My Montana Story, Pt 2

We kissed until we passed out.

I had never learned a mouth as fast as I had hers. I could kiss all day. I still like doing this. It is such an intimate action, I like being as close as humanly possible to whomever I with.

I was drunk but I was aware of my heightened pure ecstasy. This might have been an alcoholic driven event but the event would have happen/not happened is not the main story, alcohol was an indicator variable. Actually, that ended up being our first and only inebriated night together.

I had to stay out of trouble. I found time to be occupied.

Zak was out of my life by the start of March.

Elizabeth’s schedule consisted of skiing and snowboarding, horseback riding, and school.

My schedule revolved around Elizabeth. She was never in my room, due to the disgust of Cheska’s living habits.

Elizabeth’s roommate was a girl who had a boy-friend off-campus. Bingo.

Except for the occasion meal we would eat together, I was in her room every waking moment. I slept in that room almost nightly. While she was in class, I read and read and read and studied and did homework. I cleaned, maybe. I folded her darks once.

I got to calling her Eli one day after a day in bed. She was talking about how she wanted to be more gay, but hid behind straight fashion. She expressed how she wanted to cut her hair, wear different clothes. I told her baby steps.

So as two longhaired ‘feminine’ lesbians, we were Molly & Eli. Two girls who looked like girls but one had a boy name. It was funny to us, anyway.

Eli had friends, but they subsequently disappeared. Like mine did, when all I did was to be with this person. We lived in our own world. I could no longer listen to the heterosexual rhetoric of dating and college and alcohol. I was in a new world. It’s refreshing to recall how vivid that feeling is. Ask any queer kid.

This was the secret: The girls around us weren’t like the girls we were. It was almost like a secret, the unspoken words we all knew.

We went out together as a couple, on a few occasions. There was that time when there was a spring festival held in the heart of downtown Bozeman. It was still a winter wonderland, as it would be until the day I left Montana, in May.

With so many people, we assumed that two college girls holding hands didn’t mean anything. We walked on Main Street, and we kissed as the fireworks went off. There was no reaction. It was in those moments that I thought that I could live in Montana, with this person. I liked the attitude of how they treated us. I was safe.

Another time, we went out to sushi with Sara and Jake. An obvious double date. They were respectful and kind and sweet. Everyone was finefinefine with it, but it was so unspoken.

That surprised me. I detested this lack of alliance.

I read Laramie Project that fall. I felt that Bozeman was like Laramie, Wyoming. There were some parallels. I didn’t feel hated by my peers but I was wary of what they said behind closed doors.

The ignorance in my classrooms felt tense. I once went to a lecture about gun rights for extra credit and the attitude towards guns confused me. I couldn’t handle the rural mindset. I needed an urban outlook. This isolation felt cold.

I was homesick the hardest during Spring Break. I loved the success that my family was having. My older sister Laura was in Chicago, and although was recently heartbroken, was on her last semester before her graduation. Emily was a senior in high school, accepted into her top school, about to graduate.

My dad had been sober for more than a year. I wanted to fit in with their accomplishments.

I missed my friends from high school. I accepted that this cord might be fragile after moving away. But I was still in contact, some more than others.

I wanted an urban life. My classes weren’t interesting. I was fed up.

I assumed Elizabeth would agree. But I was too much for her to handle. I was unraveling. And she let me. She was patient. I mistook this patience for anger. She got frustrated when I wouldn’t listen.

It got terrible, fast.

I was counting the days until I could leave. And while I was enjoying my time with Eli, our sex was pitiful. I felt as if I couldn’t tell her what I liked. I didn’t know what I wanted either. And she was insulted easily, making the sex worse each time.

She tried to offer me reasons to stay. I accepted none of them.
I left Montana in the middle of May. Leaving behind a guilty heart as heavy and bulky as a stone.

That’s it. Six months later I moved to Minneapolis.