22) Salvaging Relationships: Bailey

Dad was right. Mom did come around in the end, although it took her nearly a week. Despite this, Bailey still felt grateful that both her parents, as well as her brother accepted her for who she was.

That week had been agonising though, and it had felt like a million years had passed. She felt that she had nobody to talk to about it. Dad was kind, and a good listener, but he did not fully understand how it felt to be rejected by ones own mother.

That was something that only Emma would have understood, something that she should have been able to talk to Emma about, but she could not. Emma and her will still separate, and struggling to fix their relationship, and Bailey missed her friend awfully.

Although they sat together at break, neither girl said a word. Emma just ate her lunch quietly, whilst Bailey read her book. There was no conversation, no laughter, no friendly atmosphere. They were not even speaking over Whatsapp.

Mom had spent the week avoiding Bailey as much as possible and when they were together, Mom only spoke the bare minimum. Bailey understood that Mom felt embarrassed that she had "raised a gay kid". She realised that it was a source of shame for Mom and something that she did not want her friends or the rest of the family to know about.

But that was the old mind, the old stigma attached to being gay. Bailey knew that Mom expected her to become some sort of butch girl, but in reality, Bailey was quite feminine.

It was strange how Mom still believed in the old ideas of the Lgbtq+ community, especially since she considered herself to be a modern woman.

Mom seemed to think that having a gay child was an awful thing, and Bailey wondered if she should warn her mother that often, not only one sibling is gay, but all of them.

It was strange not being able to speak to Mom. She had never been very close to her mother, but now they seemed to be miles away from one another. Bailey and Mom had never really had an understanding, but now that understanding was completely non-existent.

Dad had a little chat with Mom on one evening. Bailey heard Mom shouting, then Dad's voice growing louder, until the were both shouting at each other. Bailey felt that it was her fault tat her parents were fighting. She had worried that her coming out would divide her parents, and now it seemed to have done so, but there was absolutely nothing that she could do.

The following morning, Mom had started speaking to Bailey again. She never said to Bailey that she accepted her, or admitted that she was okay with it, but Bailey was just happy that Mom was treating her as normal again. She just hoped that Mom would eventually feel comfortable talking about Bailey's sexuality.

She had felt very upset when Mom had refrained from speaking to her. Whilst she understood that Mom needed time, she could not help to feel the familiar stab of depression, etching its cruel words into her soul. Telling her that she would be thrown out, unloved, that Mom would hate her forever.

Her feelings inspired many poems to be written in that week. Her best poems always came from deep emotion. Depression was a great source of poetry, its only advantage was that, but Bailey would easily give her poetry up if it meant to lose her depression.

Loving Girls

Not sure if it's meant to be

Not sure if I should speak

Because I am afraid of what they will say

When I tell them

I am gay

How hard is it to accept?

The child you birthed and raised

It's not like we have changed

Secretly, we have always been this way

You love us if we like boys

But with girls it's a different story

Perhaps its ignorance

But it implores me

That you can hate someone for being themselves

But it was not true, because Mom was relatively back to normal now, and Bailey felt happier. It still hurt her though that Mom had acted so childishly about her sexuality, but Bailey always tried to forgive and forget. It would not help holding a grudge against her mother.

When that was sorted, Bailey turned her focus to Emma and her relationship with her.

"We need to decide what we are going to be. Friends or girlfriends. We need to make up our minds."

Bailey was surprised to hear such a determinate and confident statement coming from the mouth of her usually meek and unsure friend.

"Well, what do you want?" Bailey replied

"I know what I want, you need to make your decision, and then we can think of how to work on our relationship from there."

Once again, Bailey was surprised at the way Emma spoke. She sounded so confident, so bold, so brave. It was so different to how she usually was, and it almost frightened Bailey. She was use to being the dominant one in their relationship, but her she was taking the back seat to this decision.

"I want to be friends."

"Just friends?" Emma asked, the confidence still ringing clear in her lilted voice

"Yes, I want to be just friends. I think it is more important that we maintain our friendship than lose ourselves in a silly teenage romance that will probably not work anyway."

"I agree with you completely. I want our friendship back. The friendship that we had in the beginning... before that kiss."

"Well what are we going to do about that kiss? It is going to taint our relationship forever."

"No, we won't let it. If you want this friendship to work as much as I do, then you will want to change it. We need to make a promise to each other to never speak of it again, to never think of it, to never do it again. Ever."

"And what if we start having feelings for each other again?" Bailey asked

Bailey was worried that she would begin to have feelings for Emma again. She no longer had feelings for Emma now, it had all melted away after their friendship had begun to dwindle. It just proved how important a friendship was. How all relationships were built on friendship.

Emma thought about the question for a moment, then answered confidently.

"Then we bury those feelings, because our relationship depends on it."

She spoke the words so loudly that Bailey was afraid that someone would hear it.

The girls were sitting in their usual spot in the passage. Emma's lunch box remained closed, and she had not touched a morsel of food. They had serious things to discuss.

"Okay. I can do it. We can do it. Do you think that our relationship is salvageable?" Bailey asked, her voice shaking, just as Emma's had done when she had asked the vital question.

"Yes. I do."