Normal

Cris lay on her bed, resisting the urge to open her phone.

She didn't want to read any more of what she'd read that morning. Or did she?

She couldn't stop thinking about it.

They'd said it was as bad as pedophilia.

They'd called it perverted.

"They try to draw attention and feel special."

"We can't deny it's not normal."

Cris had never exactly been a wallflower, but she'd never wanted to fit in more in her life. To be normal.

She didn't even know what she was. Maybe it was just a phase, like the internet said. Maybe she wasn't gay, or bi, or pan. She was just confused.

Like the internet said.

What was she meant to do about it if she was something other than straight, anyway? Bring home a girlfriend to meet her family? Would they call her the names they'd used in the kitchen earlier that morning?

What would they think of this? God, she could never tell them. They'd hate her. They'd never look at her the same.

Sometimes it felt like it would burst out of her. The truth, that is. Every time she blacked out drunk she'd wake up and check her phone to make sure she hadn't texted anyone anything stupid. She was constantly afraid she'd slip up. Constantly afraid she'd drop her facade of okay and not be able to put it back in place again.

But there was just something about it everywhere. Cris had sat across from her mother the other night, and two girls had started kissing in the TV show they were watching. Cris had pulled out her phone, desperately searching for someone else to focus on; or pretend to. She didn't want her mother to see her looking too intensely at the TV, didn't want her to see anything she might suspect.

Around her friends, she'd catch herself looking at girls walking past and she'd wonder if they had noticed. Wonder if they thought it was anything more than Cris appreciating their outfit.

Eva had been so quick to brush off Cris kissing a girl as her just being drunk. It was too weird to Eva to think Cris might have just wanted to kiss a girl.

It'd just be easier if she was straight. It's not like she didn't like boys.

Her life would be so much easier if she just dated boys, she could just live like everyone else. She could get married and have a family and no one would have any issue with it. Her entire life would be a struggle if she went down the other road.

She was young, she could get it out of her system right? She could make out with girls at parties and blame it on alcohol. Plenty of straight girls kiss each other at parties.

Cris sighed, bringing her hands up to her face and rubbing hard against her cheeks. She rolled over onto her stomach, burying her face in her pillow for a long moment.

Everything just sucked.

Next to her pillow, her phone buzzed. Cris lifted her head off her pillow, reaching for her phone.

It was Ruben, trying to start a conversation with her. She didn't want to have conversations with Ruben; she didn't want to feel that hole in her stomach again like she had in the car when she was with him.

It hadn't been bad, but she'd be lying if she said her head hadn't been elsewhere.

Elsewhere had purple hair.

She wondered what it would have been like if she'd been in the backseat of a car with her.

No, Elsewhere had a boyfriend named Eloy.

Elsewhere wasn't really interested in Cris.

Cris wondered if Joana and Eloy had sex. She groaned, shaking her head and burying it in her pillow again.

She couldn't believe she'd been so stupid.

She'd let herself get lost in the hand over her heart and the guapa and the talk of her eyes. But it had all been bullshit. She'd been seeing things that weren't there.

Maybe Joana just liked to flirt. Maybe she'd just been messing with Cris.

Either way Cris was an idiot and she needed to pull herself together. She needed to focus on Ruben, the guy her friends were crazy about, and she needed to forget about Joana.

She needed to focus on being normal.