Boyfriends with Girlfriends (4 page)

“I don’t know either.” She stopped at a traffic light. “I think he’s a great guy. I mean, in the two years we’ve gone out, he’s never lied or cheated on me. He doesn’t do drugs. . . . He’s good-hearted and generous. . . . Plus, I still think he’s hot. So why don’t I feel excited about him anymore?”

Lance lay down in bed, trying to think of an answer. “Maybe that’s just what happens after you’ve gone out with somebody for a couple of years.” Then he added: “Wow, that’s depressing.”

“I still feel excited to see
you
every day,” Allie argued. “And I’ve known you for—what—ten years?”

Lance shifted his phone from one ear to the other, as a familiar worry popped up: Had she grown too attached to him?

Once at a party, she’d gotten kind of drunkish and when he drove her home she’d cooed, “You’re my hero, you know that? My best friend, my soul mate”—a hiccup interrupted her—“oops, sorry.” She covered her mouth, then began again: “I’m a better person because of you. I
doubt I’ll ever love anybody as much as I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he’d told her, even though he felt nervous she might be putting the make on him. But she hadn’t, and the next day she’d apologized for being “kind of a mess last night.”

“Maybe you should just be honest with him,” Lance now suggested. “Tell him how you feel.”

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Allie said, turning onto her street. “Besides, I’m not sure how I feel. I mean, even though I don’t feel like he
completes
me or anything like that, I still care about him. You know what I mean? I feel comfortable and safe with him. Shouldn’t that be enough? Maybe I’m expecting too much. But if I’m
not
in love with him anymore, am I like misleading him?”

“You’re not in love with him anymore?” Lance asked. It was the first time he’d heard that from her.

“I don’t know. On some days I wonder if I ever
was
in love with him. Maybe it was just infatuation. But then I wonder if maybe it’s not really about him; maybe it’s about me. I mean: Maybe there’s more to me I still want to explore.”

“That’s cool,” Lance said. “Like what?”

“I’m not sure.” She gave a long, questioning sigh as she pulled into her driveway. “Anyway, thanks for listening.”

“Sure, anytime.” It was apparent she’d gone as far as she wanted to go with the topic for now.

When she got into her house, her mom and dad were watching
Saturday Night Live
. She sat with them for a
while, and on the way to her room she peeked in on Josh and watched him sleeping.

Inside her room, she pulled Kimiko’s kanji out from her bag. And as she undressed and got ready for bed, she recalled times growing up when she’d met a new girl and become friends; and how she’d felt a sort of crush, thinking how pretty the girl looked and how much she liked to be with her. The feelings had eventually died down, and she’d never thought of them as romantic or sexual.

But there was one night in middle school, when she dreamed she had sex with a girl, and the next morning she woke up with her whole body tingling. The experience had felt as intense as any sex dream she’d ever had about a boy.

On the school bus she’d told Lance about the dream, giggling nervously.

“You’re gay!” he whispered, thrilled to think his best friend since first grade was a latent lesbian.

“You really think so?” Allie stared out the window, thinking about it. “But then why do I get turned on by guys? Lesbians don’t, do they? Maybe I’m bi.”

“I think bi’s kind of a cop-out,” Lance argued. “Maybe you should try it with a girl—I mean, at least try kissing or something.”

“With who?” Allie asked. She felt too chicken to do anything with any girl from her school or church. No way. Nevertheless, she did mention the dream to her friend Jenny, after field hockey practice one day—or at least she tried to.

“I’ve got a question for you,” she said in a low voice. “Have you ever had a sex dream about . . . a girl?”

“No!” Jenny scrunched up her face in disapproval. “That’s gay! Why? Did you?”

“No,” Allie lied, regretting having asked. “I was just curious.”

“I mean,” Jenny said, softening her tone. “I like Lance and I’ve got nothing against gay people, but that doesn’t mean I’m gay. So why would I ever have a sex dream about a girl?”

“I don’t know,” Allie said, and quickly changed the subject.

After that experience, she’d put the dream aside, and never had another like it. And as she began to date boys, she’d almost completely forgotten about the dream. Now, as she pinned the kanji up on the bulletin board above her computer, she remembered the dream for an instant and thought how cool it was going to be to have Kimiko as a friend.

O
n Sunday morning when Lance’s alarm rang, he mistakenly grabbed his cell phone instead, groggily hoping it was Sergio calling. Realizing it wasn’t, he shut off the alarm and lay thinking for a moment, recalling Sergio’s hunky pecs. . . .

Maybe I’m making too much of the bi thing
, he thought as he tumbled out of bed and shuffled toward the shower, taking his phone along—just in case.

His dad made breakfast: turkey bacon and French toast. Lance squirted maple syrup into his glass of milk: his comfort bev.

“Expecting a call, honey?” his mom asked, as he stared at his phone on the kitchen table.

Lance shrugged, not wanting to go into it with her—even though his mom and dad were completely cool with him being gay.

The first time the issue had come up, he’d been barely eight years old. A TV news story about commitment ceremonies showed a pair of guys in tuxes hugging and laughing as they cut a wedding cake topped with two little groom figurines.

“When I grow up,” Lance had announced to his parents, “I want to marry a man.”

His mom peered at him a moment, then turned to his dad.

“Well”—his dad stared back at her—“I guess you were right.”

“Right about what?” Lance asked.

After an awkward silence, his dad told his mom, “This one is all yours. Go for it!”

“Gee, thanks.” His mom smirked and turned to Lance. “Well, honey . . . Right about . . . that you might want to make a family with a man someday . . . And if that’s what you want, well . . . that’s okay. The important thing is Daddy and I love you very much. That’s all that matters.”

Lance returned to watching the tuxedoed men on TV, not really understanding what had just happened, but feeling happy.

With Allie, too, his coming out had been pretty much unnecessary. In grade school, they’d played Barbies at her house while they giggled about which boys in class were cutest.

In middle school, when other boys traded drawings of girls’ boobs, Lance didn’t get the point. He loved to be with Allie, but he felt no desire to see her—or any other girl—naked.

When classmates began to use words like
homo
and
queer
about people, Lance started to put all the pieces together. But he didn’t think it was a big deal until one day in seventh
grade when a girl asked him point-blank, “Are you gay?”

“Yeah, I guess.” It was his first time to admit it out loud.

By day’s end, the entire school was buzzing with the news. Nobody really hassled him; people were mostly just curious. But since he’d never actually had sex with anybody, he didn’t have much to tell. Within a week, kids lost interest; he never really had to deal with any homophobes.

High school brought a couple of small-time boyfriends, culminating with the Big One: Darrell Wright, a JV point guard that all the girls crushed on. So did Lance. But he never seriously imagined he stood a chance with him . . . until one afternoon.

He was heading home from Drama Club, Darrell was leaving basketball practice, and they found themselves alone in the boys’ restroom.

“So, like, is it true what people say about you?” Darrell asked.

Lance braced himself, a little nervous. “Um, yeah.”

Darrell glanced warily toward the door and whispered, “You want to come over?”

When they got to his house, Darrell unloaded an avalanche of questions: How had Lance known he was gay? Did he think he could change? Did his parents suspect? Had he ever done anything with a guy?

Lance answered everything honestly, although uncertain where all this was headed. Then Darrell turned silent, giving him an odd look of anticipation. A heartbeat later, they were feverishly running their hands all over each other—across shirts and down jeans. It was the closest
Lance had ever come to sex. And just as suddenly, Darrell pulled away.

“My parents are home!”

Lance became aware of a car engine turning off outside, doors opening and closing.

“Try not to act gay!” Darrell told him.

“But I am gay,” Lance said in a low voice.

“Just try!” Darrell insisted.
“Please?”

Lance tried his best not to “act gay,” whatever that meant, as he met Darrell’s dad, a glum, unsmiling man, and his mom, an equally stern-looking woman.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” Darrell whispered as he walked Lance outside.

“Okay,” Lance agreed, feeling a little dazed. This wasn’t how he’d imagined his first sexual experience. Shouldn’t he feel like singing as in some musical—or at least humming?

He
had
to tell somebody about it. As always, that someone was Allie.

“Darrell Wright is
gay
?” She giggled and gasped. “No way!”

“Way,” Lance replied. “And he kind of said I act gay. Do you think I do? Come on. Tell me. Be honest.”

“Well . . .” Allie hesitated, not sure how he’d take it. “ . . . Maybe, sometimes, a little.”

He perched his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean
that
honest!”

“See?” she said. “Like when you stand like that and roll your eyes.”

“Why, what’s wrong with how I’m standing?”

“Nothing is
wrong
with it; it’s just not something most straight guys do.”

“Okay.” He crossed his arms. “I’ll stop doing it.”

“Babe, you shouldn’t change who you are just to please Darrell. Maybe you should just wait for a different guy.”

But it was too late: Lance had already begun to fall for Darrell. Hard. Head-over-sneakers hard. Harder than he’d ever crushed on any boy.

At school, Darrell avoided any acknowledgment of him beyond, “’Sup?”

Nevertheless, Lance invited him to sit at his group’s table.

“Thanks,” Darrell said. “But I don’t want people to get ideas.”

“Um,
what
ideas?”

“About us . . . Look, you can be whatever you want, but . . . I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Just come out!”

“I can’t,” Darrell insisted, and the next time they were together, he explained, “My parents would disown me. Besides, I still want to get married and have kids someday.”

“You can do that with a guy,” Lance argued.

“Not with my family.” Darrell gave a hopeless sigh. “And even if I could, it wouldn’t be the same.”

“But if you’re gay, you’re gay,” Lance persisted.

“I’m not sure I’m gay,” Darrell said, despite having had
his hands inside Lance’s pants. “I’m not going to come out.”

And yet every few days he once again waited for Lance after school.

When they were apart, Lance phoned, e-mailed, and texted him constantly:
Where r u? Miss u.
And an hour later:
Sup? What r u doing now?
When asleep, he even dreamed about him. He couldn’t get Darrell out of his mind. He loved his foresty smell, his dark-dark skin, his gleaming white smile. He ached to do everything with him, spend every moment together.

“I can’t help feeling kind of sorry for him,” Lance explained to Allie. “I’m the only person he’s really open to. Maybe with time, he’ll change and accept he’s gay.”