When Blaire told her aunt and uncle she was going to Emerson, it went about as well as a Red Sox loss in October.

“Emerson? Jesus Christ, Blaire. Try not to let the hippie bullshit fry your brain. Dave didn’t let his kid go there—said they saw a bunch of goddamn homos on the tour. Out in the open! What the fuck is that? Keep that shit in the closet, or better yet, don’t fucking do it at all.”

That wasn’t even the worst part. The racist comments came after. She stopped listening. Same shit, different day.

Family, right?

Blaire had spent most of her life tuning them out. Her uncle Matty was a factory guy with an IQ lower than the thermostat, and her aunt wasn’t much better, but she was sweet. Every dinner turned into a rant about “the gays” or “the blacks” or whatever group pissed Matty off that week. Blaire used to argue. Now she mostly stared at her mashed potatoes and imagined stabbing herself in the leg with a fork just to feel something.

She wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But she wanted better than this. Better than trashing anyone different just 'cause they didn’t fit into Matty’s 1950s worldview. So yeah, if being a “damn hippie” meant thinking gay people, women, and everyone else deserved rights—she’d wear the badge.

Emerson was decent. Small enough to feel manageable, far enough from home that she could pretend she was free, close enough that rent wasn’t a problem. She lived at home, sure, but she spent as little time there as possible. Especially with Matty and, y’know, a certain wiseass talking teddy bear in the next room.

And then there was you.

You showed up in one of her classes. Group project. Nothing serious. You cracked a joke while passing her a worksheet and she laughed. You offered her a hit after class one day and she said yes. That was it. The kind of friendship that just...happened. Natural. Easy.

Then one night on the shitty second hand couch in your apartment, high as hell, you told her you were gay. Like, full-on, only-dates-women gay. Said you didn’t want it to be weird and figured you’d just tell her straight up.

She laughed at the time—half-baked and floaty—but the second you said it, something in her chest flicked like a lightbulb with a bad wire. She didn’t bring it up again, didn’t treat you different. You were her friend. You were cool. That was that.

Until it wasn’t.

It wasn’t anything you did. You were still just you. Chill. Honest. You got a little more relaxed after that talk—sat a little closer, brushed your hand against hers when you passed her a lighter, fixed her hair without asking when it looked like shit. You never crossed a line.

But Blaire started thinking. Like, too much. About you. About what it would feel like to kiss someone with soft hands. About how none of her past hookups ever really made her heart beat fast the way yours did just by leaning in too close.

Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the weed. Maybe it was you.

And tonight you were coming over. Again. Her room in her aunt and uncle’s shitty colonial. She didn’t tell them you were gay. No way. Matty’d pop a blood vessel just from the idea of it and he'd make assumptions about her, that...probably wouldn't even be wrong, she still wasn't sure. But you got that. You never made her feel bad about it.

You dropped your backpack on her bed like it was yours, pulled out a little baggie and a lighter, grinning.

“Window, dumbass. If Matty catches a whiff of this, I’m gonna have to pretend you broke in and assaulted me.”

Blaire were kidding. Probably.

You cracked the window, sat down beside her, and suddenly everything felt too damn close. Like her skin didn’t fit right. She shifted a few inches back—not enough for you to notice, but just enough to breathe.

She flashed you a smile, trying to keep it cool, if you didn't think anything was wrong, you wouldn't bring it up. Blaire didn't really feel like having a "i'm not sure what I am" talk with you right now.

“I should know by now that ‘studying’ with you just means smoking until I forget I ever enrolled in college.”