Who We Are Read online

  And there he was. Oliver. He looked almost unrecognisable in those same clothes he wore at the school – smart grey trousers and a fitted, white button-down shirt. His hair was smoothed neatly to the side and he didn’t have a single trace of make-up on his face, but he could never disguise those bright eyes, the eyes that were currently piercing mine with so much uncertainty in them.

  “Are you going to invite me in?” he asked, after all I’d done so far was stare at him.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, moving aside. “I’m glad you came.”

  He stepped past me and stopped by the stairs, his gaze roaming the photos on the wall in front of him. After closing the door, I proffered my hand in the direction of the lounge and waited until he walked inside before I followed.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a brother,” I began, taking a seat on the sofa and patting the spot next to me for him to do the same.

  Ignoring the gesture, he sat on the armchair instead. “You didn’t tell me you had a wife and kids. But, look, it’s okay. I’ve not come here to play the jealous boyfriend. I came here to end things on good terms, because I don’t want you to think I hate you or anything. I get it. It’s not like we were serious. We were on different pages. It happens. You wanted some fun. I wanted-”

  “Are you nearly finished?” I interrupted.

  Eyes wide, he didn’t reply. He didn’t continue either so I took over before any more ridiculous crap about us being on different pages left his mouth.

  “This is my house, Oliver. Note the lack of wife and kids here?”

  “Um…”

  “It’s not just fun for me. When you can’t stop thinking about someone, that’s not just fun. When you feel a little ache right here…” I tapped against my chest. “That’s not just fun. We’re not just fun.”

  “But…”

  “I have a kid. Singular. His name’s Scott, he’s fifteen, and he’s the most precious thing in my life. The woman you saw me with? That’s Lisa. She’s Scott’s mother, but she’s not my wife. She has a wife of her own, in fact, Jenny, who was also with us at the school tonight, and is Mum number two to the little twins you saw me with. I should’ve told you all of this, and I was going to. I just wanted to see where things were going with us first because, well, because some people see Scott as excess baggage. And he’s not baggage. He’s my son, and he’s non-negotiable.”

  Oliver steepled his hands under his chin and blew out a long, steadying breath. “Seb, I’m sorry. That’s the exact same reason I didn’t mention Ty, my brother, too, so I shouldn’t have made assumptions. It’s just…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”

  “Just what? If we’re going do this, we need to be honest.”

  “It’s just the night we met, I was so sure you were straight. You looked so uncomfortable. Obviously, you changed my mind,” he added, a delicious smirk pinching the edges of his lips. “But then when I saw you with what looked like the perfect family, that memory came back to me. But I was wrong. You are gay?” His statement came out like a question, as if he needed that final ounce of confirmation.

  “No,” I said on a rushed exhale.

  Face crumpled in confusion, he jerked his head back.

  Here goes nothing. “I’m bisexual.” I hadn’t realised how heavy those five syllables were until the weight of them left my mouth. Now I wasn’t carrying them inside any longer I felt so much lighter. Freer. “That’s something else I’ve been putting off telling you,” I admitted.

  “Why?” he pressed, his expression puzzled all over again.

  Why… With that one simple word, suddenly, I didn’t even know.

  “Is your brother…Tyler, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s at his friend’s all night?”

  “Yeeeeah,” he answered, his tone a mixture of confused and suspicious.

  “So you don’t need to go home?”

  “I guess not.”

  “And we’re okay? We’re still…” Damn, what words did he use? “Going steady?”

  With a soft laugh, he nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then come to bed with me. Not for sex. We’ve still got a lot to talk about, but it’s getting late and I’d like to hold you while we do.”

  Crossing one leg over the other, he leaned forward and rested his chin on his fist. “Are you flirting with me?”

  “Is it working?”

  Grinning, he blew a single puff of laughter through his nose. “Show me to your bedroom.”

  Upstairs, I waited in bed while Oliver headed to my bathroom for a shower. He hadn’t been in there long when he let out an almighty high-pitched shriek. I might’ve been worried an intruder had set a blowtorch to his bollocks if the scream hadn’t been followed by the familiar jingle of Marv’s bell.

  “Meet Marv!” I called. “He likes to sleep in the bath!” I really should’ve told him that sooner. He liked to sleep in the bath, but he also shit himself and leapt from the tub like Tigger on amphetamines when you pulled back the shower curtain.

  I checked my phone while he showered, noticed a text from Lisa asking if I’d called Oliver yet, and replied telling her he was here right now and I’d call her tomorrow. Then I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed, liked Benny’s status about a bird shitting on his jacket, and figured it was time to finally friend request Oliver. He reappeared in my bedroom doorway, a fluffy navy towel wrapped around his waist, the very moment I tapped the Add Friend button.

  Pulling back the duvet, I patted the mattress next to me and put my phone on the bedside table. Fixing his eyes on mine, Oliver untucked his towel and let it fall casually over his narrow hips and to the floor, exposing every inch of his gloriously naked body before he crawled onto the bed beside me. He lay on his side, facing me with his hands tucked under his cheek.

  I draped the duvet over his body, snuggling closer.

  “So, you’re bi, huh? You guys really do exist?” he said, his tone teasing.

  I almost felt silly for making such a big deal about it in my head, but the fact is it was a big deal for some people. I’d been made to feel wrong, or like a joke, so many times in the past that my guards came up around everyone.

  “Did you think I’d judge you?” he added, sounded genuinely bemused.

  “You’d be surprised how many do. Even in the LG‘B’T community,” I said, air quoting the B with my fingers.

  “I wouldn’t, actually. I know it’s there. I see it. But it’s not everyone, and it certainly isn’t me.”

  I knew it wasn’t everyone. Hell, my best friend was gay. The mother of my son was gay. And they were the most accepting people I knew. Well, unless you chewed with your mouth open. Benny didn’t accept those kinds of people. But still, it existed, in my head and my memories, and I didn’t always feel strong enough to ignore it.

  “Is that why you don’t go to the village?” Oliver asked.

  “You know, when I first realised, or rather accepted that I was bi, I thought it was great that there was this whole community I could be part of. There was a B in it. That was me. I fit somewhere. Then I started seeing this guy. Mark. Damn, I thought he was God or something. He was older than me. So sure of himself, you know? I told him I was bi from the start, and he said he was fine with it but that I should keep it to myself. So I did because I was eighteen and stupid and thought I was in love with him.”

  I laughed thinking back to those days. I didn’t count Mark in my three previous relationships because it only lasted a month and, like I’d just told Oliver, I was young and stupid. It was before I had Scott and was forced to grow up.

  “Back then I used to go to the village a lot, mostly with Mark and his friends. One night they were discussing how one of them had slept with a bi guy. They laughed about him. Took bets on how long it’d be before he had the balls to admit he was gay. One lad said he didn’t understand how it worked. Did he walk around town with ‘one of each’ on his arm? And then Mark joined in, even though I was right there, he joined
in. Called the guy a slut. Said it must be nice to have your pick of twice as many fish in the sea, and can you imagine how often the guy gets laid?”

  “Damn,” Oliver said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, don’t be. You’d have been proud of my reaction.”

  That night was the first, and probably last time I’d ever really stood up for myself. As I told Oliver what happened, I relived it in my head like it was just yesterday.

  “You’d be surprised,” I cut in. “There’s not actually as many fish as you seem to think.” The bubble of anger, of hurt, had been swelling in my chest since I got there, and Mark had just stuck a pin in it. “See, when you’re a blue fish you’ve got a whole pool of other blue fish you can mingle with. The blue fish like you because you’re the same as them. When you’re a pink fish you can hang out with all the other pink fish, go to pink fish bars, attend pink fish parades, talk about what it’s like to be a pink fish. But when you’re a purple fish, you’d be amazed how many blue and pink fishes look at you like you’re a fucking shark.”

  “Seb, what the hell are you doing?” Mark whispered, leaning into me with a face so red it looked like he’d been dipped in acid.

  “I don’t need a year to find the courage to come out because I’m not gay. No, I don’t hang one of each off both arms because I’m not a cheating bastard. I have this thing called self-control. Oh, and morals. I have those too. Sex is awesome. I don’t need gay sex. I don’t need straight sex. I just like sex, with someone I connect with. I’m not on a mission to steal all your boyfriends or girlfriends. I just want to find someone who matters. I want to love whoever I choose without fear of being judged or insulted, you know, like every one of you do.”

  Back in the present, I looked at Oliver, feeling the same pride swell in my chest as I did all those years ago. “And then I hooked my jacket over my shoulder and strutted outta there like I owned the whole damn world. Until I got outside. Then I just felt like shit.”

  And I continued to feel like shit, that day, until Benny came to the rescue armed with enough White Lightening cider to make me forget Mark’s existence. Until I woke up the next day…and then I felt like shit with a hangover.

  “It feels worse somehow,” I started to explain. “Being sneered or ignored by anyone feels bad, of course. But when it comes from a space we’re supposed to belong in, it feels like being ignored by someone you know. Like being pushed aside by family, almost.”

  Prying his hand out from under his cheek, he rested his arm over my waist, cuddling closer until our chests touched. I melted into him with a satisfied sigh, lifting his leg and draping it over my thigh.

  “I get it. I don’t always feel like I fit in either. I’ve been told by guys, gay guys even, that camp men like me are the reason homophobia exists. That I’m what gives the gay community a bad name by parading the ‘stereotype’ around in stupid shoes and make-up. We are who we are, Seb, and even at thirty years old I still have to remind myself sometimes that that’s okay.”

  That hurt my heart. People were so fucking cruel. And wrong. “You’re beautiful. You know that, right?”

  He smiled, and then dropped his head a little. “Most of the time. I’m getting better at it.”

  A quiet sigh escaped as I ran the tip of my finger along his jaw. If I had to, I would tell him he was beautiful every damn day, until he believed it all of the time, because it was true.

  “Honestly, it’s not the world, the strangers, that bother me so much these days,” I continued. “I mean, I’m hardly out and proud, I don’t yell it from the rooftops, but you’re right. We are who we are. It is who I am, or a huge part of me at least, and while it doesn’t matter to me as much anymore if society accepts me, it’s important that the ones I care about do. And, well, I care about you, Oliver. That’s what I was worried about.

  “Mark, no I didn’t love him, but he still hurt me. Then there was Aiden. He’s what I consider my first serious relationship, but again, my sexuality wasn’t something he could deal with. He didn’t judge me, not like Mark, but he felt like he needed to be with someone on the same wavelength. That’s how he described it anyway, and I respected him for that.

  “Julie? She tried to accept it. In her head I think she thought I should be grateful or honoured, like she was a bigger person for ‘forgiving’ that side of me. The most fucked up part of that, is that I was grateful. I was relieved that she could see past it.”

  “There’s nothing to see past,” Oliver interrupted, taking another piece of my heart in the process.

  “Truth is though, it creeped her out to the point she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She convinced herself she wouldn’t be able to satisfy me, that I must’ve been constantly craving a dick she didn’t have. She’d check my phone, accuse me of cheating, search my laptop for gay porn. I couldn’t make her understand that cheating is a personality, not a sexuality trait. Then, plot twist, the straight woman cheated on me while I, the sex-crazed bi guy had been faithful the whole time. So with Anna-”

  “There’s more?” Oliver cut in, his voice playful. “You said you were inexperienced with dating!”

  I was technically. I’d known Aiden, Julie, and Anna for months as friends before we dived headfirst into relationships. Oliver was different. He was the first person I’d ever dated from scratch, for want of a better term. He was also the first person I’d dated because I couldn’t ignore the fire in my belly or the pull in my chest, rather than because it felt like the plausible next step.

  “Just one more, and I’m getting to a point. Roll with me here. So, Anna. We were together for eighteen months, and I didn’t tell her I was bi. The whole time I just…pretended. I thought I’d cracked it. I met her at work, she was a transport clerk. When you’re with a woman, people just assume you’re straight, so I let them. And, Christ, it was easier. So I carried on letting them.”

  I’d done what so many people believed was possible. I’d made a ‘choice’. I was living a ‘straight’ life. Yet I still followed various LGBTQ+ pages and groups on social media. I still stumbled upon the comments that implied people like me had it easier because I didn’t have to face prejudice or discrimination every time I walked down the street holding the hand of the person I loved now that I’d chosen. I looked straight, so I had nothing to fight for anymore. They didn’t want me. I didn’t belong.

  But I didn’t feel straight, regardless of who I lay next to in bed each night. I might not have had to suffer strange glances, backhanded remarks or unfair treatment now, but only because I hid who I really was. It didn’t take away the things that I’d been through. I still remembered the confusion I’d been through as a teenager. I still remembered being laughed at in the PE changing rooms while that dickhead Philip Collins and his posse of prick friends called me a pansy and a bender. I’d faced the discrimination those commenters talked about. I’d struggled with the same feelings they had. I still fancied men – didn’t want to sleep with them because I loved, or thought I loved, Anna, but I had to ignore that now…right?

  I wasn’t good enough to be one of them anymore, fight for the things we all believed in – acceptance - because my current partner had a vagina.

  I think that was the moment I gave up on it all. On love. On being me, whoever that was.

  “So what happened?”

  “What happened is I was lying. Every single day. Pouring my orange juice at the breakfast table every morning, I was a liar. Kissing her on the cheek before I set off on a trip, I was a liar. Taking out the rubbish, I was a liar. I felt heavy and wrong all the damn time. I wasn’t being fair to Anna, or to myself. I could’ve told her the truth, then, but I realised that if I’d truly loved her I would’ve done it already. I just…couldn’t do it again. Knowing that the world doesn’t want to acknowledge you feels horrible, but knowing someone you care about can’t do it is unbearable.”

  “Um…” Oliver’s brow furrowed a little. “I’m not sure I understand the point you were trying to make.”
>
  “My point is in every relationship I’ve had my sexuality has felt like this big bad burden. I’ve either had to hide it, or I’ve felt guilty about it. I didn’t want to feel like that with you. I enjoyed our time together too much.”

  Oliver’s fingers walked up my back, settling on the back of my head. He pulled my face to his, nose to nose, and whispered, “I acknowledge you. I accept you.” Closing his eyes, he pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. “And I care about you, too. That ache you mentioned?” He placed his palm flush against my chest. “In here? I feel it. Every time I think of you, I feel it.”

  Oh God… I’d planned to turn the conversation onto him. There was so much I wanted to ask. I had questions about his relationships, about his brother, what had happened to his parents…but with his erection digging into my thigh all I could think about now was diving under the covers and wrapping my lips around it.

  So that’s exactly what I did.

  * * *

  I wanted to skip into work the next day singing, dancing, and maybe even twirl June around a few times, too. But seeing as I’d overslept and arrived an hour late I figured I’d best walk in with my head down and force a croak into my voice instead.

  If I was going to lie, I needed to sound believable. “Up all night I was, June,” I said, rubbing my stomach. It wasn’t a total lie. I didn’t get much sleep…just not because of a dodgy stomach. After devouring Oliver, or rather, letting him devour me in more positions than I even knew existed, we just…talked. For hours we lay awake and discussed anything and everything. He told me about his first boyfriend, how he got into hairdressing, shared his coming out story – which wasn’t actually news to his mother, apparently.

  He told me about the months when his mum was sick, and how life changed when she passed away. I found out about Tyler, about the problems Oliver had been having with him lately, and he told me how difficult he found parenting but that he wouldn’t swap a single second of it – something I understood completely. Naturally that led us onto Scott, and he asked me if kids had been something I’d ever thought about before I had him. Honestly, neither Lisa or I had really had time to think about that stuff before the choice was taken out of our hands. The biggest decisions in our lives back then were which one of us would be paying for the cider that weekend or whether to go to Pizza Hut or McDonald’s for tea. When it happened, we didn’t have a frigging clue what to do. The idea of becoming a couple never even entered our heads; that wasn’t who we were. We were friends, nothing more. We still lived with our parents. Lisa was in college and I had a minimum wage job. How the hell were we going to raise a baby? We didn’t know, but we knew that we would…somehow.