Reinventing Emma

"Dyke? I hate that word," Carrie said with a frown. Her boyfriend Tyler was standing next to her.

"It's the truth," Ben shrugged. "I mean, she always hovering around Sophie. It's pretty obvious that she's into her." I couldn't argue that so I remained quiet.

"My sister uses that word all the time," Carrie continued. "But in her case it's okay since she is a lesbian. It's like the N Word. An African American can use it, but no one else should. It's rude."

"Whatever! That's not the point," Ben frowned, and then turned to me and added, "Do you deny being into Sophie?"

"That's not the point either," Billy said, looking at his roommate almost sadly. "I told you that Sophie wasn't into you, but you wouldn't listen."

"I'm telling you, she was," Ben argued.

"I didn't give you those scratches across your face," I pointed out.

"No, I did," Sophie said, finally getting control of her earlier fear and standing up for herself. I was proud of her. "And I was not into you. In fact, I've never been nor ever will be. The only person who seems unable to comprehend that is you."

"But you kissed me back!" he argued.

"You really believe that, don't you?" Sophie said with a shake of her head. "I know you're drunk, but you need help. Serious help."

"She's turning you into a dyke too, isn't she?" he asked snidely. I groaned softly. Somehow we were back to my sexual preference again, something I was only just coming to grips with.

"I am not a dyke," Sophie said succinctly, but then she looked at me and smiled slightly. "Although, I'm starting to think that I may be a lesbian, at least where Emma is concerned." I was completely floored by her admission.

"I knew it!" Ben crowed as if he'd someone won something. I was too busy staring into Sophie's eyes to pay attention to him. She was serious. I guess I wasn't the only one going through a sexual awakening here. I couldn't have stopped the smile on my face even if I wanted to.

"You really are an asshole," Tyler said with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, he is," Billy sighed. "But this goes beyond that." He then turned to Sophie. "Do you want me to call the cops?"

"It will be her word against mine," Ben was quick to point out. "And nothing really happened."

"Our word against yours," I interjected.

"Leave it," Sophie sighed to me. "He's right. Nothing much happened. He kissed me and groped me. I'll survive." She shrugged, but then she added, "I'm more concerned that he will do it again to someone who doesn't have you for a roommate to save her."

"I'll talk to him when he sobers up and see if he'll agree to get some help," Billy said to Sophie. He was obviously serious. "If not, I'll talk to his parents."

"What the fuck man?" Ben cried. Billy shook his head, but instead of responding he turned to everyone else.

"The Party is over," he said to everyone, taking Ben by the arm and moving toward their room.

"This is all your fault!" Ben said, twisting out of Billy's grip and facing me angrily. I was surprised he didn't come at me. Maybe there was hope for him after all. Either that or he was simply smart enough to realize I was dangerous, at least to him.

Ben outweighed me by quite a bit and he stood a good foot taller than me, but I wasn't scared. I had the feeling that he hadn't ever gotten into a fight before, not a real one anyway. I mean, at first I figured I'd been lucky with breaking his nose. I'd surprised him, but then he opened himself up by turning toward me. The more I thought about it the stupider it seemed. No one who was a real fighter would have done that. I faced him and waited for him to continue.

"You dyke bitch!" he cried as if it was the cruelest thing he could say.

"Is that the best you can come up with?" I asked, feeling surprisingly calm. "Because I've been called worse for better reasons." Sophie grabbed my arm while Billy did the same to Ben, but neither one of us backed down, only I wasn't just facing him now. I don't know why, but suddenly he represented everyone who ever hurt me.

"You don't know me Ben. You don't know the life I've lived. I've been the minister's granddaughter, the good Christian girl whose faith was going to help save the world," I said, remembering my youth sadly. "I've also been the slut guys pick up when they're drunk and horny. I was the druggie who spent most of her classes too stoned to stay awake. I've been all those things and moved past them. It wasn't easy."

I knew people were giving me odd looks, but so be it. I was suddenly tired of always trying to fit in. I didn't want to be the person everyone looked down on, but by the same token I didn't want to hide the real me anymore either. There was no Amelia, Mia or Emma. There was just me, a combination of them all.

"I'll probably be others things before I'm done, both good and bad," I continued with a shrug. "That's life. So if you think someone calling me a 'dyke bitch' is going to somehow hurt me enough to matter than you've got a lot to learn about me. I'm not afraid of you or your words. I've faced far worse and survived."

"Oh, I like you," Carrie interjected into the silence that followed. "If things don't work out between you and Sophie then let me know. I'll introduce you to my sister."

"Hey!" Sophie cried. I don't know why, but suddenly everyone was laughing. Well, everyone except Ben and me. I waited and finally, he lowered his eyes. Billy took his roommate once more and led him back to their room. This time Ben went without argument.

"Anyone up for going back out? It's still early and the bars are still open," someone asked. Quite a few people seemed to be in the mood, but I wasn't. Thankfully, when I turned to Sophie she obviously wasn't either.

"Let's go back to our room, my little warrior princess," she teased with a smile. "We need to talk. It looks like you're finally willing."

"Yes," I said with a smile of my own. "I guess I am."

We walked back to our dorm as quickly as we could. It was cold out, but that was only part of the reason. We didn't say much. I guess we were both lost in our own thoughts. I did take a moment to call Edie and tell her to let Hank know Sophie was alright. They were waiting for us when we returned to our hall.

"Is it true?" Edie began without preamble. "Pam called after you did and said Ben tried something with Sophie."

"Yes," I sighed, figuring this wasn't going to go well. I wasn't wrong.

"I'll kill him!" Hank cried, clearly meaning it.

"Don't bother," Sophie said, trying to calm her brother. "Emma took care of it." That made Hank and Edie look at me.

"I broke his nose," I shrugged.

"She did more than that," Sophie added. "She kicked him between his legs." I shook my head at that. I thought I'd hit him squarely, but I must not have. There was no way Ben should have been able to get up and chase us if I had. Of course, there was no point in sharing that with Hank. There was no telling what he might do. Instead I turned to Sophie.

"Hey, you're the one who almost took out his eye."

"The point is that he paid for what he tried," she insisted, looking at her brother in concern. "And his roommate is also a friend from back home. He promised to talk to Ben's parents when they get home and make sure he gets help."

"He'd better," Hank said, still angry, but fighting at controlling it. "I need a drink."

"We have wine coolers," I offered. He made a face.

"I hate those things."

"Well, I have vodka if you'd like?" Edie offered. "Why don't we go to my room? In fact, Pam told me she's probably not coming home tonight. You might as well take her bed. This way you don't have to sleep on the floor."

"Seriously?" Hank asked in surprise.

"Just as long as you stay on your side of the room," she smiled, which quickly turned into a grin as she added, "And you never tell my father."

"Deal," he laughed, before turning toward me. "Thanks for taking care of my sister."

"I can take care of myself," Sophie insisted, but we both ignored her.

"Always," I said to her brother, meaning it. He nodded once and followed Edie down the hall.

"Let's get out of the hallway," Sophie said with a sigh, opening our door with her key. A few moments we were behind a closed door and alone for the first time since the night before.

"Now what?" I asked nervously. Now that we were ready to talk I felt oddly reluctant.

"Well, I say we get comfortable first," Sophie answered. "And then we watch something and have a wine cooler before we talk. You look like you're ready to jump out of your skin."

"Okay," I agreed easily. We changed with our back toward each other as usual. I snuck a peek just like always did only this time it was different because Sophie was looking right at me when I did it. Normally she never noticed. "Sorry."

"Why?" she asked. "You've been stealing glances at me every night when we get change pretty much from the first day. It's one of the main reasons why I thought you might be gay. At first it didn't bother me, but eventually I started to like it."

"You did?" I asked in surprise.

"If I didn't, I would have asked you to stop." It sounded so simple and I guess it was, but it still shocked me. Sophie went to the refrigerator and pulled out a wine cooler, but only one. She handed it to me. "Here. I'm going to hold off. I'm just starting to sober up and I want my wits about me when we talk."

"Okay, what do you feel like watching?" I asked as she grabbed her laptop and sat on her bed.

"I don't really care," she replied. "You choose." I took the laptop from her and instead of picking something I put it on her desk before moving back to her bed and sitting down next to her.

"Actually, I'm not in the mood to watch anything," I sighed as I stole one of her pillows and leaned against the smaller section of wall once more. This time Sophie joined me. I took a drink from the bottle I was holding.

"At this point, I'm pretty much an open book," I sighed into the silence that followed. "I don't have any other secrets from you or from probably half the campus by now, but do you have any questions?"

"Yes," she said slowly. "Only one."

"And that would be?" I asked when she hesitated.

"Well, I know you're into me sexually," she said, blushing slightly.

"What gave that away?" I snorted. "The fact that I pretty much attacked you in your sleep two nights ago or what happened last night?"

"You don't really think I was asleep, do you?" she asked, sounding surprised. "I mean, when you didn't joined me on Wednesday night after what happened on Tuesday night I figured the whole thing was freaking you out badly. That why I made believe I was asleep. I didn't want to scare you away. You have no idea how relieved I was when you finally touched me." I shook my head in response.

"Okay, so it looks like we've both been enjoying what's been happening all this time while we worried about how the other one was coping."

"It's not like we were wrong to worry," she argued. "I mean, I don't know about you, but I was definitely freaking out even though I knew I liked you. It's not like I've ever done something like this before." She hesitated before adding, "Okay, so I kissed my friend Michele when we were fourteen and I liked it, but it was only a kiss. Michele didn't seem to care for it much and also made sure to tell people. That made things a bit awkward for a time." I realized that was probably the time Sophie had a bad experience with a rumor mill she mentioned earlier.

"I never even did that with a girl before you," I said with a shake of my head.

"I still can't believe that not only did you catch me taking care of myself when we got back from Thanksgiving break, but somehow that morphed into this."

"You're telling me," I sighed. "I may be the more jaded of the two of us, but I'm also the more conservative. Speaking of which, just how long have you been into me? I mean, you kept telling me it was okay if I was a lesbian, but you never mentioned that you might be one too."

"Like I said when you first told me about your past," she said slowly. "Everyone has secrets. I've always known I liked girls, but it wasn't something I talked about or did anything about. Well, except for that kiss with Michele and that didn't go well at all."

"And that was around the time when I started to develop," she continued. "After that, I always seemed to be getting a lot of attention from boys and the truth is that I liked it. It was great for my ego and it's not like I hated them."

"I dated some guys during freshman and sophomore years, but it never really developed into anything, and then I met Alex. He was my first serious boyfriend and the only person I've ever slept with. Well, besides you anyway." She took my hand, but was staring off into space. I waited patiently for her to finish telling her story.

"He was good looking and popular. I got to live every girl's high school fantasy with Alex. We dated, went to prom and were even voted best couple by our class. I honestly thought we'd get married someday, have house, two or three kids and a dog. You know."

"And then he cheated on you," I said gently, feeling bad for Sophie despite knowing that if he hadn't, nothing would ever have happened between us.

"Yes, he did," she smiled sadly, looking at me know. "But the truth is that's not why I broke up with him. You were."

"Me?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes, you," she laughed. "I mean, his cheating broke me from my dreams of what my future would be with him, but by that time I was already having problems. I couldn't stop thinking about you. I just didn't know what to do about it."

"Wait, are you trying to tell me that you meant for me to catch you taking care of yourself?" That made her laugh even harder. She actually wiped a tear from the corner of her eye before explaining.

"Actually, that was probably the only thing that happened that I didn't plan," she finally said. "I was mortified when you walked in. Thank God you couldn't see the scene I was watching."

"Why?" I frowned.

"I was thinking about you and watching two lesbians." That sort of floored me. I had no idea what to say to it so I moved on.

"What do you mean that it was the only thing you didn't plan?" Sophie blushed at my question, but that didn't stop her from answering it.

"I picked a lot of what we watched because I knew there were lesbian characters or scenes," she replied. "And I lied about picking only movies I've never seen before for 'Bad Movie Night'. Gia is one of my favorites. I mean, you expect Angelina Jolie to do crazy stuff like that, but Elizabeth Mitchell? She played Santa's love interest in The Santa Clause 2. Seeing her doing what she did was hot!"

I guess I should have been mad that she lied to me and apparently schemed her way into my pants over and over again, but I wasn't. In fact, I felt pretty good about it. It was a relief to know whatever I was feeling wasn't one sided.

"So," I smiled teasingly. "You like blonds do you?"

"No," she said seriously. "I like brunettes. Well, only one actually."

"You never asked your question," I said into the silence that followed.

"It's simple enough," she replied. "But I need to know the answer, and please don't tell me what you think I want to hear. I want the truth."

"What's the question?" I asked, waiting patiently. I thought I knew what she was going to ask, or at least I hoped I did. I promised myself I'd answer honestly and hold nothing back whatever the question was. Sophie deserved that. It took her a few moments to get it out. Her eyes shifted away from mine nervously once she got it out.

"Do you love me?" In some ways I was floored by the question, but it was also what I hoped she'd ask. "I mean, if it's just sex then I need to know because..." I placed my fingers over her lips silencing her. I waited until her dark eyes met mine once more before answering.

"I've loved you from the moment I first met you," I said, looking deep into her eyes so she could see how serious I was. "From that first time I entered this room and you smiled at me, making me feel welcome. I loved you before I realized I could truly love someone, boy or girl." A part of me was afraid because I was baring my heart and soul to Sophie which was something I'd never thought I ever do to anyone, but the truth was that they were hers already anyway.

"Thank God!" she sighed, smiling brightly. "Because it was tough enough finally accepting that I was a lesbian, but if you broke my heart too...."

"Broke your heat?" I interjected, causing her to frown. "Does that mean you love me too?"

"Of course," she replied. "I thought that was obvious. I mean, I'd never sleep with someone unless I loved them."

"Hmm, what an interesting concept," I laughed in relief, making a bad joke about my past. Sophie didn't find it amusing.

"You don't either," she said seriously. "Not anymore."

"Of course not," I smiled. "Why would I when I have you?"

Sophie came into my arms and kissed me. I can't explain how good it felt to return it, knowing what we shared was more than simple physical attraction. Sophie loved me and I loved her. Sure, that meant that I wasn't going to fit into what everyone called normal after all despite all my planning. Six months ago that would have horrified me, but I wasn't that girl anymore. I'd grown up, or at least begun the process. I owed that and so much more to Sophie coming into my life.

I knew that not everything was going to be easy now just because we admitted our feeling for each other. The truth was that I wasn't looking forward to telling my parents about us, but it would have to be done. Frankly, I had no idea how they'd react, but having Sophie's love made facing them bearable. Maybe it was time to take off their blinders and tell them the truth about my past, then again maybe not. I'd probably tell grandfather first and see what he thought. Worse case, he would probably help break the news to them.

"I am so glad Hank and Edie hit it off," Sophie said, sitting back and pulling her top off. "Because I so want us to spend the night together without any clothes between us for once."

"Do you think they know what's going on between us?"

"Of course," she smiled uncaringly. "There's no way Pam talked to Edie without telling her what we both said at the party."

"Would she have told your brother?" I asked in concern. I didn't want him to learn about Sophie and me that way.

"Maybe," she shrugged. "But it doesn't matter. I already told him earlier in the day when you left us alone."

"Is that why he stopped flirting with me so obviously and kept giving me those piercing looks at dinner?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Of course," she replied anyway. "I told him in no uncertain words to keep his hands off because you were mine." That made me laugh.

"I think it's going to be a lot easier to tell your family than mine," I said with a headshake afterward.

"I'm not so sure. My parents like to act like their liberal, but having a lesbian for a daughter might not sit well with them." Sophie was staring off into space. I took her chin and turned her face back to mine before taking both her hands in mine.

"We'll tell them together," I promised, squeezing her hands in support.

"We'll tell both our families together," she agreed readily. "But that's a worry for another day. Right now, I sitting here topless while you still have all your clothes on."

"Oh, we can fix that," I smiled, letting go of her hands, reaching down and pulling off my top. My excitement was obvious and I pulled Sophie into a hug and kissed her once more. Her full, soft breasts felt good against my smaller ones. She must have enjoyed the feel of it as well because her mouth opened easily to my probing tongue.

We ended up laying on the bed as I tugged at her shorts. They came off easily enough. The only resistance I felt was at her hips, but after that they slipped down her legs. Sophie kicked them off. My own shorts quickly followed and then we were finally in bed, naked together.