Excerpt: The Things I Never Want to Lose

"You kicked him out of the car?" gasped Sunni after Jaz had retold the story.
"Of course I fucking kicked him out, the bastard. He walked five and a half miles home. Serves him right. Sucker, he was so ... smug, and then I kicked him out. You should have seen his face!" Jaz almost laughed through her bitter tears that continued.
"Yahoo, feminism!" Peyton said, with a noise no one had heard issued from her mouth before.
"Yeah," Jaz said. "It was pretty intense. He talked to me long and hard afterwards, and then ... he was so sweet for a few days, after I told him what a complete and total bastard he'd been to me. We could always do something else, I tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen. 'It has to be our baby. It has to be us. I love you.' He'd say it till he was blue in the face, but I would say my piece till I was blue in the face, and it just did not work out well."
"I don't like marriage," Peyton declared. "I just don't. Engaged is fine. But marriage feels like a confinement, like you get scared and thus cheat a hell of a lot more, because then it's forbidden. Studies show that the reason a lot of people continue to cheat is the thrill of sneaking around. Isn't that ... twisted?"
"You are right. Because I married Jun, he felt he had more power over me, while still studying other women's bodies. Having a husband that respects you, even after he calls you a bitch, is a lot better than having a husband that loves you but makes it impossible for you to love him back," Li Mei said, referencing Jaz's story. "That was my situation, the whole time I was married to him. It was so sad. he loved me so much, but he'd call me a slut every single day! It was ... heart breaking, and I just couldn't handle it. Obviously, you know how that story ended."
Everyone nodded quietly. Li Mei had been in a marriage with one sided love, but they'd never imagined it from the point of view of the supposed "non victim". The thought that Jun had really, really loved her was as heart breaking as she described it.
"My husband loved me too," Alisa agreed. "A lot, a lot, a lot. But Josh always thought I was cheating on him. It was almost humorous the first few times - I'd wear some old boxers to bed, you know, the kind you get at Victoria's Secret in that ironic juxtaposition, and he'd freak out at me. 'Alisa, where did you get those? I don't wear boxers. What's going on?' It got ridiculous, though. It got to the point where if I had gotten pregnant, he'd think it was someone else's." She shook her head. "My therapist decided that it was probably because he was cheating on me, not the other way around. And it makes sense, doesn't it?"
"It really does," Li Mei agreed. "Men. They are so hopeless."
"I'm sorry, but can we have a foray into feminism here please?" Sunni begged. "It's my favorite topic. Men mistreat us constantly and always think that they're in the right because Adam didn't eat the fucking apple."
"Excuse me?" Li Mei asked, her brow furrowed.
"You know, the Bible?" Jaz said.
"I have never read it," Li Mei confessed quietly. "I barely even know any stories. I know Job - who doesn't - and Dinah - is that not a strange combination?"
"No, Job was the first one I learned, although Adam and Eve followed, and then ... I think I learned Cane and Abel. I can't really remember. But anything with Job makes sense. It's like, the most famous Bible story."
"Really? I thought Adam and Eve must be," Alisa said.
Li Mei looked a bit uncomfortable. "Is it strange that I don't believe in God?"
"Oh my God, Li Mei, no! We're not psycho religious people here!" Jaz said very quickly, before anyone could say otherwise - not that anyone would have.
Peyton nodded. "I'm agnostic - you know, that means I'm not sure - and I just don't think religion is a valid part of one's opinion on someone else. I mean, people judge me all the freaking time, of course, but ... well, I mean, it just makes sense to judge me on my skin color, but if you hate me because I'm not sure if God is real, then you're a freaking idiot."
"I love that you say freaking," Alisa mentioned again, smiling. "No, but yeah, I mean, I was raised in this really Catholic home, I went to private school because it was best for my education, and my friends all worshiped the nuns. I mean, we had some issues in general." She laughed.
"Yeah ... I never worshiped the nuns," giggled Jaz, "and my parents are Irish. I mean, like psycho Irish, so psycho Catholic. It's stereotypical and so, so true. I kind of find it hard to believe that people don't believe in God. I mean, I feel kind of bad for them."
"It would be nice to have something to believe in," Li Mei said, rather wistfully. "I feel like believing in myself is so very hard."
"Opinion on gay marriage?" Sunni asked suddenly, grinning. "I love debates. Plus, you all should have an interesting opinion."
"Against. It's ... unnatural!" Jaz said.
"How can you say that?" Alisa demanded. "Whether between a man and a woman or two women or two men, love is love and can never be anything less than that. If I love Juan, and Josh, my ex, loves him too, then isn't that the same as if the slut he's cheating with loves him? Sorry, that was a crap example, but I'm just saying."
"But I mean ... ew. Think of the logistics," Jaz pointed out.
"But that doesn't make any sense. Do you really want to know what Juan and I do in bed? Exactly. Just as you're not interested in my sex life, you shouldn't be interested in someone else's just because they're gay."
"But what about the children?" Jaz asked, a tiny bit desperately, as though she was running out of logical counter-arguments, but had not changed her beliefs.
"What about them?" asked Alisa, somewhat defensively.
"What if they're ... you know ... made fun of or something?" Jaz asked.
"So fucking what? Their parents love them, right? If they don't, then they don't deserve children, but if they do, then why keep them from one another? You want children desperately, right? Or Dec does? So what if Dec was with a guy instead of with you? He'd still really want children, right? And is it right to withhold a baby from him because of who he shares his bed with? What if they decided you were an unfit partner, so he couldn't adopt because of you, because he was with you? That would be totally unreasonable, right? It's the same kind of thing. I just don't get discriminating against gay people because of the people they love, the people they choose to spend their lives with. It's a private decision, like what car you're going to drive and how you're going to decorate your house." Alisa heaved a deep breath when she finished.
"It's not like decorating your house, Alisa," Sunni said quietly.
"I'm just saying ..."
"Are you gay?" Jaz asked in surprise.
Sunni sighed. "That's an excellent question."
"Are you bi?" Peyton refined the question.
"I think I must be."
"Bi?" Li Mei asked.
"Bisexual. Interested in men and women," Sunni explained quickly. "I experimented a lot, obviously, and had sex with a fair amount of women. And ... I loved it. Recently I've been thinking about it more and more, and I realized it wasn't just 'cause I was high at the time, or drunk, or feeling the rush, or just orgasmic."
"You guess what!" Li Mei interrupted, her phrasing making all four other women smile. "My sincere apologies, but I just have to say this ... I know what that word means!"
"You would," snorted Peyton, and everyone cracked up.
Sunni stopped first and continued her tale - "I actually like women. I like that they're sweeter and more compassionate than men. I like that they care more about the welfare of people. I like that most are willing to try new things, just for the sake of trying. I mean, I understand that we are obsessed with our appearances and what we eat, but better that than being obsessed with constant sex and ... you know, constant sex. Some drugs sprinkled here and there. Those are the kinds of men I met, and continue to meet, because I'm a magnet like that. It almost feels to me like I am that kind of guy. Or was. I was the guy in college. All I wanted was constant sex with some drugs sprinkled here and there, though my drug of choice was generally alcohol."
"So you identify more with males? You think of yourself as a chauvinist pig?" Peyton asked, a furrow between her brows as she struggled to understand.
It looked as though Jaz was having a complicated inner battle. She was frowning from Sunni to the other three and back again, as though thinking, I really like Sunni, and her being gay - bi, whatever - shouldn't change anything - but what if it does? Am I a totally horrible person? But maybe it doesn't change anything. And as she listened to Sunni recount tales of her college life, her experimentation, the way things made her feel, she realized it really didn't change her opinion of the woman much. She was still friendly, sweet, with a hard past and a thirst for affection.
And Jaz still really, really liked her.
"I wanted a man, up until ... everything. I wanted a man and a big white wedding dress and forever, but then I got pregnant and that was that. There is no forever when you have a baby. There just isn't," Sunni said. "And after Aimee came, I realized that I don't even need the man or the white wedding dress, I don't even need to be married. I just want forever, and I always will. I can never have it."