Becoming Sweet Girls Read online

  It was during our first semester, while I was sitting alone with Lyla on the thin bed in the girls wing of our dorm, that I prepared to make my move and tell her exactly how I felt about her—how Ireallyfelt. I can still remember how nervous I was with the words thick in my mouth on the tip of my tongue. They were trying to escape but not quite able to take form, and my palms were sweaty and shaking slightly against my knees. I swallowed nervously and urged myself to just go for it. Lyla seemed nervous too, and I thought she might have sensed what was coming.

  But as it turned out, she hadn’t been expecting that at all. I hadn’t been the only one waiting for college to make a huge revelation about myself. Before I could shift the conversation into my big, romantic reveal, Lyla took a deep breath, looked me in the eyes, and blurted, “So I think I’m gay.”

  Talk about a cock block. It turned out that the love of my life was a stone-cold lesbian.

  All the things I’d been about to say died in my throat.

  I was crushed. Truly crushed. I was madly in love with Lyla, and I knew now that I would never, ever have a chance with her.

  There was no way I could tell her how I felt about her after that. I also knew I had to be supportive for my friend. That’s what real love is, right? If I cared about her that much—and I did—I wanted her to be as happy as she could be whether or not I could be with her in the way that I wanted to be. Even though I hadn’t known a lot of gay people in my life, I promised to myself then and there that I would be the best ally that I could be. I would be happy for her when she got a great girlfriend and hold her hand after bad break ups. I’d continue to be the best friend that I’d always been for her.

  And I didn’t regret it for a second. She was there for me too, helping me through some seriously terrible times in my life: Making flash cards for me to study for my finals in classes that I was terrible at and sure I was going to flunk, cooking me healthy food when I got struck by a college-wide flu plague, and giving me the encouragement I needed to pick myself up whenever I felt down about myself. She was my confidante and my right-hand man.

  Until Stacey happened.

  My romance with Stacey had been a lust-fueled whirlwind of intensity that suddenly sucked up all my time and attention. Looking back, I could admit that part of that might have been me compensating for my unrequited situation with Lyla. But I hadn’t had the emotional maturity to realize that at the time, so it was what it was.

  “Is your friend a woman?” my airplane seatmate asked, snapping me back into the present and interrupting my trip down memory lane.

  I blinked at her and broke into a smile at the question.

  “She is—she most definitely is.” I chuckled a bit. “She’s into MMA and fighting, but other than that she’s the most glam woman I’ve ever met. She’s so brilliant with make-up that it’s basically witchcraft. And her hair is always dyed all these beautiful colors that a human shouldn’t be able to pull off, but she does. It’s almost like she’s actually part unicorn.”

  She really was something else, which was probably why Stacey hadn’t liked how close Lyla and I were. But I had always told her she had nothing to worry about—after all, Lyla only liked women and I would never, ever be her type. Despite Stacey’s snipes, the two of us had remained best friends, but I realized now that when we graduated, Stacey had definitely done her hardest to encourage our drifting apart.

  Not that it was entirely Stacey’s fault. After all, Lyla had moved to NYC and I had ended up with an internship right in the middle of America. Like all adults who drift away into their own lives after college, we went from texting every day to texting once a week. Eventually once a week became once every few months. I was embarrassed to admit that it had been quite a bit longer than that even since I’d last checked in with her, prior to the random text she’d sent me the previous week.

  Lyla’s unexpected message couldn’t have come a better time, and as soon as we’d started texting it was like the time and distance that had grown between us just melted away to nothing. I had no idea how she’d known that I needed a friend more than ever, having just been dumped by Stacey, but there was Lyla, coming through for me just like she always had. I looked down and re-read our conversation on my phone.

  [Hey, friendo! Long time no talk. What’s cracking? :) ]

  I could practically hear her speaking those lines. Even after all these years, she had never lost that enthusiastic joie de vivre that made her so wonderful to be around.

  [Uh, I might be having the worst week of my life.]

  [Whoa, what’s going on?!?!]

  I had hesitated telling her, not wanting to sound completely pathetic like Stacey always told me I was. But how could I keep something so important from the best friend I’d ever had?

  [I lost my job and Stacey broke up with me.]

  [WHAT??? WTF what happened?]

  [Massive layoffs at my job. As for Stacey, I… I guess I don’t know. I’m just in shock, I think. I’ve just been sitting in my room hoping that this is all a dream.]

  [Come here.]

  [What?]

  [Come here. Get a ticket and come visit. You can stay as long as you need.]

  I remembered staring at my phone like it had suddenly become sentient. How could I drop everything and fly to NYC? I had all kinds of things I needed to do: start looking for a new job, sort out the shattered pieces of my failed relationship, and figure out how I was going to make rent and pay bills in a month or two when my tiny amount of savings inevitably ran out. Now wasnotthe time to be splurging on cross-country plane tickets. Plus, it had been years since I’d seen Lyla in person!

  It was crazy and irresponsible. But also… I suddenly realized there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to go and be with my best friend right now. My fingers flew across my phone as I typed my response.

  [I’ll be there.]

  “You’re checking your phone again. Isn’t it still in airplane mode?”

  My nosey seatmate’s voice once again pulled me out of my remembrance, and I put down my phone on the tray table with an amused shake of my head. “Hah, you’re right. Sorry.”

  “So, you are in love with this woman, then?”

  “What?” I asked, completely startled by her assumption. I gave her a third, piercing look.Damn, this lady is perceptive.

  She seemed perfectly composed and unsurprised by my reaction. That was right about when it hit me just how strange it was for me to be discussing my deepest personal baggage with a complete stranger within seconds of meeting her. Why was she prying so much?

  “Of course not,” I stammered, lying through my teeth. “She’s just a good friend!”

  Were my feelings for Lyla really that obvious? I’d hoped that after all these years that my school-boy crush would had faded. Sure, I would always love her from the bottom of my heart, but in a friendly, platonic way. After all, she’d made it very clear that she only loved women—I was exactly the opposite of that, no matter how much I might wish we could be together.

  “Yes, I do not doubt that she is a great friend,” the woman continued. “But perhaps you were wishing that she was something more?”

  I raised one eyebrow, trying to figure out why this woman seemed so invested in the idea. “You seem very interested in knowing if I love a woman you’ll never meet.”

  She just smiled at that, revealing dazzlingly white teeth. “I suppose I am just a bit curious. It is a long flight to NYC, and I finished my book already.”

  I looked in her lap, not seeing anything remotely book-shaped near her, but my suspicion only lasted so long before I found myself giving in.

  Maybe after so long of bottling things up, I just needed to let go. Who knew? I’d been aware that my relationship with Stacey had been on the rocks for a while. We’d been fighting more and more about increasingly stupid things.

  “I guess you could say that I wish I could be with Lyla, even though I know I can’t due to some complicated circumstances,” I admitted slowl
y. But saying it out loud after hiding it from everyone for so long felt like releasing a giant weight from my chest. As soon as I voiced the words, more poured out of me: “She’s basically the perfect woman for me. I’ve never connected with anyone else the way I do with her, and we’ve always called each other our platonic soulmates.”

  “I see. And if youcouldhave her, what would you do to make that so?”

  I thought of all the years I had pined for her, cherishing her friendship down to the essence of my soul while in the back of my head wishing desperately that there could be a chance at more. A smile played across my lips, and I decided to answer the woman’s question honestly.

  “Anything.”

  “Anything? Truly?”

  I nodded, completely confident in my answer. “Anything.”

  “That is quite a bold offer. You would turn your life upside down and give up everything you know for a woman who’s never wanted to be with you?”

  I chuckled drily at that. “It’s not like she didn’t want to be with me because there’s no spark. If she had just shot me down, I could move past it all.

  “The issue is that I’ll never know if Icouldhave a chance with her because I’m the wrong gender. I’m a man through and through, and unfortunately, men just aren’t Lyla’s type. And I respect that.” I gave the woman beside me a bit of a challenging look. “Besides, Lyla’s friendship is pretty amazing. It’s not like it’s a consolation prize for me.”

  “Ah, I see. It sounds as though you truly do care about this woman.”

  “I do. I’m just lucky to have her in my life.” I laughed at myself again. “Listen, I know I sound like some sort of love sick puppy, but it’s not like that at all. Do I wish I could be with her? Sure. But I’m grateful to have her in my life as my friend, and I’m going to enjoy my time in NYC just reaffirming that friendship.”

  “Very well, then.” The woman reached into her purse and pulled out that book she had supposedly finished—a dog-eared romance novel whose cover was so faded that the title was illegible. “I wish you all the best on your reunion.” She flashed me a smile that seemed to say a whole lot that I didn’t understand before returning to her reading.

  It was a weird way to end the conversation, and I almost continued talking to her, but then I decided that enough was enough. This lady had pried into my personal life enough for one day, and I’d already revealed far more than I had intended. It wasn’t like me to speak so freely about personal matters, and I shook my head, suddenly embarrassed. Turning my phone off to save the battery, I pulled my sketchpad out so I could draw to distract myself and avoid any further uncomfortable conversations. But before I could even touch my pencil to the paper, I felt my eyelids start to droop.

  I tried harder to focus on what I was doing, bearing down unusually hard on the heavy stock paper with my pencil, but before I even had a basic sketch outline the page began to get blurry. Why did I feel so tired? Letting out a ridiculous yawn, I put the tools away in defeat and leaned back against my seat. I closed my eyes and let myself drift off, hoping that my nightmares would leave me alone for the first time in days.

  Chapter 2

  “You’ve wasted years of my life and I can’t take it anymore!”

  I awoke with a start, looking around in confusion at the fact that I seemed to be sitting in an economy seat on a cramped aircraft instead of home in my own bed, tangled in sweaty sheets, which was how I usually woke up from horrible dreams of Stacey lately. After a moment of blearily rubbing at my eyes, I remembered where I was and what I was doing.

  “Wow, I was really out there, wasn’t I?” I asked, turning to my companion. But I was greeted by nothing but empty air—not even a bag was left in the seat beside me.

  I swiveled my head around, trying to see if she was in the gaggle of people already crowding the middle aisle and trying to get their baggage from the overhead compartments. The weird, nosey woman was nowhere to be seen. As far as I could tell, she’d vanished without a trace.

  How had she climbed over me without me noticing? She must have really hustled to get past all these other people and deplane with the first class cabin.Jeez. I guess I really needed that sleep.I was out cold.It made sense. I hadn’t exactly been snoozing like a baby since I lost my job, and horrible dreams of Stacey yelling at me, blaming me, and finally abandoning me had made my nights that much worse.

  But none of that mattered now! I had landed safely in NYC, and I was that much closer to seeing Lyla for the first time in forever. If that wasn’t a reason to get my butt in gear, I didn’t know what was.

  I shot out of my seat, impatient to race off the plane and meet my friend. But I must have still been a little woozy from my nap, because I suddenly felt awkward and uncoordinated. As I rose, I stumbled a little and almost crashed into the tall guy waiting in the aisle beside me.

  “Whoa, you okay there, ma’am?” he asked, offering a hand to steady me.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied automatically. I’d caught myself just in time on the seat in front of me and felt foolish for being so clumsy. I shook myself off, straightened, and shuffled all the way to where I had shoved my carry-on before I realized what he had said to me.Ma’am? That was a new one. Or had he said “man”? It must have been “man,” I decided. Sure, work had been so busy this past quarter that I hadn’t had time to cut my hair, but I didn’t think that it wasthatlong.

  But whatever. I had bigger things to worry about.

  I reached up on tip-toes to wrestle down my carry-on bag, annoyed at how unusually high the overhead bins seemed in this aircraft, and finally managed to pull it out. I wobbled a bit as I brought it down, feeling off center, but managed to recover enough to not fall over. Had the bag felt that heavy when I pushed it up there? Maybe I’d over-packed.

  Man, I really need to shake that nap off,I told myself.I feel so weird.

  I probably just needed a coffee or something. Having retrieved my bag successfully, I got out of the plane and headed through the boarding tunnel that connected to the actual airport. I guessed my nap had been really intense, as I thought about how drowsy I’d been while drifting off, and I resolved to try to get better sleep in the future.Not that Lyla will let me rest while there’s a whole city for us to explore together…I smiled at the thought and quickened my pace.

  The boarding tunnel was crowded, of course, but I’d known to expect that from JFK airport based on what I’d read about how busy it was. I didn’t really mind the wait until I felt a sharp elbow in my back. I whipped around to see a young mother trying to adjust her grip on her adorable baby and immediately softened.

  “You okay?” I asked, noting that she definitely looked like she could use a third hand.

  She flashed me a quick smile. “Oh gurl, I’m okay. Sorry about that. Just tripped on the rug.”

  I looked down to see that there was indeed an impressive number of wrinkles on the carpet beneath our feet. Talk about a hazard! Someone should fix that.

  “Alright. If you’re sure,” I replied, shaking my head at the weird way people talked these days. Was it normal to call even guys “gurl” now? It was getting hard to keep up with all the new social fads.

  As if on cue, a man came up behind her and gently took the infant. They shared a quick peck, and I turned back to face the exit, feeling a little bit of melancholy.

  Would I ever have something like that? Or was I doomed to be alone? I thought I was a relatively okay guy. Sure, I had flaws, but I listened. And I valued friendship just as much as I valued romance. I recognized that my partners were people, first and foremost.

  Then again, I guessed that part of my problem was I had only ever been in love with two people in my entire life.

  I sighed and tucked those thoughts away. I was supposed to be going on this trip to get a break from the abysmal quagmire I had gotten myself into, not wallowing in it. I set my jaw, holding my head high as I took the final steps into the airport.

  But as I was hauling my roll-on lu
ggage over, a wheel got caught on another one of those dangerous carpet wrinkles and my half-awake self toppled right over.

  I hit the ground hard and for a moment everything was a strange swirl of sensations. I waited to hear people mocking the dumb klutzy guy, or maybe toss some accusations of drunkenness my way, but instead two guys rushed over to help me up.

  “Are you alright, Miss?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I answered coldly, annoyed that he was teasing me after all. Making fun of guys by calling them women was a pet peeve of mine, and furthermore, it’s not like women were especially clumsy, but it wasn’t worth getting into a fight with a stranger over it. “I’m just distracted, I guess.” I rose quickly and bent down to wipe at my scuffed knees, but then I froze in the middle of the motion.

  My shoes were different.

  Normally that wouldn’t be a world-shattering thought, but I was almost certain that I had boarded the plane in a pair of old, beat-up sneakers. And I was one hundred percent certain that I had never owned a pair of silver, sparkly flats before.

  “Are you sure you don’t need any help?” the man who had spoken before continued. “I’m sure there’s a first aid station here. We can get an employee to walk you there if you’re hurt.”

  His words hardly registered with me. I was too fixated on what I was seeing below my legs. Maybe I could deal with having mysterious sparkling shoes—they could be a prank played by the nosey woman next to me, after all. But the issue was that the ankles leading into those shoes were also different from what I was used to seeing. They were smaller and tapered into an elegant sort of shape.

  In a state that felt a whole lot like shock, my eyes slowly drifted upwards, taking in the curves of lightly defined calves, slender knees, and then thick, curvaceous thighs that were connected to a nice waistline.Mynice waistline.