. And dating, to me, means we’re not doing it in secret. Are
you going to stand next to me in school and tell people you’re my
girlfriend?”
“Yeah, I will, if that’s what you want.”
Daisy chewed the inside of her cheek. “That’s
what I’m scared of, Riva. I can’t tell what
you
want. I
don’t want you to be my girlfriend because I want you to.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Riva
said.
“Okay.” Daisy noticed she’d raised her voice
and tried to calm herself. “Tell me what you want. Please.”
“I don’t know…” Riva said. “I thought we
could figure it out.”
“There isn’t anything for me to figure out,
though. I’m a lesbian. I like you. I want to hold your hand in the
hallway at school and tell everyone you’re my girlfriend. I don’t
want anything halfway.”
“I can do that for you, Daisy. I told you
that already.”
“But I don’t want that.”
“I don’t get it. You just said that’s what
you want.”
“No. I don’t want you to do it
for me
.
Do you see?” After talking to Emmy, Daisy couldn’t help wondering
if this was what had happened with Iris. Maybe Iris had told Emmy
she wanted to “figure it out,” and Emmy had heard what she wanted
to hear. Daisy had talked a big game about accepting Riva as she
was, but wasn’t part of that drawing the line where she needed to
draw it?
“No!” Riva said, her voice changing and
becoming strong. “I don’t see! Everyone is telling me I need to
speak for myself, stand up for myself, whatever, but then it seems
like everyone wants me to act a certain way when I do that.” She
rushed forward, her words tripping over each other. “This is the
truth, Daisy: I think there’s something between us, and I want to
find out what it is. If you need me to hold your hand in school so
we can do that, then I will, because you’re important to me. On my
own, though, I don’t think it’s anybody’s business. If someone
asked if I’m a lesbian, I’d tell them I’m not, because I know I
like guys, too. But I also like you. That makes me something. Not
straight, I guess. I don’t know what to call myself. It’s like you
were okay with all this until we kissed, but now you want that kiss
to have
changed
me.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are, Daisy. It mattered to me. I
know that I like you. But it didn’t make me a different person. It
didn’t ‘turn me gay,’ or whatever you and Benton think happened to
me.”
That stung. The last thing Daisy wanted was
to be lumped in with Benton in any way. “Riva, hang on.”
“For what?”
Daisy sighed. “I don’t know anymore.” Her
head was spinning, and she couldn’t make sense of it all in the
moment. “Maybe this is too soon,” she said instead. “You just broke
up with him today.”
“Last night, you were ready for me to ‘choose
you.’” Riva’s voice was bitter.
Daisy stretched a hand out into the breeze,
as if it could grip her in return and lend her a little of its
strength. “I don’t know what I’m doing, though! I’ve never had a
girlfriend before! This whole thing—it just makes me nervous. I’m
scared you’re going to change your mind next week once things have
calmed down.”
“Look, I promised Benton all kinds of things
I shouldn’t have. I basically made myself a liar. I’m not going to
do that for you, Daisy. I told you the truth as far as I know
it.”
“I just wish you were more certain of the
truth.”
“People change all the time, Daisy. That’s
what I learned from Benton. It used to be impossible for me to
imagine liking anyone besides him. Now I like you. It feels better
to make promises, but I don’t see how I can.”
“Then like I said, I think it’s too soon.
Maybe in a few weeks…”
“I don’t know if I’m going to be on your
timeline,” Riva warned. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take
me to decide what to call myself. I like you. I don’t get why
that’s not enough.”
“I just…” Daisy didn’t want to say the next
thing, but it was true. “I just don’t want any more drama. It’s too
soon.”
Riva snorted. “I guess it is. I’ve only ever
dated Benton, but I’m pretty sure that if you want to make sure you
don’t have any drama, you shouldn’t be in a relationship.” She
paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer and more
tentative. “I’ll see you around, though, maybe?”
Daisy’s chest squeezed. She couldn’t jump
into dating Riva, but she couldn’t stand the idea of losing her. “I
want us to be friends.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Riva hung up abruptly.
It took Daisy a few minutes of staring at the
sky to realize that was an overused line. She’d blown off the girl
of her dreams with a cliché. As confusing as that conversation had
been, she’d gotten one thing right: she sure didn’t know what she
was doing.
* * * *
Riva felt completely hollowed out. Everyone
wanted to know what was in her heart, but mostly it felt like there
was nothing in her at all. She stared at the closed door of her
room. She could go out and talk to her mom, but she’d done plenty
of that already. There was only so much family bonding a person
could do in one day. Terrell was doing his weekly Vietnamese dinner
thing without her, and she didn’t think she was allowed to hang out
with anybody else.
Being grounded definitely sucked, but luckily
Riva had learned long ago that being stuck in her room didn’t mean
she had to be alone. She sent Casey a text, then logged on to the
MMO they’d been playing together.
It was refreshing to do something that
offered clear rules and expectations. Riva maneuvered her character
with skill, took out a few enemies, and checked her inventory while
she waited for Casey to show up. When a notification informed her
that Casey’s character had arrived, Riva activated voice chat.
“Hey!”
“Hey,” Casey said. “How pathetic is
this?”
“What?”
“It’s Friday night, and we can both get on an
MMO. How boring are our lives?”
“Well, my life’s been a little too exciting
lately. I’m grounded.” Riva explained that Benton had been visiting
for Spring Break.
“Hello,” Casey said. “How
is
Mr.
Hot?”
“It’s, um, sort of complicated.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, look, have you ever had a crush on a
girl?”
“Wow. Let me close my bedroom door. Hang
on.”
Over the line, Riva listened to clattering
and scraping as Casey hung up her headphones and moved around her
room. She trusted Casey, but it still felt weird to tell her about
Daisy. She considered bending the truth and holding things back
here and there, but she knew that wouldn’t do her any good. By the
time Casey returned, Riva was ready to spill the whole story.
Casey listened quietly. Finally, Riva
couldn’t stand the suspense anymore.
“What do you think about all that?”
“Well, it’s a lot.”
“Believe me, I noticed.”
“I can’t believe Benton was such a jerk. I
don’t get how the hottest guy in school could turn into such a
loser.”
“Loser?”
“Yeah. Acting like he had
so
many
better choices than you.”
“Didn’t he? He had a whole college campus
full of girls old enough to buy beer.”
“If he was looking for a girl to buy him
beer, he really was being a loser.” Casey blew an exasperated
breath. “Seriously, though, do you think any of those older girls
would give him the time of day? Remember, he went from being a
senior to being a freshman. I doubt he was tripping over
opportunities right and left.”
“Well, don’t forget how hot he is.”
“If he’d really had better options, why
wouldn’t he have taken them?”
“Because he loved me?”
“Oh, yeah. Because he was such an
altruist.”
“I thought you understood why I was with
Benton!”
“I did! But you’ve been hiding things from me
for a while, right? This pushy stuff didn’t just come out of
nowhere, I bet.”
Riva grimaced, though she knew Casey couldn’t
see her. “Yeah, there were signs, I guess.”
“
I
can see them now that I think about
it. I remember things you said that made me raise my eyebrows. You
just always sounded so sure that Benton was good for you. I
believed you.”
“I was trying to believe myself.”
“I guess. So what are you going to do
now?”
Riva sighed. “I don’t know.” She steered her
character into a particularly overrun section of the map, stalling
the conversation by forcing them both to concentrate on dealing
with monsters. For a few blessed minutes, turmoil disappeared from
Riva’s mind, replaced by rapid clicking and exhilarating
adrenaline.
“Maybe I’ll just join a guild and spend all
my time raiding,” Riva said, once the in-game crisis had
passed.
Casey snorted. “Don’t expect me to do it with
you. I’ve got people to see face to face.”
“Brandon?”
“
Maaaybe
.”
“Oooh.”
“Oh, no. Hang on. You don’t get to distract
me that easily.”
“You sure? It seemed like it was
working.”
“Nope. I’m on to you. You were about to
explain to me why you want to spend your time in-game, avoiding
Daisy.”
An unpleasant sense of hopelessness knocked
Riva out of her flow. Her character drew the attention of a
monster, and it took Casey yelling in her ear to return her focus
to the game. She dispatched the enemy easily, wishing her own
problems could be dealt with as simply.
“I told you what Daisy said on the phone,”
Riva said with a sigh. “She wants me to know stuff I can’t possibly
know.”
“You guys were
both
being weird on the
phone,” Casey returned.
“Really?”
“Yeah. She was trying to make sure you really
like her and want to date her. She didn’t want you to do it out of
obligation. You aren’t saying what you want.”
“I told her I like her. How could I be any
clearer than that?”
“I think it’s fair that she’s nervous. You
got together with her because Benton wanted you to.”
“I told her before we kissed that if Benton
wasn’t around, I’d want to see what happened with her.”
“Right. You made it sound like an
experiment.”
“Isn’t everything an experiment? I mean,
isn’t that what dating is?”
“Ugh. This is me rolling my eyes at you.
Maybe that’s true, but even if it is, it’s not a romantic thing to
say. You don’t want to make someone feel like you’re kissing them
so you can gather data.”
“Well, obviously, that’s not what I
meant.”
“That’s what it sounded like. Even to
me.”
“Fine. If you’re such an expert, what should
I say to her?”
“Well, what
do
you want?”
Riva’s hands flew up involuntarily, and she
had to slap them back to the keyboard before her character walked
into a wall. “Why is everybody asking me that?”
“Because, unlike Benton, we care about the
answer. Forget about Daisy for a second. Do you want to be dating
somebody at all?”
“Uh, dating someone is nice.”
“Yeah, it is. But do you feel like you need
time to get over Benton?”
“I feel pretty over him now.”
“He was being a total jerk. I’d be over him,
too. But you know what I mean. Do you need to spend time
alone?”
“What does that mean? How do you know if you
do?”
“God, I don’t know. That’s just what my mom
would say.”