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The thing about being friends with Sherlock is that you can’t really keep anything from him. Most of the time that doesn’t bother me. I’m an open book, me. Besides, he’s my best friend. There are very few things I wouldn’t tell him. But it’s exactly because he’s my best friend that this one particular thing was off limits. At least until I worked out what, if anything, I was going to do about my feelings for him. But, despite my best efforts, he figured out I was hiding something anyway.
When we first started living together I’d only ever had relationships with women. Of course, I watched The Mummy and thought Brendan Fraser was fit. But didn’t everyone? I thought Sherlock, with his dimples and stuff, was just another one of those people everybody could agree on.
The longer we lived together the more I started to wonder whether it might be more than just a passing attraction. The fact I didn’t move out as soon as I opened our freezer to grab some Phish Food and found nothing but an empty tub was proof of…something. I just didn’t know what exactly. So I turned to the old reliable—the internet.
I posted on Reddit about mostly liking women but having some pretty confusing feelings for this one guy who’s my best mate. I don’t live under a rock, I know what bisexuality is. I just didn’t necessarily think that word applied to me. Some of the forums were more useful than others, but none of them gave me concrete answers.
One user replied with a link that read ‘Am I Gay? Quiz’ so I decided to click on it. Even though, obviously, an online quiz couldn’t tell me one way or the other if I was in love with Sherlock I thought the questions might at least point me in the right direction.
The first question was difficult. Have you ever had feelings for a same-gender close friend? If I knew that I wouldn’t have been taking the quiz in the first place. The second question was easier. Have you ever kissed someone or wanted to kiss someone of the same gender? I thought about the way Sherlock pouted when he was thinking about a particularly tricky part of a case and selected ‘I haven’t done it, but I want to try it’.
The rest of the questions asked me about my dating history, my friends, and how I’d feel if somebody assumed I was gay. I fudged the last answer because it asked me about my ‘For You Page’ but didn’t give me an option to say ‘I’m too old for TikTok’ then I hit submit. Instead of giving me a result right away it asked for my phone number. I should have just closed the tab and satisfied my curiosity elsewhere rather than handing over my personal data but—I didn’t.
An hour later I was pacing around the kitchen waiting for a pan full of water to boil for some tomato penne pasta when my phone went off. The screen lit up, my phone vibrating on the table. Sherlock glanced down at it before I had a chance to move it out of view.
“Your test results are here,” he read aloud.“What test results?”
I tried to play it cool while I moved toward him, grabbed my phone and shoved it in my pocket. “It’s nothing important, mate. Just a silly Buzzfeed quiz. Me and Maz wanted to know what…pasta shape we were.”
“You wanted to know…what pasta shape you are?”
“Yeah. She says she’s ravioli but I personally think she’s more of a fusilli. I’m lasagne, obviously. Sturdy. Dependable. Comforting.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“You know…”
I made some vague gestures, trying to capture Mariana’s vibe through arm movements. I probably looked as ridiculous as I felt. Sherlock raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twitched into an involuntary smile.
“I really don’t.”
“It’s—” I pushed my hair back from my face. “It’s nothing. Like I said, just a silly Buzzfeed quiz.”
Sherlock looked me up and down, examining me with those piercing blue eyes of his while drumming his long fingers on the table. “If it’s so silly why do you feel the need to lie to me about it?”
“Why do you think I’m lying?”
“Your breathing is heavier. You’re shifting your body weight from one foot to another and, perhaps most importantly, you looked at the bag of penne pasta on the side over there before you told me what the topic of the quiz was.”
I should have known that Sherlock would notice. After all, our podcast wouldn’t exist without him being remarkably observant. It hit me pretty quickly that a certain amount of honesty was the best policy.
“I’m not lying it’s just—personal. Alright? I don’t really want to get into it just yet.”
“What kind of test result would be so personal you wouldn’t want to tell me but also so informal that you’d receive the results by text?”
“You tell me, mate.”
“Mmm, I have some theories but nothing immediately comes to mind. I like this. The case of the mysterious test results.”
With that, Sherlock left the kitchen. I sat down on one of the dining table chairs and slumped over with a groan, holding my face in my hands. I knew that if I did decide to tell Sherlock how I felt that it would require a lot of sensitivity. This was so far from how I wanted him to find out. I thought about my options, weighing up the benefits of coming clean versus coming up with a more convincing excuse for the text.
There was one thing I knew I had to do for sure, so I pulled my phone out of my pocket and deleted the text without clicking on the link. I didn’t need the results of a mostly arbitrary and completely made up quiz to tell me how I felt about Sherlock. The way my heart pounded in my chest as I tried to calm my breathing and top my body from shaking was all the proof I needed.
