by Robin Talley
“That’s because it doesn’t matter. Seriously, we were only kids, and it lasted half a second. I barely even remember it.”
I didn’t see how it was possible to barely remember going out with someone. Especially a girl. Did that mean someday Christa would barely remember me?
Christa reached out to link her fingers with mine. I pulled away.
I wanted to ask if she knew our secret was out. I wanted to tell her what happened with Drew.
Instead I said, “I wish you’d told me you’d already had a girlfriend. You might as well have straight-out lied to me.”
I wondered if she could hear the guilt in my voice.
I was angrier at myself than I was at her. I was the one who’d really lied. Who was still lying to her now.
“I didn’t lie,” she said. “I just didn’t mention it. Because what happened with me and her seriously wasn’t a big deal. Besides, it’s not as if you’re jealous or anything, are you?”
“No.” I didn’t even know if I was, but saying no seemed important right then. “It’s only that I haven’t. Had a girlfriend. But I’m not jealous. Not of Steven, either.”
Christa looked away. “Good. Because there’s nothing to be jealous of. Anyway, look, Madison and I were fighting because she asked me to room with her in Texas, and I said no.”
“Oh.” She did? Hmm. “All right.”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to. Be my roommate, I mean.”
It was only two nights at some youth retreat thing. But it felt as though she was asking for something a lot bigger.
Not to be her girlfriend. I was a summer fling, and that was it. That was all either of us had wanted. Christa was already someone’s girlfriend. Or at least she would be once we got home.
Besides, girlfriend was an official word. A public word. Madison might have been her girlfriend, but I never would be. Being a girlfriend wasn’t the same thing as sneaking off into the hills to be alone under the stars.
But the stars were all Christa and I had. That, and now an empty dorm room somewhere in Texas.
And that was plenty.
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
I blushed. She did, too. The pink on her cheeks gave me the courage to say what I wanted to say next. “And by the way, regarding tonight. I had an idea.”
A smile spread wide across Christa’s face.
* * *
That night, we didn’t waste a second.
As soon as the others left for dinner, I went into the bathroom and Christa stayed back, pretending to look for something in the row of suitcases that lined the back wall of the church. When we were sure everyone else was gone, I came back to the girls’ half of the room, behind the tarp. We built a tent out of mats and sleeping bags, laughing and shushing each other as we stacked layers on top of layers.
We crawled inside our little cave, and as soon as we were hidden, we started kissing right away. The kissing was amazing, but we figured out fast that it was way too hot to be under a sleeping-bag tent. Besides, everyone was long gone by then. So we crawled out and lay on top of the pile of mats and bags. We rolled onto our sides, facing each other. Our noses touched, and we giggled.
“I’m sorry I was weird earlier,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I get weird, too.”
I wanted to ask again if she knew that our secret was out. I wanted to ask what had really happened between her and Madison.
But I didn’t want to waste time. And I didn’t want to make that smile fade.
So I kissed her again instead.
We kissed slowly. It was incredible, knowing we had at least an hour to ourselves, that we didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing us or anything scary happening.
Christa ran her fingers up and down my side, making me shiver. I liked it this way, when we were just barely touching. But I liked it when we did more, too.
Her hand crept up my stomach, over my dress, sliding over my breast. My breath caught. I didn’t know if I was ready for this, but I didn’t stop her. Instead I pushed myself forward, pressing into her touch. I wanted to feel her, too, so I reached up and stroked her through her dress. Under it I could feel her bra, and under that was her, warm and solid and real. That was when I forgot how to breathe altogether.
She moved down to kiss my neck, and I couldn’t reach her anymore, but that was okay. She kissed down my chest to the neck of my dress, her hands squeezing both of my breasts. It felt better than anything had ever felt in my entire life. The only sounds in the world were the mosquitoes buzzing softly in the trees outside. I stroked Christa’s hair and kissed her forehead and thought, So this is what it’s like.
I felt that warmth between my legs again, and I wanted her to touch me there, too. Soon, maybe. Not quite yet. But at least I had one new thing for my tally.
I reached for her again. I wanted to touch her with nothing between her skin and mine. I wanted to—I didn’t know exactly what I wanted. I wanted everything.
That was when the tarp rustled behind us.
Someone else was here.
CHAPTER 11
Christa and I sprang apart. She grabbed a sleeping bag and yanked it over us.
I froze. It was too dark to see Christa’s face, but I could feel her shaking.
We waited. At first we didn’t hear anything else. Then, right when I was starting to relax, a guy’s voice called out from the other side of the tarp. “Hello? Who’s in here?”
Apparently there was no use being quiet.
I scrambled around in the dark, fixing my clothes. I tried to straighten my bra but my hands were trembling. I wanted to whisper something to Christa, but if I did whoever was on the other side of the tarp was bound to hear.
Christa was trying to straighten her clothes, too. When the guy called out again, in shaky Spanish this time, his voice was wobbly. He sounded more scared than we did. “¿Quién está ahí?”
I let out a tiny, hysterical giggle.
I couldn’t help it. I knew this was serious, and someone was about to catch us “in flagrante delicto,” as my mother would say, but—come on. I was going to second base with my not-girlfriend in the middle of a church in Mexico right before vespers, and this guy on the other side of the tarp was afraid of us?
My heart was still pounding from what we’d been doing before. I wondered how far things would’ve gone if we hadn’t had to stop. I wondered how far I’d have let them.
“Aki?” the guy called. “Is that you?”
Christa’s eyes were so wide it was scary.
I peeked out from around the edge of the sleeping bag. I couldn’t see the guy—he must’ve still been on the other side of the tarp. I climbed to my feet, checking to make sure my clothes looked normal. My braids had half-fallen out of the arrangement Juana had made, so I quickly yanked them loose so it wouldn’t look as though I’d been rolling around on the floor. Even though I had.
“Yes, it’s me!” I called. “I was, uh—taking a nap. I’ll come out.”
I ran over to the edge of the tarp before the guy could pull it aside.
It was only Jake. Thank God.
“Oh, okay,” he said. If I looked disheveled, he didn’t seem to notice. “I wondered why you weren’t at dinner.”
“Yeah, I needed to crash.” It took Herculean effort not to double-check that I was really wearing all my clothes. “I was about to get up for vespers, though.”
“Well, I brought you something.” Jake held out a web printout, a single page from a long document. I tried to focus on the words, but my heart was still throbbing in my ears. I could hear Christa rustling on the other side of the tarp, and I prayed Jake didn’t notice.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“It’s another plank they’re voti
ng on at the conference in August. I knew you’d been asking about the health care system here, so I thought you’d be interested.”
Oh, right. I held out the paper, but it was too dark to get a good look. The headline Jake had circled stood out clearly, though: “Global Health and Welfare Ministries.” Below that were a few dense paragraphs I couldn’t read in the dim light.
“It’s about—” Jake cut himself off midsentence when the rustling from the other side of the room turned into soft footsteps. He cast his eyes toward the tarp, his forehead creased. When he looked back at me, his face shifted from alarm to amusement. He’d figured it out.
“It’s about health care, right?” I said loudly as Christa tiptoed to the back door. “Cool. We should probably be on our way to vespers, right? Let’s walk and you can tell me all about it.”
I kept babbling, and Jake didn’t stop me. To my huge relief he didn’t say anything about Christa. I didn’t want this to be the way she realized our secret was out.
Jake and I went out the front door. I wished I’d been able to get in front of a mirror before reentering the world, but at least it was getting dark. Hopefully I didn’t look as though I’d just been hooking up with my secret summer fling.
“So what is this?” I held out the paper again, but my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t follow the words.
“Basically, it says Holy Life encourages people to support foreign aid for health care, and that we think the US government should up its foreign aid budget. There’s a whole bullet point in there on why it’s important to support better health care systems for developing countries.”
The tiny Casa de Salud flashed in my memory. Maybe I couldn’t do anything to help the people in Mudanza this summer, but if this resolution passed, all the Holy Life churches could help clinics like the Casa de Salud. “Do you think the plank will pass?”
“No clue.” Jake shrugged. “I only read up on the marriage resolution.”
“Well, maybe I’ll start a petition on this one. It can’t hurt, right? Plus, it won’t be hard to get signatures. I mean, it’s about international aid. This won’t be controversial. Just look where we are.”
“Yeah, probably not,” Jake said. “The only controversy talk I’ve heard about is on the war and the gays.”
“That’s for sure,” Lori said. I hadn’t even seen her come up alongside us. A few other people were walking along the path now, too, heading toward vespers. “The gays are definitely the only thing I hear about anymore.”
“Shh, Lori.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Keep your voice down.”
“Sure, sure.” She didn’t look at me. “By the way, I meant to tell you, I’m out of clothes.”
“What do you mean, you’re out of clothes?”
“I mean, between the two of us we’ve literally worn all the clothes I brought with me. I’ve only got one outfit left for tomorrow. Everything else is dirty.”
“Oh.” I didn’t exactly love wearing Lori’s clothes, but they were all I had until my suitcase showed up. Which, at this rate, could be never. “What am I supposed to wear, then?”
“I don’t know. Figure it out?”
I stopped walking. So did Jake. After a minute, Lori turned around.
“Look,” she said to him. “Aki and I need to talk about something.”
It was obvious Jake wanted to stay and get the gossip. But he nodded and went back to join the others on the way to vespers.
“Yeah, so.” Lori glanced behind us to make sure no one was in earshot. “Look. I know you told your girlfriend about our stupid first-kiss pact. And my pathetic crush on Paul, too.”
My stomach flipped. “I wouldn’t—Lori, I swear, I never said you were pathetic.”
“Aki, I heard them. That guy from her church Rodney was telling one of the Harpers Ferry guys. They said I had some little-kid crush on Paul but I was too scared to talk to him. They looked right at me, laughing.”
“When was this?” I prayed it happened before yesterday. Then it couldn’t have been Christa’s fault. We’d only talked about Lori when we were hanging out in town.
“Just now. At dinner. Rodney said he heard it from Madison and she heard it from Christa.”
Oh, God. I’d told Christa all that stuff was a secret, hadn’t I?
Well, but either way, shouldn’t she know that when I tell her something, she shouldn’t repeat it to her ex-girlfriend?
Except, it wasn’t as if I was her girlfriend. Maybe she wasn’t obligated to keep my secrets. It wasn’t like we were ever going to see each other again once we left Mexico.
“Uh.” I swallowed. I had no idea what to say to Lori. “They must’ve heard it from someone else.”
“Save it.” Lori pulled her hair back roughly into a lopsided ponytail. “I don’t care anyway. I moved on from Paul a long time ago.”
“You did?”
“Don’t act so surprised.” Lori hunched forward, clasping her elbows. “You aren’t the only one who can have stuff going on.”
“What stuff? Wait—Lori, did you hook up with someone?”
She looked away. “Not like you have time to care.”
“What? I totally care. I care so much, are you kidding? Who is it? What happened? Tell me everything.”
“Why should I? You don’t tell me everything. Even though that was part of the deal, remember?”
Oh. Right. I’d sort of stopped giving Lori the play-by-play of everything that happened with Christa and me.
“Well, I mean, I may not mention every detail anymore, but you don’t really want to know it all, right?” I said. “I mean, you’re not interested in stuff with girls. You’re not bi.”
“Nope.” The sarcasm in Lori’s voice was thicker than usual. “Guess I’m not as cool as you.”
“Come on, you know I didn’t mean it that way. Anyway, who did you hook up with? Is it one of the Rockville guys?”
Lori was walking faster now. I jogged to keep up with her. “No.”
“Harpers Ferry?”
“No.”
“Wait, you mean it’s one of the guys from our church? I thought you said they were all boring.”
“They are.”
She was basically running now. I worked hard to keep pace. “Wait, so—who the heck is it, then?”
Lori sighed. “I seriously can’t tell you. We can’t risk anyone finding out.”
“I’m not anyone. I’m your best friend, remember?”
“Okay, well, best friend, if you’re not going to tell me everything about your life I don’t see why I should have to tell you about mine. Besides, I swore I wouldn’t tell a soul. There’s too much risk of someone overhearing in this tiny town, and if that happened his wife would find out for sure.”
I stopped walking.
“His wife?” I stared at Lori, sure I’d heard wrong, but she looked right back at me, her lips set in a thin line. She’d stopped walking, too. “I thought you were hooking up with one of the youth group guys.”
“Yeah, right.” Lori scoffed. “Why would I want one of these losers when I can be with someone who’s actually got his life together?”
“What, someone who’s married?”
I stared at Lori, waiting for her to tell me I’d misunderstood. She looked right back at me.
I swallowed. “Who is it?”
Lori bit her knuckle.
I tried to think. One of the chaperones? But they were all people’s dads. Plus they were all really old. If Lori was going to hook up with someone who was married, it would be someone young. Someone more or less normal.
“Oh, God.” I didn’t want to think it was true, but they were talking the other day, and... “It’s—is it Carlos?”
Lori smiled slowly.
“Oh, God,” I said ag
ain, because Lori really didn’t seem to be joking.
“Promise you won’t say anything.” There was a strange look in her eyes. It was freaking me out.
“How old is he?”
“Not that old. Seriously, I need you to promise. If you tell your dad, my whole life will be over.”
I hadn’t even thought about that, but—“Maybe we should tell my dad. He’d know what to do. Seriously, Lori, this is really weird. I get that you’re into older guys, but this one’s so old he’s married.”
“You can’t tell!” Lori swiveled her head from side to side, panic creeping in her eyes. “Aki, please, please promise me you won’t. God, I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
I shook my head. “It just isn’t right. His wife is so sweet. It’s such a mean thing to do to her.”
“No, no, it’s fine. She’s seeing someone else, too. Please, I’m begging, don’t do this to me.” Her chin shook. She looked so scared. “I can’t believe you’d even think about telling your dad. I haven’t told anyone about you and Christa.”
“That’s totally different.”
“Not really. You’re with someone you don’t want your parents to know about, same as me.”
I swallowed. “Is he nice to you? Is he, you know, normal?”
“Of course he is. You know him. He’s a good guy.”
I’d met Carlos a few times, sure, but I certainly didn’t think he was a good guy now that I was hearing this.
“It’s so sketchy,” I said. “He’s so old.”
“Only a few years, really. In Mexico it’s not a big deal to date someone a few years older than you.”
“I bet it’s still a big deal if that someone’s married.”
“Come on. They didn’t even want to get married. Their parents made them. He says they’ll probably get a divorce soon.”
I couldn’t look at Lori. “It doesn’t seem right.”
“Just, please promise me you won’t tell. You keep my secrets, I’ll keep yours. Please?”
She looked at me, her eyes wide, her hands wrenched tight in front of her. All I could see was the Lori who’d been my best friend since we were kids. I’d already told one of Lori’s secrets, and look how that turned out.