Page 73 of Unstoppable You

Chapter Twenty-Three

Delaney

James stayedup talking to me for a long time, but eventually I had to let her go. We both had work tomorrow and both of us didn’t need to stay up all night.

Speaking with James had helped, but there was still too much. This was all too much. It had happened so fast, but I guess that’s what it had been like for her too. One minute and everything had changed.

If I was truly honest with myself, signs had been there. A hell of a lot of signs had involved James, actually. The strange feelings around her, the way I was kind of obsessed with everything she did. In high school I’d told myself I was ignoring her, but then every time I saw her, my stomach did flips.

And then there were all the things I hadn’t felt with the guys I’d been with. There had only been three. One in high school (brief), another in college (even briefer), and then there was Connor, who I bumped into the summer I came home from college and he’d given me attention for the first time and…that was it. I hitched my wagon to his star and decided that we were going to be together forever.

Connor had never made my heart race. I’d never felt the kind of desire for him the way I did when I looked at James. No matter what I did, sex with him had always been a chore. Never natural. Never something I had truly wanted.

I’d convinced myself I was in love with Connor. That was clear to me now and it made my stomach churn. I ran to the bathroom but managed to stop myself from emptying my stomach into the toilet. I popped an anti-nausea pill and went back to bed. The sun would be up in a few hours and it was going to be a miserable day at work. I’d thought about calling out. Larison would be fine with it. I almost never took sick days as it was. She’d had to send me home more than a few times when I’d stubbornly showed up.

No, I could get through this. I could put on a happy face and pretend everything was fine and I hadn’t had a complete and total sexuality crisis this weekend.

In fact, Larison would be a good person to talk about it with. She wouldn’t judge and she was queer herself. She’d also been with men. Yeah, going to work was the best idea. If I stayed home, I was only going to spiral and get myself all worked up.

I needed to talk to my best friend.

* * *

“Oh my god, are you okay?”Larison asked when I showed up the next morning and took off the sunglasses I’d been using to cover my dark circles.

I sipped at my second cup of coffee and gave her a smile. “I’m fine.”

She took my arm and dragged me to sit in a chair in her tiny office.

“Are you okay? Do you need to go home?”

I shook my head and hid a yawn behind my hand. “No, I want to be here. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

Her face was filled with nothing but concern and I wondered if we had enough time for me to tell her what I needed to tell her before we opened.

“I’m… Well… I don’t… I might not be straight.” There, the words were out.

Larison sat there, totally frozen for what felt like a lifetime. Did I break her?

Then she sat up abruptly. “You know, now that you say that, it makes sense.”

It did?

“What are you talking about?”

She glanced at the clock. “We do not have enough time to get into this right now. But I need to do this.” Her arms pulled me into a hug.

“We’ll talk today, I promise. And thank you for trusting me.”

I hugged her back. “Thanks. It’s kind of a long story.”

Her eyes were sparkling when she pulled back. “I need to hearallabout it.”

* * *

Safe to saythat Larison was floored when I told her about my little experimentation with James. I didn’t give her all the gory details of course, but she got the idea.

“And it felt so natural. I didn’t have to talk myself into it. I didn’t have to keep focusing or stop myself from thinking about other things. It was…easy? I don’t know. It felt like the way sex should be.”

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