Excerpt 2

“It’s not going to get better. Kim’s not going to wake up some day and say, ‘Okay, I’m gay and I want to be with you, Regina.’”

Regina Hartwell stared at the ground and studied her toes in her favorite Doc Martens sandals. There was no way she could look Anita in her brown eyes. Anita was just too intense, just too serious for Regina right then.

“I don’t like the way you’re still supporting Kim when Kim is off doing her own thing. You don’t have to do that anymore.”

Hartwell was serious, too. At least she looked like she was seriously listening, like a kid who was getting in trouble with her school teacher. But she wasn’t listening. When Regina had her mind set, there was no changing it. And Regina had her mind set.

Anita Morales flipped the steak she was grilling for her thin friend. “Regina, it’s time to do something about it. Get out of it. It’s not working out. You’ve got to make some changes or something because this is really getting old.”

Anita might as well have been talking to a wooden fence.

Folks just didn’t understand what it was like to feel you had another person’s blood flowing through your veins, making your heart beat, your skin tingle, your mind want to work, your arms want to reach out and touch and hug and love and breathe and feel loved and fulfilled for the first time in your life, like you’re not alone in the world, like there’s a mother to care for you, a family who won’t abandon you, someone who accepts you even when you feel all ugly inside. But Regina understood. And it was worth life.