Boyfriends With Girlfriends

  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.

  “It gives me a headache,” Yukio grumbled in between mouthfuls.

  “Well, you have to do some exercise,” their mom replied.

  “Don’t you want to be as good as your sister?” their dad asked.

  “No,” Yukio said.

  Kimiko felt kind of bad for him. “If he doesn’t like it,” she told her parents, “why don’t you let him do some other exercise?”

  “Like what?” her mom asked.

  Kimiko peered at her brother. “What other exercise would you like to do?”

  Yukio thought for a moment. “Nothing. I don’t like exercise.”

  “See?” Their mom gave a shrug. “If he didn’t do karate, he wouldn’t do anything except sit and eat and play games. Maybe you should do some other exercise,” she told Kimiko. “Something more attractive for a girl.”

  Kimiko’s skin prickled and she recalled her conversation with Sergio. “I don’t care if it’s attractive or not.”

  “Well, you should care,” her mom insisted.

  “Why should I?” Kimiko erupted. “Just to please you? Why can’t you just let me be me?”

  Her mom narrowed her eyes at her. “I don’t let you be you? I don’t let you dress however you want and do whatever you want?”

  “No, you don’t!” The words exploded from Kimiko as from a long-dormant volcano. “You’ve never accepted me. You only pretend to. You want me to be something I’m not. Why can’t you just accept me?”

  “Miko, I do accept you. I only want for you to be a normal girl—is that too much to ask a daughter?”

  “I don’t want to be normal!” Kimiko felt herself losing control. “I’ve never been normal—not what you consider normal—and I never will be.” That was the closest she’d ever come to admitting she was a lesbian. “And you know it! Why don’t you just stop pretending?”

  She realized she was asking herself the question as much as her mom, and suddenly the words sprang from her mouth: “I’m a lesbian. I always have been and always will be.”

  A blanket of silence descended upon the room. Her brother peered blankly at her. Her dad set his silverware down. Her mom shook her head angrily while glancing at her husband, then at their son, then back to their daughter.

  “Go to your room!” she ordered Kimiko, her voice quavering.

  “Not until you accept it.” Kimiko swallowed hard to quench the dryness in her throat.

  Her mom’s face turned redder as she shifted her gaze. “Yukio, go up to your room!”

  “I haven’t finished eating,” he protested, quickly digging his spoon into his rice.

  “You’ve eaten enough.” Their mom reached across the table and pulled his plate away. “Now, do what I tell you!”

  Yukio glanced at their dad, who nodded for him to obey. Yukio shuffled out of the room while glancing over his shoulder, not wanting to leave.

  “You’re a selfish daughter,” her mom told Kimiko and began to clear the dishes. “You think only about what you want!”

  Kimiko cringed, but then regained her resolve. “No, Mom, you’re selfish—by trying to make me into what you want.”

  Her mom f
linched, her eyes turning shiny with anger and tears. The plates she held abruptly clattered onto the table. Kimiko stood to help but her mom waved her away. “Leave me alone!”

  “It’s okay,” Kimiko’s dad said, gesturing for Kimiko to sit down.

  “It’s not okay,” her mom countered, restacking the dishes and carrying them from the room. Inside the kitchen, the plates rattled onto the counter and the sink water began to run, along with what sounded like muffled sobs.

  Kimiko guiltily hung her head. She wished she could put her cap on and pull it down over her. She felt her dad studying her and waited for him to say something about her announcement. Would he be as angry as her mom?

  His voice came out level, stern. “You’ve upset your mother.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kimiko said. “I just can’t pretend anymore.”

  Her dad was silent for what seemed like a century until at last he said, “I understand.”

  She glanced up eagerly. Did that mean he accepted her? Although he didn’t come out and say that, his face softened. And he gave what seemed to be a subtle nod of approval. Her family had never been one to make expressive shows of emotion. This might be the closest she’d ever get to a declaration of acceptance.

  “I love you, Dad.” She wanted to do something to show how much she loved him. Without him, she’d be lost. She stood and wrapped her arms around him.

  He patted her wrist in return. “You’re our daughter.”

  “Thanks,” she said, breathing in his talcum and tobacco smell. A reassuring smell.

  From the kitchen came the sound of her mom clanging pots and rattling dishes. Kimiko began to gather the remaining plates. It was her responsibility to help clear the table, and she didn’t want her mom to become even angrier.

  But her dad told her to leave them. “It’s better to let me talk with her.”

  Kimiko nodded. She grabbed her cap from the back of her chair and headed upstairs to her room. She closed the door, sat down on her bed, and tried to absorb what she’d done. It felt huge, like everything had suddenly changed—her whole entire life. She took out her phone and called Sergio.

  “I did it,” she whispered at first and then, unable to control herself, shouted, “I did it!”

  “With who?” he kidded her, but she ignored it.

  “I came out to them at dinner,” Kimiko explained, and told him what had happened. “I think my dad’s okay with it. But my mom . . . She’ll probably sulk for days. The same as she always does.”

  “Ding-dong, the witch is dead,” Sergio began to sing, “the witch is dead—”

  “Shush, dude. It’s not funny.”

  “Don’t let her get to you,” Sergio replied. “You did a hella thing.”

  “Yeah, tell her that.”

  “Okay, put her on!”

  Just as he said that, a knock sounded at the door, nearly sending Kimiko out of her skin.

  “Shit! Call you back.”

  She shuffled to the door, bracing to face her mom. Instead, she opened it to find her brother.

  “What?” Kimiko asked, sighing with relief.

  He looked up at her, his mouth hanging down with confusion. “What’s a lesbian?”

  She grabbed his arm and yanked him into her room, closing the door again.

  “It’s a gay woman,” she explained in a low voice.

  “Oh.” He glanced down at the carpet, thinking. Then he looked up again. “What do you mean by gay?”

  Even though he might not know the word lesbian, he’d surely heard the word gay at school. But obviously, nobody had ever discussed with him what it actually meant. Kimiko fidgeted with her cap, trying to think of how to explain it without getting graphic on him, how to put it in a way his eight-year-old brain could understand.

  “It means . . . I’m attracted to other girls . . . and one day I want to fall in love with a woman, and get married to her instead of a man, and have a family with her.”

  Yukio watched her face as if waiting for more. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, basically.”

  He wiped his nose and glanced around her room. “Do you have anything to eat? I’m still hungry.”

  His response surprised her only for an instant. She rummaged around her dresser and finally found an Almond Joy left over from Halloween in the bottom of her backpack.

  Happy with that, he returned to his room. She laid down on her bed, and as she thought about what she’d explained to him, thoughts of Allie floated back to her mind.

  “Do you think I did the right thing to break up with him?” Lance asked Allie when they went to get haircuts together later that week.

  “Are you having second thoughts?” she asked.

  “Um, no . . . Yes . . . Maybe . . .” Lance had been thinking and rethinking about Sergio ever since their breakup. “I mean, I really like him. And I tried to go along . . . accepting that he’s bi . . . fooling around with him. . . . I’m just not willing to go any further without him committing to being a couple.”

  “It sounds like you did what you needed to do,” Allie consoled him.

  “Yeah? So, what now?” he asked.

  “I guess you let go of him and move on,” she replied.

  Lance thought about that. “Do you think maybe he’ll change his mind?”

  “Who knows? But you shouldn’t wait around for it.”

  He knew she was right. Nonetheless, when he got home he immediately went online to see if there might be a message from Sergio. But nope: no e-mail, no IM. Frustrated, he slumped down in his chair.

  The following days dragged by, while brokenhearted show tunes invaded his head. One moment it was “Losing My Mind” from Follies. . . . The next it was South Pacific’s “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair.”

  During lunch at school one day, he watched Darrell sitting with Fiona, chatting and laughing, looking genuinely happy together. Could Sergio have been right? Maybe Darrell truly was bi.

  Lance turned to Allie. “Do you think I should apologize to Darrell?”

  “Huh?” She followed Lance’s gaze across the cafeteria. “Apologize for what?”

  Lance gave a shrug. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him to come out.”

  “I think you need to stop blaming yourself every time you break up,” Allie said. Then she paused and thought for a moment. “Even though I’m feeling the same way about Chip.”

  Lance let out a sigh. “Maybe I should’ve just accepted him. Darrell, I mean.”

  “Well, if it’ll make you feel better,” Allie encouraged him, “go ahead: Tell him you’re sorry. Then move on!”

  “Yeah, I know, right?”

  Although Lance wasn’t convinced he needed to apologize, a couple of days later he was walking down the hallway where Darrell had his locker—and there he was. Lance realized this was his chance.

  “Um, hi,” he said. It was the first time he’d spoken to Darrell since their final phone call.

  “Hi.” Darrell’s gaze darted around the hall, as though checking who might see them together.

  “Um . . .” Lance mumbled and gathered his thoughts. “I just want to tell you that I’m sorry.”

  Darrell’s face creased. “Sorry for what?”

  Lance shrugged, feeling a little foolish. “Sorry that I didn’t accept you and that I judged you and tried to push you to come out.”

  Darrell glanced over his shoulder again to make sure nobody was listening.

  “I don’t want there to be any bad blood between us,” Lance continued and extended his hand. “So I want to say good luck to you and Fiona.”

  Darrell stared at Lance’s hand, looking sort of mystified, and hastily shook it. “Thanks. I’ve got to go.”

  “All right, thanks,” Lance said and watched him walk away. Even though it had felt weird and awkward to apologize, he was glad he’d done it.

  “Feel better?” Allie asked after school when he told her about it.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “So are yo
u going to apologize to Sergio, too?”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. Just asking.”

  The question prompted him to think about the idea. He didn’t feel like he had anything to apologize for. Nevertheless, when he got home he looked up Sergio’s friend page again, wishing things had turned out differently. From atop the computer monitor, the plush Irish setter that Sergio had given him peered down over the screen, its big brown eyes just like Sergio’s.

  Lance stood up from the desk, grabbed the pup, and flopped down onto the bed with it. Then he closed his eyes for a nap, hoping to take his mind off of Sergio.

  On Saturday morning, Sergio woke up with Lance’s teddy bear staring him squarely in the face. Sergio reached groggily across the pillow and pushed the little bear away. Then he pulled the pillow over his face to block the morning light and tried to go back to sleep . . . but thoughts of Lance kept intruding. He never should’ve gone out with him. He’d known he was going to get dumped. Why had he let himself get involved?

  Unable to stop thinking, he threw the covers off, slammed his feet to the floor, and grabbed the bear by one ear. Then he swung open the closet, threw the stupid thing into the black hole of junk, and banged the door shut. But that didn’t really make him feel any better.

  “Morning,” he grumbled to his parents when he went to breakfast. While his dad read the Spanish newspaper across the table, his mom made scrambled eggs and chorizo for Sergio.

  “Careful, it’s hot,” she said, setting the steaming plate in front of him.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  “Is something wrong, mijo?” She often used the Spanish words for “my son” when she was worried about him. “You seem upset,” she said, sitting down beside him.

  He chewed his eggs, debating what to tell her. “Lance dumped me.”

  Sergio’s dad glanced up, suddenly interested. He gave Sergio’s mom a hopeful smile and then turned to him. “So, what about the girl you were seeing?”

  “Serena,” his mom chimed in.

  “I told you”—Sergio set his fork down—“I’m not interested in her. Look, I know you’d rather I go out with a girl, but I’m going to go out with who I want, not who you want.”