She hovered the mouse pointer over one of the
pictures. “Recommended because you watched
I Can’t Think
Straight
and
Faking It
.”
God.
At this point, Daisy
half-expected to see even more details on the too-helpful website:
“Recommended because you watched every lesbian kissing scene in
Faking It
five times each, and the coming out scene in
I
Can’t Think Straight
approximately five
hundred
times.”
It was a good thing Jo hadn’t come in here
with her, or she’d have a lot of explaining to do. Daisy clicked
frantically through options screens, trying to figure out how to
delete viewing history and recommendations data. Why hadn’t she
thought of this before?
An additional realization settled into her
body, making her stomach feel like she’d eaten an entire slushie on
a cold day. This was the
family
password. How long had the
website been recommending “lesbian interest” movies? Had her
parents seen this?
Daisy’s throat closed. She found a reset
button that brought the whole account back to default settings and
pressed it. She thought that deleted her dad’s queue as well as the
information she’d wanted to erase, but that was going to have to be
okay. She could explain a stupid mistake with settings a lot more
easily than she could explain “lesbian interest.”
Jo walked in just as Daisy made the final
clicks. “What’s up? Are the movies I wanted to watch not available
yet?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked.” Daisy
navigated back to the home screen quickly, hoping to hide her last
few minutes of panic.
Jo frowned. “Why are you messing with the
options?”
“Huh? Oh, I just noticed the whole account
was reset. The queue is missing and everything.”
“Your parents probably did that by accident.
You know how old people are with technology.” Jo’s admiration of
the Mejias’ love affair didn’t completely exempt them from her
contempt for the previous generation.
“Yeah, probably.”
Jo sat in her usual spot, on the floor tucked
against the foot of Daisy’s bed, her body folded up small. In that
posture, her hair seemed bigger than she did, and she looked much
younger than she was. The clothing she tried so hard to make
sophisticated might as well have been the flower-printed dresses
she’d worn as a young girl. Jo looked up at Daisy, her face
wrinkled with concern.
“Look, are you okay? I know I’ve been bugging
you the past couple days. I guess I just never thought there would
be something you didn’t want to tell me.” Before Daisy could again
protest that there was nothing, Jo held up a hand. “I know it’s not
nothing.”
Daisy sighed. She didn’t really want to lie
to Jo. She thought about what it would be like if she didn’t have
to hide. What if it
had
been okay for Jo to see all those
movies the website recommended? What would it be like to show Jo
I Can’t Think Straight,
and try to explain why she loved it
so much?
“You’re right,” Daisy said. “It’s not
nothing.” She took a deep breath. This wasn’t just gathering her
courage. This was something more than that. She couldn’t even
imagine saying the words she needed to say.
Jo didn’t wait for Daisy to form her
admission. “I knew it!” she said. “You like someone! What’s the
matter with him? Why don’t you want me to know who he is?”
Daisy closed her mouth, her stomach churning
again. Jo didn’t even consider the possibility that Daisy liked a
girl. What if that meant she wasn’t ready to know about it?
“Come on!” Jo said. “If you’re worried
because it’s somebody I used to date, it’s really fine. If I broke
up with a guy, it’s because I didn’t want him.”
“I’m not into anyone you used to date.”
“Then who is it?”
Riva.
It was one word. Two syllables.
Daisy whispered the name to herself all the time, trying it out in
different tones. She knew how she would want to say it after a
first kiss, and she knew how she would want to call it across a
room.
It wouldn’t come out now. She shook her head.
“Jo, I’m sorry. I just really don’t want to talk about it. Can you
understand that?”
Jo pouted. Daisy knew she couldn’t comprehend
the nature of a secret that needed to be kept even from her.
“Please,” Daisy said. “I swear that if I was
ready to tell anybody, it would be you.”
Relenting just slightly, Jo rested her chin
on her knees. “Fine. But you’d better not be into a teacher.”
“I’m not. I promise I’m not.”
“Okay, fair enough. Let’s watch the
movie.”
That was as much forgiveness as Daisy was
going to get from Jo unless she was willing to come out. It had to
be enough. She turned back to the website and picked the one she
least wanted to watch, as if that secret sacrifice could make up
for her lack of trust.
* * * *
Riva took a long, long walk with her phone,
trying not only to get away from home but also to get away from
anyone who might ever recognize her. She walked past convenience
stores and empty houses. The few people she passed all seemed
stunned by the heat, their T-shirts wet along the sides. Riva knew
she smelled as sweaty as they looked. She scuffed her sneakers
against the gravelly road as she walked, not picking up her feet
enough. Everything seemed so wide and flat and open here, as if not
even the possibility of privacy existed.
She got half-lost along the way, missing her
hometown with the now-familiar pang at the bottom of her lungs. If
she’d been back in Jersey, she would have known a million places to
hide, favorite spots she’d been visiting with her best friend Casey
since they were children.
Of course, if she had a car like Daisy, she
might not miss home so much. Then she could drive to the beach
whenever she wanted and enjoy the benefits of being in this hot,
humid state. A car and the beach did make the move to Florida seem
a lot nicer.
Riva smiled to herself, thinking about that
day with Daisy. They’d passed each other in school a couple times
since then, and Riva had nodded. She’d been too shy to talk to
Daisy, though, and Daisy hadn’t talked to her either. She hoped
that didn’t mean Daisy had changed her mind about being
friends.
She might have, considering all the rumors
going around about Riva since that disastrous note to Emmy. Half
the school was convinced Riva was a lesbian, and everyone else
either seemed to think she was a perv, or that being a lesbian and
being a perv were the same thing. Yeah, as nice as Daisy had
seemed, there was no way she’d be willing to put up with all that.
Riva shouldn’t expect more beach trips anytime soon.
Feeling gloomy despite the ever-present sun,
Riva glanced at her phone. Spring Break was coming up, which meant
Benton would be visiting soon.
She should have been excited. She’d been
looking forward to this visit ever since her mother had dragged her
to Florida.
Benton
should have been excited, though,
assuming he wanted to see her at all, and he wasn’t. She’d avoided
his texts that day at the beach with Daisy, half-hoping he’d be
pissed enough about that to forget to ask about her progress on
setting up the threesome. Of course, nothing could make him forget
the threesome, so he’d ended up mad on both counts. It felt like
forever since she’d heard his voice. For the past few days, they’d
just been sending each other terse texts.
Not long ago, Riva would have done anything
to make it right between them, but now her faith in their
relationship had gotten shaky, too. Her mom hated Benton and
thought he was too old for her. Daisy had obviously thought Riva
was only doing what Benton wanted because she was pathetic and had
no friends in Florida. Her cousin Terrell had given her that
condescending dad speech about how Benton probably wasn’t worth
it.
If it was just one of those things, Riva
would have blown it off. Not everyone understood what she had with
Benton—that’s what she had been telling her mom since the
beginning. But now that nobody seemed to approve, she was starting
to wonder if all those other people had a point. She should have
talked it out with Casey online. Casey knew what Benton was like.
She’d drooled over him freshman year along with Riva, when Benton
was a senior, and she’d been just as excited as Riva when Benton
had noticed her. Riva didn’t want to tell Casey what was going on,
though, and maybe that was partly because she was scared that Casey
would think it was messed up, too. If even Casey didn’t like
Benton, Riva wasn’t sure what she’d have left.
God.
That sounded like what Daisy had
said about it.
Riva bit back a sigh. She was walking along a
wide church parking lot. Heat rolled off the expanse of fresh
blacktop. The church itself seemed small in comparison, but there
was a bench under a tree beside the building. Riva had learned the
hard way that shade wasn’t as effective in Florida as it had been
in Jersey, but, at this point, she would take what she could get.
She sat on the bench and scrolled through her last few text
messages with Benton.
Too bad Casey can’t come down for Spring
Break, too,
he’d written.
Then our problem would be
solved.
Riva’s chest clenched as she read that over.
Sure, Casey was her best friend, or had been until she’d moved
away. She guessed she could see his point of view. If there was
anyone who would do her a favor, it was Casey. And she and Casey
had been so close. Maybe that meant they could make out, too?
On the other hand,
Casey was her best
friend
. Thinking about it now, it irritated her that Benton
assumed he had the right to just barge into that relationship
and…
use
it.
She did love Benton, though. She’d told him
many times that she would do anything for him. This was anything,
wasn’t it? And sharing Casey. That would fall under the category of
anything
as well.
Riva rubbed her temples. This whole situation
was confusing and hard, and if Benton loved her, too, he’d
understand that.
Right?
She was sweating even more than the
heat justified, though the tree rustled above her at the touch of a
gentle breeze.
This was ridiculous. Why was she so scared to
call Benton? She trusted him with everything, and this was no
different. She’d been scared before sleeping with him the first
time, too, but that had gone well. Or well enough, anyway.
Riva shuddered. She didn’t like this new
voice of doubt in her head. She wished she could go back to
believing she and Benton were forever, and that true love would
make everything work out right in the end.
She punched the call button and tried to
ignore the pounding of her heart.
He picked up on the last ring before voice
mail kicked in, when Riva was trying to decide whether to hang up
or leave a message.
“Hey, babe. Why are you calling? Have you got
it worked out?”
“Benton, I—”
“It’s just a few days until I get there,
Riva. There’s no more time for excuses. If you want to do this,
you’ve got to get going.”
If you want to do this.
He made it
sound like the whole thing was her idea!
Riva swallowed her annoyance and tried again.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing you. I’m so glad you’re
coming down to visit. We can go out, check out this new place where
I’m living, go to the beach…”
“But?”
She’d been trying to keep her voice so even.
How had he heard there was another side to what she was saying?
“But…wouldn’t it be nice if it were just the two of us this trip?
I’m not sure I want to share you with anyone else. We haven’t
gotten to spend time together in so long.”
“Riva, you’re not sharing me. If there’s a
girl you can bring into the bedroom with us, that’s me sharing
you.”
What if I don’t want to be shared?
Riva knew that was what she should be saying out loud, but she
didn’t have the guts for it. “Um, whichever way it is, what do you
think about us being together alone this trip? Maybe over the
summer…”
“If you keep putting it off, it’s never going
to happen. I’ve told you that. That’s why we’ve got this deadline.
Fear’s going to stop you if you don’t have enough incentive to set
this up.”
She bit her lip. They’d had long
conversations about this over IM. Benton thought Riva let fear get
the better of her way too much. Some of that related to fear about
approaching a girl, sure, but other types of fear concerned him,
too. He thought she shouldn’t worry about bothering her father and
should get in touch with him more, maybe even ask him for things.
He thought she shouldn’t be upset by guys who harassed her in
online games. She used a gender-neutral handle to avoid trouble,
but Benton thought she shouldn’t conceal that she was a girl
online—she should own it. He knew about some of the software
projects she’d worked on, too. He thought her coding was brilliant,
and he’d encouraged her to make commits to open-source projects,
even though she was sure she didn’t quite know what she was
doing.
Benton had been making her a better person.
She could see the girl he wanted her to be—brave, bold, exciting,
unafraid of taking risks. Being that girl would be awesome. She
just had to let him help her.
“I’m sorry,” Riva said.
“I know,” he said. “It’s okay.”
There.
He was being supportive. He loved her.
“Thanks.” Riva felt better already.
“Okay, so tell me where you are with this.
It’s not too late. Spring Break can still be saved from being a
total failure.”
Her shoulders tensed up again, along with the
back of her neck. “Would it really be a total failure if you have
to just hang out with me? If the only person I end up making out
with is you?”