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I couldn’t stop myself from being snarky at her. It was payback for surprising me at the grocery store. Seeing her had been…weird. Just weird. Out of context and it had made my stomach get all twisty. She was trying to weasel her way back into my life and I wasn’t going to allow it.

Yet here I was, messaging her.

My weekend wasn’t as good as yours, that’s definitely true. Congrats on the skinny-dipping.

Fucking hell. I shouldn’t have posted anything alluding to that. I didn’t want James to think about me skinny-dipping.

My first instinct was to tell her to go fuck herself, but then she’d know that she was bothering me.

Before I could think of what to respond, she sent another message.

How cold was it?

I guess I could answer that.Cold as HELL.

I bet. You’re braver than I am.

Huh. That was interesting. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or if she was just blowing smoke up my ass. The latter was most likely. James’s goal to get into my good graces was so transparent.

I’m not that brave. And did you know that it’s not skinny-dipping unless you’re actually swimming?Why the hell was I talking to her? I couldn’t seem to stop. My fingers kept tapping out responses.

Didn’t know that, but now I do. I did it once back in college to impress someone.

Interesting.

Did it work?

She typed and then stopped and then typed again.No. She ended up hooking up with my roommate instead.

Wait, what? She?

This was new information. Back in school James had been part of a group of girls who seemed to betotallyinto guys. They spent inordinate amounts of time talking about which guys in our class were cute, how they were going to ask them to dance, and who was “dating.” We were so young that no one was actually doing much, but holding hands in the hallway and being social media official was a big deal.

James had been totally part of that group and I still remembered her “dating” a boy or two.

High school had been murkier because I’d done whatever I could to avoid knowing anything about her, but I was pretty sure she’d gone with some guy to prom at least.

How did I respond to this? Was I supposed to draw attention to the pronoun?

That sucks, I’m sorry.There. That was supportive-ish.

Thanks. I was kind of a mess then. I mean, more than I am now.

I found myself responding again. Why couldn’t I stop?

We’re both different people than we used to be.

I mean, I didn’t have a different sexuality now, but I had changed a lot from that shy and bullied girl I’d been.

I wanted to ask her about the “she” and get more information. When had she figured that out? How had she figured it out? Had she always been attracted to girls? Did she still like guys? How did any of it work?

The questions kept going off in my brain like reloading fireworks. It was hard to think about anything else.

Why was this revelation fucking me up like this? It didn’t matter to me if James was a lesbian. Didn’t affect my life in the slightest. So why was my stomach churning and my palms sweating?

I had to set down my phone and do a lap around my apartment for a minute. I needed to stop talking to James right now. Shoving a window open, I gulped in fresh air.

My phone went off with another notification, but I ignored it. Instead, I went to my desk, shoved my headphones on, and opened my inbox. The rule was no work on weekends, but I needed to distract myself with something right now. Emails were the easiest option.