Chapter 1
Jillian was six years old, when she saw the words ‘Yep, I’m gay’ sprawled on the cover of the Times magazine.
“Mom, what does gay mean?” She has been staring at her mother and the magazine she’s reading for the past half an hour, which has distracted her from her math problems, and her father will be home soon, and Jillian knows that he will want to look over them.
Juliet Holtzmann lets out a long sigh. “It’s when a person is in a relationship with another person who is the same sex as them. A woman is with a woman or a man with a man.”
Jillian crunches up her nose a little bit, as she does her best to wrap her head around the information. “Oh, ew, gross.”
Juliet smiles a little bit. “Mhmhh. Now go back to your math problems. It’s really nothing for you to be concerned about.”
One time, when she’s kissing her best friend turned girlfriend for one of the first times, fifteen-year-old Jillian has a sort of a flashback to her six-year-old self being all “Eww gross” at the thought of gay people. She hasn’t thought of it before, but her mind is a beautiful thing, and she can’t help but to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Sasha asks. “Do I have something on my face? Is it my hair?”
“Yes. You have super kissable lips on your face.” Jillian leans in to kiss the brunette once more. “And a really cute nose.” She kisses Sasha’s nose. “And I think I could forever be lost in your eyes,” she just stares into those brown eyes with a grin on her lips.
Sasha smiles and shakes her head. “You are pretty cute yourself, Jill.” She traces her hand over Jillian’s lips and smiles. “I like this. Us.”
“I like this, too,” Jillian murmurs into Sasha’s neck, as she is working on leaving a very noticeable hickey there.
“Jillian, not so… Not there. I don’t want to have a hickey where everyone can see it.” She softly pushes her girlfriend – God, it feels so awesome to even think that – away from her. “We agreed, it’s a secret for now.” She has known Jillian Holtzmann long enough to know that real world things sometimes get lost on her, and need repeating.
The blonde teenager sighs and leans back against the bed. “I know. I remember. I just…” She closes her eyes for a moment to think. “I got carried away, sorry. But I mean, I know… And I think my mom would kind of freak out, too, anyway.”
Sasha cuddles up against the other girl, resting her head on her boobs. “I know. But it’s okay. I like having you all to myself. And it’s kind of exciting, right? That we are the only two people who know about this.”
“Yeah, exciting, sure.” She kisses the top of Sasha’s head and wraps her arm around the brunette.
“At least this way, we can still have sleepovers.”
Jillian snorts. “Like you’re going to be getting a lot of sleep with me around.”
It’s almost two months later when Juliet Holtzmann finds out.
It’s a Monday afternoon, and Jillian is supposed to be home alone. She’s watching But I’m a Cheerleader on her laptop with this goofy grin on her face because it’s such a perfect, silly movie and the girls are kissing and they are having sex, and she could watch the movie about a hundred more times.
She doesn’t hear her mom calling out to her until it’s too late. “Jillian Josephine Holtzmann, what the Hell is that?”
It’s too late. She wants to hide her laptop, force it shut, do something that her mom wouldn’t see, but it’s too late. It’s too fucking late, and she has no one but herself to blame for it. She stares at her mother, thinking what to say. She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. And she feels like crying. She is going to cry any moment now.
“I asked you, what is that? Why are you watching that… that filth?”
Oooh boy. Jillian had hoped and dreamed that maybe, just maybe, her mom would be okay with the whole gay thing. But there she is, calling the movie filth, and Jillian can’t help but to flinch. “It’s a movie, mom.” She’s starting to feel the tears forming behind her eyes, and it’s starting to be really difficult to breathe.
“Are you…,” she hesitates for a moment as if she is afraid to ask the question, as if she doesn’t know how. “Are you a lesbian, Jillian?”
There are real tears now. She’s really crying, and she can barely breathe. Fuck, fuck fuck. What is she going to say? How is she going to get out of this? She stares at her floor, at the bit of carpet that she scorched when she tried to build her first laser, age ten. “No…. I don’t know… Yes.” She can’t lie. She has been caught red-handed, the cat is out of the bag, and she doesn’t know how to put the damned feline back in there anymore. Would there be a point in lying, anyway? Would her mother believe her?
That’s when she realizes that the older woman has been quiet for far too long, rooted on her spot. “I’m sorry, mom,” the words are barely a whisper. She isn’t sorry for being gay, not anymore, but she is sorry that she can’t be everything her mom has dreamed for her. She is sorry for not being normal, no matter how many times Juliet Holtzmann has asked that of her.
Her mother breathes in and out deeply, closes her eyes for some moments and then nods. “Okay.” She nods again, and breathes in deeply again, and Jillian is becoming a little scared. “I’m going to the store now. When I get back, I don’t want to see you in this house.”
Jillian’s brows furrow and she really can’t breathe anymore. “Mom?” There is panic in her voice
“I want you out of this house.” Without another word, she turns around on the spot and walks away. A few minutes later, Jillian can hear the front door open and close. She sits on her bed for a solid five minutes, before she can even bring herself to move.
It takes her about twenty minutes to pack her things. Who would have thought, right? She grabs some clothes, the money her grandparents have sent her for birthdays and Christmas the past year, the money she had been saving for a trip to CERN, some equipment that’s not too heavy and her laptop. At the last moment, she also grabs her guitar. That’s it. All of her life fits into a backpack and a duffel bag.
As soon as she has established a good distance between herself and her home – the house – she realizes she doesn’t really have anywhere to go. She wanders to a nearby park, just so she would have somewhere to sit down. Her mind is uncharacteristically empty, and she has no idea what she’s going to do.
She’s fucking fifteen years old, and she is homeless. This was not supposed to have happened. She was always so careful. “Fuck,” she breathes out the word, closes her eyes and just concentrates on inhaling and exhaling. In and out. In and out. It’s more difficult than she ever remembers breathing being.
It’s dark outside when she finally knocks on Sasha’s front door.
Thankfully, it’s the brunette herself who answers. “Hi, Holtzy,” she smiles, when she sees her girlfriend. And a moment later, she sees all the stuff, and the smile fades. “What happened?”
“My mom kicked me out. Can I… Can I stay here for a few nights? Please?” She doesn’t know where else to go.
Sasha steps outside to hug Jillian, and it takes every bit of willpower she has not to start crying again.
“I’ll talk to my parents. But don’t worry, I won’t let them say no.”
“Thank you.” She follows Sasha into her house, and waits by the door, while the brunette goes into the kitchen. It feels awkward, just standing there. But she doesn’t want to take her things into Sasha’s bedroom yet. Not before her parents say yes. She can’t handle another rejection right now.
“Can Jillian stay here for a few night? Her mom kicked her out.”
Oh. She can hear them. Shit.
“What? Oh my God. Is she alright? Why?”
Sasha hesitates in her answer, and all Jillian can think of is please don’t tell them, please don’t tell them.
“It’s… I didn’t… Does it matter?” Sasha has become a master at avoiding the subject.
“Of course it matters. What if she was doing drugs or something like that?”
“She is not doing drugs, mom. It’s Jillian.”
The blond girl pinches her nose and takes a deep breath. Then she walks into the kitchen, determination in her step. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Waldorf. I’m not doing drugs of any kind, and I’m not doing anything illegal, otherwise. My mom just found out that I’m gay, and she wasn’t all that happy about the thought.” She attempts to make a joke, to show them that she’s fine really.
Sasha is staring at Jillian, her eyes almost popping out of her skull.
“Oh.” Mrs. Waldorf nods. “Okay. We can think what to do tomorrow, then. It’s late. You two should go to sleep. Have you had anything to eat, Jillian?”
She shakes her head no. “But it’s okay. I’m not really hungry, anyway.” Her throat is pretty damn dry by now, though.
“Oh, nonsense.” It’s Mr. Waldorf talking now. “You two go upstairs. I’ll bring you something to eat and drink.”
“Thank you.” Jillian turns around before they can change their minds or say anything else.
“Let me help you with your stuff,” Sasha grabs the guitar in one hand and holds on to Jillian’s hand with the other.
They don’t really talk. Sasha tries, but Jillian says that she’s not ready yet, that she doesn’t know what to say exactly. She needs to process this all first, collect the data and analyze it. So Jillian eats, they both get dressed for bed (Jillian has to borrow some PJs from Sasha, as she forgot to pack some of her own), and go to sleep. Jillian figures she won’t be able to sleep at all, but Sasha wraps her arm around her waist and holds her close, whispering “I love you,” in her ear before Jillian closes her eyes, and sleep comes surprisingly easy. She hadn’t even realized how tired she was.
Sasha wakes up in the middle of the night to some strange sounds. She opens her eyes to see light coming from the en-suite bathroom, and that’s where the sound is coming from. She bites her lip, before getting out of the bed and quietly approaching Jillian. “Hi,” she whispers, as she stands next to her.
Jillian is sitting on the floor, right next to the toilet, her knees tightly against her chest, and her face buried in her hands. She’s sobbing. She looks like a small, delicate ball.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she looks up at Sasha, raising her head from her hands. “I just woke up, and I couldn’t…”
“It’s okay,” Sasha slides down onto the floor next to her girlfriend and wraps her in her arms, squeezing as tightly as she can. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m your girlfriend.” She kisses Jillian’s head and soothes her blond hair. “I’m here.”
She doesn’t ask anything, or really say anything, and Jillian is grateful. They stay there on the floor until the sun has come up. When they go back to bed, she’s still crying, but Sasha holds her tight, and somehow Jillian manages to fall back asleep.
When she wakes the next morning, Sasha is gone. She stays in bed, just lying there, for a little while longer. She’s not quite ready to face the world yet. But after about fifteen minutes she figures that another half an hour isn’t going to help, so she heads downstairs.
“How long have you two been together?”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?”
The voices are coming from the living room, and Jillian stops on the stairs, not sure if she should disturb them or not.
“A little more than two months. And can you really blame me, mom, with what happened to Jillian?”
Oh. Sasha told her parents. So they know. Jillian just blinks, not sure what to make of it all. They seemed pretty okay with it all last night, but Jillian’s not their daughter. Sasha is.
“Oh honey, we would never…”
“We’ll talk about this all later. First, I think we need to figure something out for Jillian.”
“She was asleep half an hour ago. I’ll go see if she has woken up or not.”
That’s her cue. She walks down the stairs, trying to make some sort of sound as she goes. She meets Sasha in the hallway. “Morning,” she whispers, giving her a quick kiss, trying to force a smile.
Sasha’s parents sit her down in the living room after breakfast. “We don’t mind having you here, Jillian, I hope you understand that, but this isn’t a permanent solution.”
She looks at Mr. Waldorf and nods. “I know.”
“And you can absolutely stay for as long as is necessary until we figure something out. Something good.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Waldorf.”
“I can try to talk to your mom about it all, dear. Is that alright with you?”
Jillian just shrugs. “Sure. I don’t know if it’ll do any good, though.”
“Okay. We’ll try. What about your dad?”
“Haven’t seen him since I was six.” In fact, Jillian wasn’t even sure if he was still alive or not. After he and her mom got divorced, he moved a few states away. At first, he’d come to visit or call, but over time, it became less and less, and then there were no calls or visits.
“Oh.”
“Do you have any other relatives? Aunts, uncles, grandparents?”
Jillian nodded at Mr. Waldorf’s question. “Yeah, but I’m not sure if anyone of them would take me. I don’t even have all of their phone numbers or addresses.”
“Okay, well, you can tell us what you know, and we will talk to them. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, Mrs. Waldorf. Sounds great. Thanks.” She pauses for a second, before continuing. “And I mean, if that doesn’t work out, there are other options. I think I could get emancipated from my mom, and then I can get a job somewhere, maybe at a diner or something like that…” She doesn’t count on any of her relatives saying yes. And it never hurts to have a plan B. Or C or Y. This situation has shown her the necessity more than anything.
“That’s good as a backup plan, but we know you only have one more year or high school to go,” Mr. Waldorf looks at her. “And Sasha has told us you want to go to MIT. We need to first see if we can make all of that happen.”
Jillian just nods, again. “Right. Thanks.” She tells them everything she knows about her relatives and then heads back to Sasha’s room.
They don’t really talk, at first, they just lie there on Sasha’s bed, with Jillian’s head resting on her stomach, and Sasha keeps softly stroking her blond hair. But it’s enough for Jillian. It’s comforting, and she doesn’t feel like she needs to talk just yet. She still doesn’t know how to put all the words together.
She’s not sure how long they have been there like that, just lying there, and Jillian thinks that maybe Sasha has fallen asleep because she’s not stroking her hair anymore. “It was just a movie. I was just watching But I’m a Cheerleader, and she walked in.”
Sasha starts to stroke Jillian’s hair again but doesn’t say anything.
“She was not supposed to be home, and I didn’t hear her, and I’m so fucking stupid.” Jillian squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn’t want to cry right now. Not again. “I could have lied. I could have denied everything. But she was right there, and asking me if I was a lesbian, and I told the fucking truth. I mean, I know the numbers. About twenty-six percent of LGBT youths are forced to leave their homes and thirty to forty percent attempt suicide, amongst other things.”
She feels her Sasha shaped pillow tense under her. “I’m not… I don’t want to kill myself,” she whispers, looking up at Sasha for a moment, before continuing. There are tears in her eyes by now, softly falling down her cheeks and dropping onto Sasha’s T-shirt. She thought about, for a moment, when she was sitting on the park bench the previous night. She just felt like she wasn’t needed anymore, she was nothing, and maybe it would just be easier… But she knows what happens to the human brain upon death, and she couldn’t completely shut down hers just yet. She still has so much to discover and learn.
“She didn’t even yell or anything. I don’t know if it would have made things easier or not. I apologized… And then she was just quiet for a while before she announced unceremoniously that she is going to the store and when she gets back, she does not want to see me in the house anymore.” She sighs, and sniffles. “And that’s the story of how I became homeless.” Her jokes are really not packing the punch right now.
“I’m sorry your mom’s such a cunt,” Sasha says after a while. “But… It’ll be fine. You’ll always have me, and we’ll think of something.”
Jillian nods against Sasha’s stomach and wipes some of the tears away. “Right.” Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Mrs. and Mr. Waldorf were going to come up empty-handed in their search, because who would want her?