HEY, JONI, I TEXT THAT evening during our study period once I’ve finished my homework. Are you still out studying? Can we talk?
I glance around our empty room, already missing her after only an hour apart. It’s our first night studying apart in a long time, but Joni had to meet her lab group earlier in the evening. And she warned me I needed to practice being disciplined by myself so that I didn’t always rely on her as a study partner.
Studying solo actually went pretty well. I finished a take-home trig test faster than I thought, leaving me enough time to write a blog post about these insanely amazing scarves by Turkish designer Asli Filinta. And I worked more on the actual writing of the post, making sure it was strong editorially, rather than flipping around and clicking on a million fashion links and reading other people’s articles.
I almost feel like I’m in late elementary school again, before I got sucked into the internet. Joni makes me put my phone away with hers under her bed, and we don’t check them until we’ve finished our homework each night, and it feels so good not to have to be connected to everyone and everything every five seconds. And my grades are so much better: I’m up to a 3.67!
Sure, Joni texts back. In library in the Flag Room. Meet me here? Table in the back.
See you in five minutes, I write.
I hurry through the cold and get to the library, a brown-brick building with mosaic windows that reminds me of a church. Maybe it once was one. I push through the doors, showing my student ID card to a librarian at the front desk wearing a feather headpiece.
“Nice headpiece,” I say. You don’t often see fashion-y headpieces in suburbia, and she’s really rocking it.
“One more hour till recall to barracks,” the librarian reminds me, smiling as she gingerly touches the feathers.
I head past rows of books toward the Flag Room, a white-walled room decorated with various American flags and framed photos of generals and other honored military personnel. I push through the doors and spot Joni at a far table, eating Pirate’s Booty and staring at her computer. The screen casts a glow onto her features, making her look even paler than usual. There are four girls sitting a few tables away, and another group of guys—one with a split lip and a black eye—sitting near a window. The Flag Room isn’t one of the study rooms designated as a silent room, so it should be okay for Joni and me to talk, but I’d rather these kids not hear what we’re saying.
“Hey,” Joni whispers when she sees me.
I sit. All the tables are white, too, with sculpted silver chairs that look futuristic compared with most everything else at the Academy.
Joni studies my face. “You okay?” she asks. Her lips are glossy with a fresh coat of the cherry Chap Stick she likes.
“Um, I am,” I say, trying to adjust my butt on the seat to get comfortable. I want to leave my coat on because I’m still shivering, but I also don’t want to give Joni the impression that I’m ready to bolt at any second, so I take it off and drape it on the back of my chair. “So,” I start, leaning closer, nervous. Please let this conversation go well! “I wanted to talk to you about something, about your, um, feelings, and my romantic feelings, and um . . .” My voice is rising and comes out strangely defensive, like I’m accusing her of something.
“My romantic feelings?” Joni hisses.
“No,” I say. “Well, mine, and your feelings about . . .”
“Frankie, please, keep your voice down.”
I turn to look around me. A girl sitting at a table near the door has turned her head to stare at us. I make my voice way quieter, and say, “I just need the air to be clear between us, so I wanted to ask you if—”
“Are you seriously doing this here?” Joni growls.
“I-I,” I stammer. “I just, I need to know how you would feel if I—” I try, but Joni interrupts me.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but I don’t appreciate you questioning me here like some interrogation.”
“Interrogation?” I say. “I’m not—”
“You’re putting me on the spot,” Joni says. She swipes away a strawberry-blonde wisp of hair that caught on her eyelashes. “I really don’t want to have this conversation right now.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was just . . .”
I don’t even know what to say to her. This wasn’t how I thought this was going to go. “Look, Joni,” I start, but it’s no use; I don’t even think she can hear me anymore over the clatter of books and pens she’s shoving into her bag. “I just think we need to be honest with each other,” I press on, determined to do this.
Joni slams her laptop into her bag.
“Not here, not now, Frankie!” she says, sounding almost desperate.
“But I—”
“I mean it, Frankie, shut up.”
My jaw actually drops. I can’t even remember the last time someone seriously told me to shut up. “Joni, what’s going on?” I ask, but she’s already slinging her bag over her shoulder, heading to the door without a glance back.
I lean against my chair, stunned. Tears prick my eyes. I get up to chase after her, but she’s so much faster than me. Everyone here is! We maneuver through stacks of books and past a librarian wheeling a cart and calling out, “Girls, slow down!”
“Joni!” I yell.
“Be quiet!” hisses a student with a shaved head studying at a cubicle.
Joni pushes through the front doors and I’m hot on her heels until we hit the open quad and she starts literally sprinting. I have zero chance of catching her. I run as fast as I can, and then double over and try to catch my breath. I lose sight of Joni, of course, and when I finally get my cardiovascular system under control I hobble across the rest of the quad until I get to Lyons Dormitory. Is she even going to be in our room? I show my ID card to the security guard, who still pretends not to know me, and I take the elevator to our floor. I don’t have to bother with my key in the lock because I can hear Joni sobbing inside our room.
A pang slices my chest as I push open the door. Joni’s slumped on her bed with her face buried in her pillow.
“Joni,” I say, my voice raspy. “I’m so sorry, so, so sorry.” I go to her bed and sit on the edge. I rub her back gently until she finally catches her breath. “I just really like Jack, and I want to make sure it’s okay with you if we start being more than friends, not like I even know if he even definitely likes me, but I think he might? I don’t know! I have this terrible problem of not getting when a guy likes me or not, so I . . .”
Joni’s head snaps up. “Wait, that’s what this is about? It’s not about me?”
“Well, it’s about you and me, because Jack’s your best friend, so I wanted to know how you would feel . . .”
Joni swipes a hand over her eyes. “I already know you like Jack,” she says. Then she adds, “Um, it’s kind of obvious.” Her cheeks are flushed from crying. She lets out a big breath, and her skinny, freckled fingers toy with the hem of her uniform. “I would never stop you guys from being together, because I know it would make you both happy. Of course, I worry a little bit that I would lose you guys; I mean, you’re my best friends here.” Color rises to her cheeks, like she’s said too much.
But I can’t stop smiling. “You’re my best friend here, too,” I say.
Joni clears her throat. “I need to tell you something,” she says. “I guess, in the library, it’s what I thought you were asking me about. Um. My romantic feelings.” She takes a huge breath. “I’m a lesbian, Frankie,” she says.
I sit up taller. “You are? That’s awesome! I’m so glad you told me!”
Joni looks at me and lets out a little laugh, but then she’s suddenly sad again. She exhales. “It’s complicated,” she says. “I’m not ready to come out yet.”
“Well, you just did a great job telling me,” I say. “That has to be a good start.”
“Because I trust you,” she says, and it fills me right up. “Jack knows, too, of course,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “He’s like my brother. And he’s my only real friend here, before you came, I mean.” She clears her throat. “I’m just not ready to tell the whole world, and it’s really complicating things, because . . .” Her voice trails off, and I get the sense she’s not ready to tell me more. She switches topics, and says, “I could tell you and Jack had chemistry that first night,” she says. “I know him really well, and I know when he’s interested in someone.”
My heart hammers at her words. She knows him better than anyone here, and she thinks he likes me. I try to stay calm, try to focus on what she’s saying and not make this moment about me, because it’s clearly not.
“I hope I didn’t act too weird about it,” she says. “At first I worried if you guys started spending every minute together that I’d be without my best friend.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’m not going to take him away from you. No way.”
“You should go for him,” she says, squeezing my hand back. “He’s awesome.”
We smile at each other and my pulse goes even faster. Joni thinks Jack likes me, and she’s okay with us getting together, which means there’s nothing in the way of Jack and me now, and something about that, no matter how much I want it, scares me more than anything.
“So what are you going to do?” I ask Joni. “Maybe there’s someone here you could talk to, to get advice about how to come out, I mean, when you’re ready.”
Joni lets go of a big breath. “I don’t know what to do. When my parents were alive, everything was so much easier. Sometimes I’m so exhausted from missing my parents that I feel like I don’t even have the energy to do anything outside of what this school demands, like make new friends and come out and be the real me. And I never got to tell them,” she says. “My parents. I never got to tell them I’m gay. And I don’t even know how they would have taken it, but I still wish I could have that moment, even if it wasn’t perfect.”
We’re both crying when we wrap our arms around each other. When I imagine what it’s like for her without her family, it makes me want to never let her down. “I promise you I’ll keep your secret for however long it’s a secret, and that I’ll be there for you whenever you decide it’s not,” I say into her embrace, holding her even tighter. “And I promise no matter what happens, you won’t ever lose me.”