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“Great.”
“Yeah. We’re actually a really modern couple. Steven hates all those old-school rules about how relationships are supposed to work, and I do, too.”
“That’s great.” I wished she’d shut up about Steven.
“Everyone’s stuck in this 1950s mentality,” Christa went on. “As if people still ‘go steady.’ I mean, what a boring idea, that you’re supposed to be with one person all the time and never so much as look at anyone else. Haven’t we evolved past that as a culture?”
I was about to reach my breaking point with this conversation. “What are you talking about?”
Christa looked down at her hands. “The thing about Steven and me is that we’re taking a break for the summer.”
“A break?” I watched her closely. “What does that mean?”
“You know.” She met my eyes for a second and then looked away, her shoulders shifting. “We don’t believe in that old-fashioned rule about how you always have to be totally monogamous. It isn’t human nature, you know? So, since I was coming down here, we decided we’d take the summer off from our relationship. So we could see other people for a little while. If we wanted to, I mean.”
“Oh.” Ohhhhh. “So you mean—he was your boyfriend up until this week, and he’ll be your boyfriend once you get back home, but right at this moment, you’re boyfriend-free?”
She nodded. “That’s the general idea.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about him last night?” My annoyance was fading fast, but I tried not to let it show. This kind of changed everything.
She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I should have. Steven and I agreed before I left town that we’d both be totally up front about the whole thing so no one gets the wrong idea.”
“And what would the right idea be, exactly?”
She looked back up at me, her mouth set in a straight line. “The right idea would be...that even though I technically have a boyfriend, I could still like a girl. A particular girl, I mean.”
My chest felt fluttery. Damn it. I was supposed to be mad at her.
Also, this meant Christa was definitely bi. The same as me. I’d hardly known any other bi people.
“I mean.” She stepped closer. “You know my thing for artist types. Because as it happens, there’s this one artist girl, a musician in fact, who I happen to like a lot. But only if she’s okay with the temporary thing, since that’s all I can do. And only if she likes me back.”
This time, I was the one who looked down at my hands. She was being honest with me, but I wasn’t being honest with her. She still thought I was an artist type, like her. And like the super talented actor that was Steven.
“Because the thing is,” she went on. I glanced back up. She was still biting her lip. Was she nervous? Did Christa get nervous? “I mean, if that particular musician girl did like me back, then, well, we’re here in this totally new place, where we hardly know anyone. Where we can basically start a whole new life, just for ourselves, just for these next four weeks. No one even needs to know about it. It could be our own private universe. And then once we get on the plane at the end of this trip, we go back to the real world.”
Christa tugged at her shirt again. She looked so awesome, especially next to me in my paint-splattered pants. Had she changed her clothes because she knew she was going to see me?
I looked away again so she couldn’t tell I was smiling.
Christa had a boyfriend. If we really did hook up, a little summer thing was all we could have anyway. We’d say goodbye at the end of the trip with no harm done. It would be a fling. Exactly like the one Lori and I had fantasized about that morning.
Maybe it wasn’t even a big deal that I’d lied about my music. It wasn’t as if Christa and I were getting married. For a summer fling, getting all the details right didn’t matter quite so much.
This was my chance to see if I really liked girls. It would be an experiment. The coolest experiment ever.
Suddenly I felt very sophisticated. Or, as Christa had said, modern. Why should we have to stick to rules about monogamy that some old white guys made up a million years ago? We were young. We should be having fun.
Christa was looking at me expectantly.
“I...um...” I sounded horribly inarticulate after all that amazing stuff she’d said about universes. “It would be a total secret, right?”
Christa nodded. Good. I couldn’t picture going up to Dad after he was done leading us in one of his long, rambling prayers at vespers and telling him I was bisexual. Or anything-sexual.
Come to think of it, we were probably already late for vespers. Oh, well.
Christa was still watching me. Waiting.
I took a step closer to her. She looked right at me. The smile was in her eyes as much as her lips.
Oh, God. We were going to kiss.
I thought I’d be nervous, but I wasn’t.
I felt awesome, actually. Better than I remembered feeling in, well, ever.
So when Christa stepped toward me, I didn’t wait. I leaned over and pressed my lips against hers.
I could feel her smiling as she kissed me back.
And...oh.
She tasted like the sky.
Kissing her felt sweet and strong and urgent all at the same time. As though we were made to kiss each other.
We didn’t bump against each other awkwardly, the way I usually did with boys. Instead we kissed gently. Slowly.
I’d never kissed anyone that way before. As though it really meant something. I wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly, but I didn’t care.
After that things got kind of—well—intense. She ran her hands along my back. I played with her hair. It turned out the pink streak wasn’t real. It was just clipped in, as I discovered when I accidentally pulled it out. We both giggled at that, but only for a second, because kissing required every bit of attention we had.
When we finally pulled apart, I felt breathless and raw, and it was getting dark. I should’ve been worried—we were late for vespers, and we were out in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country—but my heart was beating too hard to focus on anything but Christa.
She looked as if she felt the same way. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled. Our arms were still wrapped around each other, and our breasts were touching through our clothes. I thought again about that bra strap poking out from her tank top earlier. I was getting flushed, too.
“We should go to vespers,” I said. “Dad will notice if I’m not there.”
“Okay.”
But we didn’t let go.
I closed my eyes, but I could still see the stars overhead.
“We should, um.” I tried not to think about how she felt. “We should go.”
We kissed again. And again after that.
The stars were all around us, spinning, whirling, carrying me off with them into the sky.
By the time we finally left those hills, kissing Christa was the only thing I ever wanted to do.
PART 2 (#ue673357d-9ab4-5a23-bea8-7079eaad7871)
If I Was Your Girlfriend
CHAPTER 5 (#ue673357d-9ab4-5a23-bea8-7079eaad7871)
“So did you full-on hook up or just make out?”
“Shut it, Lori!” I darted my head from side to side. No one was close enough to hear, but still. “Discretion, please!”
Lori laughed. “I need to know if it counts toward the tally. Three hookups, remember?”
“Well, this definitely counts as one.”
“Mmm, I’m not sure. Did you only go to first base?”
I put my hands on my hips, tucking the ball of pale purple thread I was untangling into my palm. “That’s none of your business!”
“Yeah, right.” Lori laughed again.
She had a point. I’d been dying to tell Lori what happened ever since Christa and I stopped kissing last night. Actually, maybe even before that. I vaguely remembered looking forward to telling Lori about kissing Christa while I was still actively in the process of kissing Christa.
But I had to wait. By the time we got to vespers that night the meeting was already halfway over, and there was no chance to talk. Christa and I had slunk in through the shadows from the candlelight while Señor Suarez played hymns on a beautiful old twelve-string guitar. We’d kept our heads bent as if we were praying. Dad didn’t say anything about it, so he must’ve thought we were there the whole time.
All through the prayers and the singing, it was impossible to act normal. I kept running my fingers over my lips and sneaking glances at Christa. She was glancing at me, too.
After vespers, we all walked back to the old church in a big group. Then we waited in line to use one of the two indoor toilets. (Everyone hated the porta-potties. Some of the guys had started peeing outside so they wouldn’t have to wait in line. It was so gross.)
After that we went to bed in the dark again. All around us, people talked and laughed and acted as if it were any other night. For them, I guess it was.
Now, finally, I had my chance to tell Lori all the details. We were sitting on the blanket outside the work site. In a couple of hours we’d meet with the local girls and teach them a simple lanyard knot to make friendship bracelets. That should keep them busy for a few days at least. We had to sort the thread first, though. It had come out of Lori’s suitcase pocket in a big tangled pile.
“It’s weird,” I said. “This is the first time I’ve ever seriously been into a girl, and the thing is, I don’t remember ever liking a guy as much as I like her. So what’s that about? I mean, I could be just as into a guy, right? I’ve been into guys before, but not this much. What I’m saying is, this doesn’t mean I’m not bi anymore, does it?”
I’d never thought this much about what it really meant to be bi. I should probably be talking to Christa about it instead of Lori, since Christa would relate more, but I couldn’t exactly analyze our relationship with her.
I’d already told Lori all about Christa’s boyfriend situation, though, and Lori, at least, seemed to think it was perfectly normal. Apparently her mom was always watching some old TV show where couples were constantly taking breaks and having flings and fighting with their significant others about it. Once Lori told me that, I actually felt weirdly better about the whole situation.
“Well?” I asked Lori now. “What do you think?”
Lori looked up from the threads that wound between her fingers. “I’ve got to be honest, Aki, babe, I didn’t quite follow all that.”
“It’s only—I should know by now, shouldn’t I? If I’m straight or gay or bi or, I don’t know, whatever? I mean, I’m fifteen already. If I haven’t figured this out yet, am I ever going to?”
Lori frowned. “I don’t know. I think I’ve always known I was straight. I never thought I might be anything else, at least. Well, there was that girl at camp one time who I thought I had a crush on but we were, like, eight, so...”
“Yeah, see? You’re supposed to have always known. Crap. What if I never hook up with a guy again? Then how will I be sure?”
Lori put her thread down. “Don’t you want to hook up with her again?”
“Oh, well I mean, yeah, of course. I’m only thinking ahead.”
“Since we’ve only been here for a day, I’d recommend concentrating on the girl at hand.” Lori poked through the pile to find the blue strands. “You know you’re a total badass, by the way. Going to first base lesbian-style your very first day in an exotic land.”
I grinned. “No one’s ever called me a badass before.”
“Get used to it, badass.” Lori bumped my shoulder, making me drop the lanyard strands I’d been sorting. I bumped her back. “Now I’ve gotta get moving on my own end of the bargain so we can both be badasses.”
“Yeah? With who? Paul?”
“No, actually, I’m—”
“Wait, Paul’s a badass? Since when?”
A shadow loomed over us. I looked up slowly, worried one of the chaperones had caught us cursing.
Nope. It was Christa.
I beamed up at her.
“Hiiii.” I could hear the breathiness in my voice but I was helpless to make it go away. Next to me, Lori chortled.
“Hiiii,” Lori whispered so only I could hear.
I bumped her shoulder again. “Shut up.”
“No, Paul’s not a badass.” Lori giggled. “We were just talking about how last night—”
“Shut up.” I bumped her shoulder harder this time, but Christa didn’t seem fazed.
“So, uh.” Christa twirled a lock of hair around her finger. I still couldn’t get over how cute she was. “What’s with all the thread and whatnot?”
Lori told her about the jewelry project while I kept smiling dorkily.
“We’re sorting this stuff now,” Lori said when she was done explaining. “You can help if you want.”
“Sure, totally.” Christa dropped down next to us on the blanket. Her jeans were caked with dirt. She must’ve been working on the fence. I was trying to stay away from both dirt and paint since I’d had to borrow clothes from Lori again. But that meant I couldn’t do any actual work, so I’d been alternating between setting up for the jewelry class and walking around acting as if I had somewhere to be.
Christa pulled some thread out of the pile and tried to straighten it out. I watched her hands move, her fingers running delicately over the strands. Her palm had a blue and purple design on it today. A sun and moon drawn in marker. It was cool that she did that sort of thing. She had a true artist’s spirit. Not like me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d created something new.
I reached out and stroked her finger with mine. Then I got nervous—what if she thought that was weird?—and pulled away. I dipped my hand back into the pile to get more lanyard thread instead.
Christa reached into the pile, too. Her fingers slipped under the tangles of thread until her hand was touching mine.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling too obviously. It didn’t work.
