I dove in at the deep end, driving down through the water.

Burn it off. Force it out. Make it gone.

The hiding, the secrecy, it was tearing me up inside. Why did it have to be this way? Why?

My lungs were ready to explode as I propelled off the bottom and split the surface. Then swam, lap after lap after frantic lap, trying to release it, expunge it, set it free. Set me free.

They got it wrong when they called it “the closet." This was a prison. Solitary confinement. I was locked inside, inside myself, dark and afraid and alone.

When I dragged up the stairs at Taggert House, I found Rosie huddled in front of my door, a Tupperware bowl balanced on her knees. She scrambled to her feet and smiled. "Claire's special.” She held the bowl out to me. “Chicken soup for the soul.”

I didn't think soup was going to salve my ravaged soul. Rosie shouldered her backpack and followed me inside. I dumped my crap on the floor and shoved the bowl in the microwave. Rosie must’ve sensed my imminent implosion because she didn’t ask.

The soup was comforting, or maybe it was the peace I found with Rosie. We ate directly from the bowl at the dinette table. The last noodle we slurped together and kissed in the middle. Rosie rinsed the bowl and spoons, then retrieved her independent living folder – the bullshit class I should’ve elected – kicked off her shoes, and spread out her homework on the bed.

Now her silence ragged me. I got up and headed for the closet. “Know anyone who needs a prom dress?" I wrenched out the trash bag from the back. In the bottom was the dress that Mom had ordered from a catalog. It was a seafood green strapless number that I'd been dying to burn. Even more so now. I tossed the bag on the bed.

Rosie glanced up at me, looking a little intimidated, and opened the bag. She pulled out the dress and gasped. Laying it lengthwise across the bed, she smoothed a hand down the bodice and said, “Okay, talk to me. What happened today?”

“Today, yesterday, tomorrow,” I snapped. “What part of my life doesn’t suck?"

Her eyes widened.

“I'm sorry," I said, calming myself. “It’s just…everything’s gone to hell.”

“What do you mean?”

I told Rosie about lying to Jisoo, the way people looked at me, the student council meeting, Kai treating me like dirt, Nayeon’s confrontation in the restroom. All of it. “She called me a…,” my voice faltered, “a dyke.”

"Ow.” Rosie grimaced. “Better get used to it. The best thing you can do is call yourself a dyke. A lezzie, a lesbo, a queer. All the hateful words, use them for fun. Claim them. Then they can’t be used against you.”

Used against me. I’d never been called names before – at least, not to my face. Never realised how much they hurt. How personal it could get. “What did I ever do to her?” I wondered aloud. "I thought Nayeon was my friend.”

“Lesson number one," Rosie said, “you can’t always trust your friends. Lesson number two: You don’t have to do anything to be hated for being gay.”

That was the truth, I was finding out.

"But it's their problem, Jennie?” She met my eyes. “Not yours. Remember that.”

Their problem. Right. So why did I feel sickened by it? Slamming the closet door, I said, “The topper, the real highlight of my day, was when Dean asked me to the prom.”

Rosie's jaw dropped. “What did you say?”

“I said, ʻSure, I'd love to, Dee. What time are you sending the limo?ʼ ”

Rosie deflated visibly.

“Now he thinks I have a problem with punks, like I'm this raging bigot or something.” My throat caught. “Worse than that, I hurt his feelings. Dean Demming, the nicest guy in the world.” I folded my arms around myself, aching from the memory. "It really bothers me, Rosie. Not just Dean, or Kai, or even Nayeon. All of it. Me. I'm so bound up by this secret I just want to die.”

“What?” Rosie breathed. “Don’t say that.”

"I could’ve done something important on the student council this year. Promote diversity and tolerance, make a difference at Seoul high. Instead we’re deciding how many fucking balloons to hang in the fucking ballroom." My fiery gaze settled on the dress, on Rosie stroking it. Out of habit, I retrieved my backpack from the floor, pulled out my phone and checked it. “What does somebody ‘out and proud’ do about prom? Homecoming, too? All that social crap?”

“We usually go as a group,” Rosie said quietly. “If you want, we could go to prom together.”

“Oh, right.” I whirled on her. “Stand on opposite ends of the dance floor and ignore each other?" I shook my head.

“I should've told her,” I said, staring at the phone in my hand.

“Kai, too. I should’ve told everyone. Not that I wouldn’t have gotten the same reactions. It’s just, all this fear about who knows, who’s been outing me, suspecting everybody, accusing them. What difference does it make who's outing me? I should’ve outed myself.” My eyes strayed to the window, the alley, where William was helping a new tenant-in-transition haul in boxes.

“Doing this – hiding it – feels like I’m admitting it’s wrong. Like I’m ashamed. I'm not ashamed. Of me or you or the way we feel about each other. I want the world to know." I turned back to her. “I want to be myself. I’ve hurt people. Jisoo, Dean, Kai, my mom. Me, You. I hurt."

I pressed a hand to my heart. It felt as if the wound cut so deep it might never heal.

“Oh, God,” Rosie whimpered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Why hadn’t I? “Because I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t happy, or that I was sorry I’d fallen in love with you. I’m not. I am happy – with you." I couldn’t hold back the truth any longer, though. “I’m afraid, Rosie. I’m so alone in the world that if you left me…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn't finish the thought.

“No,” Rosie said urgently. She scooted off the bed and came over to me. "I’m not going to leave you. What makes you think that?"

“You're lying to me. Sneaking around. Going off to Unity to be with them. The only reason I can think of that you’d lie to me is…there’s someone else.”

“No.” Rosie gripped my arms. "I’d never do that to you. Never.”

I wished I could believe her. I wanted to believe.

She released me and covered her face with her hands. "Oh, God.” In a small voice, she said, "I have a confession to make. I lied to you. I lied to you big time.”

No, please don’t let her say it. Don’t let her say she loves someone else.

All I could do was try to keep breathing. Keep living. Rosie backed away and began to pace, rubbing her knuckles together. Nervous, jittery, the way she gets when she drinks too much coffee. As she passed me, she said, "I've betrayed you.”

My heart stopped beating. Dying, dying.

"I had no right to tell you not to come out. No right. I was trying to protect you. This whole keep-it-a-secret thing? It was all about me. Me." She slapped her chest. “I’m a selfish bitch.”

My brain allowed her words to seep in. A selfish bitch? What did she mean? No she wasn’t. Perching on the mattress, she pounded her forehead with a fist and muttered, "I ruined your life. I ruined your life by not letting you come out. I should’ve just stayed in Australia. You’d be better off if we'd never met.”

“That isn’t true," I said. “Stop it." She was going to injure herself if she kept battering her head. I sat beside her and pulled down her arm. “Does this have anything to do with why you transferred? What happened there?”

She didn’t answer, just sort of shrank into herself.

A long moment passed. Rosie raised her head and slowly met my eyes. Nodded.

“Can you tell me?" I asked. “Please?”

She pressed her hands between her knees. “I don’t want to. You'll hate me.”

“I could never hate you. Please," I pleaded with her. I was so sick of all the lies and the hiding and the secrecy. Wasn't she the one who hated playing games? “Just tell me the truth, okay? I think I deserve that.”

She blinked up at me and swallowed hard. “You’re right. You do." She got up and padded to the closet. Easing the door back onto the runner after my slamming had dislodged it, she said, “Joanie was…my girlfriend. She was the first girl I ever loved. I mean, really loved. Like fireworks, you know?” She glanced over her shoulder at me.

Yeah, I know now.

Rosie added quickly, “Small fireworks compared to you.”

I smiled weakly.

“But I did love her. I won’t lie to you, Jennie. I would’ve been with her forever if…if I could have.”

I felt stung, but she was talking about the past. “Go on," I said. "What happened?”

Rosie started pacing again, banging her knuckles together. "We met at this stree arts festival. I’d just formed Unity and we got this invitation to do a street performance. Our first gig. Joanie was there, at the festival, working the crowd, getting signatures on a gun control petition or something. She was really active on her political action committee at school. Sort of like you and the student council. That’s where we met. We fell in love really fast. At least, I did." Rosie found my eyes. “I’m not saying this to hurt you, Jennie.”

"I know. It's okay. Just tell me everything.” I shoved the prom dress aside and scooted up against the headboard.

"Joanne went to a different school, ," Rosie said. “Think Seoul high homophobia times ten.”

I cringed. I couldn't even imagine it.

“Joanie wasn't out. Nobody was. And the last person to come out there got expelled.”

“Jesus.”

"Yeah, there are still places like that, believe it or not. Dark Ages. Plus, Joanie was just discovering she was gay. Sort of like you. It was the one thing we used to be tight about. You can’t have one person who’s totally out and another who’s in the closet. Well, you can, but it won’t work for very long. You can’t go out in public, or be with your friends –" She stopped and looked at me. “But I guess you know that.”

Did I ever.

Rosie plucked a pair of jeans off the floor and folded them over a kitchen chair, then stood at the window, gazing out. "In the lesbigay club at the Central, I was sort of in charge of helping people come out. Because there are good ways and bad ways and better times than others and things to look for in people, to gauge their attitudes and how they’re going to accept you." She was talking so fast I had to listen hard to keep up.

“Everybody’s different,'' she said, turning to me and lowering herself onto the windowsill. "For some gays it’s easier to tell their friends first, because the most important thing is to feel accepted by the first person you tell. And the hardest thing for most of us is coming out to our parents. But there are ways to talk to them so it's not such a shock. And you should always tell them before somebody else does." Rosie averted her eyes. She got up and went to the refrigerator, opened the door and scanned the contents. Which were minimal.

Everything she’d said was swirling around in my head. I kept thinking, We should've had this conversation about coming out before. Maybe she was waiting until I was ready. Except I was ready. I’d been ready from the very first day.

Rosie shut the fridge and turned. She smiled wistfully and said, “The best thing about coming out is, it’s totally liberating. You feel like you’ve made this incredible discovery about yourself and you want to share it and be open and honest and not spend all your time wondering how this person is going to react, or should I be careful around this person, or what will the neighbours say?” her eyes were sparking now, firing.

"And it’s more. It’s about getting past that question of what's wrong with me, to knowing there’s nothing wrong, that you were born this way. You're a normal person and a beautiful person and you should be proud of who you are. You deserve to live and live with dignity and show people your pride.”

I welcomed the day I could be out and proud like her. Be strong and sure of myself. It’s what attracted me to her in the first place. "Wow, Chaengie." I hugged my knees. “I never knew about your role in the lesbigay club. How great it would be for someone who’s going through this to have a person like you. Sort of a counselor, or a mentor.”

Rosie's face went white. She closed her eyes and squinched as if in pain. A connection – there had to be one. "Does this have something to do with Joanie?" I asked gently.

Rosie fixed her gaze on the wall above my head. At my portrait of her that she’d had framed and hung over the bed. "I told Joanie all of this,” Rosie said. "About coming out, being out. I knew how much happier she'd be with herself if she could just break through her fear. And she understood that. She hated the hiding. But she couldn’t come out at school. There was too much to lose. She was this really smart person, like you." Rosie's eyes dropped to meet mine. "She had plans for college and she couldn’t take the risk of being expelled. All her friends were there, too, and she didn't know how they’d deal with it. How she’d deal with it if they weren’t supportive. And her parents…” Rosie shook her head. "A lot of times we imagine these horrible things will happen when we tell them. And they usually don’t.”

Yeah, I thought. Then there’s that time they do. I could relate to Joanie’s fear.

“Over the summer, I persuaded Joanie to transfer to the school I was in, where people were more accepting," Rosie said. “Finally, finally, she decided to do it. But only after she came out to her parents.”

Oh, no, I thought. Did the same thing happen to Joanie? Her parents couldn’t handle it?

“I helped Joanie figure out what to say, how to break it to them. And it went better than she expected. I gave her this brochure for her parents that we keep in the Lesbigay club. It sort of answers the basic questions: Is it my fault? What can I do to help? What questions should I ask my son or daughter? They were shocked, of course. But I think they already suspected. I think parents always know, they just don't want to believe it." Rosie's voice changed, "They want to make it as hard on us as possible. It’s such a power trip for them. Anyway,” she shrugged off her rising pique, “Joanie's parents were really cool. I told her they would be. It was obvious they loved her enough.”

A knife pierced my heart.

“Oh, Jennie.” Rosie rushed to the bed and crawled across the mattress. “I'm sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that about your mom. I know she loves you.”

“Itʼs okay.” I fended her off with a hand. “I’m all right." Which was a lie and she knew it.

Rosie's shoulders slumped and she twisted around, her back to me. “I would've advised you to do something different with your mom.” She picked at the prom dress. “Maybe write her a letter. Give her time to think about it. The way your mom treated me that day, I knew she’d have a problem.”

"What do you mean? How did she treat you?”

“Didn’t you notice?” Rosie swiveled her head. “As soon as she saw my shirt she freaked. She wouldn't even let me touch Ella, like I was a child molester or something.”

"Serious?"

Rosie nodded.

I hadn’t noticed. What was with my mom? Was she a flaming homophobe and I didn’t even know it? “Just finish, Rosie. What happened there?”

Rosie moved from the dress to fondling my ankle chain. "Joanie was like this different person after she came out to her parents. Wild and crazy and happy all the time. Because it’ll do that, holding it in. It’ll make you paranoid and ashamed. Not of being gay, of being such a coward. All you want to do is be honest, be the person you really are.”

I know! I almost shouted. I know.

"I took it slow at first. Introduced Joanie to a couple of my friends, just so she’d know what it was like being around other gay people. Because it’s fantastic." She smiled over her shoulder at me.

“You can talk about things that are going on in your head and in your life. You can discuss girlfriends and laugh and joke around about sex and stuff. Everybody really liked Joanie, and she liked them and it was all just hunky-dory." Rosie scrambled off the bed and charged across the room. "Do we have any coffee?"

“No, we’re out," I told her. “I’m sorry. I meant to stop by the store and get some after school." My mind wasn't exactly on groceries, I didn't add.

"Shit." She slammed the cabinet door over the sink.

“There's tea –”

"I hate tea. You know that.”

“God."

She whirled around. Her head lolled back and she murmured "Sorry. I'm sorry. It’s just…this next part is hard. I never told anybody, except Mom. I didn’t have to, since all my friends watched it happen." Her voice quavered.

“Come here.” I opened my arms to her.

"No. Let me get through this." She took a deep breath. "So, Joanie’s like 'This is great. Why didn’t I come out before? Lets tell the whole world I’m gay.’”

That sounded familiar. The irony wasn’t lost on me – a lot of similarities between Joanie and me.

“I told the lesbigay club that we were going to be throwing another coming-out party. Which is what we do when a new person joins the community. So we did, and it was awesome. Joanie felt so included and accepted. And I finally had a girlfriend I could eat lunch with and bring to meetings and hold hands with in the hall. Joanie even joined Unity with me so we could be together all the time. Everybody loved Joanie and she loved everybody.” Rosie’s eyes went black. “Especially Jenna.”

Oh, my God, no. "Don’t tell me.”

“I am telling you,” she said flatly. "She loved Jenna.”

The pain in Rosie's voice, in her face. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Tears welled in Rosie's eyes. I slid off the bed and went to her. “I found Joanie," she whimpered.

I hugged Rosie.

“I loved her. She was mine.” Tears gushed from Rosie’s eyes. I’d never seen her cry. “Joanie and Jenna. How perfect," she mocked.

She must've been holding this in for months, the tears just kept coming and coming. She sobbed into my hair, gut-wrenching heaves. I hated that she was crying over Joanie. I hated how much Joanie had hurt her.

“How can you stand having her in Unity?" I asked. “Seeing her all the time?”

Rosie swiped her nose on her shirt sleeve. “I started Unity. It’s my group. I’m not going to let her steal everything from me. Plus," she sniffled, “Joanie still wants to be friends. I can handle that.”

Rosie was strong, stronger than me. I’d kill Joanie.

Rosie went into the bathroom and came out with a length of toilet paper. She blew her nose and said, “Joanie got all active in the lesbigay club, too. They elected her president and she got all these people involved in causes, like the AIDS Walk and opening our club to straights, making us a GSA. She even got asked to be on the speakers’ bureau at the Center.”

“God. Talk about feeling betrayed.”

"No shit,” Rosie said. “I couldn’t let you come out, Jennie. Wendy was already asking about you. And my other friends, if they ever met you…” She paused and inhaled a ragged breath. "I couldn’t let the same thing happen. You were so much like her. I said I was keeping you a secret? Yeah, I was keeping you a secret from them.”

"Oh, Chaengi.”

Her eyes pooled again. “You have to hate me," she said. "Coming out is such a personal decision. You're the only one who can make it. The only one who knows when the time is right. Look what I've done to you. I've ruined your life.”

“No.”