Taking Flight (25 page)

“Maybe,” I mumbled.

Caitlyn picked up a few seconds later with an ecstatic, “Hey! How was your Christmas? You’ll never guess what Zeke got me.”

“A puppy?” I tried.

“Better. He made me a promise.”

“A promise?” I scoffed. “Your Christmas present was verbal?”

“Lauren, he said he wants to live in New York, and that he’d go with us if we were up for it.”

My jaw dropped. “What? Why New York?”

“He’s tired of Los Angeles. I told him our plan to get the hell out of dodge after you come back, and he wants in. One of the guys he caddies regularly for is super rich and owns a house there, so he has connections. And this way you don’t even have to go back to Los Angeles. If my brother’s coming with us, then after we come get you we can just go straight to New York and start fresh. I can bring you everything you want with you; clothes, electronics, whatever. It just has to be able to fit into your car.”

“Oh my God,” I murmured, reaching up to put my free hand on my head. “You guys are insane. We have to find somewhere to live! An apartment or loft or something.”

“We have three months. Let us figure it out. You just might have to pull the financial weight at first with the down payment and rent while we get jobs, but we’re totally cool with working for our own money, and we’ll pay you back, I swear.”

“Cait, don’t worry about that,” I insisted. “Just… wow, okay, I’m up for it if you are. Let’s do it.”

“Yes!” She let out an excited squeal and I laughed at her. Cammie, beside me, looked a little alarmed by what I assumed were the noises Caitlyn was making. I remembered what she’d wanted me to do.

“Hey, Cait,” I began, once she’d finally calmed down. “I should probably tell you something.”

“What’s up? You sure you’re okay with this?”

“Yeah, it’s not about that.”

“Okay…?” She trailed off, and I glanced to Cammie, who reached over and gave my free hand a quick squeeze.

“I’m just gonna say it. I’ve kind of been… hooking up with the girl I told you about.” Cammie smacked my arm and rolled her eyes. “We’re dating, I mean. Like relationship dating. Maybe. I don’t know.” I got another smack from Cammie for that, and shot her an alarmed look. “What? It’s not like we’ve talked about it.”

“Wait…
what
?” Caitlyn cut in. “You’re dating someone? Physics girl isn’t pissed at you anymore?
And
you’re dating her? Romantically?”

“Yes, romantically,” I sighed. “And I don’t mean Physics girl.”

“Oh my God. The straight one?”

“Not so straight. Yeah.” I leaned forward so I could see toward the back of the house. Through the window, David was visibly walking back toward the door. “Um, so I kind of can’t talk about this anymore right now. I’m really sorry!”

“Oh hell no, you are
not
gonna leave me hanging like this. You have a
girlfriend
?”

“Her family’s coming inside; I can’t talk about it. I have to go; they don’t know I’m calling.”

“Bitch if you hang up this phone I swear to—”

Cringing, I pushed the button to end the call and thrust the phone into Cammie’s arms. She fumbled with it for a moment and then reached over to plant it back where it belonged seconds before the back door opened.

“Anything interesting going on, girls?” David asked as he entered, gesturing toward the television in front of us. I glanced to it, saw it was on ESPN, and then shook my head, my expression carefully neutral.

“Nope. Not really.”

Chapter Seventeen

Our break soon came to an end, which meant a new semester at Collinsville, and four new classes. I didn’t pay much attention to the schedule David drew up for me. These were the classes I didn’t plan on finishing. I was still getting out of Collinsville the instant I turned eighteen.

At the end of our first day back, Wendy and David took Scott to pick out flowers for his wedding, much to his chagrin, which left Cammie and I alone for a while in her room.

Cammie drew at her desk as I relaxed on my bed with my music and a magazine, and I watched the side of her face as she worked. She was totally enraptured with whatever she was doing, and I loved the look on her. I had this brief image of her in art school, coming home to Cait, Zeke, and me in our apartment, and my heart fluttered at the idea.

“I like you drawing in front of me,” I spoke up at last, and she blushed immediately and shot me an accusing look.

“You promised you wouldn’t say anything!”

“I promised I wouldn’t ask to see,” I corrected. “Look at you; you love it.”

She twirled the colored pencil in her hand between two fingers and bit back a smile. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” I asked, grinning.

“Like
that
. I’m working here.”

“Sorry,” I said, not meaning it at all. She huffed and went back to drawing, and I watched her again for a moment, unable to keep the smile off of my face. Before I could think about it, I’d blurted out, “Come to New York with me.”

She froze and then faced me, raising an eyebrow. And then her expression was warm and her tone was dubious. “Lauren…”

I winced. “Sorry. It slipped out.”

She stared at me for a long moment, and then her gaze dropped to her pencil and her eyebrows furrowed together. “I applied to that art school, you know. Just to see if I could get in. I don’t plan on actually going or anything, but I figured… maybe if I don’t get in, I won’t feel as bad about staying here. It’d be nice there, though, I bet.”

I nodded earnestly. Now that I’d said it aloud, I was quickly realizing how easily it could work out. I was headed to New York straight from Collinsville in March. If Cammie were to come along…

“Cammie, you’ll get in. I know it. And then you could go to school where you want. You wouldn’t have to live in Collinsville and deal with people who can’t accept you. New York’s really gay friendly. I bet people wouldn’t even stare at us if we held hands. It’d just be so… easy.”

Cammie, understandably, had her reservations. “You’d want that life with me, really? We haven’t even used the word ‘girlfriend’ yet.” She forced a laugh. “It still feels weird to say aloud.”

I bit my lip and stared at her. “You could be my girlfriend,” I said at last.

She snorted. “Such a romantic.”

I let out a deep sigh. “I know. I’m bad at this. I’m… I’m a fucking frog, goddammit. I don’t know how to do this.”

“A frog?” she laughed. “What exactly are we talking about again?”

“The night of that party,” I clarified, “you said all of the awful guys were frogs and you had to go through a few frogs to find a prince.”

“Oh my God, you’re not a frog,” she sighed. “You can’t take half the things I say about guys seriously when I don’t even
like
them.”

“But you were right about that,” I pressed. “You were with a lot of awful guys. Just because your prince is actually a princess doesn’t make me not a frog. I’m the froggiest frog to ever freaking frog; I was a frog for, like, more girls than I even know.”

“Not for me. You’re my princess,” she replied, getting to her feet and joining me on my bed. She gave me a sickeningly sweet smile and kissed me on the cheek.

I hit her with my magazine. “Stop that. I’m terrible. I don’t know how to do relationships. I can’t even ask you to date me the right way.”

“And I don’t know how to do lesbianism,” she joked, crawling forward until she was hovering over me, our faces inches apart. “So I’ll teach you how to do monogamy,” she proposed, leaning forward until her lips brushed against mine. My eyes fluttered shut and she murmured, “And you teach me how to be with you.”

“It’s not hard,” I insisted quietly. “You just have to feed and water me three times a day.”

She pulled away to shoot me an exasperated look. “Alright, I’ll go back to drawing, then.”

“No, no,” I insisted, catching her by the wrist and pulling her back into me. “I’m sorry.” I moved my hands to her waist and leaned in to kiss her, and she sighed into me and cupped my cheeks in her hands. She left me breathless, my heart thudding in my chest and my cheeks warm.

I pulled away and watched her eyes slowly open to look at me. We shared a smile, and she leaned forward to brush her nose back and forth against mine. “You’re a softy deep down,” she declared quietly. “You just got a little bit lost somewhere along the way here.”

Her words left a deep ache in my chest. For an instant, I envisioned myself with a normal childhood and a normal life. What I had with Cammie was special, I knew, but I could’ve spent my high school years having actual relationships. I wasn’t sure it’d compare to how I felt here and now, with Cammie, but this feeling was so addicting that even anything that came close wasn’t worth missing out on.

“Fuck my dad,” I murmured at last, my voice cracking on the last word. Cammie leaned away to get a better look at me, concerned. I shook my head. “I had the most screwed up childhood, holy shit. They abandoned me.”
That
was the word I’d been searching for all those weeks ago, in lieu of “neglected.” Abandoned. There’d been a total disconnect between my parents and me, unlike that of parents who didn’t pay as much attention to their children as they should. As the years had progressed, mine just hadn’t paid any attention at all. And I’d come here defending them.

“They love you, Lauren,” Cammie murmured, leaning in to press another kiss to my cheek. “They had to have loved you.” I shook my head wordlessly, and she pressed another kiss, this time to my forehead. “
I
do,” she murmured into my skin.

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything back.

*   *   *

“I think I’m fucked up.”

Across the dining room table, David thankfully realized now was not the time to interrupt me just to correct my language.

“I don’t think I’m normal. I don’t think I do well with emotions. I don’t know how to show that I care about people.”

“Why do you say that?” he asked, studying me.

“Because.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s like… I want to be normal and have these normal reactions and emotional abilities and to be well-adjusted and all that, and I’m just not like that. I’ve always had this mentality, like… people aren’t supposed to get too close because they’ll just disappoint you or hurt you, and I never really learned how to let anyone in, and now… now when I want to let people in, I have all these alarms going off in my head and I get nervous and… I feel vulnerable and it feels wrong and awkward and like I’m doing the wrong thing.” I let out a deep sigh, aware that I was rambling. “I don’t know how to be normal.”

He pursed his lips together and nodded. “Well, Lauren, I think you’re right.”

I looked to him sharply, eyebrows raised. “You do?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He offered me a smile. “It’s pretty remarkable that you came to that conclusion on your own.”

I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. “I just keep thinking about the way I was with girls back in Los Angeles. I’d be with a new one every week and I didn’t care what they felt or why they were with me. I didn’t care about
them
. I’m sick of that. My mom’s gone, my dad and I have given up on each other, and I just want to move on and have a normal life and not feel like I have a bunch of baggage to carry around because of who my parents are and how I was raised. I just want to learn how to be
normal
. I want to be in a relationship and not feel like I don’t deserve it or can’t do it justice.”

He studied me for a long moment, almost like he was trying to find the right words to respond with. At last, he replied, gently, “You never told me you were attracted to other girls.”

I froze, not daring to believe I’d slipped up. “No. Guys. I said guys, right?”

“You said girls,” he confirmed. “It’s alright, Lauren.”

“Fuck,” I murmured, sitting back in my chair and covering my face with my hands. “Goddammit.”

“Language,” he reprimanded shortly.

My hands slid off of my face and I stared at him, feeling nauseous. “I didn’t mean for you to find out about that.”

“Why not?” He seemed genuinely confused, which baffled me.

“Uh, check out your homophobic town and your Baptist church,” I replied. “This isn’t a welcoming environment.”

“Regardless of my personal beliefs, I’m still here to counsel you,” he told me. “That means I leave my judgments at the door, and I keep what you tell me confidential.”

“So that’s your way of saying you don’t approve but your profession forces you to not judge me,” I deadpanned.

“Let’s keep the focus on you,” he said. “All you need to know about me is that my opinion on you hasn’t changed. I’m still here to help you, and I’m still here to listen. I don’t believe you’re gay out of some childhood trauma or that it’s a disease that needs to be cured. You can talk to me about it.”

“I don’t have issues with being gay. Just change the pronouns on everything I’ve ever told you about my love life and we’re updated,” I said shortly.

“Done.” He smiled. “So where were we? You were saying you feel vulnerable in emotional situations?”

“When my emotions are out in the open, I guess.” I shifted uncomfortably, trying to adjust to being newly out to him. I hadn’t expected him to just take it in stride like that. “Yeah.”

“Well, the first step to combatting that is to change your pattern of thinking,” he suggested. “You’re closed off because you’re worried about getting hurt. So if you open up and
don’t
get hurt, you’ve taken the first step to not associating emotional vulnerability with negative consequences. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” I frowned. “Easier said than done, though.”

*   *   *

I tried my best to take David’s words to heart. There was an invisible hurdle I couldn’t get over, and I knew deep down that it was entirely mental, but that didn’t stop it from being hard to get past. I knew it was my problem and my problem alone; I felt that in the way Cammie, despite her issues, had thrown herself whole-heartedly into our relationship, kissing me first and telling me how she felt and then never looking back. She had so much to lose, and yet she’d transitioned so flawlessly into the person she’d deep down always wanted to be. And that person was beautiful inside and out, and all I could ask for in a girlfriend. That person deserved all of me. And instead I was second-guessing her, entertaining what Maddie had said about her going back to dating guys to please her parents.

David, meanwhile, had started watching Cammie and I with a certain look in his eyes I hadn’t seen before. If Cammie was right, he remembered the comment she’d made about marrying her friend at age eight, and now she’d broken up with her boyfriend and she and I were inseparable. I could see that David had made the mental jump and was wary, to say the least. I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t want a gay daughter, or because he didn’t want
me
dating his daughter.

But I took his advice.

A few nights later, when I was sure everyone else was asleep, I grabbed a spare blanket from the linen closet and nudged Cammie awake. She mumbled something intelligible and batted at me, and I hissed, “Cammie! Wake up!”

She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and squinted at me in the dark. “What are you doing? It’s, like, one in the morning. We have church tomorrow.”

“We can sleep through it.” I got a glare for that. “Please?”

She sighed, and her gaze dropped down to the blanket in my arms. “Okay, seriously, what are you doing?”

“Come with me and find out,” I offered, extending my hand to her. “C’mon.”

She sat up and rubbed at her eyes, then groaned and moved to get to her feet. “You’re so strange.”

*   *   *

She was wide-awake by the time she was tying Aerosmith to a tree in our clearing. I stretched the blanket out across the grass and then went to Cammie, clutching both of her hands in mine and leading her back toward the blanket. She was smiling now.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I like stargazing with you,” I insisted.

“Oh, is that what we’re calling it now? Half the time we’ve come out here lately it’s just been to make out for an hour.”

“I didn’t bring you out here for a make out session.” That was only partially true.

“Well, now I’m even more confused.”