by Robin Talley
I pulled back. “I don’t tell them everything.”
“You told your brother about us.”
“That’s different. Besides, he already knew.”
Christa scooted backward on the bed until she was sitting upright, three feet of space between us. She reached behind her back to hook her bra. “What are you talking about? How did he know?”
Crap. I hadn’t meant to mention that. “I think he had, um, a theory.”
“How’d he get a theory?”
I didn’t see a way out of this. Besides, she was bound to find out sooner or later. “He...heard a rumor.”
“A rumor?” Christa’s eyes bored into mine. Earlier that night, she’d drawn a tiny star at the corner of her eyebrow with a black marker. It had been cute then, but it made her look kind of scary now. “There’s a rumor about us?”
“I don’t know.” I sat up and tugged my shirt down miserably.
“Wait. You told Drew two weeks ago. Are you saying people have known about us for that long?” Her eyes blazed. “Who? How many? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Because I knew you’d react this way. “I really don’t think everyone knows. Word got to Drew because he’s my brother, that’s all.”
“How many people know?” Her skin had gone pale in the candlelight.
“I don’t know. Listen, who cares? Just tell them you have a stupid boyfriend and they’ll forget the whole thing.”
I swung my legs off the bed, stood up and straightened out my clothes. I fastened my shorts so fast I missed a button, my fingers fumbling.
“Wait.” Christa tilted her head. “Are you pissed at me?”
“No,” I said, automatically.
“You don’t get to be pissed at me right now. You’re the one who lied. You—”
“I didn’t lie.” Not in the way she meant.
“You should’ve told me people knew! Not telling is as bad as lying.”
She was kind of right, actually. But that didn’t make me any less angry.
Why did she get to be in charge of everything? She was the only one who was allowed to have an opinion on whether we told people. And she had stupid, useless Steven, when all I had was her.
Except that I didn’t, really. He did.
All I had was what I felt. And feelings didn’t count for anything.
“I can’t do this.” I didn’t even know what I meant—that I couldn’t stay in the guest house? That I couldn’t keep seeing her?
All I knew was that I couldn’t keep going like this. One way or another.
Christa’s face fell. Then she lifted her chin and set her mouth in a straight line.
“Then don’t,” she said. “Whatever.”
Did she mean that? I swallowed.
“I’m going.” I waited to see if she would try to stop me.
She didn’t. She only watched, her eyes flickering in the dim light, her mouth still pressed in that thin, even line.
I didn’t wait for her to get up. I slipped the burned-out candle into my pocket and pushed the door open, slowly, so it wouldn’t creak. When I glanced back over my shoulder, she was still sitting up on the bed, watching me.
I didn’t speak as I closed the door behind me.
CHAPTER 16
I’d thought this was going to be the weekend my whole life changed. Instead, Christa wouldn’t speak to me.
We were on the bus to Texas and she was three rows behind me, pretending I didn’t exist. And to make things even worse, she was sitting with Madison.
“You shouldn’t worry about it.” Jake pointed to the health care petition in my hand. He thought that was the reason I was stressed.
The petition still had just three names—mine, his and Lori’s. Desperate to think about something that wasn’t how badly I’d screwed up with Christa, I’d shown the petition to a few more people that morning while we waited for the bus. We’d been lined up along the dusty Mudanza road with backpacks dangling from our shoulders and absolutely nothing else to do, but I still hadn’t been able to convince anyone to sign. No one seemed to understand what the petition was about, and when I tried to tell them, they still didn’t get it.
“It’s not a big deal,” Jake said. “The ones on the war and marriage both did really well. When we send those off, the conference delegates will see that people our age really do care how they vote. It would’ve been great if we could’ve had more issues covered, but even so...”
I nodded, my eyes fixed on the bag under my feet. When I’d packed the day before, I’d left my backpack half empty so there’d be room to add stuff to it. That was when I’d still been thinking about my big plan to go to the campus health center for dental dams as soon as I got off the bus.
Christa was probably going to switch at the last minute and room with Madison anyway. Stupid Madison.
Jake tapped his phone screen. “Hey, it looks as though we’re starting to get reception.”
“We are?” I lunged for my phone. It had an incredibly weak signal, but that was more than I’d had since we’d left Tijuana three weeks earlier.
Texts started popping up. I tapped through eagerly, but right away I saw that the texts were old. They were from friends back home before I left, telling me they hoped I had a good trip.
“I’m going to the conference website to see if there’s anything else we can get people to take a stand on.” Jake was excited. “I’m still annoyed the immigration petition didn’t take off. Maybe it’s too complicated an issue.”
“Uh-huh.” If my phone was working, Christa’s would be, too. Maybe I could text her and explain.
Except...explain what, exactly? I’d meant what I said the night before. I was pretty sure she’d meant what she said, too.
But that didn’t mean I wanted things between us to end. God, no. Did she think I did?
“That might be the problem with your petition, too,” Jake went on. “People didn’t understand what you were getting at.”
I glanced down at the paper in my hand. Yet another time when I hadn’t made myself clear. “I guess. Maybe I didn’t explain it well enough. It just seems so obvious to me.”
“We need to get people to understand the details.” Jake gestured eagerly with his phone. “For all the issues. And it would be way better if we could talk to multiple people at once. That was how I got most of the signatures on marriage and the war. It was when we were all together, walking into town, talking as a group. People were more interested in signing if they knew someone else was signing, too.”
“That makes sense.” What would I say if I texted Christa, though? Hey, I still want to be with you, but I’m starting to realize I’m really not okay with keeping it a total secret all the time, and also, it really bothers me that you have a boyfriend waiting for you at home. Plus, sorry I lied to you about a bunch of stuff you still don’t know about. Want to have sex tonight?
Also, come to think of it, I didn’t have her number.
“It’s so strange that we have to work so hard to make people care about this.” Jake was on a roll now. “I mean, look at all these things the delegates are voting on. Climate change. Police brutality. There’s even a proposal to eliminate the Department of Education.”
“They’re voting on police brutality?” I took Jake’s phone and studied the list of issues. “Oh, it’s actually about whether police should have military equipment. That’s really interesting. Whoa, and they’re voting on access to birth control, too. And legalizing marijuana. Jake, we should be talking about all of this. That’s how we get people to see how much this conference matters.”
“So what, do we need to have, like, twenty-five different petitions?” Jake frowned.
“No.” I was tired of petitions. Besides, I didn’t want to distract anyone from how important he
alth care was. “I think we should have a debate or something, where we can tell our side and other people can tell theirs if they want to.”
“Did you guys say debate?” Rodney twisted around from the seat in front of me, headphones dangling from his neck. “I do debate at King. Sofía did it, too, last year. Right, Sofe?”
“I did what?” Sofía called from the other side of the aisle.
“You were on the debate team,” Rodney called back. “These guys want to have a debate.”
“You do?” Sofía was sitting a few rows back, so I had to lean into the aisle to hear her. “What, down here?”
“Um, sure.” I looked over toward Jake in the window seat, but he only shrugged, so I kept talking. “It turns out they’re voting on a bunch of different issues at the national conference, like on climate change, and on police having military gear, and a lot of people here probably don’t know about it. Maybe we should have a debate for the youth groups about how we think they should vote.”
“What did you say about police having military gear?” Rodney’s eyebrows shot up.
Jake found the page on his phone and showed it to him. Rodney frowned down at the screen. It was so hard not to look behind me at Christa while everyone was distracted.
“Huh. This sounds good, but I wonder...” Rodney took the phone and scrolled down farther.
“So will you guys be debating about everything they’re voting on at the conference?” Sofía peered across the aisle at me as though she were seeing me for the first time. It was totally different from how she’d looked at me while we were joking around with my brother about Prince. “Is it just going to be you two talking? When are you holding it, anyway?”
“Uh.” I looked at Jake again. I didn’t really care who talked, or when the debate happened. All I wanted was for people to support the health care plank. And for Christa to look at me again.
“No, it’s not just the two of us,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Anyone can pick a topic they want to talk about.”
“And someone will be arguing for both sides on all the issues, right?” Sofía was talking faster now. “Because it’s not a debate if it’s one-sided.”
“Well, there is no other side to some of this stuff,” I said. “Like marriage. Or the health care plank. It’s so obvious they should pass it.”
“It’s obvious to you, Sis,” Drew called from his seat in the back. Wow, was everyone on the entire bus listening to us? “But if you’re going to debate it you have to convince other people. Even people who think you’re wrong.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Both sides.”
“So one person argues that they should pass a resolution and the other person argues they shouldn’t?” Rodney passed Jake back his phone. “Can I take the pro side for the one on restricting police access to military stuff?”
“Sure.” Jake nodded. “We’ve just got to find someone to take the other side.”
“I will,” Sofía said right away. “It’s always more interesting to argue the con side.”
“When is this happening?” Drew said. “We’re only in Mexico for one more week.”
Jake and I looked at each other. I was starting to get nervous, and I could tell he was, too. Everyone kept acting as though we were in charge of this thing that we’d thought of three seconds ago.
“We can do it next Friday,” I said. “The night before we leave. That way people will have time to get their speeches ready.”
“How are we going to do research, though?” Rosa had pulled herself up to see us over the top of the seat in front of Jake. “We can’t get online.”
“We can here.” Rodney nodded toward Jake’s phone. “I guess we have to research it now, this weekend.”
“There’s also a computer place in Mudanza,” I reminded them. “It’s only open in the afternoon, but we could go there on lunch breaks, maybe.”
“Can I give the speech on immigration?” Rosa said.
“Sure.” I turned to Jake, who looked slightly panicked. “Uh, we should probably start writing this down, I guess.”
The only papers we had were the petition forms Jake and I had brought, so we turned them over and used the backs to make a list of what people wanted to debate about. Word spread on the bus. Soon people were calling to us over seats, passing messages or texting to tell us what issues they wanted to claim. We had to turn down five different people who wanted to argue the pro side of legalizing marijuana. Becca had claimed it right away. She seemed to have really strong feelings about pot.
“What about you?” I whispered, as Jake wrote Hannah’s name next to the “anti” column for marijuana legalization. “Are you taking the pro side on the marriage one?”
“Uh.” Jake’s cheeks turned pink. “I’ll have to think about that. I don’t want—you know.”
I nodded. “That’s fine. I’m sure we can find someone if you don’t want to do it yourself.”
“Don’t you want to do it?”
“Nah. I’m all over health care. As long as we can get someone to argue the other side.”
“You can put me down for that,” a familiar voice said from between the seats behind us.
“Lori?” Jake twisted around.
“Hi.” She climbed up so we could see her. She’d been sitting way in the back of the bus before, but she must’ve switched seats with Becca to talk to us. Well, to talk to Jake, since she’d made it very clear for the past two weeks that she was definitely not speaking to me. “I said I’ll take the anti on health care.”
Jake started to write her name down, then stopped. “But you signed the petition supporting it.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve always heard that in a debate, though, you need to be able to argue both sides of everything. Lately I’ve learned I need to get better at defending myself.”
I turned around, squaring my shoulders in front of the gap between our seats. I heard her huff behind me, but I ignored it. If she’d only listened to me, she’d have known I was right. She’d have broken things off with Carlos and we could’ve gone back to normal. I’d have told her everything that was going on with Christa, and she’d have understood. I wouldn’t have to be doing this all by myself.
Man, I missed my best friend.
All around us, everyone was still talking about which positions they wanted to take in the debate.
“Hey, that sounds interesting,” someone said from behind Lori. I snapped back into my seat when I saw it was Madison. “I’ll take the con side on gay marriage.”
“Oh, come on, that’s silly,” Sofía said. “You’re—you know.”
“What?” Madison said. “Gay?”
Sofía’s eyes darted down. As much as Madison annoyed me, I couldn’t help being impressed that she had the nerve to be so open about who she was.
“Uh, yeah, I’m aware,” Madison said. “That’s why arguing against marriage is a cool, mind-expanding thing to do, you know? Besides, not all us queers even want to get married. I don’t need any of that patriarchal crap, myself.”
Sofía swallowed. Our section of the bus had gotten quiet.
I tried not to look at Christa. I failed. She was slumped against the wall of the bus, her phone in her hand, but I caught her eye in the gap between two seats.
She was looking straight at me.
I sank back into my seat, my cheeks flaming. I wondered what she was thinking. I wondered if we’d ever be able to get past the things we’d said.
What would happen if we couldn’t? Was my big bisexual experiment over?
I didn’t want it to be over. I didn’t want it to be an experiment, either.
Look at Madison. She didn’t have a girlfriend, as far as I knew. But she was still herself. For her, that meant being gay and talking about it without caring who heard.
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I wanted to do that, too. The bi version of that, anyway. Maybe not right now, but eventually.
That was when I decided to stick with my original plan. I’d go straight from the bus to the campus health center. Maybe Christa and I would use the dental dams and maybe we wouldn’t, but this wasn’t only about Christa.
I wanted to have the experience of having sex with a girl someday. And, yeah, I wanted it to be with Christa—but this was about me, not her. My life was bigger than any one person.
Except...wow, I wished she’d look at me.
More people had questions about the debate, so Jake and I were busy for the rest of the bus ride. Soon more than half the people in the group had signed up. I was starting to wonder how we were going to get through all of these speeches in one night. Plus, I had no idea where we were going to do this. Our church was a mess of sleeping bags and suitcases.
We’d crossed the border by then and were rolling past signs advertising fast food and convenience stores, in English. As we got closer, my nerves rolled around in my stomach. How was I even going to find the health center? Would I have to talk to someone when I got there? What would I say? “Hi, I’m here to get the lesbian sex supplies, please?”
Soon the bus was pulling through the college’s main gate. Everyone was too excited to talk about the debate anymore. Every conversation was about who was rooming together and where people were meeting up after curfew.
The bus slowed to a stop in front of a massive beige-and-brown dorm complex. I swallowed my nerves, grabbed my half-empty backpack and followed everyone else down the steps. Outside, blinking against the sunlight, I saw my dad waving at me in front of a big sign with a campus map.
Great. Exactly the person I most wanted to see before I went off in search of sex gear.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Dad said. “I heard you and your friend Jake are putting together a debate about the national conference?”
“Oh, yeah.” Was there anything Dad didn’t know? I sure hoped so. “We only came up with the idea today on the bus.”
