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“Hey Jay, what took you so long?” Michaela Roberts asked.

Jay Thomas smiled and ran a hand through his short brown hair. “Class ran over.”

Michaela’s gray eyes looked at him skeptically. “For an hour? I don’t think so. Who is it this time?” Her dubious look made him shift uneasily from right to left foot as he stood next to her. She glanced up, shielding her eyes against the sun and asked again. “Who is she?”

“Well,” he said as he sat down next to her trying to come up with a plausible explanation that wouldn’t get him into more trouble than he was already in. he knew from experience that Michaela didn’t approve of his roaming eye, especially not when he had a girlfriend. And he knew she wouldn’t keep a secret if he’d been fooling around. Again.

Michaela tapped her finely shaped fingers across the grid styled patio table as she waited. “Well?”

He sighed heavily. “Alright. I’m caught. Her name was Jenny, and man! Was she hot!” His flash of exaltation fled him as quickly as it had come as he looked into Michaela’s eyes. They’d gone flat with anger, and she suddenly stood up.

Flipping her short auburn hair over her shoulder she hefted the weight of her book bag onto it and began walking away. Jay jumped up and stepped in front of her, as though he could keep her there. It wasn’t going to happen. Michaela pushed him aside and quickly strode farther from him as he stared at her in disbelief, his coffee colored eyes wide.

He quickly gave chase and grabbed her arm, pulling her around to face him. He was rewarded with a hard punch to his nose. “Augh!” he cried, pain exploding in his head. “Damn, Mike! What’d you do that for?” he asked as he gingerly took a hand away from his throbbing nose. It was red with his blood. He dared to glance up at Michaela and as he did so he saw several curious gazes on him. It occurred to him that not many people had the luxury of witnessing a domestic quarrel in the middle of the university campus.

And then, as rapidly as he’d raised him, he lowered his eyes again. He’d only gotten a fleeting glance at Michaela’s furious stare but it was enough to make him cringe. He’d never seen her this mad in all their years of friendship, and it scared the daylight out of him.

Michaela glared at him, not sure at first whether to apologize or hit him again. After the long moments it took her to decide she let her anger take over. “What’d I do that for?” she asked. “What’d I do that for?” she repeated in a deceptively calm voice.

“I’ll tell you what I did it for. I did it for the fifteen years of friendship you just flushed down the drain without a care. ‘Was she hot’!” she mimicked. “You stupid bastard! Kerry’s not going to let it go this time, and you damn well know it!”

Jay winced at the sound of his girlfriend’s name.

Michaela pulled her bag around and began rummaging through it as she continued. “You’re my best friend, Jay, but I’m not going to be quiet this time. Don’t you have any remorse for cheating on your girlfriend of two years? And for the fifth time in a month, no less. Here,” she said as she shoved something at him.

Jay took it and smiled tentatively as he pressed the crumpled tissues to his bleeding nose. He grimaced as a new wave of pain washed over him and gingerly wiped at the blood. “There’re some things you don’t know about our relationship, Mike,” he began quietly. He didn’t know how to tell her that it was a fake and had been for most of the two years he’d spent with Kerry Strickland.

Mike rolled her eyes. “I know enough to know she doesn’t cry anymore when she finds out you’ve slept with another girl. Again!” She zipped her bag up and repositioned it on her shoulders. Squaring them she looked into Jay’s eyes noting how, not for the first time, how the sunlight brought out honey specks of gold in them. “Look Jay, you’re my best friend, and that means more to me than you’ll ever know. But…”

Her voice trailed off and Jay’s eyes fell. He knew what was about to happen. She was about to ‘break up’ with him. And all because she thought he was hurting her friend. He and Kerry would be spending some serious talking time tonight, he knew. He was about to tell Michaela the truth when she abruptly finished her sentence.

“I can’t be your friend anymore.”

Jay tried desperately to catch her eyes with his, but to no avail. He couldn’t, and just as well. Michaela would rather have died than to let him, or anyone, see the tears that threatened to spill onto her flushed cheeks. Jay rubbed his hands together, crumpling the tissue into a crimson and white wad of garbage. He was trying to rub the guilt and betrayal he felt onto it. It didn’t work. He heard a muffled footstep, followed by another and then another.

As he looked up he gazed at the receding sight of his once-best friend’s back. A sudden muffle of background noise started up and it crossed his mind that the other students in the courtyard had had an interesting and morbidly entertaining show, but the fleeting thought left as quickly as it had come. He turned on his heel, ignoring the curious stares he was afforded by the other university students, and headed straight to Kerry’s dorm.

---

Kerry Strickland smiled as she opened the door of her dorm room and admitted a very distraught Jay. When she saw the look on his face her smile faded and she quickly hugged him saying, “Stupid question, but what’s wrong?”

“It’s Mike,” was all he said, and Kerry guided him to her bed.

“Hang on a sec, okay?” she said as she picked up a blue handset from her desk and brought it to her ear, deftly moving her flowing blond hair out of the way with a practiced ease. He only heard a few low words but it was enough to surmise that it was Kerry’s girlfriend on the other end of the phone.

When she’d hung up the dam of words he’d kept inside broke. “That’s what’s wrong! It’s Sarah and you! Ever since we made our little deal I’ve had to lie to Mike and everybody about us, and when I go on a date or sleep with another girl it’s ‘Jay’s such a womanizer’ and ‘how could Jay cheat on Kerry’ and Jay this and Jay that!” He flopped back on the bed with a frustrated sigh. “For two years I’ve kept your secret and been your man, but I can’t do it anymore. It’s got to end, Kerry. Today. Now.”

Kerry’s green eyes spoke volumes of sympathy to him and she sat down next to him. “I know. That was Sarah on the phone.”

Jay nodded as he sat up. He rubbed his forehead and winced as that small gesture pulled the skin around his nose. “I figured. I don’t know whether it was the ‘I miss you, too’ or the ‘I’ll see you tonight’ that gave it away,” he said petulantly.

Kerry stiffened and bit back the tears that welled to her eyes. She wasn’t a very emotionally strong person and was very quick to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said softly as the first crystalline drops slipped over the edge and trailed down her cheek.

Jay immediately felt penitent and said so. “Look Kerry, I’m sorry I said that. That was cruel and you didn’t deserve that.” He stopped suddenly, not knowing what else to say and an uncomfortable silence pervaded the room.

Kerry shifted nervously on the bed and her voice trembled as she spoke. “Sarah’s upset with me,” she began as she wiped the tears roughly from her cheek. Her voice grew a little stronger as she continued. “She’s issued an ultimatum: I either tell my parents about her and me or our date tonight will be our last.”

She was silent.

Jay reached out and pulled her close in a hug. She wilted into his arms like a dying flower and began to weep in earnest, letting her fears flow out and taking comfort in his understanding. Her worst fear was telling her family that she was a lesbian. They were devout Catholics and looked upon homosexuality as a sacrilege that would damn you to Hell.

When Kerry pulled away he caught a glimpse of her face and he gave her a small smile. She returned it, her eyes red rimmed and her cheeks streaked. But she looked no worse for the cry and, in fact, looked much more peaceful.

“Okay, Jay, now that I’ve cried all over you I can at least listen, right?” She stood as she spoke and disappeared into the bathroom. Moments later when she reappeared, wet washcloth in hand, Jay lifted his hands to ward her off.

“No, really, you don’t have to do that!” he exclaimed as Kerry approached with the tools of pain infliction firmly held in her small hands. He was ineffectively attempting to keep her away when her left hand snuck in and grabbed his shirt.

“Now you listen to me you big idiot! You look like the victim of an armed robbery with that blood all over your face so let me clean it off!”

Jay’s hands immediately sank to his lap and he allowed her to clean his face.

As she worked she started a running commentary. “Well, I knew Mike had to have done this. That looks awful! Does it hurt?” she asked with a glimmer in her eyes. He winced in return. “What’d you do to get her so mad?”

Jay sighed as Kerry gently wiped his nose.

“I see. She caught you ‘cheating’ on me again, right?” She tossed the pink washcloth into a basket filled with dirty clothes and sat down next to Jay.

He nodded. “I was late meeting her this morning. I met this girl and we… got carried away. Mike got mad, decked me, yelled at me in front of everyone in the courtyard, and told me we weren’t friends anymore. I don’t know what to do,” he whispered in a strangled voice, his hands held up in a beseeching manner.

“I was afraid of this,” she said cryptically, reaching for her phone.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kerry fiddled with the antenna on her phone. “Well, we don’t know for sure.”

“We? Who are ‘we’? Know what?” His voice was plaintiff.

“Well,” Kerry began. “’We’ is a few friends of mine. Friends of Mike, too. But we think that Mike is in love with you,” she said bluntly.

Jay was stunned. He stood up as though to leave but after standing there awkwardly, he sat back down with a thud that jarred his nose and made his eyes tear up with the pain. “Mike?” he asked. “In love with me?”

Kerry nodded.

“But she can’t. We’ve known each other forever. We’re best friends. She’s seen me naked when we were little!” he said. “She can’t,” he repeated.

“Yes, she can.” Kerry looked at him oddly. “I was right!” she crowed. “They said I was seeing things but I was right!”

“Huh?” Jay was still in shock.

Kerry bit her lip and smiled. “Oh, nothing really. Don’t worry about it Jay.”

But Jay had seen the glint in Kerry’s eye and knew what she was talking about. And he rejected the thought immediately. How could he be in love with Michaela, his best friend and not know it? Its true guys aren’t as in touch with their feelings, but it only goes so far, doesn’t it? Jay didn’t want to think about it. He liked to think he was in touch with that part of himself.

Instead he lay a supporting hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “It’s not what you think, so I won’t worry about it. But I’ll worry about you. You’re one of my closest friends. Do you want me to stay?” he asked knowing she’d need some support when she told her parents. He figured that she was planning on calling them when he left since she’d picked the phone up and began fussing with it. She’d been trying to stall him so she wouldn’t have to call.

“Or would you rather wait till Sarah gets here?” he asked, just as quickly deciding she might rather go through that emotional tempest with her girlfriend rather than her ‘boyfriend’. “I know you want Sarah with you, not me. Some boyfriend I am!” he muttered. “Even if I am a fake.”

Kerry smiled as he got up to leave. “Wait,” she said. “Stay, please? I’d rather have a good friend here with me, even if he is my ex-boyfriend,” she added, trying to sound nonchalant about ending their two-year mockery at a relationship.

Jay turned, his face lighting up. “You mean it? It’s over?” He hadn’t really expected her to let it end this easily. But then, he hadn’t expected to be her shoulder to cry on when she finally confessed to her parents that she wasn’t what she appeared to be. No doubt he’d be put on their kill list when they found out he’d been part and partial to the farce, especially when it had gone on for so long!

“See?” Kerry said. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Jay didn’t answer, trying to forget about that whole line of thought. Apparently he didn’t forget it quickly enough. He remembered the look of hurt and pain on Michaela’s face just before she’d kicked him out of her life. It tore at him deeply. And then he realized that Kerry was right. Had he been running from it so long? The more he thought about it the more he realized how right Kerry was. And it hurt.

Not because she was right, but because he knew how much he cared about Michaela, and she for him. And when he thought of how much he’d hurt her in these past few days… in the past few moths and years, too!

“She hates me, Kerry,” he said. “She’ll never forgive me.”

Kerry smiled knowingly. “She will, we’ll just have to tell her the truth.”

“Yeah?” Jay asked.

“Yeah,” Kerry said.

“But first, let’s get this done first, okay?” Jay said pointing to the phone.

Kerry nodded and dialed her parents’ number.

She reached out a hand to Jay’s and took a deep breath. “Mom? Daddy? There’s something I need to tell you…”

---

Michaela was leafing through an old photo album, reminiscing about the years of friendship she and Jay had had. Years of friendship she had forsaken today because of Jay’s indiscretion, past and present. Her tears, which had been shed like waterfalls not too long ago, had finally abated, and she was lounging in the emotional numbness that felt like bliss to her. It wasn’t just friendship she had ended today. It was her chance at ever telling Jay how important he’d become to her. How important he’d always been. It hurt.

But the bliss her weeping had caused wouldn’t last forever, and she decided it was time to put away her memories. Time to move on to a life without the friendship that had stood by her through the roughest times and kept her sane. Michaela stood from her bed and took the photo album that told those years in pictures, and shoved into the bottom door of her desk. She hid it under all of the papers she had stacked in there. A safe place to hide it and keep her from the daily experience of looking at it and dredging up the pain and sorrow she was feeling over and over.

No sooner had she done that than her phone rang. She answered it. It was Kerry.

Finally she forgot her own pain as she imagined what Kerry must have been feeling. “I’m so sorry, Kerry. He’s a jerk,” she blurted out.

“No, he’s not,” Kerry replied in an odd voice. “Mike, I think you need to sit down. There’s something I have to tell you.” It sounded like she was about to confess murder.

“Kerry, what’s going on? Why do you sound like you’re about to confess murder or something?” it was the only thing Michaela could think of, so why not say it?

Kerry took a deep breath that echoed over the phone. “Jay and I broke up.”

Michaela snorted. “I could have guessed that one.”

“I’m a lesbian, Mike,” Kerry said softly.

Michaela sat down heavily on her bed, causing it to squeak in protest. “Did Jay do this? This is all his fault!” she began to rant.

Kerry was hard put to interject but after a few moments of shouting in the phone she succeeded in getting Michaela’s attention again. “I’ve been like this for a while. Since before Jay and I began dating, see, we kind of had an agreement… To hide this from my parents.” She proceeded to fill Michaela in on the details of the two-year lie.

Michaela was at a loss for words.

“And now what?” she asked, referring to Kerry’s parents.

“Sarah wanted me to tell them,” she replied.

“Sarah?” Michaela asked, her confusion evident in her tone.

“Sarah’s my girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

Kerry sighed. “So I told them.”

Michaela took the sigh as an interpretation of how badly it had gone. “I’m sorry about them.”

“Why?” Kerry asked.

“Well,” Michaela said. “I figure they went a little nuts.”

She received a lilting laugh in return.

“Mike, they knew.”

“What!” Michaela said, her voice escaping her for a second as disbelief shook her. “Your religious freak, bible thumping, saint quoting parents knew?”

“Yeah. Their first words were ‘it’s about time you came out’. Isn’t that a riot?”

Michaela was about to reply when there was a hesitant knock on her bedroom door, which she had shut so as not to have any witnesses to her breakdown. “Can you hang a sec, Kerry? There’s someone here.” She was about to put the phone down when Kerry shouted her name through the receiver.

“Mike! It’s Jay,” she said frantically. “He’s there to tell you the truth!”

“What?” she asked stupidly.

“Look, he’s trying to make amends. He’s… he’s feeling pretty low, so try to make up, okay?”

Michaela smiled. It was like the Jay that she knew to do that. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be nice.”

“And call me later?” Kerry asked, her voice a little timid. She was afraid of losing a friend of her coming out.

“Always, Kerry. Always.” They quickly said their good-byes and hang up.

Michaela took a quick moment to compose herself before opening the door. She had planned on playing it cool until he confessed, but when she saw the genuinely scared look on his face that, combined with the black eye she must have given him, made her laugh.

For a moment he looked perplexed but then gave her a timid smile. She smiled back and ushered him in. “Jay,” she said, her voice carefully schooled to neutral so he wouldn’t guess at how truly happy she was to see him. “I’m so sorry.”

“About what?” he asked, puzzled.

“You don’t know?” she asked. He shook his head. She pointed to her mirror. He walked over and looked at his slightly swollen nose and the beginnings of a beautiful shiner.

“Oh, man!” he said. “You’ve got a hell of a right hook, girl.”

Michaela smiled. Then it left her face and she sat down, not knowing exactly how to urge the admittance along. It turned out she didn’t have to wait because Jay didn’t waste any more time on his disfigured face.

“Mike, there’s something about Kerry and me that I have to tell you. She’s… um, ah… how do I say this?” he muttered as he tried to find a tactful way of admitting Kerry’s secrets life and their deception.

Michaela helped him out. “She’s a lesbian?” she supplied.

Jay’s head whipped up. “You know?”

She nodded. “Kerry just told me.”

“Really?” he asked, allowing some relief to show on his face. “Are we friends again?”
``
Michaela nodded. “Friends.”

“Good,” Jay said. “Cause I need your help. I need some advice.”

Michaela groaned as he sat down on her bed next to her. She flopped back saying, “That’s all I’m used for, advice!”

“Welcome to the Ask Michaela service,” she intoned.

Jay looked abashed, but Michaela punched him lightly to let him know she was joking. They were slow to get back to the banter of old, but it was returning. “Okay, shoot.”
`
“Well, a friend asked me if I could help, but I didn’t know what to tell him. See, he likes his best friend,” Jay began.

Michaela laughed. “I would hope so!” she said, still giggling.

Jay smiled. “Anyway, he likes his best friend more than he should. Like a dating like. Does that make any sense?”

“Sadly enough, it does.” Jay looked up hopefully, thinking she knew what he was talking about. His bubble was burst with the next thing she uttered. “Do you think maybe this is something Kerry could help you with better than I could?”

He wasn’t sure if she’d deliberately misinterpreted, but his instinct told him she really did think he was talking about a friend. “Um, his best friend is a girl…”

“Oh.”

“But how does he tell her?” He knew whatever Michaela said, he’d do.

“He should be straight with her. No beating around the bush.” She sounded pleased with herself as she sat up and looked at him. “Did I help?”

Jay nodded and took a deep breath. No time like the present to be straightforward. And to trust in what other people had said. “Michaela…” he said, his voice oddly calm though his nerves were singing so loud he was sure she heard them.

“What?”

When he couldn’t figure out what to say Jay decided that actions spoke louder than words. He leaned over slowly, unconsciously giving her the chance to avoid him if she wanted to. Whether she didn’t know what he was planning or whether she wanted him to kiss her, he never knew, but kiss her he did. Gently and thoroughly.

When he pulled back she had a dazed look on her face. “Mike?” he asked uncertainly.

“What just happened?” she replied just as uncertain as he was.

“Um, I think I kissed you,” he said.

“Oh. Why?” She wasn’t sure if she was dreaming, but Michaela didn’t care. “No, better question,” she said, a little bit of the shell shock wearing off. “How did you know?”

“Kerry,” was all he said.

“Ah,” she responded as though that explained it all. Which it did.

“So where does this leave us?” He wasn’t sure of how to take Michaela’s reaction to his spontaneity.

She frowned. “I don’t know. What are you doing on Friday night? Maybe we could try and figure it out then,” she said with an untypical shyness.

Jay smiled with more ease. “I don’t know. What are we doing?”

“Figuring this out,” she said.

And with easy hearts, free from the secrets and lies that had held them both at bay for so long, their lips met again.

Description
“Hey Jay, what took you so long?” Michaela Roberts asked.

Jay Thomas smiled and ran a hand through his short brown hair. “Class ran over.”

Michaela’s gray eyes looked at him skeptically. “For an hour? I don’t think so. Who is it this time?” Her dubious look made him shift uneasily from right to left foot as he stood next to her. She glanced up, shielding her eyes against the sun and asked again. “Who is she?”

“Well,” he said as he sat down next to her trying to come up with a plausible explanation that wouldn’t get him into more trouble than he was already in. he knew from experience that Michaela didn’t approve of his roaming eye, especially not when he had a girlfriend. And he knew she wouldn’t keep a secret if he’d been fooling around. Again.

Michaela tapped her finely shaped fingers across the grid styled patio table as she waited. “Well?”

He sighed heavily. “Alright. I’m caught. Her name was Jenny, and man! Was she hot!” His flash of exaltation fled him as quickly as it had come as he looked into Michaela’s eyes. They’d gone flat with anger, and she suddenly stood up.

Flipping her short auburn hair over her shoulder she hefted the weight of her book bag onto it and began walking away. Jay jumped up and stepped in front of her, as though he could keep her there. It wasn’t going to happen. Michaela pushed him aside and quickly strode farther from him as he stared at her in disbelief, his coffee colored eyes wide.

He quickly gave chase and grabbed her arm, pulling her around to face him. He was rewarded with a hard punch to his nose. “Augh!” he cried, pain exploding in his head. “Damn, Mike! What’d you do that for?” he asked as he gingerly took a hand away from his throbbing nose. It was red with his blood. He dared to glance up at Michaela and as he did so he saw several curious gazes on him. It occurred to him that not many people had the luxury of witnessing a domestic quarrel in the middle of the university campus.

And then, as rapidly as he’d raised him, he lowered his eyes again. He’d only gotten a fleeting glance at Michaela’s furious stare but it was enough to make him cringe. He’d never seen her this mad in all their years of friendship, and it scared the daylight out of him.

Michaela glared at him, not sure at first whether to apologize or hit him again. After the long moments it took her to decide she let her anger take over. “What’d I do that for?” she asked. “What’d I do that for?” she repeated in a deceptively calm voice.

“I’ll tell you what I did it for. I did it for the fifteen years of friendship you just flushed down the drain without a care. ‘Was she hot’!” she mimicked. “You stupid bastard! Kerry’s not going to let it go this time, and you damn well know it!”

Jay winced at the sound of his girlfriend’s name.

Michaela pulled her bag around and began rummaging through it as she continued. “You’re my best friend, Jay, but I’m not going to be quiet this time. Don’t you have any remorse for cheating on your girlfriend of two years? And for the fifth time in a month, no less. Here,” she said as she shoved something at him.

Jay took it and smiled tentatively as he pressed the crumpled tissues to his bleeding nose. He grimaced as a new wave of pain washed over him and gingerly wiped at the blood. “There’re some things you don’t know about our relationship, Mike,” he began quietly. He didn’t know how to tell her that it was a fake and had been for most of the two years he’d spent with Kerry Strickland.

Mike rolled her eyes. “I know enough to know she doesn’t cry anymore when she finds out you’ve slept with another girl. Again!” She zipped her bag up and repositioned it on her shoulders. Squaring them she looked into Jay’s eyes noting how, not for the first time, how the sunlight brought out honey specks of gold in them. “Look Jay, you’re my best friend, and that means more to me than you’ll ever know. But…”

Her voice trailed off and Jay’s eyes fell. He knew what was about to happen. She was about to ‘break up’ with him. And all because she thought he was hurting her friend. He and Kerry would be spending some serious talking time tonight, he knew. He was about to tell Michaela the truth when she abruptly finished her sentence.

“I can’t be your friend anymore.”

Jay tried desperately to catch her eyes with his, but to no avail. He couldn’t, and just as well. Michaela would rather have died than to let him, or anyone, see the tears that threatened to spill onto her flushed cheeks. Jay rubbed his hands together, crumpling the tissue into a crimson and white wad of garbage. He was trying to rub the guilt and betrayal he felt onto it. It didn’t work. He heard a muffled footstep, followed by another and then another.

As he looked up he gazed at the receding sight of his once-best friend’s back. A sudden muffle of background noise started up and it crossed his mind that the other students in the courtyard had had an interesting and morbidly entertaining show, but the fleeting thought left as quickly as it had come. He turned on his heel, ignoring the curious stares he was afforded by the other university students, and headed straight to Kerry’s dorm.

---

Kerry Strickland smiled as she opened the door of her dorm room and admitted a very distraught Jay. When she saw the look on his face her smile faded and she quickly hugged him saying, “Stupid question, but what’s wrong?”

“It’s Mike,” was all he said, and Kerry guided him to her bed.

“Hang on a sec, okay?” she said as she picked up a blue handset from her desk and brought it to her ear, deftly moving her flowing blond hair out of the way with a practiced ease. He only heard a few low words but it was enough to surmise that it was Kerry’s girlfriend on the other end of the phone.

When she’d hung up the dam of words he’d kept inside broke. “That’s what’s wrong! It’s Sarah and you! Ever since we made our little deal I’ve had to lie to Mike and everybody about us, and when I go on a date or sleep with another girl it’s ‘Jay’s such a womanizer’ and ‘how could Jay cheat on Kerry’ and Jay this and Jay that!” He flopped back on the bed with a frustrated sigh. “For two years I’ve kept your secret and been your man, but I can’t do it anymore. It’s got to end, Kerry. Today. Now.”

Kerry’s green eyes spoke volumes of sympathy to him and she sat down next to him. “I know. That was Sarah on the phone.”

Jay nodded as he sat up. He rubbed his forehead and winced as that small gesture pulled the skin around his nose. “I figured. I don’t know whether it was the ‘I miss you, too’ or the ‘I’ll see you tonight’ that gave it away,” he said petulantly.

Kerry stiffened and bit back the tears that welled to her eyes. She wasn’t a very emotionally strong person and was very quick to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said softly as the first crystalline drops slipped over the edge and trailed down her cheek.

Jay immediately felt penitent and said so. “Look Kerry, I’m sorry I said that. That was cruel and you didn’t deserve that.” He stopped suddenly, not knowing what else to say and an uncomfortable silence pervaded the room.

Kerry shifted nervously on the bed and her voice trembled as she spoke. “Sarah’s upset with me,” she began as she wiped the tears roughly from her cheek. Her voice grew a little stronger as she continued. “She’s issued an ultimatum: I either tell my parents about her and me or our date tonight will be our last.”

She was silent.

Jay reached out and pulled her close in a hug. She wilted into his arms like a dying flower and began to weep in earnest, letting her fears flow out and taking comfort in his understanding. Her worst fear was telling her family that she was a lesbian. They were devout Catholics and looked upon homosexuality as a sacrilege that would damn you to Hell.

When Kerry pulled away he caught a glimpse of her face and he gave her a small smile. She returned it, her eyes red rimmed and her cheeks streaked. But she looked no worse for the cry and, in fact, looked much more peaceful.

“Okay, Jay, now that I’ve cried all over you I can at least listen, right?” She stood as she spoke and disappeared into the bathroom. Moments later when she reappeared, wet washcloth in hand, Jay lifted his hands to ward her off.

“No, really, you don’t have to do that!” he exclaimed as Kerry approached with the tools of pain infliction firmly held in her small hands. He was ineffectively attempting to keep her away when her left hand snuck in and grabbed his shirt.

“Now you listen to me you big idiot! You look like the victim of an armed robbery with that blood all over your face so let me clean it off!”

Jay’s hands immediately sank to his lap and he allowed her to clean his face.

As she worked she started a running commentary. “Well, I knew Mike had to have done this. That looks awful! Does it hurt?” she asked with a glimmer in her eyes. He winced in return. “What’d you do to get her so mad?”

Jay sighed as Kerry gently wiped his nose.

“I see. She caught you ‘cheating’ on me again, right?” She tossed the pink washcloth into a basket filled with dirty clothes and sat down next to Jay.

He nodded. “I was late meeting her this morning. I met this girl and we… got carried away. Mike got mad, decked me, yelled at me in front of everyone in the courtyard, and told me we weren’t friends anymore. I don’t know what to do,” he whispered in a strangled voice, his hands held up in a beseeching manner.

“I was afraid of this,” she said cryptically, reaching for her phone.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kerry fiddled with the antenna on her phone. “Well, we don’t know for sure.”

“We? Who are ‘we’? Know what?” His voice was plaintiff.

“Well,” Kerry began. “’We’ is a few friends of mine. Friends of Mike, too. But we think that Mike is in love with you,” she said bluntly.

Jay was stunned. He stood up as though to leave but after standing there awkwardly, he sat back down with a thud that jarred his nose and made his eyes tear up with the pain. “Mike?” he asked. “In love with me?”

Kerry nodded.

“But she can’t. We’ve known each other forever. We’re best friends. She’s seen me naked when we were little!” he said. “She can’t,” he repeated.

“Yes, she can.” Kerry looked at him oddly. “I was right!” she crowed. “They said I was seeing things but I was right!”

“Huh?” Jay was still in shock.

Kerry bit her lip and smiled. “Oh, nothing really. Don’t worry about it Jay.”

But Jay had seen the glint in Kerry’s eye and knew what she was talking about. And he rejected the thought immediately. How could he be in love with Michaela, his best friend and not know it? Its true guys aren’t as in touch with their feelings, but it only goes so far, doesn’t it? Jay didn’t want to think about it. He liked to think he was in touch with that part of himself.

Instead he lay a supporting hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “It’s not what you think, so I won’t worry about it. But I’ll worry about you. You’re one of my closest friends. Do you want me to stay?” he asked knowing she’d need some support when she told her parents. He figured that she was planning on calling them when he left since she’d picked the phone up and began fussing with it. She’d been trying to stall him so she wouldn’t have to call.

“Or would you rather wait till Sarah gets here?” he asked, just as quickly deciding she might rather go through that emotional tempest with her girlfriend rather than her ‘boyfriend’. “I know you want Sarah with you, not me. Some boyfriend I am!” he muttered. “Even if I am a fake.”

Kerry smiled as he got up to leave. “Wait,” she said. “Stay, please? I’d rather have a good friend here with me, even if he is my ex-boyfriend,” she added, trying to sound nonchalant about ending their two-year mockery at a relationship.

Jay turned, his face lighting up. “You mean it? It’s over?” He hadn’t really expected her to let it end this easily. But then, he hadn’t expected to be her shoulder to cry on when she finally confessed to her parents that she wasn’t what she appeared to be. No doubt he’d be put on their kill list when they found out he’d been part and partial to the farce, especially when it had gone on for so long!

“See?” Kerry said. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Jay didn’t answer, trying to forget about that whole line of thought. Apparently he didn’t forget it quickly enough. He remembered the look of hurt and pain on Michaela’s face just before she’d kicked him out of her life. It tore at him deeply. And then he realized that Kerry was right. Had he been running from it so long? The more he thought about it the more he realized how right Kerry was. And it hurt.

Not because she was right, but because he knew how much he cared about Michaela, and she for him. And when he thought of how much he’d hurt her in these past few days… in the past few moths and years, too!

“She hates me, Kerry,” he said. “She’ll never forgive me.”

Kerry smiled knowingly. “She will, we’ll just have to tell her the truth.”

“Yeah?” Jay asked.

“Yeah,” Kerry said.

“But first, let’s get this done first, okay?” Jay said pointing to the phone.

Kerry nodded and dialed her parents’ number.

She reached out a hand to Jay’s and took a deep breath. “Mom? Daddy? There’s something I need to tell you…”

---

Michaela was leafing through an old photo album, reminiscing about the years of friendship she and Jay had had. Years of friendship she had forsaken today because of Jay’s indiscretion, past and present. Her tears, which had been shed like waterfalls not too long ago, had finally abated, and she was lounging in the emotional numbness that felt like bliss to her. It wasn’t just friendship she had ended today. It was her chance at ever telling Jay how important he’d become to her. How important he’d always been. It hurt.

But the bliss her weeping had caused wouldn’t last forever, and she decided it was time to put away her memories. Time to move on to a life without the friendship that had stood by her through the roughest times and kept her sane. Michaela stood from her bed and took the photo album that told those years in pictures, and shoved into the bottom door of her desk. She hid it under all of the papers she had stacked in there. A safe place to hide it and keep her from the daily experience of looking at it and dredging up the pain and sorrow she was feeling over and over.

No sooner had she done that than her phone rang. She answered it. It was Kerry.

Finally she forgot her own pain as she imagined what Kerry must have been feeling. “I’m so sorry, Kerry. He’s a jerk,” she blurted out.

“No, he’s not,” Kerry replied in an odd voice. “Mike, I think you need to sit down. There’s something I have to tell you.” It sounded like she was about to confess murder.

“Kerry, what’s going on? Why do you sound like you’re about to confess murder or something?” it was the only thing Michaela could think of, so why not say it?

Kerry took a deep breath that echoed over the phone. “Jay and I broke up.”

Michaela snorted. “I could have guessed that one.”

“I’m a lesbian, Mike,” Kerry said softly.

Michaela sat down heavily on her bed, causing it to squeak in protest. “Did Jay do this? This is all his fault!” she began to rant.

Kerry was hard put to interject but after a few moments of shouting in the phone she succeeded in getting Michaela’s attention again. “I’ve been like this for a while. Since before Jay and I began dating, see, we kind of had an agreement… To hide this from my parents.” She proceeded to fill Michaela in on the details of the two-year lie.

Michaela was at a loss for words.

“And now what?” she asked, referring to Kerry’s parents.

“Sarah wanted me to tell them,” she replied.

“Sarah?” Michaela asked, her confusion evident in her tone.

“Sarah’s my girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

Kerry sighed. “So I told them.”

Michaela took the sigh as an interpretation of how badly it had gone. “I’m sorry about them.”

“Why?” Kerry asked.

“Well,” Michaela said. “I figure they went a little nuts.”

She received a lilting laugh in return.

“Mike, they knew.”

“What!” Michaela said, her voice escaping her for a second as disbelief shook her. “Your religious freak, bible thumping, saint quoting parents knew?”

“Yeah. Their first words were ‘it’s about time you came out’. Isn’t that a riot?”

Michaela was about to reply when there was a hesitant knock on her bedroom door, which she had shut so as not to have any witnesses to her breakdown. “Can you hang a sec, Kerry? There’s someone here.” She was about to put the phone down when Kerry shouted her name through the receiver.

“Mike! It’s Jay,” she said frantically. “He’s there to tell you the truth!”

“What?” she asked stupidly.

“Look, he’s trying to make amends. He’s… he’s feeling pretty low, so try to make up, okay?”

Michaela smiled. It was like the Jay that she knew to do that. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be nice.”

“And call me later?” Kerry asked, her voice a little timid. She was afraid of losing a friend of her coming out.

“Always, Kerry. Always.” They quickly said their good-byes and hang up.

Michaela took a quick moment to compose herself before opening the door. She had planned on playing it cool until he confessed, but when she saw the genuinely scared look on his face that, combined with the black eye she must have given him, made her laugh.

For a moment he looked perplexed but then gave her a timid smile. She smiled back and ushered him in. “Jay,” she said, her voice carefully schooled to neutral so he wouldn’t guess at how truly happy she was to see him. “I’m so sorry.”

“About what?” he asked, puzzled.

“You don’t know?” she asked. He shook his head. She pointed to her mirror. He walked over and looked at his slightly swollen nose and the beginnings of a beautiful shiner.

“Oh, man!” he said. “You’ve got a hell of a right hook, girl.”

Michaela smiled. Then it left her face and she sat down, not knowing exactly how to urge the admittance along. It turned out she didn’t have to wait because Jay didn’t waste any more time on his disfigured face.

“Mike, there’s something about Kerry and me that I have to tell you. She’s… um, ah… how do I say this?” he muttered as he tried to find a tactful way of admitting Kerry’s secrets life and their deception.

Michaela helped him out. “She’s a lesbian?” she supplied.

Jay’s head whipped up. “You know?”

She nodded. “Kerry just told me.”

“Really?” he asked, allowing some relief to show on his face. “Are we friends again?”
``
Michaela nodded. “Friends.”

“Good,” Jay said. “Cause I need your help. I need some advice.”

Michaela groaned as he sat down on her bed next to her. She flopped back saying, “That’s all I’m used for, advice!”

“Welcome to the Ask Michaela service,” she intoned.

Jay looked abashed, but Michaela punched him lightly to let him know she was joking. They were slow to get back to the banter of old, but it was returning. “Okay, shoot.”
`
“Well, a friend asked me if I could help, but I didn’t know what to tell him. See, he likes his best friend,” Jay began.

Michaela laughed. “I would hope so!” she said, still giggling.

Jay smiled. “Anyway, he likes his best friend more than he should. Like a dating like. Does that make any sense?”

“Sadly enough, it does.” Jay looked up hopefully, thinking she knew what he was talking about. His bubble was burst with the next thing she uttered. “Do you think maybe this is something Kerry could help you with better than I could?”

He wasn’t sure if she’d deliberately misinterpreted, but his instinct told him she really did think he was talking about a friend. “Um, his best friend is a girl…”

“Oh.”

“But how does he tell her?” He knew whatever Michaela said, he’d do.

“He should be straight with her. No beating around the bush.” She sounded pleased with herself as she sat up and looked at him. “Did I help?”

Jay nodded and took a deep breath. No time like the present to be straightforward. And to trust in what other people had said. “Michaela…” he said, his voice oddly calm though his nerves were singing so loud he was sure she heard them.

“What?”

When he couldn’t figure out what to say Jay decided that actions spoke louder than words. He leaned over slowly, unconsciously giving her the chance to avoid him if she wanted to. Whether she didn’t know what he was planning or whether she wanted him to kiss her, he never knew, but kiss her he did. Gently and thoroughly.

When he pulled back she had a dazed look on her face. “Mike?” he asked uncertainly.

“What just happened?” she replied just as uncertain as he was.

“Um, I think I kissed you,” he said.

“Oh. Why?” She wasn’t sure if she was dreaming, but Michaela didn’t care. “No, better question,” she said, a little bit of the shell shock wearing off. “How did you know?”

“Kerry,” was all he said.

“Ah,” she responded as though that explained it all. Which it did.

“So where does this leave us?” He wasn’t sure of how to take Michaela’s reaction to his spontaneity.

She frowned. “I don’t know. What are you doing on Friday night? Maybe we could try and figure it out then,” she said with an untypical shyness.

Jay smiled with more ease. “I don’t know. What are we doing?”

“Figuring this out,” she said.

And with easy hearts, free from the secrets and lies that had held them both at bay for so long, their lips met again.