Boyfriends with Girlfriends (20 page)

“But if he’s a relative, why didn’t Sergio just say he was going to meet a relative?” Lance took a deep breath, trying to calm the sinking feeling in his stomach. “See? This totally sucks, not knowing.” He sneaked another look at Sergio talking and laughing with the guy. “Come on,” Lance told Allie. “Let’s get out of here!”

“You don’t want to say hi and find out who the guy is?” Allie asked.

“No. No, I want go home.”

As they drove away from the mall, Lance stayed quiet. Alternating waves of anger and hurt washed over him while the image of Sergio with the guy persisted in his mind.

“Just ask him tomorrow who it was,” Allie suggested, patting Lance’s shoulder as he stared sullenly out the windshield.

He didn’t reply to her. He had a hard time getting to sleep that night, his thoughts still fixed on Sergio and the guy.

The following morning on the drive to church, Allie didn’t ask about Sergio. And Lance didn’t ask about Kimiko. Instead, they both focused on the hymns they were scheduled to sing that day, rehearsing in the car.

After lunch with Allie and some choir friends, Lance returned home. He was changing out of his church clothes when his cell rang with the ring tone he’d set for Sergio. Lance stared at the phone screen, steeling himself to answer.

“Hi.” He finally picked up.

“What up?” Sergio said. “How was choir?”

“Good,” Lance told him. “How’s it going with you?”

“It’s going good.” Sergio yawned. “I slept late. Now I was just playing with Elton so he won’t complain. Otherwise he gets jealous like: Why the hell don’t you ever play with me, you stinking
pendejo
?”

Lance laughed politely even though he didn’t know what
“pendejo”
meant and he didn’t really feel like laughing. He wanted to see if Sergio would tell him the truth about the guy at the mall: “So, um, what did you do last night?”

“Went to the mall,” Sergio said. “How about you?”

“Um, went to the mall too.” Lance felt a little silly for
drawing this out rather than simply asking: who was the guy?

“Really?” Sergio lifted Elton back into his cage. “Which mall?”

“The same one you went to,” Lance replied.

“You saw me there?” Sergio asked. “Why didn’t you say hi?”

“Because you were busy with someone.”

“Yeah, that was my cousin. You should’ve said hi.”

“Well”—Lance kicked his shoes off—“how was I supposed to know he wasn’t a date, or a hookup, or a friend with benefits?”

Sergio heard the annoyance in his voice. “Hey, chill, man. You’re overreacting.”

“So how am I supposed to react,” Lance said in a hard tone, “if you won’t tell me if you’re still seeing other people?” A surge of anger swelled in his chest, rising into his throat. “This sucks, you know that? How would
you
feel if
I
were dating other people?”

“Well, if that’s what you want to do . . . ,” Sergio said, growing equally aggravated.

“No, that’s not what I want to do! And I don’t want to be wondering who else you’re going out with either. If you don’t want to be a couple, then I don’t want to go out anymore!”

Lance tried to calm down, a little shocked he’d exploded like that. Yet under his anger breathed a little relief.

Sergio turned silent, not sure how to respond to
Lance’s outburst. He didn’t want to lose Lance, but . . . “I told you, man, I’m not ready to be a couple.”

“Then it’s over,” Lance said. It stunned him that he’d said it. Should he take it back? Maybe now Sergio would change his mind, say that he
did
want to be a couple, and agree not go out with anybody else.

But instead, Sergio told him, “You’re acting like a kid.”

Lance winced, doubting himself.
Is Sergio right? Am I acting like a kid?

“No,” Lance said, his resolve returning. “
You’re
the one who’s not willing to commit.”

It felt good to stand up for himself, even if it meant losing Sergio.

Both of them became quiet, each listening to his own breath, neither willing to change his mind nor knowing what more to say.

“Hello?” Sergio said at last, wondering if Lance had hung up on him.

“Yeah?” Lance replied, hoping that Sergio would apologize for having called him a kid.

“I guess . . . ,” Sergio said, “. . . good-bye, then.”

“Um, bye,” Lance replied, while his stomach slipped down to his toes—at least that’s what it felt like.
Oh, crap,
he thought as the line clicked off.
Did I really just do that?

After getting dumped by Darrell, he’d come to think of himself as the one who got broken up with, not the one who did the breaking up. Shouldn’t it feel better to ditch someone than to get ditched? In this case it didn’t.

Immediately, he phoned Allie.

“Wow,” she replied when he told her what he’d said to Sergio. “You really said that?”

“Um, yeah.” He now wished he hadn’t said it. “I shouldn’t have, should I?”

“I don’t know,” Allie said. “Do
you
think you should’ve?”

“I don’t know either,” Lance told her. “I’ve never dumped anybody before. Shouldn’t it feel easier than getting dumped?”

“See?” Allie replied. “That’s what I’ve been going through with Chip. Do you want to come over? I’m babysitting Josh but you can color with us till he takes a nap.”

“I’m on my way,” Lance told her. Even though he’d left her only an hour earlier, he quickly finished changing clothes and headed out the door.

W
hat lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why . . .
That title line of an Edna Saint Vincent Millay sonnet echoed through Kimiko’s mind on Sunday as she sat on her bedroom carpet, trying to conjure up a new poem of her own. But words simply wouldn’t come—only questions about Allie.

Why did she kiss me?
They couldn’t possibly have any future together other than as friends. They were too different.

Kimiko put her pen down and gazed at herself in the mirror: She looked so plain. She felt so uncertain. She was so inexperienced. . . . Then she thought about Allie: beautiful, mature, cool, confident. . . .

So, why the heck did she kiss me? Just to test what it felt like to kiss a girl? Doesn’t she realize how much it hurts to be toyed with like that? Has she no clue how much I like her?

A line from a Walt Whitman poem drifted into her thoughts:
Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn’d love. . . .

Do I
love
her?
Kimiko wondered.
What would be the point? It can’t go anywhere.
Even if Allie were truly bi, that
didn’t mean she’d want to date or be anything more than friends. And Kimiko definitely didn’t want to be friends with benefits. It would be too frustrating to try to keep her feelings in check.

She got up from the carpet, walked to her bookshelf, and pulled out her copy of Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass.
Turning to the section titled “Calamus,” she read:

But now I think there is no unreturn’d love—
the pay is certain, one way or another;

(I loved a certain person ardently, and my love
was not return’d;

Yet out of that, I have written these songs.)

Should I let myself love her,
Kimiko wondered,
just to be a better poet?
But what if the experience didn’t make her a better poet? What if all it did was break her heart and ruin their friendship?

A footnote at the bottom of the page included a different version of the last stanza:

Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe, or written one of my poems, if I had not freely given myself to comrades, to love.

“Miko!” her mom called. “It’s time for dinner.”

Should I give myself freely to love?
Kimiko wondered.
Should I give myself freely to Allie? Is that what she wants? But what if things don’t work out? And what about my family?

She closed the book and set it down on her desk. As
she headed downstairs, her cell rang: Sergio calling. She hit
SILENCE
and let the call roll to voice mail. Her anger at him had left, but she still felt confused about Allie. It worried her that he might confuse her even more. Better to wait till tomorrow.

When Kimiko got on the school bus the next morning and took her usual seat beside Sergio, she noticed right away his face scrunched with worry.

“’Sup?” she said.

“Do you forgive me?” He pressed his hands together, prayer-like.

“Yeah, you know I always do.” Was that what his worry was about?

“Thanks,” he said humbly. “How are you doing? Any news with Allie?”

“No.” Kimiko shook her head and didn’t say any more about it.

He decided not to pursue it either, afraid he might say something she’d get mad at again. Instead, he announced: “I got dumped again.”

“What?” She gasped. “What happened?” She felt bad that she hadn’t answered his calls. She tried to now make up for it by listening attentively while he told her about his call with Lance. “Wow . . . Sorry, dude.”

“Why are guys so jealous and possessive?” he asked her as they reached school.

“Do you think you’re more so than girls?” she replied, following him off the bus.

“Maybe not.” He thought for a moment about his
experiences with Zelda and other girls. “I’m just not ready to be a couple. Why can’t he accept that?”

“It sounds like you guys are in different places,” Kimiko said philosophically. It felt a lot easier to talk about somebody else’s relationship rather than her own. “He’s ready for couple-hood and you’re not. One of you has to change or it won’t work.”

Sergio thought about that as they walked toward their lockers. “And what about you and Allie? What are you guys going to do?”

“What can we do?” Kimiko answered. “We can’t go back to just being friends. That would be too hard. And we can’t be more than friends either. We can’t be anything.”

“Why not?” Sergio asked, at risk of her getting mad at him again. “You guys like each other so much. Just say for a moment that she wasn’t still half-involved with that guy and you accepted that maybe she’s not out of your league. If anything were possible, would you want to date her?”

“Dude . . .” Kimiko turned her combination lock and tried to stay calm. “That’s not reality. You’re forgetting my family. I’ve got to think about them, too. I can’t just think about myself. That’s selfish.”

“What’s your family got to do with it?” Sergio argued, opening his own locker and getting the books he needed. “It’s
your
life.”

“It’s not only my life,” Kimiko retorted. “What I do affects them, too. I don’t want to hurt them.”

“Doesn’t that work the other way around, too?” Sergio continued while closing his locker. “Whatever they do
affects you. Aren’t they hurting you by not accepting you? I don’t get why it’s selfish to be honest about who you are. Doesn’t it work both ways? Or are you and Dragon Lady going to play the Pretend Game all your life?”

Kimiko shut her locker and frowned at him. She already had enough to deal with; she didn’t want to think about coming out to her family.

After school, she picked up her brother and drove to their karate classes. For the next hour she focused her attention solely on what transpired on the mat—kicking and punching at her opponents, concentrating on each and every movement. She forgot about Sergio, Allie, her family, and everything else going on. After class and a shower, she felt both exhausted and newly energized.

“How was karate?” her dad asked during dinner. He’d encouraged her from the time she’d first started, even when her mom had protested, “It’s not for girls.”

“It was good,” Kimiko now answered and served herself some sliced beef.

“It was boring,” her brother complained. He’d never liked karate. “I don’t want to go anymore.”

“It’s good for you,” their dad said from across the table.