Page 49 of Serpentine Valentine

My sharp-edged grin was genuine. “I feel it.”

“Sometimes it’s good to get things out.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“So how come I haven’t seen you around the LGBTQIA+ Society socials?” she asked just as a server brought a huge plate of nachos and curly fries to the table. “Honestly, I didn’t even know for sure you were gay until you asked me out.”

I shrugged, popping a fry between my teeth and chewing as I thought. “Being gay isn’t something I externalize.”

Bryn frowned. “I haven’t heard it referred to like that before. Whatdo you mean?”

“I mean that loving women is special to me the way the things I love best and my passions are. I suppose I don’t like to talk aloud about those things because they seem…precious. Sacred. They give meaning to my life and who I am, but, like anything sacred, I don’t like to share them very much.”

“That makes a bizarre Dali-esque kind of sense,” Bryn said after a moment. “As long as you’re sure it isn’t fear.”

I cocked my head in question.

She stared at me with an intensity I didn’t often find in other people. “You’ve been through a lot. I can’t pretend to know your whole history, but it occurs to me that a girl whose entire community knows more about her than they should would want to keep some secrets. And that, maybe, she wouldn’t trust anyone lightly. It shouldn’t be the case, but being out can make you vulnerable. People are assholes even in the 21stcentury.”

“It’s a good theory,” I allowed, but when I tried to smile, it cut like a knife wound into my face. “But no. Maybe when I was young…I grew up in rural Virginia. Being a lesbian wasn’t an option. Now, no. What do I have to fear when the worst has already happened?”

Bryn froze with a nacho halfway to her mouth. Hot cheese dripped slowly off the end, but she didn’t stop it from falling with an oily splat to the table.

“That’s horribly sad, Lex.”

“I’m a horribly sad girl,” I quipped, but the joke of it fell flat under the weight of the truth.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I had no idea who would be calling me unless something went wrong at Delta Alpha.

“Sorry, this is so rude, but do you mind if I take this? It could be important.”

Bryn gestured for me to take it with a wave of her hand.

“Hello?” I asked into the cell.

“Lex?” Luna’s scared voice sheared through the radio waves and hit me like a whip across the face.

“Luna, where are you?”

I turned my shoulder to Bryn, using the thick ropes of my dark curls to curtain me from her gaze. After that, her presence, even the entire bar––raucous laughter, the clang of dishes and cutlery, Taylor Swift playing over the speakers––faded away completely. All of my focus was on Luna and why there might be that keen edge of fear in her voice.

“I-I’m at Flora’s house––”

“Are you safe?” I demanded.

“I don’t feel so good,” she admitted tremulously. “Could you maybe come get me?”

The sudden warmth in my chest nearly took me to my knees. That Miss Popular would callmeto get her when she was scared––not her idiot boyfriend, Pierce, or her field hockey friends or her mother––seemed monumental.

It hit me all at once that it was because shetrustedme.

And suddenly, I wanted to tell her my truth. That awful truth with snapping teeth and three heads chained to the pit of my belly that I wouldn’t let anyone, even myself most days, get close to.

“I can call someone else,” Luna offered after I hadn’t spoken for too long a moment.

“No.” The word was harsh enough to sound almost vicious. “No one else. Stay there. Get somewhere safe and lock the door. I’m coming.”

“It’s quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don’t do it.”