It's Not Like It's a Secret

by Misa Sugiura

  12:20 p.m.

  Hey, girlfriend

  12:22 p.m.

  Just checking about tomorrow

  Can’t wait to talk to u

  can’t wait to see u

  1:00 p.m.

  Hey there

  Txtd earlier—wondering what’s up . . . ???

  Tmb!

  3:00 p.m.

  Hey. everything ok?

  3:30 p.m.

  OK now I’m worried. What’s going on? Tmb

  Damn. I should have just sent her a quick text right away. Just said I was at the movies with Elaine and Reggie and Hanh, instead of stressing over hiding the fact that I was there with Caleb. But I didn’t, and now she’s worried. Maybe even suspicious. All this dishonesty is clouding my judgment.

  On the other hand, Jamie didn’t exactly post regular bulletins about her activities last night. What was she hiding?

  On the other other hand, she did tell me where she was going, and who she was going with. It wasn’t her fault that Kelsey probably planned all along to show up without her parents.

  But Jamie could just have refused to go—didn’t she say that Kelsey’s dad was the main reason she agreed to dinner in the first place? If she’d refused, maybe I wouldn’t have felt like she was going to leave me. Maybe I wouldn’t have wondered if I should be with Caleb instead. And it wasn’t like I planned to kiss Caleb. He was planning to kiss me—he said it himself. Like Elaine said, it’s not cheating if (you think) the other person is cheating, too. Right? So none of it was my fault, exactly.

  Right?

  I’m still locked in a heated debate with myself when my phone rings.

  Jamie. Shit. I consider my options.

  1. Answer the phone.

  2. Ignore the phone.

  Answering the phone leaves me with only two options:

  a) Tell the truth.

  b) Lie.

  Whereas ignoring the phone gives me time to:

  a) Figure out how to tell the truth.

  b) Figure out a plausible lie.

  c) Put off dealing with this altogether.

  Looks like I’m going to ignore it. I put the phone next to me on the bed and wait for it to stop ringing. When it chimes to tell me that Jamie’s left me a voicemail, I pick it up and listen.

  Hey, Sana, where are you? You haven’t been answering your texts, and I’ve been thinking a lot this afternoon, and I’m kinda . . . well. I dunno. Anyway. We really need to talk. I mean, I . . . I really need to talk to you. It’s important. So, yeah, um . . . call me, okay? Or text. Or whatever. Okay, um . . . bye.

  Alarm bells start ringing in the back of my head. Why would she “really need” to talk to me? What’s so important? Maybe it’s my conscience talking, but suddenly I’m worried that she knows about me and Caleb, somehow. Or she suspects something. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. Mercado was mobbed with people this afternoon. It would have been easy for someone who knew Jamie to have seen us and told her about it. Or . . . I think back to all the phones and all the photos, all the Instagrams and Snapchats, and my heart sinks. I’m done for.

  What am I going to do?

  For now, I text Jamie:

  Hi, sorry I didn’t get back to u—phone totally glitched out today. I can’t talk right now—have to help mom w dinner

  We’re talking tomorrow, anyway, right?

  Seconds later, she replies.

  OK. It’s kinda big so prolly best in person anyway.

  Can we hang out at your house, maybe, like after lunch?

  Kinda big. Best in person. Please let her not know about me and Caleb. Please let her not have decided she’s better off with Kelsey after all.

  I’ll meet u at the bus stop

  Miss u

  I add three hearts, delete them because they look pathetic (See how much I love you? Please don’t break up with me!), then add them again and tap Send before I can change my mind.

  Seconds later, she replies.

  OK, see you tomorrow

  And even though my own hearts said, “Please don’t break up with me,” her hearts seem to say, “You’re a liar.”

  I don’t think I can handle talking or texting with anyone else today, so I put my phone in airplane mode and waste an hour wishing I had something like those magic jewels from the tale of Toyo-tama-himé, the ones that control the tide. Except they’d control time. Then I could go back and not kiss Caleb. Or at the very least, keep tomorrow from coming.

  32

  TOMORROW’S HERE. I WAKE UP NERVOUS. DAD’S probably waking up with That Woman. Mom’s probably waking up knowing it. Caleb and Jamie are both waking up thinking I’m their girlfriend, and Jamie’s also probably waking up knowing I cheated on her.

  What a disaster.

  I really need to break things off with Caleb. And Jamie is probably getting ready to come over and break things off with me. The prospect of all of the awful things that have to happen today would keep me pinned to the bed all morning, but shortly after 8:00 a.m., Mom makes me get up because she can’t stand the thought of anyone wasting a single minute of a perfectly serviceable Sunday morning by sleeping in. Mom actually seems a little down—who wouldn’t be, knowing their husband was spending the morning with his mistress?—so after breakfast, to make us both feel better, I suggest we make an apple tart, one of her favorite fall sweets. She smiles, surprised. “Nandé?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Because it’s apple season.”

  She makes the crust while I peel the apples. I let her correct me. “Hold like this, oya-yubi koko,” she says, and places my thumb here, in front of the edge of the blade, so I can scooch the knife toward it, spiral around the apple, and cut the peel off in one long strip. I don’t even argue when she grouses, “Every Japanese knows how to peel apple correctly. American schools should teach it. It’s the basic skill.”

  By the time the tart is in the oven and everything’s been washed and put away, it’s nearly noon, and Mom’s talking about taking a short break before getting lunch ready. Perfect. Just enough room in my schedule for an awkward, painful conversation with Caleb. Come on, just do it. I go to my room and rehearse a speech: Caleb-you’re-the-best-friend-a-girl-could-ever-have-and-I-really-really-like-you-but-I-don’t-think-I’m-the-right-one-for-you-as-a-girlfriend-I’m-so-sorry. Ugh. It’s awful. But I don’t know what else to say.

  I type, Hey, can you talk? and send it.

  No response. Two minutes go by. Five. Ten. Finally, the phone chimes.

  Sorry, we’re having Family Time. No calls. Ttyl?

  Well, I tried. I type, OK, maybe tonight and let relief seep into my body; but it’s expelled and replaced with dread on my very next breath. I put the phone down and wish again for those magic jewels, and that it were tomorrow, already. I wish there was a better way.

  After lunch, Mom wants to make tonjiru for dinner, a pork stew with carrots, taro root, daikon, burdock root, ginger, and miso—perfect for fall, and really labor intensive what with all those veggies to peel and chop, so I offer to help. It calms me to think of nothing but chopping vegetables and skimming broth, and after working next to Mom for a while, making something delicious that we’ll both enjoy later, I think I understand a little bit about why she spends so much time cooking.

  And then it’s time to meet Jamie at the bus stop.

  Jamie gets off the bus, and despite my nervousness I feel a rush of joy. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen her, somehow. I step forward to hug her, then stop, in case maybe she’s mad and doesn’t want to hug me back. I feel like a gorilla, with my arms just hanging at my sides, and I wish I had something to hold, some excuse for not reaching out for her. Jamie seems nervous, too, and we walk in silence back to the house.

  By the time we’re in my room, we haven’t spoken a word except hey when she got off the bus, and the silence has been coiling itself around us like a snake. When I sit down on the bed and she chooses to lean on my dresser, I think I might choke.

  “
So, I told you we need to talk,” she says finally.

  “Yeah,” is all I say. Inside my head, though, it’s I didn’t mean to kiss him, it was a mistake, I’m sorry, please don’t leave me.

  “Okay.”

  Jamie takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly with her eyes closed, and then rolls her head and shrugs her shoulders a couple of times, like she does when she’s getting ready for a race. I half expect her to shake her legs out and start pacing.

  She opens her eyes and says, “You didn’t want to talk yesterday, and you didn’t answer any of my texts. I really don’t think you were telling the truth about your phone glitching. I bet your phone was just fine. I think you just didn’t want to talk to me.” Here it comes. My chest starts to contract. “I owe you an apology.” My mouth almost drops open. What?

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that Kelsey was going to show up alone like that, and it kinda took me by surprise. I should’ve just told her to go home right then, probably. I don’t know, I just got . . . I wasn’t thinking clearly, I guess.” Jamie looks down and chews her lip. I don’t say anything. I’m still trying to catch up from “I owe you an apology.” She continues, “And I should’ve answered your texts, but I didn’t know what to say and she, like, wouldn’t let me out of her sight, anyway. She kept telling me that we’d go talk to her dad later, you know?” Okay. This time I manage a nod. “It’s just. She just seemed so sincere. And I—I really, really wanted to meet her dad and get him to write me that letter, so that kinda got in the way of me figuring it out. Like after a while I kinda knew she was lying, but I just couldn’t stop hoping she wasn’t.” I nod again. Where’s the part where she grills me about the Instagram with me and Caleb in it? Or where she says someone saw us together at Mercado? “When you didn’t want to talk, I realized how upset you must be, and I don’t blame you. My mom always says that I think so much about the future that I don’t appreciate what I have now. I hate it when she says that, but this time she’s right. It was wrong to make you go through all that just because I got carried away about Stanford—like one dinner with Kelsey’s dad would make a difference. So, yeah . . . I’m sorry.”

  She looks at me. “Please don’t be mad. I think we have something good, you know? Like really good. And I don’t want to screw it up. All I could think about all day yesterday was you. I just want to be with you.”

  I stare back at her, dumbfounded. A wave of relief flows through me, followed by a wave of gratitude to the powers that be for getting me off the hook, and another wave of pure adoration and admiration for beautiful, honest Jamie. Who thinks we have something really good, who doesn’t suspect me of cheating, and who really, truly wants to be with me—with me. I can hardly believe my luck.

  I take Jamie’s hand and smile, and she smiles back. As I pull her to me and we melt into each other, a needle of guilt pricks at me, but there’s so much to celebrate right now that I ignore it. It can wait.

  After Jamie leaves, it’s time to call Caleb and break the news. But I hate to kill the high I’m on right now, and then Dad calls and kills it anyway. He says he can’t make it home tonight—surprise, surprise—and now I’m sad about Mom being played. So I text Caleb to tell him that I can’t talk after all, and I spend the evening on the couch watching a funny movie with Mom. And by the time the movie’s over, it’s time for bed. I feel terrible when Caleb and Jamie text me goodnight practically at the same time, but it’s too late at night to talk to Caleb about something as big as breaking up, and besides, it’s only been two days, so it’s not like we’re actually, officially together, and—

  Oh, all right. Let’s face it: I’m afraid to tell him the truth. I can’t escape the fact that he deserves to know, and soon. But when I picture telling him, I want to crawl into a cave. Because no matter what happens, I’ll feel like a total jerk for lying to him and leading him on, and he’ll probably hate me, and I’ll lose one of my best friends. How will I ever face him again?

  I need time. Just a little bit—just a day or two to come up with something good, some way of getting out of this gracefully. There has to be a way. There has to be.

  POETRY JOURNAL, HONORS AMERICAN LITERATURE

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24

  “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—”

  by Emily Dickinson

  I’m not sure exactly what kind of truth Emily Dickinson is talking about here, but it’s clear to me that she thinks that people aren’t always ready to hear the pure, straight-out truth. She talks about Truth as if it’s something light—it’s something “bright” that will “dazzle” and “blind” people, like lightning. So it’s probably something good, but dangerous. Like sometimes it’s best to let people know things slowly, a little at a time, so as not to hurt them too much. I definitely agree.

  33

  WHEN ELAINE, REGGIE, HANH, AND I GET TO trig the next morning, Jamie’s waiting for me in front of the classroom door. Her eyes light up when she sees me. My own excitement at seeing her is only a little bit overshadowed by my anxiety about what will happen if Caleb shows up.

  “What’s she doing here?” Elaine asks me. “And why does she look so happy to see you? I thought you guys broke up.”

  “We’ll give you guys some privacy,” whispers Hanh, showing some discretion for once. I slow down while my friends slink behind me into the classroom. I can’t see them, but I’m sure they’re eavesdropping as hard as they can.

  “Hey,” says Jamie. “I brought you something.” And the excitement stages a comeback. She hands me a little box wrapped in blue paper. “It came in the mail on Saturday, but I was afraid to bring it over yesterday, in case you hated me.”

  I unwrap the paper and open the box. Inside is a piece of blue sea glass, wrapped in silver wire and strung on a thin silver chain.

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love it.”

  “I was going to wait ’til after school, but when I got here, I couldn’t wait.” She starts drawing a heart on the concrete with her foot.

  It takes everything I have not to throw my arms around her and kiss her right on the lips, right there, right in front of everybody. I settle for just throwing my arms around her and sneaking a kiss on her ear as I whisper, “Thanks. It’s perfect.”

  When I finally let go, Jamie’s eyes are shining, and I risk a Meaningful Gaze into them. Just for a moment. But as we’re gazing meaningfully into each other’s eyes, I see her focus shift, and a split second later, a pair of leather-clad arms wraps themselves around me and a pair of lips kisses me on the cheek. Oh, my God. Oh, no. Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no.

  “Hey,” says Caleb, kissing me again.

  Jamie’s Meaningful Gaze has turned into a Blank Stare.

  My senses, which seem to have fled when Caleb appeared, come rushing back, and I wriggle myself awkwardly out of his embrace.

  “Ha-ha! Hey, what’d you do that for?” I squeak.

  “What, I can’t kiss my own girlfriend?” He drapes his arm over my shoulder and smiles down at me.

  “Your girlfriend? Are you two like, . . . together?” Jamie’s eyes are wide.

  “No, no, not really,” I stammer.

  “Yeah,” says Caleb at the same time, with a quick, confused glance at me. “We are ‘like, together.’”

  The world starts closing in on me like it did when Jamie and I first kissed, only this time it’s a bad closing in. My head starts to pound. I’m dimly aware of other kids filing past us, glancing over their shoulders and sticking around to see the action.

  “Since when?” Jamie’s shock is morphing into anger with alarming speed; her wide eyes are narrowing and her voice has taken on a steely edge.

  “Since Friday,” Caleb says. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Actually, it is my business.”

  Oh, God. I have to stop this. I have to stop this now. “Um. Can’t we do this another time? Like somewhere more private?”

  “No,” says Jamie, “I don’t think we can. I think we�
��re going to do this now—it shouldn’t take long.”

  “Sana, what the fuck is going on?”

  “Yeah, Sana. Please explain.”

  How can I explain? How can I make them see that it’s all just a horrible mistake? “Okay, it’s not—it’s not what you think. It’s not what it looks like.” I’m scrambling for words, searching, searching, but I can’t find anything that sounds right. “I, I—”

  “She was with me before she was with you. While she was with you, in fact.” Jamie looks at me. “Right?”

  I look at Caleb, who’s staring at me, his eyes wide with disbelief, and nod miserably. “But it’s more complicated than that! I mean, it wasn’t cheating, exactly—” Jamie scoffs. “No, Jamie, for real. It happened when you were out with Kelsey. You even said! You even said you shouldn’t have, you said it was wrong and that she totally wanted to hook up with you. I mean, that was obvious—ask anyone! And then, so . . . I thought you were going to break up with me. I thought—you didn’t answer my texts—you said you should have, right? I just—I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be with me anymore. I thought maybe you were getting back together with Kelsey. And then Caleb—” I turn to him. “Caleb, I don’t know what happened. I mean, my friends were all—they wanted you and me to get together, and I thought that Jamie was breaking up with me . . . and you were so nice—are so nice—and you’re cute, and I meant what I said about you being a good kisser, and I’d totally be into you if I were straight—”

  Oh, my God, what am I saying? All this stuff that no one needs to know, and I can’t shut up—it’s like that awful racial profiling argument with Christina. Like someone turned a faucet on full blast and the handle fell off. “I feel terrible . . . I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings because, well, I could tell you liked me, like, a lot—and I didn’t tell you, Jamie, because I meant to—I was going to—but then I thought I’d break it off with Caleb right away and it wouldn’t matter. Like it doesn’t matter to me that—I mean if—you kissed Kelsey, because you said you wanted to be with me in the end, and that’s how I feel about you. You’re the one I want to be with, I knew it the moment I kissed Caleb—oh, God, Caleb, that’s not what I meant!” Caleb has gone pale. He shakes his head, as if to clear it of all the crap I just poured into it. Jamie, on the other hand, has gone red and is staring off across the quad.