Searching for Sappho in Real Life

“Sweet mother, I cannot weave –

slender Aphrodite has overcome me

with longing for a girl.”

—Sappho

Sometimes I think you’d know me if you just met eyes with me in a park. Maybe you’d be walking your dog—at least, I think you had a dog—and I’d be sitting on a park bench, mind lost to my phone, till I looked up and met your true gaze. I don’t know your eyes' color—you never told me—but maybe we’d recognize each other across the distance. Something magnetic, something that makes the stars sing at night, might join us in fate’s fine thread.

If I told you that on the message board, you would probably send back a laughing emoji and then sign off for the night, leaving me wondering what you might have said with words instead.

But I know if I log onto the message board you won’t be there. It’s been the same thing for almost a year. Sappho, you called yourself, and I never felt courageous enough to ask your real name.

*

“Jamie, I love you, hon, but you have got to stop looking at that phone all the time,” Miranda says, a sigh in her voice, and I’m already putting down the device in question like I’m a kid who’s been caught red-handed taking from the cookie jar.

“I was just checking something,” I say, defensive, but Miranda’s not buying it. I can tell from the way her eyes narrow in on me.

“Uh-huh,” she says, long and drawn-out, before peeling another skirt from the clothes rack while I fidget in the seat outside the fitting room. We’ve been here for a half-hour, and already I feel like I’m losing my mind. I love hanging out with Miranda, don’t get me wrong, but clothes have never been a big deal to me. Back in high school, my mom curated my wardrobe, and now in college I just collect graphic tees from Wal-Mart.

“Have you said anything to Evan yet?” Miranda asks, out of the blue, and I’m struck out of my zone. Even my hand on my phone stills.

Evan Lyons is a boy I should want. Or, that’s what everyone would tell me. He’s the typical class clown type, always ready to inspire a laugh from his waiting audience, and he’s nice enough to text me about assignments in our ethics class. But otherwise—well…

I haven’t told Miranda a thing about Sappho or how I met her on a message board called Spectrum. Hell, if I even told Miranda a thing about Spectrum and she did some digging, she’d know right away what I’d been hiding.

Spectrum is where questioning young adults can go to talk with other questioning peers about their sexuality. It’s almost like Twitter—but a secret, something you can hide away behind the backdrop of another app’s interface if a parent or friend gets nosy.

If I had told Miranda about Spectrum right when I joined last year, then maybe I wouldn’t be here worrying about how this thing with Evan Lyons should go.

Maybe if I had told Miranda about Sappho too, then maybe I wouldn’t have lost the only girl I thought might ever love me back.

But all I say is, “Yeah, I’ll give Evan a call,” because that’s easier than all the rest. The people I know on Spectrum would tell me I should really consider my options with opening my closet slowly to my close friends—but I’m not there yet.

I don’t know if I ever will be.

*

A night out at Slyder’s Grill turns into a quiet nightmare when Miranda and the rest of the crew desert until it’s just Evan and me outside the closing restaurant.

Every part of me tenses when his hand grasps mine, and all I want to do is pull away and run far, far out in the distance until no one can catch me.

“Want to take a walk?” he asks, his voice all breathless, and I know this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

But I say nothing, because—again—it’s easier, as he pulls me along at a quiet pace. I try not to think of how his hand feels too big and fleshy around mine, like it’s an alien creature that might consume me from fingers to toes if I’m not careful.

Holding hands with someone shouldn’t feel wrong. Not like this. Not like it’s the greatest kind of deception.

The downtown area is alight with car headlights and the neon glow of bars we’re still a bit too young to frequent. My eyes skate along the streets, catching sight of couples going in and out of shadow, and I think of Sappho again.

Sappho, the girl who was my first night’s dream. Sappho, who never sent me a picture but felt real enough to touch anyway.

Sappho, who went out and away like a candle’s flame on a windblown evening.

“Jamie?”

My attention darts back to Evan, who’s looking at me through the playing shadows. Even without knowing this language well, I can see that he’s staring at my lips and that he’s slowly beginning to lean in and I—

“No,” I say, backing up and snatching my hand away. He blinks, startled, and looks down at his hand as if it’s been burned. Then he closes his hand in a fist.

“God, what am I supposed to think?” he says, his voice pitching in anger. “You’re always such a tease.”

The words plunge down into my depths and make me feel wobbly at the knees. A tease? I never once flirted with him. I didn’t say we should go out on a date. I don’t think I ever even stared at him like I’ve caught him staring at me.

I hug my arms around myself and wish I could just disappear in one grand magic trick. But I’m only human. If I could do magic, I would have found the way to find Sappho again. And I wouldn’t need to use such a power just to get away from jerks I thought were friends like Evan Lyons.

“I’m going home,” I say.

And it tells so much about him that he doesn’t even bother to make sure I get home safe.

*

That night, I check Spectrum again for what feels like the millionth time. Sappho’s last post stares up at me with its mocking date. June 1, 2018.

Hi, guys, I just want you to know you’ve been wonderful. I’m still battling with myself every day, but I’m getting better. There’s a girl I know at the café down the street. I’m thinking of giving her my phone number! What do you think? My parents would be totally livid if they found out, but I don’t care! You guys have given me more courage in a few months than I’ve had in all of high school. I didn’t know how I’d feel about airing out all my worries about liking girls and everything, but you guys have shown me what it’s like to have a family, a community. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I’m hopeful!

The comments below the public post are in the dozens. I don’t know how many people were close to Sappho like I was, but some ask in worrying tones, Hey, you haven’t posted in a while. You doing okay?

But there’s no answer, no thread in the ether. It’s just like all the messages I’ve sent her that have gone unanswered. I keep hoping for a day when I’ll log back on and find that there’s a message waiting to be read.

But that’s not today. It may never be.

Some may say it was a silly crush—it was someone you just knew online, grow up!—but I felt like she understood me. I felt like, if we had known each other in real life, we would have been great friends. And maybe something more too.

Her last message to me sits in my inbox, still pristine as the day I received it.

Aww, Jamie, you’re so sweet! Thanks for remembering my birthday. Yours is coming up soon too, right? I hope you have fun with family and friends. I’m just finishing up some essays for college applications. Dad’s so hard on me sometimes about it. You’d think I didn’t get the memo that he wants me to be a brain surgeon and all that. But, other than that, I’m doing okay. Do you think you’ll do anything for Pride Month? I know we’re both still sorting things out, but maybe someday we can wear our colors proud. You know? Anyway, I’ll keep in touch over the summer. Keep some time open for me!

But of course that had never happened. Summer went by without any new messages from Sappho. She had disappeared like she had never been.

And, with her, so had gone all my hopes and wishes and the someday-soon’s of what knowing her in real life might have been like.

*

My hands are flat against the café table as I smooth the placemat. The napkin, knife, fork, and spoon are all lined up in their places. And then the scene is marred by Miranda plopping down across from me.

“Wow!” The word pops like bubblegum. “It’s getting hot out there! Good thing I dressed light for the weather!”

I watch as Miranda situates herself—blue purse to match her blouse, sunglasses perched on her head, her phone deposited on the tabletop—before her eyes hone in on me.

“Okay, Jamie, you have to spill,” she says. “What happened with Evan the other night?”

I don’t want to think about Evan Lyons. In fact, I wish I could obliterate him from my social history. But that won’t happen till my ethics class is over. For now, I just have to deal with his attitude and hope that he just retreats back into being the persona he masquerades for everyone else.

I chew on my bottom lip, glancing down at my phone and wishing a kind word from Sappho was all I would need to get out of this situation. But Sappho’s not here. She never will be. She too is a part of a history I need to discard. I may have been heady in like with her, but that doesn’t mean a thing. It’s what I do from here on out, without her, that I need to be concerned with.

Finally, I meet Miranda’s questioning eyes, and I honestly don’t know if she’s the first one I should tell. For all I know, tomorrow I’ll be the talk of social media. I’ve probably only known Miranda for as long as I knew Sappho. What makes me think I can trust her—or anyone, for that matter?

But I take a deep breath. A cleansing release.

“I don’t like Evan,” I say, “and I never will.”

Miranda cocks her head. “Okay?”

But then the words come spilling out, like a tide I’m not ready for. “Miranda, I like girls. Okay? I’ll never like Evan or guys like him because I’m gay. Okay?”

Only when I’m done do I realize I may have said okay too much.

But the worst thing is the silence right after my words fall. I can imagine disgust, betrayal, maybe even some kind of anger. I squeeze my eyes shut and wonder if I’ll open them the next moment and see Evan’s look—that told me I was wrong, deficient, mistaken—mirrored on Miranda’s face.

What follows, however, is a clatter. I open my eyes to see Miranda smack the table and laugh.

“I knew it! Jamie, you’re unreal, thinking you could hide something like this from me!”

My eyes squeeze shut again, and I’m so worried the next words will be heinous, a rebuke, a condemnation—

But Miranda just laughs again. “Oh, Jamie, I wish you had told me sooner. Things make a lot more sense now.”

This time, my eyes fly wide open. “You’re not mad?”

“Mad?” Miranda’s face scrunches up. “I mean, I wish you had told me, but I get why you didn’t. You weren’t sure you could trust me, right?”

It sounds so simple, coming out of her mouth like that, and I’m almost in awe of Miranda right then.

Maybe Sappho wasn’t the only one who could welcome me with open arms.

Maybe Spectrum isn’t the only place I can feel like I’ve found family.

All at once, it hits me: I’ve told someone. I’ve told someone who’s not sitting behind a screen like I am. I’ve told someone who actually knows me and—and—

I feel the threat of tears come on, and I swipe at my eyes like I’m a cat grooming its head.

But they’re happy tears. I don’t feel sad at all.

And, through the fog, there comes a thought:

Sappho, I wish you could see me now.