I smile at her, and it feels like we’re on our way back to being comfortable with one another. “I can’t believe you had a crush on me. I was so skinny and sickly. You have atrocious taste in women, Sash,” I tease her.
She glances at me sideways. “It was the eyes and the hair — oh, and the pale skin. I like girls with pale skin.” It seems like she finds it a chore to tell me this, but she’s trying her hardest to do it, to not be ashamed.
I do my best to rein in my exuberance at the fact that she’s finally being completely open with me. “Mm-hmm. That stripper girl back at Alistair’s was pretty pale. You didn’t run off on her just because I interrupted, did you?”
“She’s not a stripper, she’s a burlesque dancer. And yeah, I did run off. I was only with her because I was drunk anyway.”
“Oh. So what about all the man dates you’ve been on? Did you think they’d straighten you out or something?”
“Lana! Jesus. No. I don’t know what I thought. I guess I was just making an effort to be normal.”
“You are normal, you idiot. You don’t need to make an effort for that.”
She moves closer and puts her arm around me, squeezing tight. When I look at her, there’s a single tear streaming down her face. “Don’t cry, Sash. You’ll start me off, too.”
She wipes at the tear. “It’s just, you have no idea what it means to me to hear you say that. To actually be discussing this with you after all these years. It’s like a brick had been tied to my chest, and now it’s lifted.”
I hug her back, and now I am crying, too, my eyes all watery. “I hate your dad,” I whisper past the tears.
“Don’t hate him,” she replies, her voice cracking. “I should be stronger. I shouldn’t care what he thinks.”
“No, he shouldn’t think the way he does. He should accept you no matter what.”
She pulls out of the hug now, noticing that my robe has fallen open slightly. She fixes it for me with a tiny smile. For a second I feel weird, but then I remember that she’s seen me naked a million times before, has slept in the same bed as me countless nights. The moment drags out, but I don’t say anything.
“Do you know what the sick thing is?” she asks after a minute, coughing.
“What?”
“My dad definitely knows I’m gay. I mean, he wouldn’t say the things he says to me if he didn’t. He’s always making it clear he wouldn’t approve. It’s obvious he does it to keep me in the closet, keep me in fear of coming out. That way he’ll never have to deal with it, and he can keep on pretending that he has a perfect straight little daughter.”
“Well, then, maybe you should show him that you’re not going to hide anymore and tell him to his face.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she says, her voice sad. “Robert knows, too. He found out years ago and tried to get me to come out. I told him he was imagining it and that I wasn’t gay.” She emits a joyless laugh. “I know he didn’t believe the lie, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say to him.”
I nod, not informing her how Robert told me all about walking in on her kissing a girl when they were teenagers. Now that she’s mentioned her brother, I suddenly remember that I left him waiting for me at Alistair’s. Well, I’m sure he’s figured out by now that I’m not coming back. Shit, I hope he doesn’t get angry about me leaving him in the lurch. And now I remember why I’d been searching for Sasha at the party in the first place.
“Speaking of Robert,” I begin hesitantly. “I know you told him about me, uh, being a virgin.” I try to keep my voice moderate, considering we’re having a heart-to-heart about something much more important than Sasha informing her brother of my virginity. But I still want to get this out there.
Sasha drags her fingers through her hair. “Ah, shit. Yeah, I did that. I’m sorry. I just needed him to know you weren’t someone he could fool around with and then dump. Anyway, it was good for us to talk, because now I know that Robert is fucking unquestionably in love with you.” She gives me an arch look. “Not sure if I’d consider that something to celebrate, though.”
I gasp. “He said that?”
“No, of course he didn’t say it. Robert’s a puzzle, not an open book. It’d take more than a stiff warning from me to pry a confession like that out of him. But I can tell he does. I know my brother better than he thinks I do, and deep down he’s not the careless prick he likes to show the world.”
“Yeah, I’m coming to learn that.” All of a sudden I’m not upset about her telling him anymore. Now my head is all aflutter with the idea of him loving me.
Loving.
Me.
Robert. The guy I always considered not to possess a heart at all, nor the capability to actually feel anything other than hate.
Sasha turns to me with a humorous expression. “So, the notorious Robert Phillips, crusher of women’s hearts everywhere, is in love with you, Lana Sweeney. My sincerest commiserations.”
I shove her in the shoulder, my lips curling into a grin. “Shut up.” I breathe out long and deep then. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be the train wreck you’d expect. Maybe we could be, I don’t know, happy together.”
“I seriously fucking hope so,” says Sasha, with an odd empathetic look in her eye, like she’s already feeling for my future pain.
“Stop staring at me like that,” I exclaim.
“Like what?”
“Like you already feel sorry for whatever monumental way Robert’s going to destroy me.”
“Okay, sorry, I’ll stop.”
“Sasha! That’s not making me feel any better.”
“Hey, calm down. I promise to interfere and drag you away from him before that ever happens. But just so you know, most people are made of good and bad. And most people are capable of keeping the bad much smaller than the good, but Robert, well, he has a hard time doing that.”