It's Not Like It's a Secret

by Misa Sugiura

  When she returned my phone this morning on my way out the door, there were five messages. Three are from Jamie, who missed me and sent kisses on Friday, and hearted and kissed me on Saturday afternoon and hearted and thumbed-up me on Sunday. The sweet rush of “hearts from Jamie!” is sideswiped by the jittery question of how successfully she managed to control the damage I did with Christina. And that’s replaced by panic over the possibility of Mom having seen these incriminating texts, and I spend a nervous minute trying to recall the exact expression on Mom’s face when she handed me the phone. But nothing comes to mind, and I figure Jamie wouldn’t text me hearts and thumbs-up if things had gone badly, so I allow my panic to subside, and bask in the glow of Jamie’s virtual kisses.

  There are also two texts from Reggie:

  Hey, do you have ur phone back? Tmb asap

  U there? Just checking. Tmb!

  I send hearts and kisses back to Jamie and then shoot Reggie a text (Got my phone, finally! What’s up?) but this time she just says, Tell u at school, hurry!

  I practically run the rest of the way to school.

  “What? What is it?” I shout when I see Reggie and Hanh in our usual spot. “I ran all the way here, so it better be good.”

  “Heeyyy!” says Reggie with an enormous smile. “How are you?” She opens her arms and gives me a big hug.

  “Hey, girl!” says Hanh, who gives me a hug after Reggie releases me.

  After a whole weekend without any communication, I’m so glad to see them—it really feels like I’ve been let out of jail—but this seems a little excessive. I look around.

  “Where’s Elaine?”

  Hanh nods in the direction of the opposite side of the quad. “With her boyfriend. Probably making out somewhere.”

  “Shut. Up.”

  “It’s true.” Hanh looks at Reggie, who nods her confirmation.

  “Omigod!” I’m so excited, I make a noise that almost rivals a classic Elaine squeal.

  “Is that what you wanted to tell me? Did it happen this weekend? When? Where?” Elaine pined over Jimmy much harder than I did over Jamie. And not just a few weeks, like me. Since sophomore year, I’ve heard. I’m so happy for her. I wish I’d been able to have a girl-talk session on the weekend. It would have made life so much more bearable.

  The details are these: After the pedicure field trip that I should have been a part of, Janet and Reggie picked Elaine and Hanh up (having made up another elaborate story for Hanh’s parents) and the four of them drove all the way up to Stanford to meet Jimmy, who’s on the boys’ varsity team and ran in the invitational, so they could hang out in Palo Alto afterward. I feel a twinge of jealousy, which probably shows, because a flicker of guilt crosses Reggie’s face, and she breaks from her story to say, “I wish your mom would’ve let you come. We totally missed you.”

  I shrug and say, “Just tell me the rest.”

  The Palo Alto part was meh, Reggie says, and not worth talking about except that Elaine and Jimmy held hands the whole time. The good part was the end of the afternoon, when Elaine got in Jimmy’s car instead of Reggie’s and he took her home and kissed her good-bye.

  “Look at what she texted me,” Reggie says, showing me her phone. She scrolls through the thread and stops where it says,

  OMG! Jimmy kissed me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Then there’s a whole other text that’s nothing but about a hundred exclamation marks. And another of a hundred faces with hearts for eyes. And another of a hundred super-happy faces.

  “So I guess she’s kind of excited,” I say.

  “Kinda.”

  Good for Elaine. I’ll bet she won’t be afraid to kiss her boyfriend in public. This train of thought leads, of course, to my girlfriend. “So, um, did you see Jamie there?”

  Reggie and Hanh exchange looks. “Yeah, so . . .” says Reggie, shifting on her feet.

  “That’s kinda what we wanted to talk to you about,” finishes Hanh.

  “Jamie?” I ask. “She was going to maybe hang out with Arturo and them afterward.”

  “Oh, they were there,” says Hanh. She and Reggie look at each other again.

  “So, what? Just tell me.”

  “Yeah, so . . .” says Reggie again. “We were with Janet’s cousin Amy, you know, the one who goes to Palo Alto High School? And we saw Jamie right after the meet, and— Actually, forget it. It’s no big—”

  “She was with this redheaded chick, and Amy says that’s the one who got together with Jamie at camp this summer,” interrupts Hanh.

  I look at Reggie. “I’m sure it was nothing,” she says. “I’m sure they’re just friends.” For a very long moment, it’s like the data is buffering—everything just stops except for the spinning wheel of death, which turns . . . turns . . . turns . . .

  “I have to say, though, she was pretty hot,” says Hanh helpfully.

  “Hanh!” Reggie glares at her.

  “And I was going to say,” says Hanh, glaring right back at Reggie, “but she looks like a total slut.”

  Reggie rolls her eyes. “God, Hanh! That is so not appropriate! You can’t say that about girls just because they dress a certain way!” She turns to me and says, “It’s not like they were doing anything. Really, I don’t even know why we brought it up.”

  “Reg! We brought it up because Amy says that the redheaded chick—Kelsey? Chelsea?—was talking about trying to get back together with her hot ex-girlfriend after the invitational, so, you know.” Hanh turns to me and shrugs. “Two plus two.”

  “Wow,” I say. I nod slowly, hoping this makes me look thoughtful instead of suddenly cast off into deep space, which is how I really feel. No air, no anchor, nothing to keep me from hurtling off into the void. They’re watching me closely, so I have to work extra hard to keep it together.

  “‘Wow’? That’s it? Aren’t you upset?” asks Hanh.

  “There’s nothing to be upset about!” says Reggie.

  “I’m— Reggie’s right. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll be okay.”

  The five-minute bell rings and we head toward class. Reggie and Hanh begin bickering about whether or not Hanh should have told me that Kelsey looked hot. (“I also said that she looked like a slut!” Hanh keeps saying, as if somehow that makes things better—to which Reggie keeps replying with increasing impatience, “Stop. Saying that. It’s not okay.”)

  As we reach the classroom, Elaine and Jimmy appear from the opposite direction, arms slung around each other. When she sees us, Elaine glances anxiously at Reggie and Hanh, and then at me. “Just calm down already,” I want to say. Though to whom, I’m not sure.

  Meanwhile, the download meter in my brain is still inching toward a hundred percent. I have a little video playing in my head now: Jamie and hot Kelsey, walking down the streets of Palo Alto together. I try out a sentence in my head: Jamie was with Kelsey. It’s not too bad. Nothing tragic. So she was with her ex-girlfriend. So she didn’t tell me about it. That’s okay, right? She’s under no obligation to reveal her every move to me. No need to panic. If it hadn’t been for Mom and that awful argument on Friday with Christina, it would have been me walking down the streets of Palo Alto with Jamie.

  Right?

  As I make my way to my seat, my brain finally kicks in and I start generating a list of questions I want to ask Reggie and Hanh as soon as class is over: Did they see you? Did you say hi? Did they look friendly, or like, friendly? Why did Kelsey look “slutty”? What does that even mean? Did Jamie look guilty? Did she look happy? What were her friends doing?

  Then I remember how much Christina supposedly hated Kelsey. If Jamie’s hanging out with her, does that mean Christina approves of Kelsey more than me? Did I screw up that badly? Have I been voted out and replaced by committee?

  Under all of these questions is another one that keeps bubbling up: Why didn’t she tell me?

  I’m staring out the window going over my questions when the bell rings and Caleb slides into his seat behind me.

  “He
y, distracted much?”

  “Huh?”

  “Dis-tract-ed much?” he repeats.

  “Oh. Sorry. Hey.”

  “Hey,” he says, smiling, pleased with the success of his little joke. “Hey, guess what,” he continues, “I think your cross-country friend Jamie is a lesbian. I heard someone saw her like, kissing another girl this weekend. My cousin was at this meet at Stanford and she said her teammate saw a Mexican girl from Anderson and some runner from Palo Alto totally kissing. A girl runner, I mean. Obviously.”

  “Kissing?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what my cousin said.”

  “Caleb and Sana. Is there something you’d like to share with the class?” Caleb shakes his head and leaves me to spend the rest of trig playing a new endless loop in my head of Jamie and hot Kelsey totally kissing, over and over and over.

  On the walk from trig to Spanish, I ask Reggie and Hanh if Caleb’s rumor is true (Elaine, uninhibited and with no need to consider how people will react to her being straight, has left us to be part of Jimmy-and-Elaine). They can’t confirm it, but Hanh thinks that Jamie and Kelsey were acting friendlier than just friends. She can’t explain it. “Just, you know, body language” is the best she can do.

  I spend the next eighty minutes worrying about Jamie instead of doing Spanish, followed by ten minutes of worrying about Jamie instead of listening to the announcements, which, let’s face it, no one really listens to anyway. The rest of the day passes the same way—everything that happens, everything anyone says, gets pushed out by Jamie and Kelsey, Kelsey, not me, Kelsey.

  At practice, I avoid Jamie. Everything I do or say around her feels like a lame cover-up for my worries about her and Kelsey, and I’m afraid she’ll see right through me. Though why I don’t want her to know I’m upset is beyond me. And is it my imagination, or is Jamie acting a little distant, too?

  By the time we’re walking back to my house, I’m a tangle of nerves. I want to hear the truth, I don’t want to hear the truth. I don’t want her to know I’m upset, I do want her to know I’m upset. We never hold hands on our walk home, but usually we walk close enough to touch each other every once in a while. Today—is it me, or is it her?—there’s no touching.

  We reach the house; even Mom notices that something’s not quite right. Ever since I showed her Jamie’s perfect scores on a couple of trig and physics tests, she’s found it in her heart to ignore Jamie’s makeup and welcome her in. And since I’ve been doing better on my tests as well, Mom is happy to leave us alone to “study.” And in true Mom fashion, she often seems more concerned about Jamie’s well-being than my own.

  As I put a bowl of chips and two cans of Diet Coke on a tray, she asks, “Jamie, are you feeling bad? You’re very quiet today.”

  “Oh, no, I’m fine. Just a little tired from practice,” Jamie says. Except that practice wasn’t that hard today.

  Then we’re alone in my room with the usual snacks, but without the usual easy conversation. She has to feel the tension—we’ve been apart all weekend and we haven’t so much as pecked each other on the cheek. But I don’t acknowledge it and neither does she.

  Instead, I sit on the floor and dive right into my homework. We’re supposed to be rereading this part in The Awakening where Edna tells her husband that she’s going to move into her own little house down the block, and he arranges to have their entire actual house redecorated so it looks like that’s why Edna has moved out.

  I can’t get into it. I can’t get Kelsey out of my head. She’s replaced Christina as my number one worry when it comes to Jamie. Eventually Jamie looks up from her book and says, “So, uh. I haven’t told you about the weekend.”

  “Oh, right. How was it?” I put on an inquisitive smile.

  “Yeah, actually. There’s something I have to tell you.” The smile slides off my face. She chews her lip, then says, “I kind of spent some time with Kelsey after the meet. I wanted to tell you before anyone else did, so you wouldn’t get the wrong—”

  “Reggie and Hanh already told me, actually. And Caleb. I guess a lot of people saw you together.” I mean to sound neutral, like I’m just reporting the news, but it comes out resentful and sulky. I suppose that’s better than scared and pathetic, which is how I really feel.

  “Oh, no. What did they tell you?”

  “I heard you were kissing each other. Is that true?” She’s not denying it. I feel like the ground is suddenly tilting, like my life is tipping over. “Is that why you didn’t want me to come? Because you knew she was going to be there?”

  “No! Yes. I mean. I knew she was going to be there, but I didn’t know we were going to hang out. You not coming to Palo Alto—that was about Arturo and JJ and Christina, not about Kelsey.”

  “Then what—why did you kiss her?”

  “I didn’t. She kissed me.”

  “Did you kiss her back?”

  “No. I mean, well, not really. Kind of.” She pushes her hands through her hair. “She kissed me and I guess I kinda let her.” I lean against my bed and hug myself so I don’t split in half. “I should explain.” What can I do but let her?

  “So when Kelsey and I got together last summer, it was. I don’t know. My first time with a girl, and I guess it was pretty intense because we were at camp. Like, we got to sleep in the same room like, every . . .” She trails off, thank goodness. Though I can’t tell if it’s because she’s suddenly realized how shitty it is for me to have to hear this, or if she’s just lost in the memory of all those hot summer nights she and Kelsey spent in the same room. I pull my knees up to my chest. Grit my teeth. Try to decide whether I should beg her to stay or yell at her to get out. “And I dunno, she was fun and pretty and it turns out her parents have like a boatload of money, so we got to do fun things on the weekends like go sailing—I mean, like, she has her own freaking horse—and I guess I kinda got caught up in all of that.”

  Nice. I lost Trish to a rich white boy with a Mustang, and now I’m losing Jamie to a rich white girl with an actual horse.

  “And then it was weird because we didn’t actually—she just kinda left the whole thing as, we’d keep in touch, right?”

  “You never broke up?” Worse and worse.

  “No, but we were never even together, really. I mean, I thought we were, but Kelsey basically dropped me as soon as camp ended, so. That kinda blindsided me. I told you how I lost it. Christina says I shoulda seen it coming. She said she never trusted Kelsey. She was not pleased to see her at the meet, believe me.” At least Christina’s an equal opportunity hater. “So, Kelsey came up and said she wanted to hang out after the meet, right? Like no big deal, just friends. And then she said she wanted to get back together, and then she kissed me, and that’s probably what people saw.”

  “But you kissed her back.”

  Jamie sighs. “I kissed her back for like, . . . I dunno, a second. But then I stopped. Your friends probably didn’t see that part. Or else they’re not telling you.”

  “Do you—are you going to get back together with her?” I say to the wall.

  “No.”

  “So you’re not breaking up with me?”

  “No! I told her I was with you now.” A wave of relief washes over me. “But . . . I am going out to dinner with her and her parents in a couple of weeks. I have to!” she protests when I put my face into my knees. “Kelsey’s dad’s like, this big shot at Stanford, and she said that if I get to know him he could write me a letter of recommendation for my application next fall! What was I supposed to say? I can’t turn down an opportunity like that!”

  The question is, what am I supposed to say? I don’t believe Kelsey for a second. But if I tell Jamie to turn this down, I’m not being supportive of her dream. If I say I think Kelsey’s lying, well—what if her dad could write an ace letter of rec? What do I know, really?

  We sit in silence for a while.

  “Nothing’s going to happen, I promise. This has
nothing to do with her. Her dad’s the reason I said yes, don’t you get it? I need him to help me get into Stanford.” I pick at the rug, unconvinced. “Please trust me,” she says. “I know it’s probably a long shot—and I dunno, maybe Kelsey’s full of shit. But I have to try, just in case. I can’t pass this up.” Jamie takes my hand in hers. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she says. “I would never mess with what we have by lying to you.”

  I look up and see it all written on her face. Her dreams, her confidence, her grit—everything I admire about her. And maybe Kelsey’s a liar, but Jamie isn’t. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, too, if I’m being honest. Who else in my life do I trust the way I trust her? My friends know about Jamie and me, Caleb knows about Dad, but Jamie knows about everything. She heard me say terrible things about her friends and she gave me a second chance. She gives me poems that make my brain buzz and my heart sing. We belong to each other. I have to trust her on this.

  “Please,” she says.

  “All right.”

  27

  HANH, REGGIE, AND ELAINE ARE MORE WORRIED about Jamie and Kelsey than I am. Elaine, especially, is trying to get me to break up with Jamie, and I can’t tell if it has more to do with me being gay or with me being with Jamie. Especially since she’s started getting more serious with Jimmy, it’s like she wants everyone to have the exact same amazing adventure that she’s having. And for her, I guess that includes being straight. She just can’t understand being a girl and not wanting to kiss a boy.

  “You should try it, Sana! I mean, Jamie’s totally cheating on you, so you may as well,” she says at lunch. “Janet asked her cousin, and her cousin said Jamie and Kelsey were kissing, like, for real. Like on the lips. In public. You don’t do that unless you’re like, committed.”

  “Like you and Jimmy?” asks Reggie, raising her eyebrow.