They say that love is blind. I never really understood that as a child. I thought they meant that in the sense love was blind to you. Well, that’s part true. It isn’t blind to the couple, it’s blind to others. At least that’s what I thought.

“We should head back to class.”

I watch as Monica pulls her hair back into her original ponytail, leaving me sitting on the toilet seat, alone. The ponytail ends up a bit messy, but I don’t mention that. She still looks beautiful either way. I stand up and Monica opens up the stall just a crack to see if anyone’s passing by. She waves her hand to signal that the coast is clear, and we exit the cramped stall.

“Check in the mirror real quick, I think I got some lipstick on your neck,” Monica says softly.

I walk over to the mirror in the bathroom, putting my hair up. I look in the mirror just as I finish tying it up. I see a dark spot on my neck, and I try to rub it off, thinking it’s lipstick. My eyes widen when I realize it isn’t coming off.

“Monica… I don’t think this is lipstick.”

“What?” she says, walking over to me and looking into the mirror with me. “You don’t think-”

“It might be,” I say quietly, knowing how she’d get in this situation.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, Erika, I should’ve been gentler-” she rubs her face with her hands, frustrated. “Just-- put your hair down, no one will notice.” Her face is bright pink at this point, and I feel bad for making her freak out. I put my hair down quickly, and grab her by the shoulders.

“Hey, don’t freak out, this isn’t going to fix it, right? I covered it up, everything is going to be okay. Deep breaths.”

She breathes in very anemic, sounding like she’s dying.

“You got to breathe better than that, c’mon. Let’s get to class.”

I grab her hand and we walk out of the bathroom. No one is in the halls, so no one notices our displays of affection. I stare at our feet, noticing the sound they make as they hit the tile floor. When we reach the door to our math classroom, I go in first. Monica stays behind, as to not raise too much suspicion. I sit down at my desk.

After about ten seconds, she walks into the room, her face a bit flushed, looking embarrassed. She sits at her sight not so far from mine. I notice my friend Zoe look at me, Monica, and then back to me. She smiles at me slightly, and turns back to her work. I look down at my own paper as thoughts surge through my head. Does Zoe know? It’s definitely possible, she’s gay and is always bragging about how strong her gaydar is. I don’t look at her for the rest of class.

When the bell rings, I get my stuff together and head out the door to my science class, which is all the way across the school. Zoe catches up to me, as our core classes all share the same general 30ish people. We chat about random stuff and what we did during the day, as we don’t have many classes together, and we don’t sit together at lunch.

“Talk to me during science, I want to chat about something,” she says quietly, walking faster toward other friends. Monica catches up to me shortly after.

“What was that all about?” she asks me.

“I think Zoe knows.” I say quickly, regretting it instantly.

“What do you mean ‘I think Zoe knows’?” she says, eyebrow raised.

I’m about to answer her, but we’ve reached the science lab. I sit down at my assigned seat next to Zoe. She has out a piece of paper which she’s holding in her right hand, and there are goggles and test tubes on the tables. Cool, lab day.

“Hey Zoe,” I say, setting my stuff on the ground next to the table. “What are we doing today?”

“Some kind of dialysis lab, I don’t know,” she says, absentmindedly playing with the test tubes on the table. “It involves glitter, though.”

I look to where she’s guestering and sure enough, there is a test tube filled with glitter water.

“Okay class! Let’s talk about the lab we’ll be doing today! Is everyone here?”

We take attendance really quickly and then she draws our attention to the screen, where the instructions are in full view of everyone. The first instruction is to dip some kind of piece of plastic into a water cup. Okay, sounds legit.

While the teacher leaves us a few minutes to do this, I whisper quickly to Zoe.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Zoe smirks. “Let’s talk about that hickey on your neck.”

My face flushes bright red. “It-it’s just a bruise-!”

“A bruise that wasn’t there before you went to the bathroom in math, and is placed on your neck. What did you do, fall on a toilet?”

“I ran into a wall,” I lie, “you know how clumsy I am.”

Zoe laughs, continuing to do the experiment. “Who are you, Samantha? Look, I know where those ‘bruises’ came from, Erika.”

“Monica and I aren’t doing anything!” I say a bit too loud. Monica’s head perks up and looks straight at us. Monica looks at me in fear, and I notice her chest rising and falling a bit quicker than normal.

“That’s funny, I don’t remember ever mentioning Monica’s name”

Shit.

“Face it, Erika. You can’t keep this a secret forever.”

My face blushes bright red as I look around and quickly say, “How long have you known?”

“A month or so. Y’all are horrible and keeping things on the DL.”

I look up to see Monica talking to the teacher. Reading her lips, I think… she’s asking to step out of class.. With me?

My thoughts are confirmed as Monica comes over to me, grabs my wrist, and pulls me out of the classroom. She’s breathing heavily as she sits against the wall outside the classroom, putting her face between her knees. I sit next to her and put my arm around her, pulling her body closer to mine. After about a minute, she calms down and speaks.

“Does Zoe know?”

I slowly nod, hugging her tighter. “I don’t know how she knew, to be honest.”

“I knew we weren’t being careful enough, this is all my fault.”

“Woah, woah, this isn’t your fault. Zoe is just crazy good at detective work and logic. Plus, her gaydar probably steered her here. It’s Zoe’s fault if it’s anyone’s. But despite all that she’s said, I think she was right about another thing.”

“What’s that?”

I pull her face closer to mine, tucker a piece of her hair behind her ear and kiss her softly.

“We can’t keep this a secret forever.”

We walk back into the room and I sit next to Zoe.

“My gaydar isn’t working so well on you, so I gotta know… Are you gay?”

I smile, looking directly at Monica, who’s smiling like an idiot.

“Hella.”