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“But if you can’t be out with me, I can’t be with you.”
“Then I guess we’re done.”
-
Indignance can easily be compartmentalized, which is why it's Leighton’s favorite emotion.
It fits neatly enough into a box that she doesn’t have to get her hands dirty, while also taking up enough space that there’s not room to feel much else. It’s focused and she can play with its depths. If she takes enough of a deep breath in the back of her UberBlack, she can fill herself up with nothing but hot air and indignance, and feel so blissfully fixated.
To be fair, she has enough to be indignant about.
Breaking up with your girlfriend just after she’s paid for an overnight stay for you both, but just slightly before the whole overnight stay part is pretty fucked, if you ask Leighton.
It’s also incredibly embarrassing to walk out of a hotel lobby with your bags, alone, just three hours after you entered said hotel. Because the whole overnight stay thing got stamped on and smeared into the carpet upstairs, somewhere along with your heart. The ratty tissue that the equally ratty bellhop offers doesn’t help either, because there’s absolutely no mascara pooling under Leighton’s eyes right now. Which makes it a waste and nothing else, she’s just trying to think of the environment for once.
She rolls her head back onto the leather of the seat and tries to think of just that, the environment. Plenty to be indignant about there. Hastily disregarding anything vaguely Woman’s-Centre-shaped that swims in her mind, she comes up empty, naturally. Because of her general interests and passions, right - she forgot those for a second.
Instead, she settles on thinking about how she’ll explain the credit card charges for this stupid Uber ride home to her dad. Seeing as though her actual ride bailed on her, and did absolutely nothing else worthy of note; particularly not anything involving Leighton’s heart and a hotel carpet that she should think about. She’s probably better off without it anyways - the heart, that is.
She glances around the back of the Uber, sharp eyes, looking for something to blame. For the charges, for the journey, for the cavernous hole in her chest that she’s ignoring with most of her energy.
Blame is something that she can shift and pin, and she decides that it would look great on the lapels of Alicia’s precious leather jacket. In her mind, she sticks it through the fabric without making her fingers bleed, and doesn’t think about what it’s for or the ways it could belong to her - she’s downsizing, sorry. Not enough space for thoughts like that.
Or maybe she does have space. Too much of it, in fact. When she breathes out for a second, she’s empty, winded, and there’s a rattling in her chest where her heart should sit.
Her heart is gone - stolen! By a thief in front of her own eyes. One that held it in front of her today, and let it slip out of her palms, and then didn’t even offer her a ride home. Which is obviously the part that Leighton is most concerned about. Exactly how quickly can she forward an Uber receipt to her ex? Perhaps the driver will let her do it now, early, for special circumstances.
Absently, she wonders how she can ask for her heart back too, if he’ll let her attach that to the bottom of the bill. And then she wonders if she’ll be able to stuff it back through the gaps between her ribs cleanly enough. Take the same route that Alicia did when she reached in and took it without asking, only this time Leighton will feel the pain.
Emotional damages and theft, Leighton thinks. Her ride drives on, and the increasing proximity to Essex only makes everything worse. She should definitely forward the Uber receipt.
-
She doesn’t forward the Uber receipt.
Tragically, it seems that love has made her kinder whilst she wasn’t looking. She may never live this down! She’s not shying away from that anymore, either. She was in love - devastatingly, embarrassingly, uselessly in love, after only a few weeks.
Until she fucked it all up. Because that’s another thing she’s looking at plainly now as well. Words can be weighted and they hurt when they land, and the ones she threw at Alicia in the hotel room certainly settled heavy.
She looked someone she loved in the eye and told her to be ashamed of who she was. Didn’t fight to win her back, and then only mourned the loss of her own heart. A funeral for one.
She just needed something to stop the shame, so she spoke without thought. Or perhaps with too much thought. She still can’t decide if it would be kinder to think of this as an outburst, a reflex, something unconscious that she found in depths she didn’t know she had, and said to Alicia without considering what they might contain. Or if this came from something that stays curled at the bottom of her belly, sleeping. The shame and the fear and the disgust at herself, which she hoped Alicia would catch, so that it didn’t have to belong to Leighton anymore.
But it still belongs to Leighton - the shame about who she is. The fear that if she rolls over to show someone her truth, they’ll poke at her exposed flesh and it’ll hurt too bad.
That’s why coming out to Kimberly Finkle is sort of the last thing she wants to do of an afternoon.
It’s not that she wants to come out, because she still really, really doesn’t. Especially not to Kimberly. She’s nice enough, but in Leighton’s internal ranking of her roommates she usually comes out at an unfortunate last.
It’s just that Kimberly is kind and exasperatingly persistent enough to try and make her feel better when she finds Leighton crying in bed at midday, and then the dam sort of just breaks .
It feels so wrong to have Kimberly think she’s crying over anyone but Alicia. As if some guy had put her into bed like this, made her curl up in herself, hosting a private funeral for her heart - gone, squished forever into the hotel carpet. She hopes Alicia doesn’t forget about it.
So, when Kimberly assumes that her breakup was with a guy, for the first meaningful time in her life, Leighton decides to tell the truth.
“It wasn’t a guy. It was a girl. I’m gay,” Leighton says, pointedly looking anywhere but Kimberly.
There’s a split second where Kimberly doesn’t say anything, and Leighton thinks she’s going to die. There’s this white hot fear that consumes her, and she’s tired enough that she wants to give in to it. Curl even further into herself. God, she can’t believe Kimberly Finkle is making her feel small.
But then-
“Oh, Leighton!” Kimberly exclaims softly, smiling down at her. Leighton feels the increasing compulsion to sit up properly, their current power dynamic manifesting itself a little too strongly for her liking. She hates feeling small. “Does anyone else know?”
“No,” Leighton manages to say, and Kimberly’s smile grows slightly more disbelieving.
“Wow, I’m surprised you’re telling me,” Kimberly says, not unkindly. She’s pretty sure it would be impossible for Kimberly to purposefully do something unkind. She doesn’t need to think about how different that makes them, or what it means for what they deserve.
“Yeah, well, me too,” Leighton sighs, finally giving in and sitting up. It feels right, to be able to look Kimberly in the eye now. Maybe she’ll even like what she finds there.
“I’m really proud of you,” Kimberly smiles, completely innocently. But it makes something inside of Leighton break.
“I don’t want to be like this, Kimberly. It’s terrifying,” she sobs. A moment of complete honesty. It may be easy for Kimberly to say she’s proud of her, but Leighton has no idea why. She’s not even proud of herself. “I don’t want my whole life to change.”
“I get it, coming out seems really scary,” Kimberly says, slightly startled.
Well, she’s right there. Maybe she’s being ungrateful, but Leighton still wishes this wasn’t happening. It’s easy to want like this when you’ve never been asked to be grateful in your life.
Kimberly continues, though - undeterred. “But I think the only way you can be happy is if you’re yourself.”
Be herself! Leighton hardly knows what that means. Or, more accurately, she knows exactly what that means, and the thought of doing it makes her stomach twist disagreeably in protest. Her entire body forms the resistance, and her mind seems to agree. Since her heart is missing, there’s no one to fight the opposite corner. Maybe it’s unfair, but the jury is in agreement - she won’t be doing that any time soon.
Abstractedly though, she sees a rebel in the back of the crowd. Practically starving, fed only by the few words Kimberly has said to her just now, and the way Alicia used to look at her when they passed anyone together on their way from the Women's Centre to her apartment. It allows for a moment’s consideration, nothing more but, still: maybe being herself is something she’d be able to do.
Not right now, certainly. Someday, though, she thinks that might be true.
-
As it turns out, someday is a lot farther in the future than Leighton had anticipated. She thinks things might get easier after her conversation with Kimberly, but they actually only get a lot worse.
She thinks about trying to come out to the rest of her roommates, but she can’t bring herself to do it. Bela won’t stop talking about whatever guy she wants Leighton to fuck, and Leighton is too busy trying not to flip herself inside out over her feelings for Alicia to let it concern her. It’s too much for her to think about today.
Kimberly takes the fall for her, smiling that Leighton can do better and eyeing her supportively over her lunch. So, Leighton tries to rummage around, find some words that might fit what she wants to say, and answer Bela’s questioning gaze.
But it’s not easy to dislodge the parts of herself that she tries to hide, tucked between her back teeth, stuck. She runs her tongue over her molars and tries to shake something, but she comes up empty. Not today, then.
Disappointment and relief are rarely friendly towards each other, tending to avoid being present at the same time. Now, Leighton gets why. She feels like she’s being pulled in two opposite directions, stretched, when her roommates dismiss her silence and move on to talking about Bela’s comedy group. It feels like purgatory now, caught between hiding and telling, between Kimberly and the rest of her roommates. Leighton’s head is starting to hurt, and for once she can’t blame that on Bela’s explanation of the history of women in comedy.
Kimberly smiles at her sympathetically. Leighton might be sick in her own mouth.
So, naturally, instead of thinking about exactly why that might be a problem, Leighton tries to forget.
She sneaks into the first party she finds on a Monday night, blissfully sans concerned, Kimberly-shaped roommates.
It doesn’t take her long to be tugged into the quietest bathroom she can find with the first girl who notices her looking. She’s taller than her, and blonde as well, and she doesn’t know Leighton’s name well enough to gasp it when she comes. It works well enough.
And so she does it again, and again, and then again, and again. Practice making something, certainly not perfect.
It happens the same way every time, Leighton makes sure of that. Never lying down, always with a different girl. She pins their hands above their heads, pretending like that’s what she wants, just so that everyone has fun. She slips her hand under waistbands quickly, and asks that they don’t touch her below the shoulders in return, so she goes home forgetting to comb knots out of her hair most nights.
She just doesn’t want a point of comparison. Or anything that might solidify where her and Alicia ended and this something else began. Letting anyone else touch her in the same way creates a before and an after, with a distance between the two that she can count, and Leighton just isn’t there yet. She doesn’t want to think about the last time that Alicia had pressed her into the bed and worked her hand between her legs, because she’s embarrassed about how fast she would come if she did. Besides, thinking about that would lead to thinking about everything that happened after, and, Leighton will reiterate, she’s trying to forget.
Although, sometimes she allows herself to wonder if it’s progress, fucking random girls from college parties. Even if she makes them swear they won’t say a word as she soothes bites on heated skin. At least it’s semi public, at least they’re on campus. Maybe Alicia would be proud of her for that.
Except she wouldn’t be. It’s still hiding, she’s just found a different spot, and no one is coming to seek her out this time. Undiscovered, she could stay there, pressing girls into the most shadowy corners of a frat house and holding her hand over their mouths as they come. Have everything be on her terms, control every thought anyone could possibly have about her, while still having what she thought she wanted for so long: girls, no matter what the capacity, and no one seeing what makes her fall apart.
But there’s not really no one to come seek her out. And hiding does require skill, doesn’t mix well with recklessness. And so that fatal combination leads to a Wednesday night, with Leighton sloppy drunk in the common room, and an intervention of sorts.
Kimberly’s haircut flaps around her ears when she feels something too strongly, which for Kimberly happens most of the time, and for Leighton is potentially the funniest thing she’s seen in her life.
“Leighton, we’re kinda worried about you,” Kimberly flaps, and Leighton answers with a snort.
"You’ve been to twelve parties in the past ten days. I’m not sure how that’s mathematically possible and even Bela doesn’t want to try and keep up with you anymore.” Whitney cuts across her low giggling, eyeing Leighton sympathetically.
“Hey, I’m great at math and I went to all of the parties. So it’s very possible, mostly if you’re not cripplingly lame. And I don’t want to hang out with Bela,” Leighton whines, flopping petulantly against the ugly sofa cushions.
“Bitch, you should be so lucky. I’m the life of the party, I’m a fucking blast,” Bela pipes up from her spot next to her on the sofa, waving her index finger far too close to Leighton’s face. She might throw up now.
“Bela, not the point.” Whitney hisses, standing up to drag Bela’s hand away from Leighton’s face, thank fuck. “We just wanna make sure you’re okay, Leight.”
Leighton tries to roll her eyes at that, but when Whitney just raises her eyebrows plainly in response, she’s not sure it had the desired effect. “Fuck, I don’t need any of you guys to babysit me or anything, I don’t need your pity or whatever. I just wanna have fun.”
“Are you, though?” Kimberly says quietly, her hair not moving an inch. For fuck’s sake, now Leighton might cry.
“What?” Leighton bites, as sharp as she can manage - which isn’t very sharp at all.
God, she feels like a bear that’s lost all it’s claws, or something equally non threatening and embarrassing, rendered useless and soft. She needs to sober up, start feeling things properly for a second.
Recently, it feels a lot like love is just sadness with sharper edges - surely it’s harsh enough for her to strop her tongue against so that none of her roommates will want to look at her with mournful eyes ever again. What’s the point of being heartbroken if she can’t use it to her advantage.
“Are you really having fun?” Kimberly says, even quieter now. “You just seem really sad.”
“I’m not sad. Are you fucking kidding? Look at me, what do you think I have to be sad about?” Leighton challenges, baiting Kimberly to spill something. She wants Kimberly to cross her, to give her any excuse to make the hair around her ears tremble violently with regret. She just wants someone else to feel scared for once.
“Listen, you don’t have to tell us what’s up with you if you don’t want to. We just want to know that you’re safe. And we want you to know that you can talk to us about anything you need, okay? Roommate confidentiality, completely safe,” Whitney sighs.
“Yeah, just yesterday I gave Kimberly all the best deets from my latest sexploit with the chuckle fucker. She got a whole hour of material out of me, and I bet she hasn’t said a word. And that shit was hot as hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to spill,” Bela shrugs, while Kimberly tries to school her face into something closer to support than physical pain - always so considerate.
“Jesus, Bela,” Leighton snaps, before all the air rushes out of her and the fight goes with it. Fuck, maybe she should just be honest.
“Okay, fine, maybe I’m not okay. I just broke up with someone and I feel like I accidentally left my heart smushed in the carpet of some shitty out of town hotel and I have no idea how to get it back,” she says, sounding like something is stuck in her throat. At least she knows it’s not her heart!
“We, uh, we broke up because I wanted to keep the relationship private and they couldn’t deal with that,” Leighton continues, when it’s clear that no one knows quite what to say. She tells herself she’s just too drunk to tell whether she should’ve just waited the silence out. Which means she absolutely doesn’t think about how she feels entirely sober now, and that maybe vulnerability is something that comes with practice, fragile. She’d rather die than do this again.
“Oh fuck that,” Whitney and Bela say in union, Bela leaning over the coffee table to high-five Whitney enthusiastically when they do. But Leighton just frowns, because they’re getting this all wrong. It’s wrong to let them think that this is all Alicia’s fault, like she demanded something totally unreasonable. When Leighton is here, still biting her tongue and proving Alicia’s point.
“No, it wasn’t like that, it’s just - Oh, fuck. I really don’t want to say this. Like I hate that I need to have the words for, like -” she cuts herself off, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. Fuck, she really doesn’t want them to see her cry.
She decides at this moment that she wants to say it, to tell them. Just this is the hard part, it hasn’t gotten easier.
But then Kimberly gives her a meaningful look and God help her, she decides to take strength from her friendship with Kimberly Finkle.
“I want you guys to know, just saying it is hard. Fuck,” Leighton breathes out, steeling herself for a moment. “I was dating a girl. Because I’m a lesbian. And we broke up because I wasn’t ready to be out, so she dumped me in a hotel room. Hence the whole thing about the carpet and my heart, you know.”
“Oh man, that sounds like it sucks. The whole breakup part, not the lesbian part - just to be clear. We’re proud of you for telling us, though,” Bela says, with jarring sincerity, glancing around at Whitney and Kimberly, who nod. Simple as that, then. “So all these parties you’ve been going to…”
“Trying to forget, I guess. Fucking as many girls as possible,” Leighton says quickly, or else she still won’t say it at all.
“Best way to get over someone is to get under someone,” Bela nods solemnly, deeply moved by Leighton’s philosophy. “I want to say good for you, girl, but I actually don’t think this is the right move for you. You look like shit.”
“You look fine. Uh, great, actually. You look great,” Kimberly butts in, lying between her teeth because what are friends for? “Just maybe this isn’t the healthiest way of expressing your feelings. Maybe you could try talking about how you feel, instead of, you know, self-destructing into oblivion. No offence,” she rushes out, earning a grunt from Leighton - she doesn’t feel capable of much more right now.
“I’ll only say this once, I agree with Kimberly. And we’re here for you, Leight. Nothing has changed, okay?” Whitney says, smiling earnestly at her from across the coffee table.
“Yeah, okay. Maybe. Thanks, guys,” Leighton shrugs, desperately wanting this to be over now. There are too many emotions for her to pick from right now, and she tries to look for one that makes her skin itch the least. Surprisingly, relief comes out on top, and she takes a second to enjoy how it feels around her shoulders - light and kind. She finds that she wants to keep it there.
Still, she’d like to propose a major change in subject right about now.
“Hey, guys. Has anyone else noticed how Kimberly’s hair flaps spontaneously when she feels any sort of strong emotion?” Leighton says with a smile. It makes Whitney laugh so hard she falls off her chair, but at least she crawls over to Kimberly and starts patting her leg sympathetically.
Bela leans closer on the couch cushions and prods Leighton’s cheek, crooning, “Fuck, you’re a genius. Maybe your hair is sentient, Kimberly. That’s so cool, I wonder if I can get my boobs to do the same thing.”
And once Kimberly stops shaking her head indignantly, as if that helps matters, she settles for smiling encouragingly at Leighton before sighing out “I don’t think hair can be sentient, Bela,” at the same time as Whitney frowns, “Bela, why the fuck would you want your boobs to flap ?”
“Don’t kill the vibe, guys! Leighton just came out and we love her and Kimberly’s hair might be magical! What a night,” Bela sighs blissfully.
-
Leighton goes home for the holidays pretty soon after that. Which, naturally, makes her deeply miserable again.
The first few days are horrible, and the New York cold sinks deep into her bones. There’s no warmth inside of her home, either. Tragically, she finds herself missing the blaze of Bela’s bright colors and Whitney’s sunny smiles. Meanwhile, Nico takes up all of the light, playing golden boy and letting her mother freeze her out at the dinner table.
She finds herself in bed, shivering all over, when her door is pushed gently open. It only lets the draft in.
“I need to apologize to you,” Nico says, words curving around the half-opened door. As much as she hates to admit it, there’s an undeniable warmth to them, curling nicely around her fingertips.
“Yeah, you do,” Leighton snaps. She rolls her eyes at his hunched shoulders, his attempt to make himself smaller, more palatable. Still, she beacons him in, and he sits gingerly on the corner of her bed.
It’s silent for a second, and then, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have given you shit for telling Maya that I was cheating. You did the right thing, and I did the wrong thing. Many, many times,” he sighs wistfully.
“First of all, ew,” Leighton grimaces, “And second of all, yeah - duh. Maya’s a good person, and way out of your league. She didn’t deserve that. And neither did Kimberly. She’s kind and caring and didn’t deserve to be fucked around like that, okay?”
“I know that now,” Nico says earnestly. Perhaps Leighton is being generous about that, the whole earnest thing, but she needs an ally in this house. And she’s been warned about gift horses and mouths - at least he’s apologizing. “Sorry I went behind your back with your roommate and then took my shit out on you. That wasn’t fair.”
“Yeah,” Leighton sighs, because she gets it, she really does. She’s intimate friends with projection, a relationship that she now has the words to define as toxic. “It’s okay though, I forgive you. Mostly because I will go insane if I don’t have you on my side during Christmas dinner, but still.”
He grins at this and pulls her into a loose hug, arms warm and familiar over her shoulders. “I’m always on your side, Leight.” And suddenly, something is stuck in Leighton’s throat. Fuck, maybe her heart is back. It definitely feels like it is.
She thinks, then, that maybe she should show a part of it to Nico - in the holiday spirit of giving and sharing. Maybe she can be honest.
“Oh, uh. When we were fighting, though, you said something to me. And you were wrong. When you said I had never dated anyone properly, you were wrong,” she says, pulling away and not looking him in the eye.
“What? Do I know him?” Nico says, brows furrowing.
And there it is. Leighton’s not sure if this part will ever get easier. Flipping the assumptions everyone has about her, watching them learn this new version of her.
“No - well, yeah, you do. I just kept it from you because-” she cuts herself off, because if she doesn’t just say it now, she’ll explode. “It was Alicia, from the Women's Centre. You met her at a frat party once. And we’re not together or anything anymore, but yeah, pretty serious.”
Leighton watches the cogs turn in his small fratboy brain in real time, feeling itchy all over. His brows furrow even deeper for a second and she nearly bolts. But then he slowly looks up at her, a grin breaking out onto his face and-
“Oh my God, you were in love ! With a Woman’s Centre person? I never thought I would see the day,” Nico beams, reaching a hand up to pinch at her cheeks. “And now you’ve blushing as well! Who are you, and what did you do with my sister?”
“Shut up, I’m not blushing. I’m just allergic to, like, one-hundred percent of the things you’re saying. This is a rash. Stop looking at me,” Leighton says, squirming out of his grip, grinning.
Nico isn’t deterred though. “I’m proud of you, Leighton,” he smiles, clapping her on the shoulder. “Now the Corey thing makes a lot more sense. There was nothing wrong with his Instagram.”
“The fact that you think that makes me really sad. Nothing but sunsets, Nico. That’s a terrible feed,” Leighton blinks.
He shrugs, before turning serious again. “So how come it went wrong? Can’t you get her back?”
“Nah,” Leighton mumbles in return. This part still hurts a little. “I said some fucked up things and she doesn’t want to be with me. Told me to move on.”
“Okay, so, as a man in 2021, I have full awareness that no means no. So if that’s what she wants, we can respect that,” he says solemnly. “But did you even try for her, Leight? Like, apologize and shit. You’re talking about it with people now, and you know where you went wrong. Can’t you just try and talk it out with her, see if you can win her back?”
Nico flashes a smile at her, dumb and optimistic, and Leighton has clearly now been driven mad by the return of heat, because she actually allows herself to consider it: maybe she could win Alicia back.
-
She doesn’t though. Not yet.
First, Kimberly gets her a journal for Christmas, and she honest to God starts using it. Daily. For three whole months. By then, she knows she’s really changed.
It’s early spring by the time she sees Alicia again, and it starts a little something like this:
leighton 14.37 Hey, it’s Leighton. I know it’s been a while, but if you’re down I’d really like to meet up and talk. I’ve done a lot of healing over the past few months and I’d like to try and be friends. Feel free to tell me to fuck off or whatever if u don’t wanna, if I remember correctly you were always pretty good at that.
Alicia 14.43 leighton murray saying she’s ‘done a lot of healing’??? i’m intrigued…
Alicia 14.44 yeh i think that would be nice. and i would never just tell u to fuck off
leighton 14.52 I can think of at least seven examples of when you have but okay lol.
leighton 14.53 But great! Let's meet up.
That’s how Leighton finds herself being escorted to Sips by her roommates on a dewy Friday morning, with an overeager Kimberly making less than subtle gestures at her over the counter when a particular customer walks in.
It strikes her at this moment how different everything is from last term. How much lighter she feels, sharing the weight of her depths with people that she’s come to trust. They make it easier to care less about what other, smaller people think. For the first time ever, Leighton is indulging fully in being herself.
Alicia looks almost exactly the same as she did the last time Leighton saw her, which sort of makes Leighton feel like she’s frozen all over, while simultaneously, something warm drips pleasantly into her stomach. Feelings might still be a little confusing to her.
Alicia smiles when she spots Leighton, and it wraps around her like an old coat. Slightly too heavy, but familiar and warm nonetheless.
“Hey,” Alicia smiles openly when she sits down, shrugging off her jacket to reveal a tank top underneath. Leighton’s throat is dry, for reasons she doesn’t care to identify right now.
“Hi,” Leighton coughs lightly. “Hey, can we just get straight to it?” she asks gently. God, gently - she’s not sure who she is anymore. Or maybe she knows herself far better now, it’s still confusing sometimes. Still, Alicia gives her an impressed nod, and Leighton thinks she may have changed for the better.
“Okay. I’m sorry that I made you feel like who you are was something to be ashamed of. I didn’t really mean that,” Leighton breathes out, finally saying it.
It’s the thing she’s wanted to say the most for a while now. Because when she thinks about everything she carried around in her belly for years, from the second she thought she might like girls: the thought of someone jabbing at that, telling her that she was right to be ashamed, makes her stomach ache.
“I liked everything about who you are. I just didn’t like how I thought it would look on me, and I projected that onto you. Which was really, really shitty of me. Turns out internalized homophobia is a huge bitch. I mean, it takes one to know one,” Leighton continues, earning a small laugh in response.
“Yeah, that one really hurt. Sort of made me question if you even liked me all along, if I was everything you said you didn’t want to be,” Alicia sighs, avoiding eye contact. “I guess it made it easier to cut you off when I convinced myself that you weren’t that into me. But I know now that wasn’t true, you just had a lot of your own shit to deal with.”
“I really did. I’m sorry,” Leighton tries again, and Alicia smiles at her this time.
“I know. And I’m sorry too. I didn’t want to give you an ultimatum or anything, I just needed to protect myself. But I know how lonely it can be to be in the closet, and I’ve thought a lot about how maybe I shouldn’t have just left you completely on your own. I know you hate the term, but you needed a safe space - I just had too many feelings to be that for you afterwards.”
“Yeah, it sucked for a while,” Leighton says, thinking back on the first few weeks of the breakup. Of nameless and faceless girls, and trying to avoid Kimberly’s worried eyes, and how she felt trapped inside of herself with no way out.
She continues, though, “I came out to my roommates. And my brother. Told them about us. So I’m not alone, or anything. And I don’t want you to think I’m trying to prove anything to you, because I’m totally not. I just thought you would want to know. That maybe you’d be proud of me,” she says, almost shyly, although not quite.
There’s a difference between a want and a need, and although just a few months ago Alicia’s approval would fall definitively into the latter category, it is now firmly just a want. And although she may still keep her needs slightly too close to her heart, Leighton Murray has never been shy about what she wants.
“I am proud of you,” Alicia says genuinely, so practiced in offering out support. Leighton preens, always delighted at getting what she wants. “I know how big of a deal that was for you. I just hope you didn’t feel pushed into doing something you weren’t ready to do because of what I said when we broke up. Being out isn’t the only valid way to exist, I should’ve acknowledged that more.”
“No, I get it. It’s still scary a lot of the time,” Leighton says honestly, because easier certainly doesn’t mean easy . Some days she wants to take back everything she’s told everyone - it can be frightening to be seen, to show your underbelly. “But I really am happier now, I’m really glad that I’m not hiding anymore.”
“Yeah, you seem like it. Happier, I mean. It’s like the parts of you that you hardly even wanted me to see most of the time - the softer ones, because I know you have them, Leighton Murray,” Alicia teases, holding her gaze even when Leighton ducks her head to hide her blush. “They’re on display now. And I don’t know how anyone couldn’t like what they see.”
“Yeah, something like that,” Leighton smiles, holding her gaze.
And then the moment is over. “Okay, can we just circle back to your use of ‘internalized homophobia’, though. I’m very impressed, Leighton,” Alicia laughs, raising her eyebrows in the same way she always did when she was teasing.
“Oh, yeah, I’m very self-aware now. Don’t tell anyone about this, but I’ve actually started journaling. I think Ginger would be super proud of me,” Leighton jokes, and when Alicia laughs loudly, she realizes that she doesn’t care who hears them.
Something warm drips down into her stomach again, and Leighton can identify it now - love. Diluted and pleasant, like something worn and familiar rather than all-consuming and sharp. It could be friendly, or something else, but that’s not Leighton’s to worry about right now. It feels healthier now, and kinder too.
And as she sits giggling across from Alicia in Sips, with Kimberly sending her a thumbs up and Lilia making crude gestures from their respective places behind the counter, Leighton lets herself enjoy it - fully, and without reservation.