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Kiera stared at her parents’ stunned expressions. Not terrified. Not

horrified. Not disgusted. Just…shocked.

She’d called and said she had something she needed to talk to them

about. They sat down in the same living room she grew up playing, building

forts, and watching movies in. She told them everything. Right from the

start. How, when she was fourteen, she realized she wasn’t attracted to guys

the same way other girls her age were. How that both terrified and

exhilarated her. How, once the exhilaration wore off, she was just left with

the terror and the aftermath of knowing she was different.

She’d told them how, in college, she’d dated women secretly, if dating

was the right term. She knew it wasn’t, and she confessed that too. That it

was basically no strings attached because she could never take the chance

of forming an attachment with anyone, even if she badly wanted to. She

told them about how she often felt very lonely, even when she had a ton of

friends around her.

She told them about how hard it was to live a double life, but how she

couldn’t imagine losing everyone’s love and support. She confessed that the

whole thing with Shane was fake. Finally, she told them about Romi, even

though she didn’t mention her name. She said there was a woman she was

in love with, but she had broken things off because she didn’t have the

courage to fight for the future she really wanted.

After she was finished, she felt exhausted, but she also felt curiously

light. Emotional and mental burdens were real, and they’d been pressing

down on her, weighing on her for a very long time.

“I-I don’t know what to say,” Kiera’s mom finally whispered. She still

had her husband’s hand clutched tightly in her own. They’d been that way

the entire time Kiera was speaking.

Kiera’s dad just gave her a blank, confused look. Kiera knew it would

take a long time for what she’d said to sink in fully. She sat across from her

parents on the love seat while they were on the couch. Their reaction so far