Confession

 I'll have to preface that I finally met the newcomer of the team. A commander.

She definitely sounds like a nice person. I think I will give her the name of Berenice, after the constellation of Coma Berenices. From the little I've talked to her, I got a good impression.

***

Lots of them are on leave. I could speak a little more to Grey. Austral is now in Hopoe's office, where Oria used to be. I don't know where Oria will be when she comes back from pregnancy leave: probably in Berenice's office, in which Virgo still is, I reckon. I haven't really watched. 

I told Austral that I want to talk, but that my voice always gives out when I come upstairs. I always tremble, I can't find my words. She says, maybe it's the emotion. It definitely is, and that feeling I always might be intruding on something, or someone. I always wish I could get her number so we'd talk more, but... I never quite get the courage to ask for it. 

As I said, Cepheus is on leave. Cassiopeia was busy talking to Megara, then to a colonel for a long time, but I waited. I had some time, after all, and I just thought I would take that chance. I'm not letting it slip, for fuck's sake, there's never enough time to talk. 

***

I must've waited fifteen minutes. My heart rate was way up, reached 133 beats per minute, but I'm a patient woman. After a while, I could come into Cassiopeia's office.

We first did some small talk about how they have no time lately, about them going early and then leaving early because of the heat and such, and the fact I will be on leave.

But after some time, I finally got to make this terrible confession of mine.

That I had attempted suicide, and that I had been carrying this secret for eight months.

Her reaction was nowhere near what I feared it would be.

You know what's good about it? It's that you're still here. That you didn't die. There was something in you that did not want to do it, though yeah, Jap was licking your feet, but if you had told me that you had cut off your arm, that you had needed to call the fire brigade... but you didnt. 

I had the intention, though.

Look, you have your room, your space, your own plans, your own hours, isn't that wonderful that you survived?

She thought that I had tried to commit with pills. What is it with people thinking a suicide attempt always involves pills, especially in women?

But then, I got to the reasons. That it was the end of my contract, that I was constantly stressed at my father's place, that I had been punished for a month (not mentioning Hopoe's name, but it did bleed)... and she started to probe once I mentioned I had been living with a hole in my heart for many months. 

The name of Hopoe came. From her.

Hopoe, she let out.

Mh I don't want to talk about-

Hi'iaka, come on.

It's not...

But Hi'iaka. Hopoe. She doesn't like women. She likes men.

What the-

Huh? 

I know Hopoe by heart. We talk all the time. She likes men, not women. I mean, can't you tell? I hope this makes the little hole in your heart fill up.

It's the kind of stuff I often get met with, so I wasn't surprised, but what baffles me is that if Hopoe was really straight, then why did all of this go down in the first place?

Besides, Cassie. You can't quite tell a woman's leanings by how she looks. I mean look at me. I look nothing like what you'd think a lesbian looks like. You're married to a man and you have kids.

I mean, no? I didn't feel she was more into one or the other. And she stayed by my side for three weeks. I just think that a straight woman would've told me sooner if...

Maybe she did not tell you out of reticence... she probably didn't know you were flirting...

Cass, I was going at it with my full guns...

Oh you're subtle, Aka. 

I definitely am not.

I was so not subtle that we were teased three times. Once by my father who offered to have "someone from his former team" deliver a check to me, once by Cetus who threw his water bottle at me knowing Hopoe would catch it, and once by Cygnus, on the last normal day, who asked jokingly if Hopoe made me want to eat, to which I entirely froze.

She forgot that she, herself, once thought I had gone to eat with Hopoe when the team was scattered. 

In my experience, all straight women shut down my advances rather quick, and someone as avoidant as Hopoe would've definitely done so sooner... not let it last for three weeks. 

We talk about all kinds of things here, even things we don't care about (understand: weird stuff). And, yeah... Hopoe doesn't like women. 

I mean, we were all close and such. She would blush at me, and there was... the charge.

That charge, it was probably you interpreting things...

No, it's always been here. And it's still there. I tried to rationalize it away, but I can't, and it's just here, and I just accept it, I told her again. 

It's all I could tell her about my feelings. 

Those feelings, you can transmute them... as friendly, or in your writing...

Cass, you see nothing. 

So that means you've had those feelings for this long, for someone who doesn't like women...

It's just here. I don't need to say more. 

I stopped trembling. It was easier.

If she truly needs to tell me that she is straight, she should tell me.

Oh, but she won't. She won't, Hi'iaka. She thinks it's obvious. That everyone can tell she likes men.

And to think she's failed her oral exam. When I learned about it, I was in such pain for her.

She's retaking the exam, like, she's in Paris today for the day of [I don't remember but it's probably a pro event]. 

Oh, so that's why she was absent of her office. We might get a Lieutenant Hopoe after all but... there are so few overseas officers. I still don't think...

She's got past it, Cassiopeia continued. She's living her life, Hi'iaka. Hopoe is a very independent woman. 

I don't like the implication about me behind this, but...

I know.

I mean, kind of like you.

Yeah, we are pretty similar.

Hopoe, well she isn't the type to make knots in her brain.

My sweet summer child. It feels like we don't know the same person. If I've seen someone work herself up more than myself lately, it's really her. 

I guess Cass thinks she has moved on. Would someone who has moved on avert her gaze like this still? 

Someone who doesn't work herself up just doesn't react the way she does, MONTHS after things went down. 

I don't, either, I said.

Oh yes you do, you worry about plenty of things...

But I have reasons to.

We abruptly had to stop as Cassiopeia had to go to a meeting and was late because of me, but I was left with more questions than answers.

I just can't imagine a straight woman would've lived things this way. A straight woman doesn't blush at her lesbian "friend" when they're together. Doesn't let her flirt obviously. Doesn't sit by her if there's a clear undercurrent. I wasn't the only one to see it. I have a full damn doc relating the whole situation for when I would analyze it to death with chatbots to help myself bounce off ideas, using more than one at a time so I could cross-reference. I have everything detailed and I was keeping as factual as I could each time, just observing.

I don't think I'm in denial, either. 

But as always, I get told that I dreamed it up. That I imagined it all.

It might just be better not to bring Hopoe up anymore to her. 

***

It just feels like we don't know the same woman. Cassiopeia sees her façade. Boisterous, "happy", independent, strong, ambitious, "straight" apparently. But I know for a fact that you can know someone for years in an office setting, share things with them... and not ever know what they truly are hiding. Because it's all closeted, compartmentalized, in a secret bookcase that only a few people get the key of, if anybody ever does.

I mean. I have a father. I know what I'm talking about.

There are plenty of closeted people who look literally like the straightest people ever and yet, they're not. Look, Jolene herself used to be married to a man, and looking at her FB pics, you wouldn't guess she's gay. Before meeting her wife, she probably had no idea she could like women. 

I've seen the Hopoe who looks like a thirteen-year-old girl who can't find her place in a group. I've seen the Hopoe who blushes upon seeing me and I've seen the same Hopoe in hot environments: it's not the heat that creates it. She starts getting red when she's feeling a strong emotion. I've seen the Hopoe who walked close to me. I've seen the Hopoe whose eyes became all black and starry on that day it became crystal clear to me that I could relax. I've seen the Hopoe who purposely ignores you and then blushes when Cassiopeia catches her. I've seen the Hopoe who pretends to be chill and not care about anything but who very obviously does. You don't get into such heightened states for someone you don't give a shit about. You don't suddenly erupt into a rage when they tell you that they thought you two wouldn't be talking anymore, or when the person asks about the tattoos on you.

I've also seen the Hopoe who threatens to slap you and just freezes up when you ask her the real question, if I'm annoying you this much, why have you unblocked me?

***

I just... I feel I've seen the Hopoe perhaps nobody sees. 

And it's lonely. It's always a lonely journey for me. Hopoe is a big bag of wind that is actually smaller than she wants to make herself and it feels like literally nobody except me can tell.

The empress is naked and I'm the only one to see her tits.

I don't know if I'm delusional. I sure as hell cannot know, because I guess delusional people... don't know they are. 

But it feels like, just like with my father, I've seen the other side of the decorum.

Have I truly dreamt it all up with a straight woman? 

I just can't imagine I did. 

***

I can't imagine all of this was real only to me... because then, why the teasing? Even in the case that they were teasing ME, you don't do this in front of someone who isn't receptive, right?

Or am I insane enough that I can make any delusion feel like a reality that nobody else seems to see?

***

If this were all to be unreal, that would mean that literally nothing of the framework I use to navigate means anything. That it truly all is "in the brain". That I cannot trust myself: that I am biased at best, psychotic at worst.

I don't know if I can trust myself anymore, but something about this just feels like an itch I cannot scratch. Something truly doesn't add up. Call me crazy but it just doesn't add up.

It's not over by a long shot, I tell you...