Page 66 of Nobody in Particular

“Quite right,” I say. “That’s what I meant to say. I’m homophobic, unfortunately.”

“I wastryingto convince you to stop shutting her out and show her some empathy before you messed up your friendship with her forever.”

“Your feedback has been well-noted, and I’ll take it into consideration.” Feeling ill, I take a step toward leaving, but Molly grabs at my forearm.

“Rose, I didn’t know,” she says, and it’s the first time she’s spokento me with any measure of kindness in months. That alone is enough to make me linger. I look at her, and she’s soft and earnest.

“Can we sit?” she asks, and I nod. Together, we move to the sage velvet love seat and take our places side by side. Molly leans her elbows on her knees. I let my back fall against the couch.

“You and Danni?” she asks.

I suppose there’s no point trying to deny it now. I dug myself well and truly into this hole, and now I’m stuck sitting in it. “Mm.”

“For how long?”

“Not too long.”

Not long enough.

“So you’re…”

“A lesbian.”

Molly shakes her head. “I had no idea.”

“Well, I didn’t tell you.”

“Is this new?”

“Me being queer?”

“You coming out.”

“I haven’t come out. Danni found out incidentally.”

“How?”

“I kissed her.”

“Oh. That’d do it.” Molly taps a nervous foot on the rug. “I was just wondering, I guess. I just mean that, if you’d been telling people, it wouldn’t surprise me if I didn’t get told.”

“Admittedly, you wouldn’t have been high on my list,” I say to the ceiling.

“Yeah. I can understand that.”

I purse my lips and grit my teeth and squeeze my hands together and tumble out with, “I still don’t understand why, though.”

Molly blinks. “Why you’re lesbian?”

“Why we stopped being friends.”

“Oh.”

It feels like squeezing an empty bottle in the hopes of finding a missed drop of water, but I have to ask again. Just one more time. “I don’t understand what I did that was so toxic,” I say. “Perhaps if I did, I could work on it, at least. Even if it’s too late for the two of us.But you haven’t always hated me, so for the last time, what, exactly, did Ido,Molly?”

She shifts uncomfortably, refusing to meet my gaze. “You disappeared.”

“Idisappeared?” I ask, incredulous. “I was right there the whole time. You’re the one who vanished. A little more every day, and at first it was too subtle to comment on without sounding pathetic, and then suddenly it was too far gone to address. It was quite impressive, really.”

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