Over The Rainbow #girlxgirl

C11: Jay's Secret

"She's probably annoyed at you by now," Skylar says. "I mean, you've asked her like five times, right?"

I roll my eyes. He is sitting on the snow across from me, trying to build a normal sized snow fort out of normal sized snowballs. "Twice. I think. I'm trying to forget it." I pick some snow off of the bench and throw it at his face. He blocks it, pretending to shoot it. "Might as well get over it."

"I think," he says, "that she actually likes you, but it afraid of it and is trying to hide it." He stacks another snowball on. The snow is super icy, so it doesn't stick to other ice balls very well once it already is covered in ice.

"You kidding me?" I ask, shaking my head. "There's no way. She would have told me."

"Like she said though, she isn't ready for this kind of relationship."

"She would've told me," I assert.

"You barely even know her, Zyana. How would you know that? And besides, some girls like to play with people who have crushes on them." He points a snowball at me, scooting forwards super close to the delicate wall. "I know from experience." He accidentally slides forwards too much and the wall topples over. "I'm done with this. Let's go sledding."

"We don't have any sleds!" I say.

"We'll make some. There's got to be some sticks big enough around here..."

I roll my eyes. He's talking about Maria, obviously. They never were really together. She just used him to get information about me and ruin his life. For fun, you know, because that's what girls do.

Of course.

I pause. "OK maybe."

"Huh?" he asks.

"Never mind." I pause. If she doesn't like me, who else would she like? I mean, come on... the only other person she really knows is...

"... Skylar..." I say.

"Huh?" he inquires, this time turning to me and looking at me weird. "Are you OK?"

"Fine," I say. "I was just thinking." Please god let that not be true. I swear if they were together... my best friend and basically my only crush ever... this can't be happening...

"So who do you think she likes?" he asks.

"You," I blurt out. Shit, what am I doing??

He stares at me, stopping moving again. "Seriously??" he asks. I nod. "No way..." he starts. Silence rings in the air. "OK, maybe." I close my eyes. When I open them again, I see he's walking and he's blushing this time.

"You like her back?" I ask him.

He doesn't reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My phone rings. Swallowing, I pick up. My mom just gave me some christian nonsense about gays. I am not in a good mood.

Basically what ended up happening with Skylar was we went sledding and tried to forget about what we said about Jayda.

"Hello?" I ask.

"Hey," Jayda's voice comes. "You finally picked up." She heaves a sigh. "Are you OK? Did anything else happen with the locker and stuff?"

I shake my head. "Nope. I'm fine."

"Huh," she says. "Sorry," she adds on.

"For what?" I ask. "You didn't do anything. It's not your fault. I hope that at this point I'm not just..." I trail off, trying to remember what Skylar said. "Being annoying."

"Annoying? You? No way." Silence fills the air. There's something she isn't telling me. "I want to still be friends, Zy Zy." My heart jumps into my throat as she says that. Zy Zy. That's another thing to add to the list of why I thought she liked me.

"Sure," I say, my voice cracking slightly at the last part. Why can't I just deal with it?? Sure, I want to be more than friends, but it's been days. Why am I not over it yet? Why have I been able to distance myself from love... until I met her?

"Good," she says. "Um... how's it going with Skylar?" she asks.

"Good. He apologized. How's it going with other stuff?" I ask. What a stupid question. 'Other stuff'? Really? I just assume that I'm the biggest thing in her life right now? Yeah, wonderful. That's the way to get the girls, isn't it.

"Fine," she tells me. "Could I come over some time?"

"No!" I react before realizing that she has no idea that my home life is messed up. "Um... my mom doesn't really like it when I have friends over. We could go to the park or something..."

"Oh... does she know?"

I gulp. "Yup."

"Is she one of those 'gays are satan' people?" she asks.

I smile a bit. "Yup."

"Nice to know," she says. I can hear her sit down. "Is it really awful? It must be. My grandma is from the south and she moved here. She hates me because I'm gay. We try to avoid her."

"You're not gay," I say. "You're..." I forget the word.

"Pansexual. Yeah. I mostly like girls right now though." My heart skips a beat. Really? Well that kinda gets rid of the Skylar thing...

"Nice," I manage. "Yeah, I try to avoid my mom."

"You hang out with your dad, then?" she asks.

A few years ago, my dad died in a construction accident. He was a construction worker. They divorced the week before, and my dad got me because my mom didn't want to deal with me anymore. Guess how happy she was when I ended up back in her house? Anyways, parents pick favorites, and I never was either of their favorites, but at least my dad didn't hate me.

"No," I say. "My dad's dead."

Silence.

"Oh, Jesus. I'm so sorry." She takes in a deep breath, then lets it out. "How old were you?" she asks.

"Seven. That's how old my little sister is now. My dad left my mom for cheating on him. Then he died in a construction accident and I was forced back to my mom."

"That sucks!" she says.

"Yeah, it does," I mutter. "My sisters don't really care about it. They hated him, and they just use his death as a way to get attention and get their way on stuff. It's really disrespectful."

"That's so awful." I suddenly realize now she knows basically all of my secrets. She knows I'm gay, she knows my crush, she knows my dad is dead, she knows my mom hates me... I guess at least it was an icebreaker and now it isn't as awkward anymore.

"Wanna hear a secret of mine?" she asks. I nod.

"Yeah, I do," I say.

"I'm adopted. I found out when my parents couldn't find my birth certificate. I've been searching for my birth parents since I was twelve. I traced them to here. I managed to convince them that I was being bullied in Seattle and I needed to move out of the city. I managed to convince them to come here. I think I've found them."

"What?" I ask.

"Zyana, I think I am Skylar's sister."