DISCLAIMER: In this chapter, different LGBTQ+ labels are discussed. Please keep in mind the definition of labels sometimes slightly differ from country to country, culture to culture, person to person. I'm not saying THIS is what the word means and everyone else is wrong. Also, it needs to be explained at kid-level, and this is the first time they're being introduced to the proper terms. Going into detail about every single label out there would be... overwhelming, to say the least. So kindly refrain from arguing in the comments :D.

It was surprisingly easy to feel at home in the vast mansion, especially now that Manon had assumed a carefully kind attitude towards me. Every day was like a party: we'd inflate a pool with an attached water slide in the backyard, or go to the park and pretend to be knights on the hunt for an escaped bandit, or write a play about cookie robots and act it out before an amused miss Schneider. Sure, the kids had their bad moments, throwing tantrums or making each other cry, but that was only natural. They were pretty spoiled and could be judgemental, though I could hardly blame them for that, considering what their mother was like.

Like I'd expected, I saw very little of Elizabeth. She seemed to either be working all the time or having to go to dinners and lunches with people who no doubt deemed themselves very important. What her exact job was, I still didn't know, though I'd gathered she was part of some kind of economic department at city hall. She rarely showed her face on weekdays, and on Saturdays and Sundays, she was usually so tired she could barely manage to talk to her daughters.

Today though, she was working from home in her downstairs office. The girls were generally much harder to handle when she was around, probably trying to get her attention. One time, she'd taken them out on the water — apparently, she had a boat — and they came back so excited I couldn't get them to sleep for hours. This morning was no exception. Hoping to get them quiet for half an hour or so, I'd made pancakes for lunch. Ari had asked for animal faces, but when I'd dropped my attempt of a bear on her plate, she'd said: "You're lousy at this. This bear looks like it was eaten by a monster." I'd told her to watch her attitude, or she was the one who would be eaten by a monster — the Jessie-monster, to be precise.

Rain pounded on the windows as I sat down too, a pile of pancakes before me. Camille was concentrating on her own pancake like it was the best thing she'd ever eaten, maple syrup smeared across her cheeks, and the other two were teasing each other, like usual.

"You like him, you like him, you like him," Ari was saying, invading her sister's personal space by basically pressing her nose onto hers. "Manon is in love!" She dragged out the last word with her hands on her cheeks, rolling her eyes back and forth.

"I am not!" Manon said, though she looked flustered. "Dev is my friend. I think you have a crush on him."

"Do not."

"Yes, you do."

"Not not not!"

Swallowing a piece of pancake, I interrupted them: "Okay, so you're both not in love with Dev. Case closed."

Manon huffed, and Ari scowled, though both turned their attention back towards their plates. After a few seconds or so, a glint appeared in Ari's eyes, and grinning at me, she said: "Maybe Jessie is in love."

And, just as fast as they could start arguing, Manon now formed a united front with her sister. She grinned too, then said: "Yes. She was talking to Jake for hours yesterday."

I laughed. Jake was the teenage boy who mowed the lawn every week or so. He was only seventeen, but I assumed that to the two of them, he could just as well be their mother's age. "I really doubt it."

"You're lying; you're blushing!" Ari shrieked.

"Sorry, Ari, but that ship is never gonna sail," I said, "because I'm not interested in any boy ever. I'm gay. If I'm in love, it's with a woman."

Both of them stared at me like they'd never heard of anything like that before. Ari frowned, seemingly having trouble processing the information. To my left, Camille said "mmm" loudly, licking her upper lip with her tongue, her eyes stuck on the stack of pancakes in the center of the table. That girl could eat like an adult bear.

"Do you know a lot of gay people?" Manon asked, while I gave her little sister another half of a pancake. She sounded genuinely interested for the first time: there was no cheek to her question, just polite puzzlement.

"Yeah, I suppose. My ex-girlfriend and I used to go to the Rainbow Cactus a lot; it's a bar for all kinds of gay and queer people." The memories stung: Lennox showing off on the dance floor, and then drunkenly making out under the disco lights, surrounded by all of our friends.

Ari, with her mouth full of pancake, asked: "How do you know if someone is gay?"

"Well, you don't. You can't see if someone is gay. It's just what you are."

She nodded, chewing loudly. "So, anyone can be gay?"

"Yes."

"Is mom gay?"

I snorted, almost choking on the apple part I'd just swallowed. Manon laughed, although I wasn't sure if that was because of me or her sister. "I don't think so," I said, picturing Elizabeth's scowl if she'd been here to witness the conversation. "She was with your dad, after all."

At the mention of their dad, Manon's shoulders dropped. However, Camille rescued the mood with one simple sentence: "I wish mommy was gay."

Luckily my throat was clear this time. I burst out laughing, covering my hands with my mouth, tears welling up in the corner of my eyes. Wouldn't that be something? "Why, Cami?"

"Maybe she would play with my Barbies then too." She looked at the ones she'd left on the kitchen floor, a blonde one and a brown-haired one, face-down and once again butt-naked.

Manon snickered. "That's nothing to do with being gay. Gay is when girls kiss girls or boys kiss boys."

Camille didn't seem to get it, frowning at her sister. Ari jumped off her chair and picked up the barbies. "Like this," she said, her eyes glittering as she crashed the dolls heads together, making loud and exaggerated kissing noises. It made Camille giggle.

And then, the worst thing that could've happened, happened. The door opened, and Elizabeth walked in with an empty coffee cup, that eternal frown on her face. "Hi, girls," she said. "That smells great."

Camille sat up straight in her chair, bouncing up and down in excitement, and asked: "Mommy, are you gay?"

If I could've hidden under the table, like Ari, who was rolling on the floor gasping for air, I would've. Elizabeth was frozen in place, staring at her youngest with her lips parted in surprise, a pot of coffee beans forgotten in her hands.

Manon rolled her eyes. "No. I just told you, Cami. Don't be so stupid."

Immediately, Camille's lips curled downwards. "Well, I don't know..." She sniffed. "Sorry, mommy."

"Hey, that's okay, love," Elizabeth said. To my surprise, she ran a hand through Camille's curls, kissing her on top of her head. "You did nothing wrong."

"Don't call your sister 'stupid', Manon," I said. "That's mean. Cami is much younger than you and still needs to learn a lot."

Manon pursed her lips but said: "Sorry, Cami."

Elizabeth glanced at me, her dark eyes telling me she wasn't happy with this, then looked down at Camille again. "And no, I'm not gay. I'm straight. That means I like men. I was in love with your dad, you know?"

Camille nodded, but Manon suddenly dropped her fork, all the laughter leaving her features. Their mother either didn't notice or chose to ignore it, because she turned back to the coffee machine to restock the roasted beans. I stared at her back, her dark hair flowing towards her midriff, tense fingers gripping the counter. I couldn't help but wonder what was going on in that head of hers — had she been in love with him? And had she or had she not cheated on him?

After a while, the silence was interrupted by the machine crunching the beans, and Manon turned to me. "How did you know, though? That you were gay?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I always thought girls were very pretty and cool and boys were silly, and then one day, it just clicked."

Ari frowned. "What if you think boys and girls are both silly?"

Her mother, now waiting for her mug to be filled, looked over her shoulder. She was smiling, a rare occurrence, and it changed her whole appearance: suddenly, she looked warm and inviting. My stomach gave a jolt, reminding me that I was indeed very, very gay. "That's called being a child," she said.

"Or just realistic, you know," I said, looking away. Honestly, I was going to have to re-download Bumble or Zoe soon, if I was starting to admire Elizabeth Canfield. That couldn't be healthy. "Ari, you are wise beyond your years."

"Or asexual," Manon said, making both her mom and I blink at her in surprise. "I read a book about an asexual warrior princess. She was really cool."

Ari had climbed up on the countertop. "What's that?"

"Asexual is when you don't like kissing anybody," I said. "Or when you only want to kiss someone if you love them very much. Usually, they call that demisexual. Though people can use labels in slightly different ways, so it's always best to ask, just to be sure." Of course, it was more complicated than that, but that could wait until they were older.

Ari stuck her arms in the air. "I am asexual!" she yelled. "People are poopy heads!"

"Good for you, Ari," I said.

Whatever had temporarily made it possible for Elizabeth to smile, it had vanished by then: she was glaring once more, blowing on her coffee. "Really, Jessie, I don't see why they need to know all of this. What if Ari starts saying these things at school?"

"No one would care. It's normal."

Apparently, she did care. She sighed, annoyance sparking in her dark irises. "Can we have a word?"

"But I haven't tackled 'bisexual' yet!"

I didn't know what made me say it. No matter what I thought about her, she was still my boss, and I should probably yield to her expectations. There might have been something about that in that contract I signed... Considering I was here on a trial basis, maybe it would be wiser to keep my mouth shut.

Pity that I'd never been really good at that. "I just think it's important they know this," I said. When I was a kid, I would've given anything for an adult to take me aside and explain the basics, confused as I'd been. "Because girls, whoever you like or don't like, it's okay. Right, Elizabeth?"

Oh boy. I was really pushing it now. Something in me expected her to yell at me to pack my bags, point me towards the door, and snap that she could find a better nanny in a second. Instead, she took a deep breath and looked from one small face to the other. "Yes. Of course."

Ari, strangely quiet and subdued, shifted a little closer to her mother, and it struck me how much they resembled each other, with their beautiful full hair and dark, razor-sharp eyebrows. "Mom, what's bisexual?"

Elizabeth frowned, lifting her mug and taking a sip. "It's when you sometimes fall in love with boys and sometimes with girls," she said.

Close enough. Look at that. She did know this stuff.

"Or other genders," Manon added.

Elizabeth nodded noncommittally. "It's kind of superfluous, though. In the end, we're all just people."

I looked her up and down, casually leaning against the counter in her black slacks, her two youngest daughters seemingly hanging onto her every word. "What do you mean by that?"

Just then, her phone started ringing, cutting through the sound of rain still attacking the window behind her. "Oh, come on, Jessie," she said, taking it out of her back pocket and checking the screen. "Have you honestly never been attracted to a man before?" Not waiting for an answer, she tapped the green button and jammed her phone between her ear and shoulder. "Elizabeth Canfield speaking," she said, carefully picking up her mug and a chocolate cookie and hurrying out of the kitchen, kicking the door closed behind her with her sneaker.

"No. Absolutely not."

I was so stunned by the question I had to answer, even though she couldn't hear me anymore. What was there to like about men? Sure, some of them might be handsome in an artsy kind of way, like I could appreciate ancient Roman statues, but actually getting frisky with them? No thanks. I'll pass. Someone told me once before the only reason I was a lesbian was that I hadn't run into the right guy yet, and I'd almost pissed my pants from laughing too hard.

Manon rolled her eyes. "Mom really doesn't get it, does she?" she said, and I couldn't agree more. "I guess she just likes men a little too much." Picking up her fork, she jabbed it into her pancake like it was a pig to be impaled on a stake.

Guess she did know about the rumors.