by Robin Talley
“I’ve been looking all over for you.” She retrieved my fork and passed it to me. “Why didn’t you answer any of my texts?”
“Sorry.” I showed her all the unread messages on my phone. “I needed to unplug for a while.”
“It’s a good thing you’re easy to spot.” She nodded toward the shiny blue tank top I was wearing. It was actually her tank top. “I was trying to follow you without being a stalker.”
I swallowed a bite of salad to keep myself from smiling at that. “I thought you were still mad at me from last night.”
“I sort of am.” She shrugged. “But I’d still rather hang out with you than anyone else.”
Maybe that shouldn’t have made my heart swell up, but it did.
“I know what you mean,” I said. And then, because I had to talk about it, regardless of all the other stuff going on, I added, “Look, if I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone? I mean, for real promise? You can’t tell Madison, or anyone.”
Her eyes flicked down. “Yes, of course.”
“Okay.” I looked around to make sure I didn’t recognize anyone else in the café. Then I told her what had happened with Drew.
By the time I’d finished explaining, I wasn’t hungry anymore. I threw out what was left of my salad and we started walking back across the campus the same way I’d come. The sun had set and it was getting cool outside. The paths were lit with hazy street lamps. Even more people were hanging out than I’d seen earlier, standing in groups, talking and laughing. No one seemed to be in a hurry.
“I can’t believe he just up and dropped out of college.” Christa was eyeing the crowd, the same way I was. “My parents would crucify me.”
“Uh-huh. My dad is legit going to kill him.”
“Will you tell them?”
“No. I promised Drew I wouldn’t.” I stuck my hands in the pockets of my denim shorts. They were Christa’s, too, of course. They were too short on me, but the cool breeze felt nice on my legs after all those hours on the bus surrounded by stale, air-conditioned air. “It makes me wonder, though.”
“Wonder what?” Christa’s elbow bumped into mine.
“When I told Drew about me, he made me swear up and down I wouldn’t tell Dad. He said he didn’t think Dad could deal with the idea. Now I wonder if it was really me Drew was thinking about when he said that. Maybe he knew Dad would be angry about his secret, and that’s what was really on his mind.”
“Hmm.” Christa glanced over at me. “Do you think so?”
“I don’t know. This is all new territory for me. I’m not used to having secrets.” It sounded goofy when I said it that way. I pulled my hands back out of my pockets.
“Will you miss him if he leaves?”
“Yes. God, yes. I mean, he’s my brother, so he annoys me sometimes, but he’s always been there. I can’t imagine the house without him in it.”
“I get it. My brother’s younger than me, but still, I wouldn’t want him going off on his own that way.”
“And being here, at a college—that makes this even weirder. I mean, this isn’t my college, but I keep thinking about being someplace like this someday. All of a sudden I’m obsessed with the future and how different it’s going to be. Will I even be the same person then?”
“I know exactly what you mean. My parents and I took a trip over spring break to visit Princeton. I kept walking around all those old buildings, trying to picture myself living there, and I just couldn’t. How can you go from living one life to something completely different?”
“No clue.” Absently, I took her hand and held it as we walked. “And after four years of college, does your life turn upside down all over again when you graduate? You move someplace else and then you have a job where all day the only thing you do is sit in front of a computer and type things?”
“I think that’s even scarier. I mean, my parents have really important jobs. If they screw up, it could be really dangerous. I don’t know how you deal with knowing that.”
“All I know is I don’t want to be a minister, like my dad.” I shook my head. “Or a teacher, like my mom.”
“Don’t you want to be a musician?”
“I used to. Now I’m not sure.” I stared off into the distance. “It’s weird how what you want changes, you know? Drew used to say he wanted to play in the NBA, but then he didn’t make the varsity basketball team in high school, and since then he hasn’t really talked about what he wants to do. I guess now he wants to be a soldier.”
“I think I—no.” Christa shook her head.
“You think you what?”
“Never mind. It’s nothing.”
“No, tell me. I want to know.”
“Well.” Christa ran her free hand through her short dark hair. It shone in the light from the street lamps. “My parents don’t believe it’s a real career, but I really think I’d be a good chef. I love cooking in a way I’ve never loved anything in school. There’s an art to it. My parents don’t get that.”
“That’s awesome.” It really was awesome. I’d never known anyone who wanted to be a chef. “Is that why you’re helping Señora Suarez at lunch?”
“Yeah. It’s been cool, learning how to cook the way she does. Back home, I usually do the grocery shopping and cook dinner at home since my parents work so late. In middle school I used to look up recipes and watch videos so I could learn how to make different things. Then I started inventing my own recipes. My parents always say the food I make is really good, and I get awesome responses on Instagram when I post the photos.”
“That’s so cool. The only thing I can make is pancakes, and half the time I burn them.”
Christa laughed. “Maybe I can teach you sometime, now that you’ll actually consent to eat food that isn’t toast.”
I grinned. “That would be fun. Maybe when we get back home.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Christa’s voice sounded far away.
“So you’d rather be a chef than a photographer?”
“I think so?” She shrugged again. “I really want to do both. Right now, photography feels more like a fun thing to do and cooking feels more like a thing I want to do all day and forever. But who knows what I’ll think in a few years? I hate the idea of having to choose.”
“Do you have to?”
“Not this second, but it’s tricky because to be a chef you have to go to a special culinary school. It’s not something you can just major in at UMD or wherever. But it also kind of doesn’t matter because my parents wouldn’t let me do either. They want me to go to an Ivy League school and major in science or business or law. Or something else I’d totally hate. Just as long as it sounds fancy to their friends.”
“Have you told them that’s not what you want?”
“No. I know what they’d say.”
“Technically you don’t need their permission once you’re eighteen. You can do what you want. That’s what Drew’s doing.”
“I need their permission if they’re the ones paying.” Christa stared down at the ground in front of us.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess.”
I squeezed Christa’s hand. Then I realized—wait.
I was holding Christa’s hand. Out in the open, where anyone could see.
I dropped it, fast.
Then I realized something else. I’d been holding Christa’s hand. And Christa had let me.
She must’ve just realized it, too, because she was staring at me, her eyes wide.
“I, um.” I tried to distract her. “I have no idea where we are.”
“Me, neither.” She turned around to look. I stared at her hand where it hung now by her side. I couldn’t believe that happened. “Oh, wait. We’ve come almost the whole way back. We’re not that far from the dorm.”
“Oh. U
m...” Suddenly I felt the weight of the backpack on my shoulder. With everything else that had happened, I’d nearly forgotten about my trip to the health center that afternoon. “You know, I never even went into the dorm. I haven’t seen the rooms or anything. Do we need to get a key or something?”
“I have it.” Christa pulled something out of her purse. A plastic hook with a white card and a small metal key hanging from it. It seemed like the key to more than just a dorm room.
“Should we go back, then?” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, okay, let’s go back.”
We headed down the path, walking faster than before. I thought about taking her hand again but I didn’t want to press my luck. Besides, soon we’d be seeing people we knew.
Except, somehow, we didn’t. The campus was full of people, but none of them were faces I recognized. Christa and I were nothing but two girls in a crowd here. No one stared at me for being black or for being my father’s daughter or for being the one the lesbo rumors were about.
It was exhilarating, being out here. So much so that I said what I was thinking without even worrying about how it would sound to Christa. “You know, we’re talking about the future, about what we want to do, and for me it’s always felt as if the future is so hypothetical. I’ve never had the chance to actually try any of it. It’s the same thing with being bi. That’s always felt like a theory to me, too. Now suddenly it’s all changing.”
I could feel the heat rising in my face as I trailed off. But I didn’t regret what I’d said.
“I...” Christa’s eyes were focused in front of us, on the dorm looming larger the closer we got. “I know what you mean.”
“Well, you’re closer to the reality of it than I am. You already know what you want your career to be. And you’re already, you know...” I wanted to say that she’d already hooked up with girls before me—not to mention the whole boyfriend-back-home thing—but that felt like going too far. “You’re living your full life.”
She laughed. “Sure I am.”
“Anyway, that’s part of what college means to me, I think. A fresh start. So I can really start trying things. Figuring out who I actually am.”
“Yeah.” Christa nodded. We were almost at the dorm now. “I get that. Except college is still a long way away.”
“Yeah, that’s true. I don’t want to sit around waiting for things to happen, either.”
“Same here.”
As Christa let us into the front door of the dorm with her plastic card, she turned to smile at me, and I felt this weird, awesome rush of happiness that seemed to come out of nowhere at all.
I smiled back as wide as I could.
We got in an elevator to go to the sixth floor, just the two of us, and I couldn’t help it. I kissed her, right there. She laughed and kissed me back.
The doors opened too fast, spilling us out into a hallway with dingy industrial carpet and flickering florescent lights. Christa led me down a hall, explaining how she’d already stashed her stuff in our room and warning me that the space was tiny. She unlocked the door and I followed her in, flicking on a desk lamp that cast the room in a dull gold glow. The walls were white painted cinderblock, the two twin beds were made up with beige blankets that looked decades old and the window was covered in a thick gray curtain that looked so stiff I was afraid to touch it.
It was beautiful.
Christa was here, and she was all mine. For tonight, at least.
I dumped out my bag onto one of the beds, pulling out the box of dental dams and the rubber gloves. Christa must’ve seen all this stuff before, so I didn’t want her to think I thought it was a big deal, having protection with me. Wait, barriers. That was probably what Christa was used to calling them.
I was still sorting through my stuff when I felt Christa’s hand slipping around my waist from behind. I closed my eyes. It was like being in the guest house in Mudanza. Except here, we had all night, and a room that was all ours.
Christa kissed my neck. I turned around slowly. She linked her arms around my back as I leaned in to kiss her. Her lips were soft and warm. I melted into her, our tongues slipping together, her body pressing into mine. I wanted so much in that moment.
We stumbled. The backs of my knees struck the side of the bed and I fell backward, laughing and pulling her on top of me.
“Hey,” she said, reaching under me. Something was poking into my back. “What’s this?”
“Oh, yeah.” I reached back. It was the box of thirty-six dental dams. “I got some stuff. You know, barriers? For if we need them, I mean.”
“Oh.” Christa took the box of dental dams and sat up. I sat up, too. My shirt was rumpled. I tugged it down. “So this is—barriers?”
“Yeah, um.” I felt awkward now. I wished the light were dimmer. “Dental dams and gloves. I went and got them from the campus health center. And the drugstore.”
“Dental dams and gloves,” Christa repeated. She picked up the box of gloves and held it out, too. “Okay.”
My face flushed. I could hear my voice creeping higher and higher as I said, “They’re for if we, um, want to go further? You know, ever? I just figured we should be prepared, right?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Christa turned over the box of dental dams and started reading the instructions. “Ohhh, okay, I get it.”
Hmm. “You’ve used this stuff before, right?” I asked her.
“Oh, yeah, totally.” She picked up the package of gloves and peered at it. “I mean, I think I have. Well, okay, maybe I haven’t, actually.”
“Oh.” I frowned. “So you just...you didn’t use anything?”
“No. I mean. I guess it, um, never came up.”
“What do you mean, it never came up?” If Christa had been having unsafe sex, maybe she and I shouldn’t go further after all. “You...did it without using anything? Like with Madison? Or your other ex-girlfriends?”
Christa blushed. “No. I mean, I’ve never, um. Never needed to.”
I shook my head. “I don’t get it.”
Christa sighed. “Look, I’ve never. Um. You’re the only one I’ve gone this far with. Okay?”
Oh.
Ohhhh.
She’d never—
So that meant—
Christa hadn’t done it before. The same as me. Well, she hadn’t with a girl, at least.
So that night, when we were hooking up and I sort of, well, steered things toward third base—that was the first time she’d ever even done that?
And I’d gone and gotten the dental dams and the gloves. Christa hadn’t even thought about it until now.
All this time I’d been thinking I was following along after her. Did this mean I was the one being followed?
Did she even want to do this, or was she only here because I started it? I hoped she didn’t think I was a slut or anything.
“But you have with Steven, right?” I said.
She looked quickly from side to side. “Um. Not really.”
Oh my God. She did think I was a slut.
“Okay, well that’s cool.” I started gathering up the dams and gloves. “I mean, never mind about that stuff. I only got it, you know, in case. It’s not a big deal. I mean, whatever.”
Christa shuffled over closer to me. She took my hand, but I didn’t look up to meet her eyes.
“No!” she said. “Don’t. I mean, I’m glad you got it. You don’t need to put it away. I think it’s cool. Safety is really important. I definitely want us to be totally safe.”
She pulled my hand up to her lips and kissed each of my fingers.
My chest pounded. I raised my eyes to meet her gaze. Her face was flushed bright pink. She was so pretty.
“I’m not—” I swallowed. “I mean, I’ve never done anything like this, either. I haven’t
done anything at all, really. Especially with a girl.”
“That’s cool, too.” She pressed her lips to my fingers again. I closed my eyes. “It’s good that this is new for both of us. It makes it special.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but she was right. It did feel special. She felt special.
This was special. What we had. What we did.
My eyes were still closed. I leaned in, resting my cheek on her shoulder. She held my wrist up to her face and kissed the inside of it where the skin was thin and sensitive. I shivered. She kissed down my wrist to the inside of my elbow. Her lips were warm and light against my skin.
“You feel so good,” she whispered, just as I was thinking the same thing.
I giggled and kissed the side of her neck, right at the slope of her shoulder. I could feel her pulse under my lips.
She was real. Solid.
She wanted to be with me. And I wanted to be with her. I wanted her.
I kissed her cheek, her jaw, working my way around. I wasn’t really sure if this was what I was supposed to do, but she sucked in a breath, so she probably liked it. When my lips met hers, she kissed me so hard I fell backward onto the bed. I would’ve laughed, but everything had suddenly grown serious.
Christa fell with me. Even after weeks of making out, it was still so amazing, the interplay of lips and tongues and limbs. She ran her hands up and down my sides, my stomach, my breasts. I squirmed happily and looped my arms around her, pulling up her shirt to run my hands over her bare back. She moaned, exactly the way girls did in movies. I could feel it vibrate in my throat as we kissed, and it made me moan as if I was in a movie, too.
We pulled off our shirts and fumbled to unhook each other’s bras. Hers was shiny and black and looked amazing. We touched and kissed and frantically moved against each other. I dipped my fingers below the waistband of her shorts and she made these noises that made me never want to stop.
Her hand was between us, reaching down. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would jump out of my body. She undid the zipper on my shorts and then she was reaching down, her fingers sliding into my underwear. This was faster than we usually went, but I didn’t care. I wanted fast this time.
