My girl got a girlfriend

It was a pretty easy going day. Glimpses of the sun crept onto my dresser on this 75 degrees spring afternoon, and I lay looking at the painted clouds of my ceiling thinking about nothing when my sidekick buzzed. I had a message.

“Umm I have something to tell you,”. My best friend, CeCe, wrote.

“Oh dear god she must be pregnant,”. I thought.

It was a logical inference. After all, she was a 19-year-old freshman, single female, who was miles away from home, for the first time, being exposed to all kinds of new people.

“What’s up,”. I replied.

As I look back I wish I had of called her after that text, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

“I’m gay,”. She said.

If she would have told me she was the real Virginia Tech killer it would’ve been an easier pill to swallow that that. I know exactly how I would have responded. I would’ve  told her not to talk to anyone, and we could both take our refund checks to hide out until we could escape to Mexico never to be seen, or heard from again.(Doesn’t it seem like everyone who commits a crime always tries to escape to Mexico!)

It probably seems odd that at 19 I was so prepared to ride or die for my best friend, but if you knew her you would understand.

CeCe was a tall skinny brown skin girl. Her 5’8 frame towered over my mere 5’2 statue, which is probably why she excelled in basketball, and I didn’t. Her charismatic demeanor attracted everyone to her, including me. She was known for her humor, and should have been a comedian, but above all that she was my lifeline. When I moved in the sixth grade from a predominantly white suburban school in Mansfield, Ohio to an urban school in the heart of Youngstown, Ohio, a city nicknamed murder capital, she showed me the ropes.  There were times I envied her because she never seemed to be fazed by anything or anyone, and I could tell her anything without the slightest bit of judgment.

I could have even dealt with her failing school, and wanting to drop out. Perhaps she had eloped, or even better she had finally got drafted to the WNBA early. I would’ve definitely known how to respond to that, but this was something I knew nothing about. I couldn’t go to my usual stash of Negro spiritual advice and pull out a clichéd quote or phrase for her. I had nothing, and for the first time in a very long time I was speechless.

Millions of thoughts raced through my head. So many of them only a few even come to mind.

“Why is she gay,”. I thought.

“Who made her this way,”. I thought as if she had contracted some incurable disease. I continued to let my mind wonder some more, until finally a few minutes later, which seemed like forever, I got another buzz on my sidekick.

“I wanted to tell you for a long time, but I just didn’t know how.”. She explained.

“I’ve been dating this girl, and I really like her, and I don’t know where this came from, but I know it real,”. She said.

Still, I lay as motionless on my bed as a cadaver in a morgue unsure of what to think, let alone say. Flashbacks of all the times we talked about the neighborhood girls who were lesbians. Just a few weeks she had informed me that a close friend of ours had come out, and my reaction was nothing short of brutal.

“Guess who is gay,”? She squealed.

‘I don’t know, Who,? I anxiously asked as if I were waiting to see if Barack Obama had won the 2008 presidential election, or not.

“Lisa,”! She yelled. She knew I was hanging on every inch of her words, and that she had basically just delivered my daily dosage of gossip for the day.

“Whhhhhhhhhhat,”!!!!. I objected. “Ugh, that’s nasty,” I quickly followed up. “If my daughter ever turned out to be gay I’m gonna beat it out of her,” I jokingly, but with a serious undertone replied.

We both laughed and moved on to the next topic.

I thought about that conversation, and how she appeared to agree with me, and my opinions. She never gave any clue that she too was a lesbian herself. I felt horrible. Had I ignorantly hurt my friend’s feelings?

“How…what.. who .. when,” I finally texted.

“I don’t know, Eartha,”. She replied, and I could hear her frustrations in my mind as I read the message.

“Have you told your mother,” I asked? “No. Not yet,” she said.

“Well, you know I love you regardless,” I said.

The conversation was just the beginning of our process, well my process rather. After that, things significantly changed. I would come home to visit, and not see her as much. Days where we use to spend talking and laughing for hours were replaced with unanswered text messages, and mysterious visits to unknown places with unknown people excluding me. She had chosen a different crowd now, I assumed, and I no longer fit in. I was hurt, and saddened. It had appeared I lost my best friend of six years in a matter of one text, and two months.

Half of me wanted to say something, and make amends, but the other more stubborn side wouldn’t budge. “She’s the one whose into girls now, so she should come and see how I feel about it instead of ignoring me,”. I thought.

I mean we had a system. We had a program that I had grown accustom to, and now she was just coming along and destroying everything we had built.  Good friends come along every once and awhile, and now I was being forced to seek and find another one.

I, by no means, approved of her lifestyle. It was ungodly. Didn’t she know she would be sent to hell? I pondered.

By this time it was the summer, and everyone was back home from college. Before I could even adjust to her lifestyle she had posted pictures of her change via Facebook. Now everyone would know. I suppose that was her point.

Coming from such a small town as Youngstown, Ohio, where there is not much to do, Facebook can become the highlight of people’s days. I began to get bombarded with questions about my friend like I was her publicist. Everyone had an opinion, and it was like I had become the filter for them, but little did they know I still had unanswered questions myself. I was just as clueless as they were.

My brother, who was also apart of the paparazzi, called me and decided to really talk to me about it.

“Yo,whats up with your girl,”? He said. “She all over Facebook, and shit, dressin like a nigga,”.

“She likes girls now,” I said with a hint of annoyance hoping he would get the picture.

“Naw, Eartha you ain’t seen the pictures on Facebook,”? He said, and clearly missed my passive aggressive attempt to change the subject.

“No, I haven’t seen them,” I said.

“Well you need to for real,” He said appearing to forewarn me of some unknown disaster that awaited me whenever I got around to seeing them.

I’d glanced over her page a few times never really paying attention, but this time I wanted to see what had gotten my brother so riled up that he made a personal phone call to me.

I got on the computer, and I was utterly astonished. CeCe, who use to wear more makeup then me, had now become a completely different person. Tight tanks and skirts were substituted with XXL button-ups, and baggy jeans. She even had pictures hugged up on another girl. “Oh my god,”. I screamed, and before I could catch ahold of my emotions tears began to fall. I had to do something, and we had to discuss this elephant in the middle of the room because it was about to suffocate this relationship.

It was a dark night in Youngstown when we finally decided to talk. Ironically, in the parking lot of a church we sat, and finally chatted about what was going on.

“I mean what is up with you,” I started.

“Nothing really, I just been chillin,” she nonchalantly responded. I knew I was going to have to jump right in, or she was about to play cat and mouse all night.

“You are taking pictures with girls, you are ignoring me, and you’re gay,”!!!! I exclaimed! I continued on my rant about how she could never look into the eyes of a child that she and another woman created, and how she was making a mistake about choosing such a lifestyle.

“I know that, but I can’t help it,” she said.” I like women, and nothing about a man excites me,”.

“I know that I may have a seat in hell with my name inscribed in it, but I can’t help feeling the way I do,” she said,”.

“I haven’t been around you like we use to because I know how you feel, and I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable,”. She explained, and at that moment I wanted to slap the shit out of myself for being so selfish. Here I am consumed with self-pity and anger while my friend has taken my feelings into consideration. Something I hadn’t done for her in a long time. I mean not once did I ever imagine what she may be going through.

I was so embarrassed. How could I not be? She had never judged me, or allowed her opinions to overshadow her love for me, and how could I not return the favor? I realized this conversation was not a platform for me to convert her to the wonderful land of heterosexuality as I had originally planned. Her lifestyle wasn’t negotiable. She wasn’t some new woman loving monster, who needed to be saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost. She was what she had always been to me, and that was my best friend.

I learned, at this very moment, I didn’t give her the gift of life, thus, making it impossible for me to decide how, who, and on what terms she spends it. The religious argument I, so adamantly, stood by became invalid the very moment I put on my black robe and gavel. I was the one who had the problem, not CeCe.