Our Own Private Universe

by Robin Talley

  “Well, I think it’s wonderful.” Dad beamed at me, rocking on his heels. “Good on you two for thinking of it. Now, just you let me know if there’s anything you need from us to get this going.”

  “Oh, wow.” It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone might help us. “Well, we do need a space to have it. Can you think of anywhere?”

  Dad nodded. “I’m sure we’ll come up with something. Leave that part to me.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Of course. Seriously, sweetheart, I’m really proud of you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I rubbed the back of my neck and felt my face go red.

  “Dad?” I didn’t know why the question popped into my mind at that moment. I just wanted to know. “Why do you carry around that photo of Uncle Andrew?”

  Dad looked at me for a long, quiet moment, then blew out a heavy breath. He glanced around us at the people still piling off the bus, then drew me to one side. “Where did you see that?”

  “In your papers, that day you told me to look through them.” I wished now I hadn’t brought this up. I hadn’t thought about how Dad might react.

  “Right.” Dad cleared his throat. Then, finally, he met my eyes. “Well, sweetheart, your Uncle Andrew was my little brother, the same as you are to Drew, and I want to keep him with me. He isn’t here anymore on this earth, but he’s still our family. Do you understand that?”

  “Yeah.” I swallowed. All I wanted to do now was get out of this conversation. “Thanks for telling me. I think I’m going to go take a walk.”

  “All right.” Dad looked relieved. He patted me on the shoulder. “See you, sweetie.”

  “Aki, you coming?” Gina called as Dad headed back to unload the bus. “We’re getting our room keys.”

  “Actually, I’ll see you guys later,” I called back. “I’m just doing something really quick.”

  “Okay. We’re all meeting at the food court for dinner.”

  “Okay, see you there.”

  I took a picture of the campus map sign with my phone and took off before anyone else could distract me.

  The health center was clearly labeled on the map. And, if I was reading it right, the building was only a couple of blocks from where I was standing.

  Oh. I’d expected it to be harder than that.

  The nerves fluttered back into my stomach as I started walking. Up ahead, I saw a coffee shop and a drugstore. Suddenly all I wanted was to buy a magazine and sit down with a smoothie until it was time to meet up with everyone for dinner.

  No. I wasn’t going to be a baby about this. The website said if you were old enough to have sex, you were old enough to be mature about protection.

  The campus was crowded, and by the time I’d walked one block there were people all around me. The event we were here for—an all-day teen Bible festival tomorrow, complete with concerts, workshops and lots of praying—was only for high school students, but most of the people on campus looked too old for high school. They must’ve been college students who took classes in the summer or something. I felt pleasantly anonymous, walking through a crowd of people who were here for their own reasons that had nothing to do with me.

  The health center loomed above me before I’d realized I was even close. It was bigger than I’d expected—a whole building, three stories high, with a big sign out front that said Student Health Services. I’d been stupidly picturing something more like the nurse’s office at my school back home. But my school had maybe a hundred and fifty students, and this college probably had fifty thousand.

  I peered through the health center doors. All I needed was a second to get myself ready before I went inside. This was no big deal. No big deal at all.

  I looked around, expecting to see people staring at me, asking me what I was doing there. But no one seemed to pay me any attention.

  A guy came out of the health center’s front doors, walking so fast he nearly barreled into me. I stumbled backward and caught myself right before I fell.

  “Oh, sorry, sorry,” the guy said. He was tall and white, with a backward baseball cap. He pulled out the headphones out of his ears and looked at me earnestly. “Are you all right? God, I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m fine.” My heart pounded, but not because of the almost-falling.

  “You going in?” He held the health center door open for me.

  “Oh, uh. Yeah.” I didn’t have a choice anymore. I went in, the door swinging closed behind me, and exhaled, clasping my hands into fists so no one could tell they were shaking.

  But now that I was inside, once again, no one seemed to even notice I was there. The health center looked the same as any other office. There were no giant signs saying Considering Lesbianism? Start Here! or anything. Just a long counter and a waiting area with people who looked like college students sitting in chairs, staring down at their phones. Around the perimeter of the room, tables stood with stacks of brochures and boxes.

  Bingo.

  I walked over to the first table, trying to look casual, as if I was only browsing. The surface was full of brochures about nutrition and eating disorders. Boring. The next table had fliers about mental health and suicide prevention. At the third, I knew I was getting closer. This one had brochures about birth control and sexually transmitted infections. Next to it was a box full of condoms with a sign that said Free—Take as Many as You Need. Below that, it said what I assumed was the same message in Spanish.

  I moved on to the next table, sure it would have a box of dental dams to match. But all it had was a stack of information packets on substance abuse and addiction therapy groups. I must’ve missed the dental dam box.

  I circled back around to each table. I checked the corners of the room where there were signs up about why I should join the ultimate Frisbee team and learn to salsa dance. But there were no more boxes of free stuff.

  Crapola. What was I supposed to do now?

  The website had said you could get dental dams for free at clinics like Planned Parenthood or university health centers. It had seemed so simple when I was reading about it. Was there even a Planned Parenthood near here? Didn’t Texas ban them or something?

  I had to get out of here and regroup. I needed a new plan.

  I was on my way out the door when a woman’s voice said behind me, “Hey, are you looking for something? Can I help?”

  I wanted to keep walking. Instead a tiny voice in my head told me to turn around. There was a Hispanic woman behind the counter—more of a girl, really; she couldn’t have been that much older than me—and she was smiling. “Are we out of something on the tables? We’re always having to restock. But I can find it for you.”

  “Oh, uh—” I fought the instinct to leave again. I moved closer to the counter so I could talk to her without raising my voice. “I’m not sure you have it on the tables, actually.”

  “That’s all right. How can I help you?”

  The girl seemed so sure of herself, with her perky brown eyes all lit up. I wondered if she’d ever been fifteen.

  “Actually,” I said again. I swallowed.

  Just say it.

  I lowered my voice to just above a whisper. “Do you have any dental dams?”

  I waited for the girl to laugh or raise her eyebrows or ask how old I was. Instead she nodded, her smile never wavering. “We do! Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  When she turned around, I exhaled and let my eyes fall closed. My stomach flopped over and I released my clenched hands.

  I’d said the words dental dams out loud, to another person. And she’d acted as though it was totally normal.

  The girl was back after a minute with a box. She held it out to me and motioned for me to lean in toward her. My heart sped up again. Was she going to ask to see my student ID?

  “This is a pack of t
hirty-six.” She was speaking quietly, but I could hear the smile in her voice. “We’re supposed to give them out three at a time, so don’t tell on me, okay?”

  I let out a high-pitched laugh. The guy behind the counter on the far end looked at us, but then he turned back to his computer, not even batting an eye at the box of dental dams in the girl’s hand. I grabbed it from her and shoved it in my backpack before anyone else could see.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” The girl beamed back at me. “Have a fun summer.”

  I zipped up my bag, turned on my heel and charged back out into the sunshine.

  I’d actually done it.

  After that I figured I could do pretty much anything, so I went to the drugstore and bought a box of disposable gloves and stuck them in my backpack without even worrying about whether the cashier knew what I was buying them for. Why should he care? The girl at the health center was hoping I had a fun summer with my thirty-six dental dams.

  I tried to imagine having sex thirty-six times. I couldn’t even picture doing it once.

  I got a magazine and a smoothie and sat down at one of the coffee shop’s outdoor tables. I opened the magazine, but I couldn’t focus. I turned a page, then two. Then I gave up and gazed out across the campus, watching people walk from one place to another, going on about their lives, oblivious to the three dozen dental dams hanging out in my backpack.

  Across the street, a guy walked out of a building with his back to me, but I recognized that familiar shuffling gait. I checked to make sure my backpack was zipped closed, then I waved. “Drew! Over here!”

  At first my brother didn’t seem to hear me. He kept looking from side to side. I was ready to shout again when he glanced my way, then strode across the street toward my table.

  “Hi, Sis.” I motioned for him to pull out a chair, but he stayed standing. He passed a hand over the back of his hair and looked from side to side again. There was a piece of paper in his hand. “You here with anybody?”

  I shook my head. “I was desperate for a smoothie. I didn’t know how much I missed fast food.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Drew glanced back the way he’d come. “All right, so... Look, please don’t tell Dad, okay?”

  “Uh.” I glanced at my backpack. Crap. He must’ve seen me in the health center somehow. “Come on, Drew. I know you think I shouldn’t tell him, but I don’t know if I—”

  Drew glanced over his shoulder again. This time I followed his gaze.

  The building Drew had just come out of had a bunch of American flags in the windows. The sign over the door said Army ROTC.

  Oh, no. “Drew? Why were you in there? Since when do you care about the ROTC?”

  I didn’t even really know what the ROTC was, except that it had something to do with the military. I’d gotten a packet about it in the mail when I registered for the PSATs, but Dad told me to throw it in the trash.

  Drew finally pulled out the chair across from me and sat in it backward with his legs splayed out to either side. “Do you promise not to tell him?”

  I swallowed. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good. “I promise.”

  Drew sighed. “I went in there because I wanted to see if I could talk to someone about joining the army.”

  “Please tell me you’re not serious.” But it was fully clear from the look on my brother’s face that he was. “Drew, Dad is going to flip!”

  “I’m nineteen. It’s my decision, not his.” Drew’s jaw twitched.

  “But why? Don’t you think war is wrong? That fighting is wrong?” Mom and Dad had been telling us that practically since before we were even born.

  “Being in the military isn’t only about fighting, Sis. They teach you stuff, like how to do different jobs, that you can use when you get out. It’s basically the same as college, except they pay you instead of you paying them. And you’re learning real stuff that actually matters, not sitting around staring at dumb books that don’t mean anything.”

  I had no idea if what Drew was saying was true. All I knew was that if he joined the military, Dad would never forgive him.

  “Mom and Dad are paying for your college, though.” I tried to sound rational. So he’d see that he was being anything but. “I know last semester was hard, but why not try it one more time?”

  “They’re only paying for part of it. The rest is loans I have to pay back. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life paying off loans when I don’t even like school to begin with.”

  Drew’s jaw was still twitching. He’d thought about this. A lot.

  “I bet you could talk to Dad.” I had to get my brother to see reason. “After he finished freaking, maybe he could help you figure something out about the loans.”

  “Well.” Drew hesitated for a long moment. “It’s too late. I withdrew for the fall semester.”

  “What? When? Since you’ve been in Mexico? How did you even get in touch with them?”

  He turned his face away. “I did it before we left.”

  I stared at him. “You lied to me. In the airport. You said you hadn’t made up your mind.”

  “I hadn’t. Not completely.” He hesitated. “Look, you don’t have to agree with me, but think about it. This is the first time I’ll ever have made a major decision by myself. This is exactly what Mom and Dad don’t want me to do. Right now it feels as if I’m living somebody else’s life.”

  I swallowed. I knew how that felt, somehow.

  Drew looked down at the piece of paper in his hand. “In the ROTC office, they gave me a phone number to start the process of enlisting. I’m calling now. I’ll probably start training this fall.”

  I sat back in my chair. Here he’d acted as though I was the one keeping a secret.

  “Please.” Drew locked his eyes on mine. “You can’t tell Dad.”

  I couldn’t believe my brother was making such a huge decision all by himself. “He’s going to find out eventually.”

  Drew stood up. “But you’ll keep it quiet, right? You promised.”

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “This is for you to tell, not me. But you should do it. Soon.”

  I stood up and hugged him. He hugged me back.

  I couldn’t remember the last time we’d hugged like this. Like it really mattered.

  What if Drew got sent somewhere to fight and he died? What if this was one of the last chances I’d ever get to hug him?

  No. I couldn’t think that way.

  Drew pulled back and half smiled at me. “We need to hang out and play games again. Lately all we have is big talk after big talk.”

  I laughed. He chuckled with me. “You coming to the food court for dinner?”

  “I don’t know.” I couldn’t just go back to my friends and pretend things were normal after this. “I might walk around on my own for a little longer.”

  “Okay.” He pointed to my phone. “Text me if you get lost.”

  “You don’t know your way around, either.”

  “I’m the big brother. I know everything.”

  I laughed again. I used to think Drew really did know everything.

  But maybe no one knew that much. Maybe everyone was making it up as they went along, the same as me.

  CHAPTER 17

  My phone dinged again, but I didn’t look at it. I must’ve gotten twenty texts in the past ten minutes.

  The sun was low in the sky, and I was getting hungry. I’d probably missed dinner at the food court. The truth was, I’d been wandering aimlessly around the campus, and I had no idea where the food court was. There was too much to see to worry about looking at the map.

  Everywhere I went, there were college students hanging out. The atmosphere was totally di
fferent from my school back home. There, even though we didn’t have uniforms, everyone dressed exactly the same, in interchangeable jeans and T-shirts. Here there were so many differences. I saw people in shorts, skirts, jeans, and dresses; sneakers, sandals, and cowboy boots; baseball caps, big floppy straw hats and even a couple of fedoras like Christa’s. There were people of lots of different races, too, even though, like at my school at home, most of the crowd was white. Everyone sat in little groups at outdoor tables or alone under trees with books in their hands and phones by their sides.

  Everywhere I looked there was another coffee shop or sidewalk café. The buildings on either side of the road were tall and wide. The sorts of places where important professors gave important lectures.

  When I went to college, I’d have classes in these kinds of buildings. I’d take notes and learn about complicated subjects. I’d sit at outdoor tables drinking tea and listening to music and talking to my new college friends about all the intricate subjects we were studying. Maybe I’d have a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, and we’d sit under trees together, holding hands and being way too mature to worry about any of the stuff that was making my life with Christa so complicated right now.

  Drew didn’t want any of that, though. After one year of college he’d rather go to some scary, unknown place and do scary, unknown things.

  My stomach growled again. Up ahead was another café with its doors and windows wide open. I checked to make sure I had American money in my purse before I went inside.

  It was one of those places where you could design your own salad. I didn’t like fancy salads, so I ordered a plain Caesar and potato chips. God, I’d missed American food.

  My phone buzzed again as I sat down to eat. I gave up and took it out of my pocket, scrolling as I chewed. There was a long group text thread about which food court place we were supposed to meet at. If I left right now, I’d still be two hours late. Whoops.

  “There you are.”

  Christa slid into the seat across from me. I was so surprised I dropped my fork and had to grab my plastic salad bowl to keep it from tipping over.