“Is everything alright?” She asked. Although she smiled back at me, I could see a worried crease etched into her forehead, and the light didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Of course.” My words quivered. I squeezed her tight, offering her a light kiss on the cheek. “You played amazing out there.”

Somewhere behind me Connie scoffed audibly. On some level, I reveled in standing there before Connie in such a manner, so obviously together and plainly enraptured with each other, and flushed away the niggling guilty murkiness that left in my stomach. The petty part of me, the part I tried never to acknowledge, wanted to grab Julia there and kiss her with a level of passion and intimacy that could only be described as disgusting by an onlooker. I wanted to look into Connie’s eyes and see in their depths that flash of bitter jealousy and resentment before she resumed control over herself and schooled her expressions. I wanted to spy upon her innermost emotions, the ones she succeeded so well in burying beneath a façade of nonchalance these days. I wanted, though I would never acknowledge, some sign that she still felt as she had back then. I wanted her to wish it was her, instead.

But because I didn’t have a death wish I simply reached out for Julia’s wrist and tugged her toward me, motioning for us to leave. Connie made a show of rattling around her keys, mumbling something along the lines of ‘finally’ and ‘about shagging time’, but just before we stepped around the corner and out of sight, I stole a quick glance in her direction and spied as she exhaled deeply, her shoulders dropping. I cleared my throat so that she looked up and I nodded in her direction. Julia offered her a weak goodbye and an even weaker smile that Connie didn’t bother to return.

“Later, O’Reilly,” I called out, the words scratching my throat as they escaped. Connie didn’t respond.

And as we walked out into the sun, I convinced myself that the loud slamming of the dressing room door was something I had only imagined.

Chapter 16

April 1996

There were times when we were alone together that I found myself wondering what exactly it was that drew me toward Julia in the first place. I had never been the type of person to enjoy branching out and forming any kind of emotional bonds with relative strangers. The only friends I ever made were through Connie and with a handful of exceptions even that was with great reluctance. And yet I had allowed Julia to edge effortlessly into my life. I allowed myself to open up to her without even realizing what I had done. And why? I hadn’t known her well enough to make any sort of real judgment on her. But I had trusted her. I had found her to be convivial and had fallen for her swiftly without any qualms at all.

My entire life I never really seemed to find any one particular ‘type’ of girl attractive. The only commonality between the girls I found myself attracted to—from Connie to Julia to almost every other pretty girl in the school—was simply that they happened to be female. If that made me shallow, I was welcome to accept that reality about myself. I liked pretty girls. Brunettes and blondes and red-heads, short and tall, studious and daft. On a superficial level, I often wondered if personality even factored into the question because as far as I could see there was nothing at all that could be clearly discerned from an analysis of Connie and Julia. Sometimes I wondered if the only thing that drew me toward her was the fact that she was gay, and always immediately felt guilty. Julia was much more than her sexuality, I knew. She was bold and she was courageous, and she made me want to be those things too. She was adventurous and energetic, much as I often resented her boundless energy and stamina, and it was very rare for her good temperament to waver.