Leap of Faith

23:56

Theo laughs at my revelation, and then goes silent on me as if he’s realizing something extremely important.

“You are, huh?” He ponders. “You’re not in my math class are you?”

I freeze. Oh, crap, was I?

“No, don’t do that,” I order him. “Don’t start trying to work out who I am. It’s not fair.”

Silence.

“Why not?” Theo’s anger just about matches mine. “Why can’t I know who you are?”

For so many reasons that I can’t go into

, I want to shout at him.

He likes the me that I am in the closet. The me who mesmerized him. The me he kissed so wantonly. In here I had promised to be the ‘real’ me, but as soon as that door opens, everything will change. I will change. I won’t be the real Catherine anymore; I’ll be the twenty-two girls I pretend to be when I’m around everyone else.

I will be the girl who hides. I will be the girl who can’t mesmerize anyone, let alone a boy like Theo. I will be the girl who can’t pluck up the courage to talk to a stranger let alone kiss them. In five minutes, my life will flip upside down and the real world will kick in.

In the real world, out there, Theo cannot know who I am.

“Look, Theo,” I sigh as I try to find the words, but I can’t. “Expressive aphasia.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I know what I want to say, but I don’t know how,” I throw back the definition he gave me just a moment- ninety seconds- ago. “I wasn’t kidding around when I said I was confused. I am- confused, that is. On so many levels, I am this freaky, confused and scared girl who no-one likes. When you see that, you’ll run a mile. We can’t work outside this closet.”

I run through the words I had spoken and decide that I had said exactly what I needed to say. It summed up all the turmoil bubbling up in my head, let alone what I was feeling in my heart. I had spoken the truth, despite the fact that I was breaking on the inside during the process.

My heart was aching with significance. Desperately, in my core, I knew that I wanted Theo, but I knew I couldn’t have him. I didn’t deserve to have him. He needed someone who could mesmerize him every second of every day, not someone who knew how to switch it on and off like I did.

“You deserve better than me,” I whisper as I move away from him, his hands dropping from my face.

“Liar,” he said with ferocity. “And don’t you dare tell me what I do and do not deserve. I know what I want, Catherine, and that is you. I want you and I get that scares you, but it’s the truth. And we promised to be truthful. Cards on the table. Take it or leave it. So, tell me. Do you want me?”