Extraits

Je détestais ne pas trouver la réponse. Ne pas savoir.

Si j'avais été queer, je l'aurai su.

Mais je ne le savais pas. Ce qui revenait à dire que je ne l'étais pas. [...] Mes deux meilleurs amis étaient queers. [...] Même eux étaient sûr sûrs de ce que j'étais.

Un jour, j'avais demandé à Guzman comment il avait su qu'il était gay. Il avait grimacé. "Je déteste cette question. Comment tu as su que tu étais hétéro ?" Je n'avais pas pu lui répondre. "Tu vois ? avait-il poursuivi d'un air suffisant. Les hétéros partent toujours du principe que c'est une chose à découvrir, alors que je suis né comme ça." Pareil pour Shelby, qui avait fait son coming out trans à ses parents à l'âge de neuf ans, avant d'adopter un pronom neutre quelques années plus tard. A les entendre tous les deux, c'était une chose évidente pour les personnes queers : ils avaient toujours eu conscience de leur identité, et ils décidaient quand et comment la partager.

Ce n'était pas du tout mon sentiment. Si j'étais née comme ça, m'étais-je donc menti à moi-même toutes ces années ? Ou alors étais-je simplement hétéro, et la nuit dernière une sorte d'accident ?

500 dollars le flacon d'Héma fraiche

A bouche fermée, rien n'est servi !

My mouth was watering, and before I could stop them, my fangs were pressing into the inside of my lip. Panic careened through me as I snatched my hands to my mouth. This never happened, I never lost control and let my fangs slip free. If anyone saw, my life here would be over. But even under that terror there was a pounding in my head-hunger-and a little voice whimpering that maybe just one little taste wouldn't hurt-

No. My palm still pressed to my lips, I backed away from him, until I was up against the counter, the farthest I could get from him in the tiny kitchen. What was I thinking? That I would drink Guzman's blood? That was horrible-it was wrong-and I would never do it. Even if I would, I couldn't. You never knew who was carrying the infection. A drop of the wrong blood, and just like that, immortality meant nothing.

I leaned over the counter of the Snack Shack at the El Dorado Hills Country Club and stared out at the pool. The cool, bright-blue water would feel incredible against my sweaty, greasy skin. It was an early August scorcher and the pool had been packed with screaming kids all day. The lunch rush slammed us so bad, it ran into the snack rush, and I still had milkshake in my hair. Now, at last, the sun was edging below the trees and a cool shadow was creeping across the line of deck chairs. The lifeguards were herding the kids out of the pool and back toward their nannies and au pairs and stay-at-home parents.

"Kat, if I have to make one more Caesar salad with no croutons or dressing, I will scream," Guzman said from the sink. "Like, it's literally just romaine?"

I laughed, but my eyes were fixed on the pool. In the evening, a different set of club members came out. I'd been watching them emerge all summer: swimmers doing laps in the fading sun and well-dressed women who sipped white wine from the indoor bar. For these club members, the whole world seemed to relax to give them a moment of easy peace.

I wanted to be one of them.