White lies.

Part 2

Chapter 2. Kim.

You are staring at her again when I walk in to English.

"Still is infatuated as ever?" I ask, and it's a rhetorical question. We both know the answer.

"Oh shut up," you mumble into your notebook, scribbling away. Your face is red.

I laugh.

But then your eyes turn sad. "It's hopeless, anyway."

I want to hug you, but the class is staring at us, whispering, nudging friends.

"It's not," I reply, and we both know I'm lying.

You smile at me. "Thanks," you say, and I know it's for trying to comfort you even though it's all white lies.

You text me that afternoon, and it starts out light and beautiful friendship, but before long it's turned dark.

"She'll never like me back," you text, and for one second I'm stunned. You almost never take the trouble to type out each word.

That's when I realise this is serious.

So I text you back just as formally. "Don't be depressing, it'll happen."

There's a long pause, a lull in your usually fast responses. "That's not what I mean."

The words look different on my phone screen. A chain of meaningless letters bound together and separated by spaces. Born to be put together and taken apart.

Maybe that's kind of like us too, I think, looking at those few words. Maybe we were born to fall apart.

But some piece themselves back together.

You start typing after a while, perhaps put off by my silence.

I wait as you type, uneasily. In almost no time at all, you tell me, "It's not that there's no chance of her liking me. What hurts the most is how my parents are going to react when they hear their daughter is lesbian."

I stare at the words on my screen with a kind of tired detachment.

I don't know how to reply to that.

Because it's true. It's true. Your parents would probably disown you and make sure you never come back.

After all, that's what they see you as. A weak link in their perfect family.

"What they think doesn't matter. It's your life, your love." I text back.

Another lie. Of course what they think matter. It was never your life to start with. It was always theirs, theirs to control as they pleased, theirs to ruin.

You know that.

You text back a smiley face and a "gtg", and I wonder if you are trying to escape from this conversation.

I pull up to the gates in my new car, laughing loudly with you in the passenger seat.

I hear gasps and whispers of excitement and gossip when I walk out.

I don't care anymore.

"Keep your chin up," I tell you. "Don't show them any weakness."

You nod at me. "I'll try," you say, smiling brightly as a boy wolf-whistles.

The boys break into laughter, leering at our mid-thigh skirts and skimpy shirt. Girls eye me with envy and disgust.

I don't like the boys' leering. I don't like the girls' stares. I don't want to be here.

But I look at you, and you are smiling and laughing, touching up on your lipstick in your compact mirror.

You fit in so flawlessly among your gaggle of cheerleaders and their high-pitched giggles and whiny complaints.

So I hold my chin up, wink at a couple of boys and I join you.

Seamlessly, we fall back together in this age-old routine.