Shelby chuckled, shaking her head like none of that mattered, but she was pretty sure that it was actually very important to the context of what was being said.
"Right, but babygirl..." Shelby reached out, stroking a hand down her arm before taking Juliette's in hers. "Eyes don't lie, you were fascinated by them if nothing else. Plus, starting freshman year I saw how nervous you'd get whenever you, me and Ingrid would change at sleepovers and how stressed you were to try to find a boy to like... Swear to God you were pulling their names out of a goddamn hat." Okay...
But...
That was what she did, was that not what everyone did with men?  Was that not the point of dating a man?
"True, because no one likes Nolan." Micheal pointed out, pulling an eye roll from hell out of Juliette.
She hated when he brought up her fake crush on him.
"Okay, he was nice." Was that true? 
No.  No it was not, not overall... To her, yes.  But no, not to the world.
"He smelt like fritos." Shelby said flatly, and Juliette shrugged.  She really hadn't paid attention to how he smelt or how he treated other people, he'd just been nice to her, and that had been a selling point... Granted, she'd lost interest in him after seeing Shelby shove him to the ground during a soccer game for being a dick, but he'd been nice before she knew he wasn't, so he'd been the perfect choice.
"That doesn't change that he was a nice, safe choice and that's why I picked him." Juliette said, watching both Shelby and Micheal pause before looking at her like she'd just said the strangest thing in the world, which to her knowledge she had not done... But she was very interested to figure out what she'd accidentally messed up this time.
"Picked him?" Shelby asked, sounding deeply confused.  Juliette shrugged.  Yeah, she'd picked him, just like every single person picked the people that they had crushes on in middle school so that they could feel normal and ignore the flip in their stomachs every time a friend would hold their hand or sit on their lap.
She was normal.
"What?" She asked, and Shelby flipped her hands up, gesturing over to her like that solved anything.
"That's what I'm asking you." Oh.  Well... Why? "You pick people?" She asked, and Juliette nodded.  
Obviously, that was how crushes worked back then.
"You know, when you scan a room, and you look around to think what guy would be the least annoying to date and then you pick them." Shelby looked at her, blinking like she couldn't believe what she was hearing, which was a really good sign that maybe she was wrong in what she had just said... Did everyone not just pick people out of a hat? Juliette grimaced... Right, people liked men... Shit. "Shit... Wait... Do straight girls not have to do that?" She asked, and Shelby sighed, shaking her head as she looked at her like she was both a light in the world and also the bane of her existence.
Impressive.
"Well, I mean... Bi girls don't either, but yeah, generally if you're attracted to men, you're just attracted to them." Shelby said, and Juliette blinked, shaking her head as she leaned against Shelby's dresser.
She hadn't until that moment realized that attraction to men might feel to Shelby or anyone who liked them similar to how attraction to Esme felt, which she found wild.  She'd never looked at a man and felt so much as a skip in her heart let alone feral, unfathomable love, lust and attraction.