Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz Page A

it’s okay with her, nothing would ever make her less proud of me. Yeah, well, talk is cheap, and apparently . . . Apparently when you’re sitting on the couch trying to talk about your new girlfriend and you just get these averted eyes and cleared throats and changed topics, when you invite the girl over for dinner like she told you you were allowed to and she spends the entire time talking around both of you and giving you the occasional awkward smile while she directs every single comment to your sister instead . . . well, apparently silence is cheap too.
    â€œYeah,” I say. “It’s been rough.”
    She stirs her coffee idly with her pinky finger. She says, “I don’t think my parents would be okay with it.”
    â€œThey’re religious, yeah?”
    â€œUh-huh. Not as much as me in actual . . . thought, I don’t think, but they’re so ingrained in that church culture and everything. I don’t even like church all that much. I like the singing and the stained-glass, but mostly . . . mostly I just like, you know, me and God, at the end of the day. None of the middlemen or whatever. But I don’t . . . I mean, you understand. I don’t think you’re bad or anything.”
    â€œI like you,” I say.
    â€œI like you, too.”
    â€œMy mom isn’t religious. She votes Democrat. She loves gay people until there’s one sitting at her dinner table.” I wave my hand a little. “I’m not gay.”
    â€œIf James ever told my parents . . .”
    â€œOh, whoa, okay. You . . . I mean, you think James is . . .”
    â€œCome on,” she says. “Obviously James is.”
    â€œAnd that’s . . . I mean, you’re okay with it?”
    The pause is too long.
    I say, “I’m not . . . It is different. When it’s sitting at your dinner table. I’m not judging. It’s allowed to be hard for you.”
    â€œIt’d be easier if he’d just tell me,” Bianca says. “If he’d trust me with it.”
    â€œHow sure are you that he’s gay?” I’m just testing the waters, I think. It is not my place to give him away.
    â€œTwenty thousand percent. Or, like, . . . sixty. I don’t know.” She plays with her hair, and I see some fall out in her hand. Baby.
    â€œHe loves you,” I say.
    â€œI know. Of course.”
    â€œHe’s just trying to protect you.”
    â€œMaybe if he didn’t . . . didn’t act like it was something I’m supposed to be protected from . . .”
    â€œYou’re a smart girl, y’know that?”
    â€œYeah. Perfectionist, hypercritical, anorexic. I’m so not interesting.”
    I try to do this sympathetic little nod, but the truth is that my brain is stuck on the word “anorexic” because Jesus Christ, the size of this girl, she’s got to fit all those stupid little criteria. This girl is actually anorexic , and we’re sitting here discussing musicals and gay boys like we’re normal people, when all I want to be doing—God, all I should want to be doing —is grabbing her by the skinny damn wrists and begging her to tell me all her secrets. Why is it that no matter what way I look at this eating disorder thing, I’m always doing it wrong?
    â€œMaybe he needs some gay friends,” Bianca says, in this measured, neutral little voice that makes me smile. “I have Bible friends.”
    â€œEveryone needs some gay friends, but it’s not . . . I don’t know. I guess I’m questioning that habit of segregating. Andcome on, you do musical theater. You can’t tell me you don’t know gay people.”
    â€œNo, of course we do. We just . . . I mean, we don’t, I mean James doesn’t have a group of just people like