Page 69 of A Voice In Chains
Suddenly sick with anxiety, I blurt the words, “I’m bisexual.”
Ryan freezes beside me, and a few beats later, Harrison swings his head in my direction, the game forgotten.
My knee is jiggling even worse now. My throat feels like sandpaper when I try to swallow. The truth is out there now and it’s too late to take it back. Honestly, I feel relieved.
Amy threatened to expose my secret. At least now, I get to tell my friends the truth before they can hear it from someone else, but that doesn’t make me less nervous though.
“I called it, didn’t I?” Harrison says to Ryan, and I frown.
What does he mean by that? Called it? What did he call?
Harrison reads my confusion and rolls his eyes. “Dude, we’re not blind. You went from hating Arkin to spending every minute with him. For weeks, you were practically inseparable. Not to mention how you looked at him when you thought no one was watching.”
“I didn’t?—”
“You did,” Ryan interrupts.
I look between them.
“He was always watching you too,” Harrison says with a shrug. “We guessed.”
A rough swallow. In hindsight, I should have realized we weren’t as discreet as I first thought. I got carried away and it was too late to apply the brakes.
“We were just waiting for you to tell us,” Harrison continues.
“You’re not upset?” I ask.
“Why would we be upset?”
“I don’t know. I guess I figured you might feel uncomfortable, is all.”
Ryan gently shoves my shoulder. “We don’t care who you fuck.”
As I wince, they both chuckle.
Ryan hands me his controller. “You play this next round. I’m grabbing beers.”
For the next hour, we game and order pizza.
I soon relax and even manage to laugh at Ryan’s bad jokes despite the shit going on back home. Even so, thoughts of Arkin are never far away.
When my character dies again, I spill the beans to my friends.
It feels good to talk about it.
“So, he’s moving away?” Ryan asks. “Just like that?”
“It seems that way,” I reply, peeling the label off my bottle.
“He doesn’t get a say?”
“Apparently he has some distant relatives up there.”
“But he’s an adult.”
Crumpling up the label, I throw it onto the coffee table. “Tell me about it.”
We sit in contemplative silence for a while until Harrison says, “We’d let him lodge with us for a while, but where would he sleep? This little flat isn’t exactly big, and the couch is too small for a tall guy like him. He can’t sleep on the floor.”
