Dating Sarah Cooper (4 page)

“And what happens when they find out the truth? Or are you just never expecting that to happen?”

“How will they find out? We’ll just act like a couple until graduation, and then we’ll fake a breakup and say we’re bi, go back to guys, and then let everyone forget about it. No big deal.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“I know it’s not the most foolproof plan, but it could work.”

“It’s completely selfish,” I snapped. “You’re doing all of this for a guy you hardly know! Okay, Sarah, what happens if it works and he… I don’t know, falls for you, or whatever the hell you want. Then what? You ‘cheat’ on me with him? How do you explain supposedly only being attracted to women and then dating a guy?”

“I don’t have to be a lesbian, then. I could just say I’m bisexual from the get-go.”

“And then maybe you’re no longer a challenge for Sam,” I told her, crossing my arms. “So your plan’s shot.”

She was quiet for a moment, and I could see her confidence faltering a little. “Okay… so I didn’t think about that.”

“Yeah. You didn’t think at all, I’d say,” I bit back.

She let out a sigh. “Alright. I’m sorry I didn’t think it through more. But we were kind of put on the spot. And hey, we wouldn’t have been in the situation in the first place if you hadn’t said whatever you did to Jake yesterday.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Well, clearly you did
something
to make him think you were gay.”

“You’re the one who hugged me in front of him,” I countered. “It was a really long hug, too.”

“Was not. It was, like, three seconds max, and besides, I hadn’t seen you in a week!”

“Oh, please. It was at least ten, and that’s no excuse.”

“It wasn’t ten,” she insisted. We fell silent for a moment.

“Was too,” I mumbled.

We pulled into my driveway a minute later, and Sarah parked the car, then turned to face me. “Okay. Are we doing this or not?”

“I don’t see how we can stop now,” I told her, throwing my hands into the air hopelessly. “If we walk into school tomorrow and tell them we made it all up and we’re straight, we’ll humiliate Jake and they’ll hate us for lying. Not to mention it’ll seem like we were just making fun of them today.”

“Right. So…” she trailed off uncertainly. “We
are
gonna do this? I mean, when you think about it, anyway, there are a lot of pros, and the only con is that people will hate us if they find out, which we’re kind of already dealing with anyway. What’s the downside to trying it?”

“The bigger the lie, the bigger the fallout,” I told her dismally. “But… this is already pretty big. We just told fake stories about realizing we liked girls.”

“I could be a lesbian for eight months,” Sarah mused, and then grinned at me. “I mean, you’re cute.”

“I really,
really
hate you right now,” I sighed out, and her smile died a little. “This really sucks.”

“I know. I’m an idiot. But if things are going badly, we’ll just say we’re actually bi, plant a few seeds about not being happy together, and break up a little while later, right? Mess taken care of, and we come out mostly unscathed while still keeping everyone happy.”

“This still feels dirty,” I told her, shaking my head. “And super offensive.”

“Then we’ll do so much good we can’t possibly feel bad,” Sarah insisted. “I mean, this club does volunteer work for gay people and all that. We can help. And we’re helping by giving them some rep, anyway. We’ll be like gay advocates, only secretly straight. And they’ll love us.”

“We have to lie for eight months. What about our parents?” I realized with a start. “I can’t tell them I’m gay when I’m not!’

“Well, mine aren’t around all that much anyway, so I have no problems keeping this from them. I guess what you tell yours is up to you.”

“They’d tell me to be honest with everyone if I told them the truth. So I have to either lie, or just not mention it and hope it never comes up.” I reached up to rub at my temples. “This is crazy.”

“People who are in love do crazy things,” Sarah sighed out dramatically, raising my hand to her lips and kissing the back of it. I glared at her, unamused. “Oh, c’mon. You’re gonna have to get used to it.”

“I’m not kissing you,” I deadpanned. “Ever.”

“Well
there’s
something we can agree on.”

“Good.” I got out of her car with another shake of my head, and she whistled at me as I walked to the front door of my house.

“Lookin’ good!”

I stuck my middle finger in the air without turning around, and heard her laughing even as she asked, “Too soon?”

“Bye, Sarah,” I sighed out.

She just drove away, still chuckling even as I finished my walk inside. It didn’t occur to me until I was in the kitchen with my mom and she was asking me, “So how did your little club meeting go?” that I was monumentally and irreversibly
screwed
.

Chapter Three

S
arah picked me up the next morning, dark circles under her eyes that matched the ones under my own. Her phone went off several times in succession even as I was getting into her car, and I mumbled tiredly, “You too?”

“Yep. My phone’s been crazy since yesterday afternoon. Why do teenagers gossip so much?”

“I got no sleep last night,” I told her, and leaned back in my seat, closing my eyes as she began to drive.

“Me either. How was your reception? Everyone that texted me figured I was bi, so I guess I’m gonna have to just go with that. Can’t pull off full lesbian. Surprise, surprise. Hopefully that’ll be enough for Sam.”

“I spent three hours texting Dina,” I told her, choosing to ignore her Sam comment.

“I wondered why I didn’t hear from her,” Sarah replied. “Was she cool?”

“Yeah. Really cool, actually. It was kind of nice… other than the fact that, you know, I was completely lying to her the whole time.”

“What’d you say?”

“That I’d struggled with my sexuality recently when I realized I had feelings for you, and that now we’re in love.”

“Awww. You fake love me?”

“I love you in real life, idiot,” I mumbled, opening my eyes to roll them at her. “You’re just absolutely exhausting to be friends with sometimes. Anyway, who’d you talk to?”

“Everyone,” she sighed out. “I think Hannah’s a little surprised, but everyone else was strangely…
not
. Which was a little weird because, you know, not actually bi. Then there was Connor, who just begged for a threesome.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah, I ignored him. But anyway, it made me think that we need a story.” She reached over abruptly and took my hand, and I shot her a strange look.

“What are you doing?”

She glanced back at me, grinning. “What? If we’re gonna be a couple we have to get used to it.”

“We’re not a couple.” I pulled my hand back. “There’s no one watching, so what’s the point?”

“I’m a method actress.” She grabbed my hand again with another smile, and I glared out of my window, not bothering to fight her on it anymore.

“Just don’t get too method,” I mumbled.

She laughed at that. “Your general anger at this entire situation is hilarious. I’m not even gonna lie.”

“Well, I’m glad at least one of us is amused.” I sighed, and then turned to face her. “So what’s our story then, method actress?”

“Okay. We already told everyone that we’ve been together since around the time you and Austin broke up, and that I knew I liked girls early on and you only just figured it out.”

“You know… I think you pined away for me for years in secret, hoping one day I’d see you the way you’ve always seen me.” I smirked at her even as she gasped in mock-offense.

“
What
? Why do
I
have to be the piner?”

“Because you got us into this mess and because it only makes sense, since you supposedly knew you liked girls long before I did.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed half-heartedly. “But you kissed me first.”

“No way! No one would buy that,” I argued.

She mulled it over for a moment. “Okay, true.”

“I told Dina you kissed me first, anyway,” I explained. “A couple weeks after I broke up with Austin. And that that was when I realized I liked girls, and we’ve been dating ever since.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t say anything that contradicts that,” she warned me. “We need to do a better job comparing notes.”

“Well, this was a
little
on the fly, genius.”

“Last question,” she said. “Have we had sex?”

“No.” I immediately shook my head emphatically, and she gaped at me.

“What? Why not? You don’t wanna have sex with me?”

“If we say we’ve had sex, we’ll never hear the end of questions about it, and then we have to answer questions about lesbian sex that we are
obviously
not qualified to answer.”

“Oh c’mon, how hard could it be? Besides, that question was mostly a formality; we’ve
definitely
had sex. If our fake story involves years of pining on my part then there’s no way I’ve been with you for two months and not gotten laid.”

“Well, that’s charming. That really makes me want to let you be the girl I gave my lesbian virginity to,” I deadpanned, letting go of her hand to fold my arms over my chest. “You’re not getting into my pants with
that
kind of attitude.”

“I’m not getting into your pants at all,” she laughed out, grinning widely. “But I’m not gonna tell people that because there’s no way I’m that lame. So we’re just gonna have to learn about lesbian sex and field the pervy questions we get as well as we can. We can tell the ruder ones to take a hike, and for the rest, we know the basics. Lesbians just do what we do to ourselves except-”

I clapped my hands to my ears before she could finish, and gave her a pointed look even as she started laughing again.

“I don’t wanna hear it!” I groaned out.

“Get used to it, Katie. Not only do you have to hear about it, you enjoy doing it.”

“I don’t know if I can do this.” I sighed and looked out my window again as we pulled into our school parking lot.

“You better pull yourself together,” Sarah replied, her expression serious now. “It’s show time.”

I’d say I felt like an ant under a magnifying class that first day, but that doesn’t do it justice. There were eyes
everywhere
. And the only thing that felt strong about me in that moment, as Sarah and I walked down the hallway together, was her hand’s numbing grip on mine. I wondered, then, if she liked the attention, since most of it seemed to come from guys.

I, personally, wanted to crawl into a cave somewhere and never come out. The stares came with whispers, and I was almost thankful I couldn’t really catch anything anyone was saying. I was scared it was bad, and I was also scared it was good.

We reached my locker and Sarah let go of my hand. The students nearest us tried to act like they weren’t stealing glances at us, but it was obvious they were, and I gave Sarah the subtlest of head-shakes as we stood together. As confident as she’d seemed beside me as we’d walked, I could see she looked nervous now, too.

“That was terrible,” I murmured, and to my surprise, she nodded her agreement and swallowed hard, whispering her response.

“Being gay is definitely already harder than I thought it’d be. But we signed up for it.”

I shook my head again. “You did.”

She looked down and away from me, and I gathered my stuff out of my locker quickly, eager to just get to class. As I closed my locker, I heard Sarah say, “Hey.”

When I turned around, Colton, the boy from one of our classes, was standing in front of Sarah, a grin on his face. “Hey, Sarah. Katie. How are you guys?”

Sarah and I exchanged looks, and I forced a smile, answering for us. “Same as ever. How are you?”

“Good. I’m really great.” His grin returned as soon as he finished speaking, and he looked back and forth between us, like he was waiting for something. It was uncomfortable.

“Cool,” Sarah finally replied, breaking the silence. “Well, we have to get to class now.”

“That’s fine.” He shook his head and stepped aside. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s cool. I know
I
approve.”

“Thanks,” I said shortly, and quickly pulled Sarah away and down the hall, her giggling all the while.

“Oh my God, he’s so weird,” she murmured to me.

Except we quickly realized that he wasn’t.

Colton was the first of many,
many
guys that day who felt the need to gawk at us, tell us we were hot, announce their approval, or all three. We got questions about threesomes, questions about what we did in bed – all of which were completely invasive and inappropriate and absolutely qualified as “rude” – and questions about which one of us was the man in our relationship. We were whistled at, catcalled at, stared at, and shouted after, and I got called a “dyke” twice in casual conversation. That all happened over the course of seven hours, but even by lunch that day, I felt like crying.

I know it showed on my face as I sat down, because Dina took one look at me and reached across the table to take my hands into hers. “You okay, Katie? I know it must be rough.”

“I feel like I showed up to school naked or something,” I marveled. “I say I’m dating a girl and suddenly all everyone cares about is my sex life. Like, can’t I just take a punch and be done with it?”

As if to prove my point, Connor arrived at our table and took a seat, smirking at me. “Hey, Katie. Heard about you and Sarah… so what’s that like and where do I buy tickets?”

“Leave her alone, Connor,” Josephine snapped at him even as Dina opened her mouth to do the same. Graham and Bonnie were silent beside us, but I saw Graham roll his eyes in Connor’s direction, and that made me feel a little better. At least most of my friends were going to be cool about this.

I let out a deep breath and started to pick at my food, trying to keep myself grounded. None of this was real. I wasn’t actually gay. And if I wanted to make this go away, I could. I’d just have to tell Sarah to start the breakup plan as soon as possible.

She joined our table soon with Hannah at her side, completing our usual group of eight. “Hey guys. We all good?”

“Of course. We love you and Katie.” Dina offered her a smile and then tilted her head in my direction. “I hear you guys have been having a tough day, huh?”

“Yeah. Lots of asshole guys, mostly,” said Sarah. “I’d be fine with it if they weren’t all so graphic, seriously. Like, I’m the bi one and I still really don’t wanna know exactly what you’d do to me and my girlfriend if you got us alone, so I can’t imagine what it’s like for Katie to have to hear it all day.”

“It’ll die down, I’m sure. You guys are new and shiny today,” Josephine pointed out. “Everyone’s gotta get their two cents in.”

As Sarah nodded beside me, I couldn’t help but inwardly marvel at her. She’d slipped into her new role so effortlessly, and here I was, already trying to hit the abort button.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and my heart sank into my stomach. I knew what was coming: more comments from people I hardly knew.

I turned in my seat and it was an understatement to say that I was pleasantly surprised to see Jake. I practically threw myself into his arms, still seated, and he laughed sympathetically, leaning down to hug me back. “Hard day?”

“You’re in this lunch period?” I asked him, pulling away, and he nodded, pointing to a table across the cafeteria. I could see Hattie, Jessa, and a few other familiar faces from LAMBDA sitting there. Jessa, the girl who hadn’t seemed to believe Sarah and I’s story yesterday, was now watching Jake and me with interest. I wondered briefly if she was still suspicious of us.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Just thought I’d come and say hi, and let you know that if you need any advice, we’re here. We all remember our first days, too. The second day is
so
much easier. I mean, I remember after the first I thought I’d made this massive mistake, and I wanted so badly to just go back to being closeted. But obviously I couldn’t do that, so.” He shrugged. “Anyway, if either of you need anything, here’s my number.” He handed me a slip of paper, and I nodded my thanks. “I’ll be around,” he finished, and left.

When I turned back around, everyone else was watching me curiously.

“Who was that?” Connor asked, eyeing Jake as he walked back to his own table.

“Our gay guru,” Sarah explained. “He convinced us to come out. His name’s Jake. He’s president of the gay club at our school.”

“Our school has a gay club?” Hannah asked, amused. “Why haven’t I heard of it?”

“Maybe because you’re not gay?” Sarah proposed with a smirk. “It’s very exclusive. You have to be the gayest of the gay to get in.”

“And yet they let you in anyway,” Hannah quipped. “Boy-crazy Sarah. If you can get in, I’ll bet anyone can.”

“Hey, there’s only one person I’m crazy about anymore, and I have verifiable proof that she is not a boy. I’m gay enough.”

I rolled my eyes at the two of them, feeling a flush crawl up my cheeks as Hannah laughed, and then busied myself by putting Jake’s number into my phone. I stared down at his name for a moment, then let out a small sigh and put my phone back into my purse.

I couldn’t call off this thing with Sarah, I knew. At least not this early. Not when Jake and Hattie and Jessa and Violet and all of the other LAMBDA kids hadn’t been able to do the same. It felt wrong to even consider it.

Our lunch group moved on after that to some of our more usual topics, and we all fell into easier, casual conversation. Dina and Josephine talked about the cute guy in their Spanish class, and Graham asked Sarah if she’d help him study for a test he had next week. Not much was different, if anything at all, and that was the best I could’ve ever hoped for, so I was happy to know I’d chosen my friends well. I mean, Connor was always going to be kind of a jerk, because that was how Connor was, but he was tame compared to the comments I now knew I’d be getting in the future.