Chapter 10: Claire Dover: The Reinvention of Cara
After Cara came out, it was as if she had been reborn into a new skin. We were no longer seen as one. Other students and cross-country members ceased to regard us with the same cordial but obvious indifference. I felt like we’d both been under the same invisibility cloak, a part of each other’s lives and no one else’s. Sure, we’d converse with others in our separate classes, but I knew for a fact that neither of us really put much effort into forming deep friendships with anyone but each other.
But after her pronouncement, it seemed as if she had tossed the cloak off over her head, leaving me under it as she emerged into the world outside our two-person social circle, radiating confidence and pride. I noticed her more openly staring and smiling at girls, and she joined the Gay-Straight Alliance to ‘network’ as she called it. She was the perfect example of that cliché about finding out who you are in high school and becoming that person. I decided it was fair to bet that by college, or even the end of senior year, she’d be a complete stranger to me: a social butterfly who would wear makeup and trendy clothes, and have a beautiful girlfriend. She’d forget all about ever having fallen in love with her confused best friend.
When I waited for her at lunch, she was often breaking away from a lively conversation with a girl I’d never seen…
