Chapter 10
Shannon
Shannon stood at the bottom of the teahouse’s steps. Trepidation was the only reason she didn’t ascend.
What if Jess is there? It’s Sunday night. She’s probably there.Wasn’t that the point, though? As much as Shannon enjoyed the bubble tea at this place, she didn’t have to come specifically on a Sunday night. Maybe it was better if she went home and hung out with Decks instead. Maybe have some coffee, as scandalous as that sounded when standing outside a teahouse.
Shannon had fretted about the other night ever since she realized her reemerging, conflicting feelings about Jess.I thought we could pick up where we left off… until I saw that look on her face.Felt that cold edge to her movements. Tasted the bitterness on the air every time Jess exhaled.
Stubborn to a fault, Shannon used her insecurities to fuel her ascent and begin her search for Jess.
She wasn’t difficult to find, of course. The teashop was small, intimate. Even with a million people packed in so late on a Sunday night, all it took was one glance toward the bay window to find her giving someone an astrological reading.
The line stretched toward the door. Shannon snuck in before Jess could look up and see her. Perhaps it would give Shannon more time to decide what she wanted, although the only thing she could think about after crossing the teashop’s threshold was Jess.
Jess, Jess, Jess. Jessica. A woman who would always be more cool and collected than Shannon. That had always been the truth. When it came to love and sexuality? Jess might as well have been a pro. What was it like to be so confident in herself? To know what she wanted…whoshe wanted? Shannon had never been like that in her life. She was a girl who had developed early and always had a long line of guys waiting for their chance to ask her out. From the time she was fourteen, she never had to think about boyfriends vs. girlfriends. Boys were the ones her family deemed a natural fit, and if she didn’t dislike them, why wouldn’t she give herself that advantage? Boys liked her.Menliked her. In a fit of insanity, Shannon had downloaded a dating app and tried her luck at swiping right. It took her exactly one day to uninstall the thing. Too many matches. Too many weirdos wanting to show her their dicks.
Maybe if she were desperate for companionship. Instead, she sold her soul to making things right with Jess.
We were supposed to talk about that night during senior year.That had been Shannon’s goal when she asked Jess out to dinner. Now, as she thumbed through the tea menu, pretending she didn’t already know what she wanted, she dared to believe she and Jess could still have that discussion.
Defend herself. That’s what Shannon wanted to do. Impart her feelings of confusion from that night and make Jess understand why it was impossible back then. Possibly now, too, although a part of Shannon was willing to try again.
Her mouth went dry.Try again. With Jess.It wasn’t fate, was it? They had reconnected right when Shannon was single again. A part of her believed that was fate. Yet she also knew that there was no such thing as fate. Only a string of amazing coincidences that gave her hope.
She hid her face behind a menu as the line progressed. When she lowered it, she saw a heterosexual couple snuggling on one of the couches, laughing about their day.
It was familiar. Warm. Like an old friend patting the seat cushion and saying,“Sit your ass down here, silly girl. Stay where you understand everything the best. Why jump into the deep end of something you might regret, when you’re perfectly content being here?”
She glanced toward Jess. The woman receiving her astrology reading motioned for a woman with a short haircut to join her. When refused, she blew a kiss. It was not a kiss of friendship.
Shannon couldn’t account for the levels of jealousy swelling in her stomach. They flooded her heart, choked her throat, and made her want to gasp for the precious air of freedom. Of not giving a shit that other women were so comfortable in who they were.
Who they mightbe.
Bisexual was a word she always held in disdain. Other women could wear it with all the pride in the world, but it made Shannon want to smash her face through a pane of glass. She had never asked for those feelings. She had never consented to having her life turned upside down. She never wanted her one night, one month, one year of college experimentation to follow her into her thirties. It was supposed to stay in the past, where it fucking belonged.
Dead. Buried. Like her memories of Jess Mills.
One day, she would learn the words “compulsive heterosexuality” and how they had shaped her life. Until then, she would stand in a teashop line, begging to be put out of her misery.
***
Memory #10
I always avoided parties because I was too busy, too cool for them. They were where kids went to get laid and make messes of themselves. Get drunk. Get high. Get laid. The holy trinity.
After my sugar daddy dumped me for a younger teen model, I decided to smoke more, drink more, and get laid more. Kelsey – who was the only one who knew I had a sugar daddy, and made sure I knew I would regret it – told me I was spiraling out of control. Senioritis, I called it, but she claimed to be worried about me. Just to piss her off, I went to the first big frat party of the year, determined to get as fucked up as possible.
I don’t remember much about the party. I drank my way through the room, flirted with every guy who looked remotely hot, and took a hit off some random person’s bong. I wanted the full experience. I was alive. I was twenty-one. I was crashing harder than I ever had before.
I remember enough to know that I was one of the lives of the party. My jeans were tight, and I didn’t wear a bra beneath my short, white T-shirt. I knew every guy grinding against me would try to cop a feel, and I didn’t care. It was what I wanted. What I convinced myself I wanted. My whole sense of self-worth was tied up in men wanting me. Some old asshole had dumped me because I was too old. Fuck him! I would get someone my own age and prove that I wasn’t yet an old maid.
Everything I did was done in the name of “expressing” myself and attracting men. I danced for their amusement. I touched them when they brushed up against me. I giggled, laughed, and purred like a drunken kitten. When I convinced myself that it would make me happy, I made out with a long line of guys who told each other that I was fair game. My identity was nothing but what I offered men and their erections. I was an object. A willing object – one that became so inebriated that my dancing felt like floating, no, swimming, through a sea of depravity.
I probably fucked somebody. I dunno. Maybe two somebodies. I try not to think about it anymore, because I don’t remember, and it had no repercussions on my physical health. All I know is that a few guys were whispering about me during class Monday morning. I think I had blown one of them. What the fuck do I know?
I know something. I know that was the night I first kissed a girl.
