Page 112 of Fade into You

“No,” she says flatly. “Can’t think about that right now.”

I reach for the remote and mute the TV.

“Hey,” she starts to protest.

“Can we talk?” I ask.

“We are talking,” she answers.

“But we haven’t been talking the way we used to. Not for a long time.” I take a deep breath and exhale. “I wanted to tell you about what happened over the summer. Finally.” I go to my bag and pull out my notebook. Open to the back, pull out the picture of Silas and Kat, and hand it over to her.

“That’sSilas, really?” She holds the picture closer to her face, squinting. “He’s not at all what I was picturing. I can’t believe you—I mean, I guess he’s sort of… cute. Or could be. If he lostthe ponytail and glasses.” I’d be offended, but these are the most consecutive words she’s said to me in a month, so I let it go.

“Yeah, well, looks aren’t everything.”

“Maybe if you’re a guy,” she scoffs, and sadly, she’s not exactly wrong.

I sit down next to her on the couch, squeeze in close so I can see the picture too. I haven’t looked at it in a while. “I don’t know,” I muse. “I thought he was pretty cute even with the glasses and ponytail.”

She gives me a little sideways grin. “He must’ve had a really great personality.”

“He did—or, does,” I answer. “You know how sometimes when you get to know someone, and they’re like really amazing, they start to look amazing to you too? And the opposite. You can think a person is gorgeous and then if it turns out they’re horrible, they start to look… I don’t know, ugly.”

“Not really.” I wonder if she actually means that—the old Kayla would get it. “So what’s G.I. Jane’s story?” she asks, dragging her finger along Kat’s buzz cut.

“That’s Kat,” I answer.

“Kat,”she repeats, popping theT, inspecting the picture even closer, but I speak up before she can say anything else about her appearance—I’m not letting this conversation get derailed.

“She was very cool. Really funny. Great writer,” I tell her. “She was the other person,” I add before I lose my nerve.

“What other person?”

“The other person. In the ‘mysterious love triangle,’?” I add, using Kayla’s own words in an attempt to lighten themood. “The one I wrote the steamy kissing poem about.”

The silence that follows is… interminable.

She hands the picture back and finally looks up at me. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I—I thought you wanted to know.”

She inches away from me, or maybe I’m imagining it. “Why would I want to know that?”

“Okay, well, maybeIwanted you to know.”

“Why?” she asks, voice all sharp like she’s talking to one of her parents instead of me. And now I know for sure she’s inching away, moving to the next couch cushion, pulling a throw pillow across her stomach. “It’s true, isn’t it, what people are saying?”

“What are they saying?” I can hear the challenge in my own voice now.

“You know what they’re saying. I’m a goddamn social pariah and evenIheard about the fight with Liv and Jessa—over you, kissing at school. In front of people?”

“Yeah, I heard about that too,” I admit, still not sure what to make of the whole ordeal, whether I should be offended or honored in some weird way. “Imagine Liv, trying to defend my reputation or whatever?” I try to joke, not sure I really want to finish this conversation I’ve started.

“So. About you and Jessa. It’s true, isn’t it?” she repeats, and this time her upper lip is curling in disgust with the words.

Don’t do this, Kayla,I think.It doesn’t have to go down like this.I’m trying to hold back the mounting anger I’m starting to feel course through my veins, but I can’t hide the tremor in my voice. “If what they’re saying is that I love her, then yes, it’strue. We’re on a break,” I add, “but I still love her—I’m stillinlove with her.” I am, even if I keep letting the days go by without speaking to her, every day that passes making it seem more impossible to bridge this stupid distance I insisted I needed.

“So you’re just gay now, is that it?” she asks, this horrible bite to her words.