Order in the Court (12 page)

“He’ll be there. He was there today with Mrs. Fuentes, but I didn’t talk to them,” I admitted. “Mr. O’Brien was there too. Jake’s parents. Mine.” I pulled off a sock without any grace, nearly toppling over. When I chucked it at my laundry basket, I didn’t make the shot. It ended up falling behind it, where there was a collection of dirty sock balls developing. “One of the reasons I don’t want to go tomorrow.”

“Will you go anyway?” Brandon asked. “Since I probably won’t be home in time to go myself? You’re my eyes and ears of the trial, Corey. I need you.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and my index finger. My head was pounding.

“Yeah. Of course I will. They say I have a choice but I don’t, really. I’m going to be there every day, sitting in the audience, until that jury comes back with a decision. And it better be a ‘Guilty’ one. It has to be.”

“If it isn’t?” Brandon’s voice was small, like a child’s voice, tentative and nervous. “What do we do if they let him out?”

“Easy,” I said. “We kill him ourselves.”

“DO YOU
want to get together after class to hang out tonight?” Abby asked eagerly, rocking back on the balls of her feet as our triad waited outside the lecture hall. “I feel like I haven’t left campus in ages.”

Since the hearing, I’d done little more than sulk and go to class. I was not keen on the idea of testifying in a murder trial, but I knew I had to, and it was taking me some time to come to terms with that fact. Abby, who kept up with the newspapers and knew what was happening with the case, had been quietly supportive. I was going to politely decline and tell her that I just planned on going home, but Sasha spoke before I could.

“Wish I could,” he said, “but I’m going to a Pride meeting tonight to plan for Halloween.”

I almost added my own excuse, but Sasha’s made me pause. “Pride? Like Gay Pride?” I asked excitedly. “I didn’t know we had one. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sasha blinked like the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “I didn’t think you guys would be interested,” he admitted. “I had to hunt it down, to be honest. It’s a pretty small group, practically underground.”

“I ran a Gay-Straight Alliance in high school,” I explained. “I didn’t know our university would have something. When do you meet? How many meetings have there been?”

Abby listened politely as Sasha told me all about it. The trouble of finding a room the group could rent out for meetings, the difficulty they’d had getting sanctioned by the university, the idea to do a food drive on Halloween; it all sounded complicated and messy and
right up my alley
. He continued to talk about it as we filed into the lecture hall and took our regular seats in the middle of the room.

“I’m so in,” I said as I pulled my books out of my bag. “Where’s the meeting tonight?”

Abby was surprisingly quiet through the class, never leaning over my shoulders to copy my notes or asking for clarification during the breaks the professor took to switch PowerPoint presentations on an ancient PC hooked up to the projector. I feared, for a moment, that I was going to find out that the one girl friend I’d made in university was secretly a homophobe, or religious zealot, or something equally disappointing.

By the time I got out of class, I was fuming, ready to confront her about it. How would I say it? Was “What’s your deal?” too vague a starting point? I was biding my time as we packed up our books.

“Listen,” Abby said as we moved to leave the emptying lecture hall. She looked and sounded rather timid. “Would it be okay if I came with you tonight?”

Sasha and I looked at each other. He laughed. “Why wouldn’t it be okay?” he asked, reaching out to push playfully at Abby’s shoulder. “Of course you can come.”

“I just mean, it won’t be weird?” She looked at me imploringly, knowing Sasha could be a little dense sometimes. “Me going to Pride even though I’m straight? It’s not the same thing as an Alliance, because it’s
Pride
, and—”

“Allies drop in all the time,” Sasha said, waving his hand dismissively. “It’s not that big a deal. Don’t even worry about it. Besides, Corey’s straight and she’s going.”

Abby said, “No she’s not,” at the same time I said, “No I’m not,” in stunning synchronicity. I looked at her and grinned, any doubt in her loyalty completely forgotten. How could I have thought her capable of hate?

“You’re not coming?” Sasha asked. He sounded confused and disappointed, and I almost felt sorry for laughing at him. Almost, but not quite.

“Of course I’m coming. But I’m not
straight
,” I laughed. “I’m bisexual.”

I had never said it out loud before, but there it was in all its glory: bisexual. I would never have said those words in high school. I would have been too scared of people judging me for it, singling me out. The rumors had flown when I started my GSA, and there’d been an awful incident at a party when I was almost forced to play “seven minutes in heaven” with a girl determined to out me. It had been a hostile environment. College was different. I could be anybody I wanted to be, here.

“You must be awful at reading people, Sash,” Abby said. “Or else surely you’d have noticed that Corey’s into women.”

“And men,” I pointed out and then paused. “And I guess anything in between the two. Or neither. The gender spectrum is pretty complicated, from what I’ve read. But I’m attracted to people of genders similar and different to my own,” I said, parroting the definition written by
actual
bisexuals, rather than the annoyingly exclusionary definition on the Wikipedia entry on bisexuality.

“You sound like a commercial for bisexuality.” She adopted a voice like a newscaster. “Coming up next: smash the patriarchy with feminism!” She punched the air joyously, already back to her old self.

“Sounds like a good time,” I laughed.

Sasha wrapped his arms around both of our shoulders and steered us down the crowded hall. He got a few envious looks from guys who thought he was wheeling. “We can smash the patriarchy after we get smoothies. Deal?” he said.

I thought it was a good idea. The on-campus smoothies were tasty, if a little expensive. Abby seemed to think so as well.

“Fine, as long as you’re paying,” she countered Sasha’s proposition. “Since the patriarchy remains decidedly un-smashed at this time.”

“I always got deep pockets for
mah ladiez
,” he said, reaching up with both hands and messing up my hair and Abby’s. She screeched and went about rearranging it immediately, swearing indelicately. I gave Sasha a sharp jab to the solar plexus with my elbow, just hard enough to make him gasp, not causing any real pain. This was how our friendship operated, and it was good.

“NOT THAT
it matters anymore, especially since nobody knows this, but I was seeing Kate Barrett. Romantically, I mean. We were seeing each other.” After everything that had happened with Valerie, it felt good to say something about it.

I went to chew on my thumbnail but stopped. I had painted my nails to keep myself from doing it. It would taste disgusting. The nail polish was Ricky’s, a thick maroon color borrowed with her father’s permission. It was nice to have an excuse to see him. He was always happy to see me, excited for a visit under any pretense.

“You didn’t tell me that before,” Dr. Wagner pointed out. “Did you think it was something you needed to hide?”

“Not at all. It’s just… I haven’t been out about it for very long,” I explained. I knew I didn’t have to feel bad for not telling her, but I did anyway, like I’d betrayed her trust. “I only told my parents about Kate and I after Dustin was arrested. They hadn’t had a clue when it was actually happening.”

“How did they react when you told them?”

“I don’t really know.” I thought back to the moment I’d told my parents Kate had been my prom date. I’d been so mad at my mother implying that Kate “had gotten herself killed” by using her brother’s cocaine that I’d just went off at them. It had felt good… fighting back, lashing out. Not having to be perfect for one angry second.

“I stormed out of the room after I told them. It was during a fight. We haven’t really talked about it since then.”

“Why not?” Dr. Wagner asked, sitting straight-backed and formal, like our first interview.

“I don’t know. I think they’re cool with it, but they haven’t said one way or the other.” I paused, my eyebrows converging and forehead puckering with anxiety. “Should I be worried? Are we sweeping my sexuality under the rug?”

“Don’t be worried. Sex and sexuality are hard topics for some parents to broach with their children. It’s possible that by not bringing it up, your parents are trying to be supportive. Show you that it doesn’t matter to them or that it doesn’t change anything, that sort of thing.”

“That sounds like them. Being supportive by being mum on the subject.” I rolled my eyes. “I bet my mother put Dad up to it. He’s the one who gave me the talk, you know. When I was fifteen, as if I hadn’t already been exposed to sex at school. I’d already googled any questions I had, so it was all pretty pointless, but he tried at least.”

“You seem much closer to him than to your mother,” Dr. Wagner said, and I could practically hear the Freudian theory in her voice. I needed to put a stop to that immediately.

“It’s not anything weird. I’m not competing with him for my mother’s affection or anything. He was just around more when I was growing up, more affectionate than my mother. She worked a lot, and we never really clicked, but it’s just a difference in our personalities. My dad and I get each other.”

“Then why haven’t you talked to him about your sexuality?”

“It never came up.” It sounded defensive even to my own ears. But I honestly didn’t know
why
we’d never sat down and talked about it. Was I afraid he would react like Valerie had? Did I think my dad wouldn’t accept me for who I am?

I shook my head to clear it, crossed and uncrossed my legs. “I never brought it up. I don’t talk about it much. It’s an important thing in my life, but I’ve only just started using the word to mean myself, and it’s been tough coming to terms with it.
Nobody
talks about it, not just me. You’re just supposed to know, and I guess I was scared because I wasn’t sure, when I didn’t know if I could describe myself that way.”

“What way, Corey?” Dr. Wagner tapped her pen on her chin.

“Bisexual,” I said, as if it were obvious. “I’m bisexual.” I rubbed at my wrinkled forehead, smoothing back anxiety. “I’m bisexual, and I was romantically involved with Kate Barrett. I was in love with her. I am in love with her, still. I don’t think that’s ever going to change.”

Dr. Wagner made a note. “That’s got to be hard,” she said. “Have you thought about talking to someone about it?” I opened my mouth, but she put up her hand, hearing her own contradiction. “Someone other than me. You’re only just broaching the subject now, and we’ve been meeting for a few months.”

“I talk to Brandon sometimes,” I said, and my voice was small. I craved biting my nails but resisted the urge. “He’s been busy with school, so not much anymore, but before, right after the murders. We got close last summer. We bonded over trauma, I guess.” I swallowed, trying not to miss him. “And I talk about it at the support group. Because it’s anonymous, it’s not… as daunting, as bringing it up at Pride meetings or whatever, even though I go to them and everyone there is queer too.” I didn’t want to say anything about Valerie yet, about the nervousness I felt at Pride. I hated worrying in a place I should feel safe to express myself, to people like me.

“That’s good!” I was surprised by her enthusiasm, especially since I had said it rather quietly. I didn’t think it was all that big a deal. “It’s good that you have an outlet to talk about it, and that you’ve been going to Pride. Have you gotten to talk to other people like you, who are just as confused?”

“I’m not confused any
more
,” I said, drawing out the word while I tried to figure out how to respond to such a strange question. “I was confused in high school, but I figured it out. Kate helped me a bit. Mostly I just worked it out on my own. It was more a process of learning to trust my instincts. I’ve known for a while that I was bi. It just took me a while to come to terms with it all. There’s a stigma attached to it. Stereotypes.”

Dr. Wagner jotted something down in her notes. I always wanted to see what she was writing, but alas, I was not one of those lucky people gifted with the talent of reading upside down. “But you have come to terms with it?”

“Yes. I’m not afraid to tell people now. It comes naturally. Maybe not to my parents, but for others. Strangers.” I tucked my hands under my thighs to curb the impulse to bite my painted nails, which I knew I would regret. “Some people even get it on their own, without being told. Abby knew before I told her.” I smiled, remembering Halloween. It had been the first real fun I’d had since Dustin’s hearing.

“Coming out is a life-long process. Some people never end up telling everyone. With every new situation, you have to gauge the amount of trust and receptiveness, and the appropriateness of mentioning it. You seem incredibly comfortable in your skin for someone your age.” Dr. Wagner put down her pen. “I’m not surprised. You’ve had to grow up very fast the last few months.”

“I’ve always been younger than everyone else,” I reminded her. “I was put ahead a grade because of my intelligence, and I’ve just been playing catch-up emotionally since then. It hasn’t been easy, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I probably wouldn’t have been friends with Kate and Jessa and Ricky if I hadn’t moved and been put up a grade and… everything that happened afterward. I wouldn’t trade it to be able to fit in a little better. I wouldn’t trade
them
.”

Dr. Wagner nodded along to my words. “That’s a very accepting mindset. A very good coping mechanism, though I wish you didn’t need one.” She flipped closed her file on me. “These feelings might never go away. You will always love your friends and miss them and hurt because they aren’t here. I can’t change that, and neither can you. All you can do is allow yourself closure. Keep living, and loving.”