Work Text:
i.
Leighton is seven when she realizes: girls are better than boys.
It’s an objective thought, they just are. She prefers to hang out with the girls in Nico’s parties rather than the boys, and her friends —well, her only friend— is also a girl. They are simply better, for reasons she doesn't know how to put in words.
She doesn’t bring it up to her mom, who loves her brother as if he has never done anything wrong. But she tells her dad, who gives her a big laugh, with teeth and all, and makes her promise she’ll never let a boy take her away from him, which she happily does.
ii.
Sofia is her first kiss.
And it’s horrible, it’s wicked of her to actually kiss her brother’s girlfriend. She swears to never tell him, to never let him know, because it is gross. She feels gross. And evil, and nasty, and villainous, and easy.
What kind of person would ever kiss her brother’s girlfriend?
But Sofia had promised that it didn’t count. That it wasn’t a real kiss. Even if her lips had been on Leighton’s and her tongue and it was all so strange and there was something in her stomach that didn’t feel right. Like the weirdest of the feelings, the strangest of the guilts.
(And it doesn’t matter that she thinks she actually liked it. That Sofia’s hair is quite impressive and her eyes with the long eyelashes and the darkness and the way she kissed her are all still on her mind. Because it’s all wrong and it cannot be.)
iii.
She gets drunk at fourteen and kisses a bartender who promises free vodka.
It is not the same as kissing Sofia but it fills the gap. Achieves for her mind to be out of the moment and into the guy’s mouth. And it’s low, she knows it, she has fallen way down with horrible results.
She hopes Esme and Francesca never find out.
iv.
There’s a guy and everyone insists on it. As if it is written in stone, it must happen, it must be. They would be perfect together and maybe high school sweethearts could turn into the love of her life.
But it doesn’t wake any feelings in her. Sure, he’s fun, and yes, she can tell he isn’t bad looking.
Yet it feels too close to absolutely nothing, no excitement, no happiness, nothing. And it isn’t his fault, she thinks it isn’t, because he really hadn’t done anything wrong or weird or pathetic.
She tells him she’s in love with someone else, even if it’s a stupid lie she couldn’t maintain if any questions were asked, she hasn’t thought it through. He says he understands, and maybe they can stay friends.
He’s with another girl by the end of the month.
v.
Leighton knows it, even if the word never leaves her mouth.
She’s a lesbian.
She knows they won’t hate her, her family wouldn’t, she knows it’ll be okay, but she simply doesn’t want to pronounce it. She doesn’t want to deal with it or be worried that people who have never spoken to her will hate her. She doesn’t want to live with the disadvantages.
And it feels like planning, like so much planning. Because she’ll have to plan how to tell everyone, because she’ll have to plan it through if she ever wants to have children, she’ll have to plan each time she meets someone new how to break the news in.
Every person turns into a closed door that she doesn’t know how to open.
It is fine, she decides after much consideration. She’ll simply not open it.
vii.
Dating apps are easy to fake.
She says she’s eighteen (she isn’t), a freshman in college (she isn’t), interested in going to bars (she isn’t) and casual hook-ups (she is). Leighton toys with it for months before actually doing it. She settles plans with Monica, who’s older, who apparently has children, who has no problems putting her name on a hotel bedroom as far as Leighton puts the money.
It isn’t bad, quite the opposite, it is quite great.
The next day, she cries herself to sleep and blocks the woman from all the dating apps. It cannot happen again. Ever.
It’s a slip of the mind, a wrong move, a ridiculous idea. And it breaks her heart and it makes her head spin how much she actually hated it and loved it. Because she wishes it could be her, it could be something she did, something she could talk to others about. But it isn’t.
viii.
Frida enters the school during their sophomore year. And she’s a bit like Sofia, with shiny dark hair and an amicable smile.
Leighton positively hates it, she hates how much she daydreams about kissing her. About being liked back, about holding her hand and counting her freckles and being accepted. Reciprocated.
She never tells. She never invites Frida to any of her or Nico’s parties.
Leighton wonders if it could’ve been different, if she says it, would she be loved?
(She doesn’t think so.)
ix.
She makes a friend online, and says her name is Abigail. And it’s a lie but it works and she thinks she might, sort-of be able to look like an Abigail.
She says it for the first time, she tells it: she’s gay, closeted, and no one can know.
She tells her she’s not sure if she wants to come out.
Riley, if that’s the real name of whoever is on the other side, promises it is okay. Promises things will be okay. And it seems genuine, even if she has been out for years, even if her family is nothing like the Murrays.
She mentions the words worthy and appreciated. She says it’s difficult to come to terms with, and she’s proud that Leighton knows who she is.
They talk about their everyday life and they talk about movies and shows and Riley makes her watch D.E.B.S on a weird ass illegal website, fills her in with whatever L-Word reference is still left from years ago, and the migration of Supergirl to The Bold Type and Faking It in between.
Leighton ghosts her when she says she’s going to New York, that maybe they could meet up.
They never talk again.
x.
She makes it alive to the end of high school.
She graduates with good grades and an acceptance letter to Essex. She has a plan she’s sure to follow, with Theta parties and Nico and morning of Esme and Francesca. It should be easy, it should be possible.
But she’s rejected, and all she has tried not to fall onto old habits hits her.
She reopens her account, she adds newer photos, she meets a woman at a hotel.
Leighton cries her eyes out when she’s back at the dorm and everyone is out. She feels the hot tears of regret and shame, even if she knows she hasn’t done anything wrong. But she has, she did.
She lies, she hides.
And it is her fault no one wants her as a friend, it’s her fault she isn’t capable of coming out, of saying such easy and simple words. She isn’t worthy of second times or spending nights, or actual love.
How bottomless could brokenness be?