In the light of her discovery, she looked back up to find Janelle waiting expectantly for a reply.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, realizing she had no clue what the question was. “What did you say?”

  Janelle offered a sad smile. “I asked who you slept with.”

  Jordan looked away quickly. She had promised Taylor she wouldn’t say anything, and even she wasn’t ready to admit that much. She shook her head in response.

  “Was it a boyfriend? Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Jordan shook her head, complete and utter fear seeping through every part of her body. She knew she had said too much, and she watched in horror as Janelle’s eyes widened in realization and understanding.

  For a minute, neither of them spoke. Janelle was obviously taking in the unspoken news, and Jordan was too terrified to speak. This was all new to her, and she hadn’t wanted anyone to find out. But, at the same time, she felt a slight bit of relief that someone knew. Maybe Janelle could help her deal with this. After all, she was a counselor. That was her job.

  Finally, she forced herself to make eye contact again.

  “Was she…was she the first woman you’ve felt this way about?”

  Jordan didn’t know how to answer that question. “I think so,” she said, dismissing the reminders that those feelings had been present long before Taylor. Taylor had simply awakened them and breathed life into her desires.

  “Okay, we can work to combat this,” Janelle said quickly. “Let me do some research, but I think what you need most is accountability right now. Where did this encounter take place?”

  Jordan’s thoughts filled with the “encounters” as Janelle had called them.

  When she didn’t answer, Janelle pressed. “Was it at your place?”

  Jordan nodded. It was best to try to keep Taylor out of trouble as much as possible.

  “And do you not have a roommate?”

  “I do,” Jordan said. “But she’s never home.”

  “So it was usually just the two of you at your house?”

  Jordan sighed and nodded. “Yes, it was.”

  “Well, then, I think you need to stay somewhere else for a little while, with someone who knows what’s going on and can keep you accountable.”

  Jordan tried to take in the statement, but she wasn’t quite clear on what Janelle meant. The wheels in her head started turning, and there was only one logical explanation.

  “Do you mean I should stay with you?”

  Janelle nodded solemnly. “Yes, I think that’s best.”

  It was the worst idea Jordan had ever heard, and she searched her brain for a polite way to decline. “I don’t really want to,” she finally managed.

  “I’m not sure you have a choice,” Janelle said firmly.

  “What on earth do you mean I don’t have a choice?” Jordan heard her own voice rise and fought to keep it in check. “I can keep myself accountable.”

  “Well, you haven’t been doing the best job of that. Have you?”

  It felt like a slap in the face, and Jordan stood, ready to leave the room. She couldn’t believe she had trusted this woman.

  “Jordan, go ahead and sit back down.” Janelle’s tone was condescending, and Jordan immediately disliked where this was headed. She should have never come here today. Trying to keep Janelle appeased, she sat back down on the couch and attempted to keep her anger at bay. Janelle was the keeper of her biggest secret, so it would serve her well to at least be polite.

  “I don’t want to do that,” Jordan explained as calmly as she possibly could. “I’m a grown woman. I can control my own life.”

  Janelle narrowed her eyes. “Just for two weeks, you stay with me. I’ll make sure you don’t spend any time with Taylor, and we’ll work on getting you the help you need.”

  Jordan shook her head adamantly.

  “What’s the problem? Do you still want to see her?”

  The question was a loaded one, and Jordan could see the trap being set.

  “I just want to try to sort through this on my own.”

  “No, you don’t,” Janelle said, casually as if she were explaining a choice on a dinner menu. “You don’t want to handle it alone, or you wouldn’t have come to me. You’re seeking help, whether you can see it or not. And, if you let me help you, we can make sure no one else knows about this. If not, I’ll have to involve your parents.”

  The threat resonated within her. She had confessed sleeping with Taylor to her mother’s best friend. Fresh fear flooded her veins.

  “Don’t tell my parents,” she begged. “I don’t want them—or anyone else—to find out about this. Please.”

  “Your secret is safe with me as long as you allow me to help you.”

  Jordan wasn’t sure which was stronger—her anger at Janelle or her fear of her parents finding out the truth about their little girl. As she sat on the couch, she realized that her fear was going to win out.

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Stay with me. Stay away from Taylor. And let me help you.”

  “Three simple steps,” Jordan said sarcastically, knowing on the inside that they were the last three things on earth that she wanted to do.

  “I can help you,” Janelle assured her.

  The words were what Jordan had been longing to hear—that there was some sort of help for her. She didn’t want to be this way, even though it was something she could see that she had clearly been struggling with for quite some time.

  “Can I at least talk to her and let her know first?”

  Janelle’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded. “If you must. But, be at my house by no later than six o’clock tonight, or I’ll have to call your parents.”

  She wanted to protest. What was said in this room was supposed to be confidential. Janelle had promised as much, but now that she was the bearer of Jordan’s secret, she held the power. Jordan nodded and wiped the tear that threatened to fall.

  Without another word, she gathered her purse and headed out of the office.

  “Six o’clock,” Janelle reminded before she shut the door.

  On the way out, she passed by Taylor’s desk. “Can I speak with you outside?” she asked quietly, careful not to disturb anyone else in the office.

  Taylor looked up, a million questions in her eyes. She glanced around to make sure they hadn’t attracted the attention of anyone else and nodded. “I’ll be right out,” she whispered. “Just give me a minute.”

  Jordan walked out of the office, unsure how she was going to tell Taylor what she needed to say. There was no doubt she would feel betrayed, and rightfully so. But, in reality, Jordan hadn’t really offered any sort of confession. She had just stated some facts, and Janelle had connected the dots.

  Taylor’s minute seemed to take forever, and Jordan fretted in her car, wishing she could just disappear from this town.

  When she saw Taylor approaching her car, every muscle in her body tensed. This was something they never quite prepared anyone for.

  Taylor opened the passenger door and climbed inside. “What’s up?” she asked.

  Jordan opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, tears flooded from her eyes. “I can’t see you anymore—at least not for a while.” The words were choked out through tears.

  “What do you mean?” Taylor asked skeptically. “You told her, didn’t you?”

  “Not really,” Jordan tried to explain. “She guessed. She put the pieces together. I don’t know. I didn’t say anything about you. She just guessed.”

  “And when she guessed, you didn’t think to deny it?”

  The question came out more like an accusation, and Jordan wanted to get defensive. “I started crying,” she said. “This isn’t easy for me, okay? I didn’t want to tell her anything. I’m just trying to process it all, and it’s a little hard on my own.”

  Taylor shook her head, the raw emotion warring in her eyes, threatening to let tears fall in the place of the anger that she had put up as a guard wall. Her hands shook as she spoke, and Jordan could see that there was a slow-burning temper laying just below the calm demeanor that Taylor always presented. “Now that she knows, everyone is going to know. I should just leave town so my parents don’t have to deal with this.”

  “No!” Jordan’s plea came out in a near scream. “Please don’t leave.”

  “Why not? You can’t see me anyway, remember?”

  “That’s only for two weeks. She made me promise to stay away for two weeks, or she’s going to tell my parents.”

  When Taylor didn’t respond, she continued. “Besides, she said she can help me. Then, we can be friends and go back to normal.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Taylor said as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “It just doesn’t. I love you. You love me. It’s not like you can go through some kind of weird therapy and then it all just goes back to normal. Love doesn’t work like that.”

  Jordan felt as if her heart was being torn to shreds with each word. “I would be with you in a heartbeat if things were different,” she said, wishing that things could be different somehow.

  “But, they’re not,” Taylor said, stiffening in the passenger seat.

  “I do love you.”

  “I love you too,” Taylor said, obviously defeated. She let out a long sigh. “Look, Jordan, here’s the deal. You go and do your therapy thing. You take your time, and if you want to talk to me after all the awful things she’ll tell you about me, give me a call.”

  “Of course I’ll want to talk to you. Staying away from you these last couple of days has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I can’t be without you.”

  “Well then, I guess you have your answer,” Taylor said.

  Leaning over, she got inches from Jordan’s lips. A faint smile flashed over Taylor’s mouth, before she pressed her lips to Jordan’s.

  After a passionate and steamy kiss, Taylor pulled back. “I had to,” she said. “It was either a goodbye kiss, or an ‘I’ll see you in two weeks’ kiss.”

  As Taylor got out of the car, Jordan wasn’t sure what to do. Her lips still burned from the kiss, and she couldn’t deny that she wanted more. But, she couldn’t have more—especially not right now.

  After going home and packing some necessary items, she knew there was no way she was going to get that kiss out of her mind. Nor was there any way she could ignore the pained expression on Taylor’s face.

  Back in her car, she looked in the rearview mirror, gazing at the haunted eyes that stared back at her that seemed no longer her own. They were the eyes of someone who had aged overnight—of someone who had finally tasted love and had had it ripped away by the cruelties of the world.

  There was no doubt she could have what she wanted, if only she would give in. But it wasn’t right, and she didn’t want to be that weak. She would be strong, and she would give this a legitimate shot.

  She owed herself that much.

  Thinking once more of Taylor’s kiss, she got out of the car and walked up the steps to Janelle’s house. With a sinking feeling, she knew she was sacrificing her freedom—and perhaps her only shot at a love that strong—all to save face and her relationship with her family.

  She reached up to knock on the door, hoping it was worth it. Before she could knock, the door swung open.

  Janelle appeared in the doorway, looking overexcited about her new houseguest—her latest project, no doubt. Jordan stifled a sigh.

  “I saw you pull up,” Janelle explained quickly. “Come on in, and let’s get started.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Jordan said. “Can I just get some sleep and we can work on things tomorrow?”

  Janelle looked disappointed but quickly recovered. “Of course,” she said, stepping aside so Jordan could enter. “I’ll show you where to put your things.”

  She led Jordan down a small hallway to a corner bedroom. “This is our spare bedroom. It’s all yours for the time you’re staying here, and the bathroom is down the hall to the right.”

  Jordan couldn’t help but feel like she had been checked into a mental institution, but then again, she had heard her father talk about homosexuals as if it were a mental disease, so maybe she was in the right place.

  She thanked Janelle and closed the door to the bedroom. It was hot, and she wanted to escape out the window. If she did, though, there was no doubt where she would end up. She would race as quickly as she could until she was back in Taylor’s arms.

  Lying back on the bed, she couldn’t help but see the next two weeks as a prison sentence. She pulled out her cell phone and, despite her better judgment, typed out a text to Taylor.

  I love you. Just wanted you to know.

  It was simple, but it got the point across.

  She knew she shouldn’t, but she hit send before she could talk herself out of it. She dropped the phone when she heard an abrupt knock on the door. More than anything, she wanted to ignore the knock, but she knew she couldn’t.

  “Come in,” she said softly.

  Janelle opened the door and peeked inside.

  “I just wanted to give you the few simple rules,” she said, entering the room and shutting the door behind her. “My family doesn’t know why you’re here. They just know that you needed a little extra help. I’d prefer to keep it that way—for your sake and mine.”

  “Okay,” Jordan said. There was no way in hell she was going to divulge that information to anyone—let alone Janelle’s family members.

  “Also, I’ll give you the Wi-Fi code, on one condition.”

  Jordan shrugged. Right now, she didn’t care about Internet connection, but it might come in handy during her prison sentence.

  “What’s the condition?” Jordan finally asked.

  “You don’t use it to contact Taylor,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ll be asking you periodically if you’ve talked to her, and I’m good enough at reading people that I’ll know if you’re lying. If you aren’t committed to letting me help you—and if you end up lying to me or contacting her—I’ll have to tell your parents.”

  Jordan resisted the urge to call her a power-hungry bitch and run out the door. Instead, she sat seething in her anger.

  “This is only because I care about you and want to see you get better. I care about you and your family, and I know that they would want the same for you. You just don’t want to tell them, so I’m forced to step in and help where they can’t.”

  Janelle wasn’t being forced to do anything. Jordan was. They both knew it, and Jordan hated the way she was playing the victim in this mess.

  “Fine,” Jordan finally said, conceding.

  “Good,” Janelle said. “The only other rule is that you can’t text or call Taylor. It won’t help you, and it will only confuse you more and further complicate the situation.”

  Jordan felt as if she had been caught red-handed. It was as if Janelle was watching her every move.

  Unfortunately, it was at that exact moment that her phone beeped beside her, signaling an incoming text message. Jordan froze and quickly reached for the phone.

  “Who is it?” Janelle asked.

  Jordan shot her a look, asking her to back off silently.

  Janelle narrowed her eyes at Jordan. “Who is it?” she asked again.

  With a frustrated sigh, Jordan looked down at the phone.

  There in simple wording was the message that she needed to hear.

  I love you too, J. Talk to you soon.

  “It was no one,” Jordan said, shutting the text and holding onto her phone tightly.

  “Was it Taylor?” Janelle asked pointedly.

  “Fine, it was Taylor,” Jordan admitted. “It was a goodbye text.”

  “It better have been,” Janelle said, and turned on her heel.

  As she rose from the bed and shut the door behind her, Jordan clutched her phone to her chest and let her tears fall silently. Never had she felt more alone.

  She couldn’t help but feel like her spirit was being crushed, like she was slowly losing the parts of her strength and confidence she valued most. As she cried, she let her thoughts drift back to one of the best days she had spent with Taylor.

  Whoosh.

  The sound of a basketball slicing through the net made Jordan feel more alive than she had felt in a long time.

  “Nice shot!” Taylor shouted, rebounding the ball and tossing it back to her for another shot.

  Jordan squared her feet and sank another shot.

  “Why did you stop coming out here again?” Taylor asked, somewhat breathless from continually chasing down the ball so that Jordan didn’t have to cut and jump too quickly for her knee to bear.

  “It got too hard,” Jordan admitted as she continued to do what felt most natural to her.

  For as long as she could remember, catching and shooting repeatedly had been one of the most therapeutic exercises anytime she was upset or needed to work through her thoughts.

  “You’re stronger than that,” Taylor said, holding the ball on her hip.

  “Just throw me the ball,” Jordan said, not wanting to hear a life lesson.

  Taylor shook her head, refusing to let Jordan move on from the moment without addressing the deeper roots of her problem. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for being,” Taylor said, walking toward Jordan. She cupped Jordan’s face in her hands and looked deep into her eyes. “You’re probably one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, and you keep selling yourself short. Don’t give up on something you love just because you think the path is going to be hard—or even painful.”

  Jordan looked away, feeling the words slice through her heart.

  “No, you will never play basketball again on an official team, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on something that brings you so much joy. Keep doing your rehabilitation exercises, keep practicing, and play on an intramural league. You’ll kick some ass and feel better.”

  “I don’t want to play anymore,” Jordan said angrily, grabbing the ball from where Taylor had sat it on the ground.

  “Why not?”

  It was a simple question, but one that Jordan wasn’t willing to address.