Boyfriends with Girlfriends (5 page)

“Are you sure about this?” Allie asked.

“No,” Lance admitted, “but I’m sure I love him.”

Nonetheless, as the days passed Darrell and he got into more and more arguments, mostly about the closety sneaking around and Darrell’s not wanting to be seen with him in public. And yet Lance couldn’t give him up. Instead he decided to try harder. Maybe if he told Darrell how he really felt, then Darrell would change and come out.

“I love you,” Lance finally told him one afternoon. His pulse beat wildly while he waited for Darrell to say it back. . . . But Darrell didn’t.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Darrell said and turned away.

Lance’s heart sank like a stone.

“What did I do wrong?” he asked Allie over the phone afterward. “I only want to love him.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Allie consoled him. “It’s not about you. But maybe you should ease up on him. give him some space.”

Lance cut back on texts and IMs. But even so, Darrell no longer waited for him after school. And he stopped answering Lance’s calls—until after about the hundredth time, when Darrell finally told him, “Don’t call me again, okay?”

It cut like a knife to see Darrell every day at school and be ignored. For weeks, Lance stumbled around with a hollow emptiness inside his chest, feeling as though his life was over; he might as well just lie down and die.

“Brace yourself,” Allie told him one day in the hall. “I just heard Darrell is going with Fiona.”

“He’s going out with a
girl
?” Lance asked. He leaned back onto his locker in disbelief, unsure whether to feel hurt or angry or even more sorry for him. On one hand, he wanted to expose Darrell as a fake who liked to stick his tongue in another boy’s ear; on the other hand, he felt kind of sorry for Darrell, wanted to cradle him in his arms and tell him, “Dude, you don’t have to pretend. Just be yourself.”

“What should I do?” he asked Allie.

“I think you should just let the whole thing go,” she suggested.

Gradually, Lance tried to date other guys. But it seemed as though they were either too young and immature, too old and bossy, didn’t have time for him, lived too far across the city, already had a relationship, weren’t
into him, or only wanted sex. . . . Not that he had anything against sex. He liked sex—at least the little bit of it he’d had.

“Is it
me
?” he asked Allie. “Why is it so hard to find a guy to love? I’m seventeen already! I should have a boyfriend by now. I’m not a bad person, am I? What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing is wrong with you,” Allie reassured him. “Take it easy. You’ll find someone.”

He hoped she was right. At least
she’d
always love him, even if nobody else ever did.

The evening after meeting Sergio, Lance went online and surfed through his friends’ friend lists—the same way he’d initially found Sergio. But no one caught his attention and he returned to Sergio’s page.

When he’d first read the page, he’d liked how out and open Sergio sounded, not caring what anybody thought of him—the total opposite of Darrell.

Sergio’s page included a Helen keller quote
: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” That’s me,
Sergio wrote,
daring and dramatic, provocative and controversial. Hola!

Okay,
Lance now thought
, so then why don’t you just admit you’re gay?

On impulse, he picked up the phone to call him, but then stopped himself. He wasn’t ready to risk it.

A little before noon on that Sunday after meeting Lance, Sergio woke up and checked his cell. It surprised him that
Lance hadn’t called or texted. The dude had seemed so puppy-dog eager. He set the phone down and lay beneath the warm and toasty sheets, thinking about Lance’s yummy white skin speckled with freckles. . . . And within seconds he was into a full-blown fantasy, with Lance snuggled beside him.

I hope I locked the door
, Sergio thought.

One time his mom had walked in on him solo-sexing. Whoops!
Mortifying
. That night she took his sister out shopping so his dad could give him the Talk.

His old man had paced the living room carpet, jingling a pocket full of coins and clearing his throat—“ahem . . .”—while lecturing Sergio about the perils of girls and “canoodling.”

What the hell kind of word is that
? Sergio wondered.

Above all, his dad emphasized the importance of good hygiene—as if being extra clean was the most significant part of sex. And he never even broached the possibility that Sergio might be attracted to
guys
as well as girls.

Since at least kindergarten, Sergio had liked both—playing “doctor” with the boy next door; kissing girls during Spin the Bottle; and smooching in the restroom with a kid named Peter.

Guys and girls brought out different feelings in him. With boys, he liked the rough-and-tumble play, their earthy smells and no-nonsense talk, the fact that in so many ways they were the same as he was. With girls he liked everything the opposite: their soft tender touch, their flowery scents, the way they flirted and teased, their difference and mystery. By the time he’d finished grade
school, he’d scored kisses from three boys and three girls. The teams were tied, even-steven.

When he reached middle school, his antsy hormones began to demand more excitement, and he discovered that to get any action from a girl required a lot more preliminaries. First, a friend had to tell the girl that Sergio liked her. If she liked him back, he’d need to talk on the phone and IM her for hours, telling her
how much
he liked her . . . until finally, he might get a kiss. And if he got super-lucky she’d let him sneak a little feel.

Fooling around with boys was way less complicated. They could wrestle and horse around, and if a hand strayed below the waist, they just giggled about it and punched each other.

With middle school also came porn. One afternoon in seventh grade, his buddy, Big Brian, showed him how to get around his computer’s Net Nanny, and they pornsurfed, stumbling onto an all-male site.

“They’re gay,” Sergio said, stating the obvious.

“Yeah, gross,” Brian said. But he didn’t change the page.

“Um . . .” Sergio squirmed, staring at the pictures.

“ . . . You ever wondered what that would feel like?”

“Nah.” Brian’s voice quivered in response. “Have you?”

Sergio shrugged evasively. “You want to try it?”

“Um . . .” Beads of sweat broke out on Brian’s forehead. “You want?”

Their belts got unbuckled fast; pants fumbled open.

“You go first,” Brian whispered.

“But how do you . . . ?” The boys studied the photos, trying to figure things out.

“Oh, I get it. Like this!”

“Man, that feels great.”

“Yeah!” Hearts pounded among echoes of “Yeah! Yeah!”

Afterward, they cleaned up with a crusty old sock, grabbed chips and soda from the kitchen, played a computer game, and the next day went to school like any other seventh-grade boys. They never talked about their experiences; it was easier not to.

In high school Sergio began to date, alternating between guys and girls, until he met Zelda, his first serious relationship.

He was sitting one day between the school library shelves reading
A Wizard of Earthsea
, when a girl’s voice whispered, “Hey, that’s the book I was looking for.”

He gazed up a pair of long slender Lycra-panted legs at an impish-looking girl with a butterfly sticker on her cheek.

“How is it?” Zelda asked, pushing her raven black hair behind her ears. “My friend tells me it’s great.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “It’s my second time reading it.”

She plopped down onto the carpet beside him, where they talked about their favorite fantasy books, and then about time travel, and then about trance music. . . . When the end-of-period bell rang, he knew he wanted to spend more time with her.

“I’ll let you take the book,” he teased, “if you give me your number.”

She smiled, but only a little—as if she didn’t want him to think he was getting too big a bargain—and wrote her number on his hand.

Within a week, they were talking on the phone every day—about school, their families, favorite foods, anything and everything. . . . He opened up to her more than he’d ever opened up to anyone except Kimiko.

“Just so you know, I’m bi,” he told Zelda, wanting to be honest. But in reality he’d stopped thinking about guys. She’d become the only person he thought about—almost each and every moment.

“I’m bi too sometimes,” she said with a half smile.

“Sweet!” he replied, feeling he could be totally himself with her.

He loved the time they spent together . . . talking, kissing, holding. . . . He loved everything about her: when her hair fell across her forehead and how silky soft it felt when he combed his fingers through it; how her breasts fit into his cupped hands like two golden apples—the first bare boobs he’d ever touched; how their bodies seemed to fit together perfectly; he loved her body naked, damp and moist after they’d made full-on love. It all seemed so cosmic. . . .

Until the afternoon Kimiko came over, acting weird and evasive—fidgeting, not looking him in the eye.

“What’s up with you today?” he asked.

“I saw Zelda at the mall . . . ,” she muttered softly, “. . . with some guy. I’ve never seen him at school.”

“So?” Sergio felt his chest tighten. “The guy was probably her cousin or something.”

“Dude, the guy didn’t exactly look like a relative. He was black. Zelda is white. And . . . they were holding hands.”

Sergio felt his head grow warm. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why would I lie to you?” Kimiko asked.

He knew she wouldn’t, but he didn’t want to believe her.

“Maybe you’d better ask her about him,” Kimiko suggested.

After she left, he played Tetris on his phone for a while, trying to ignore what she’d said, until he finally shut the game down. He dialed Zelda’s number, counting the number of rings: one . . . two . . . three . . . fo—

“Hi,” she answered, just like normal. Obviously, Kimiko had been wrong.

They talked for a few minutes about nothing important, while Sergio debated whether to mention what Kimiko had told him.

“I heard you were at the mall this afternoon,” he said at last.

Zelda suddenly went quiet—only for a moment, but long enough for Sergio to notice.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I went with a friend.”

“Who?” Sergio asked, scooting back on his bed against the headboard.

“A friend,” Zelda repeated. Her voice seemed tense. “ . . . Why?”

Sergio grabbed a pillow and clutched it to his chest. “Because you two were holding hands.”

Zelda let out a loud sigh. “Look, this isn’t working for me.”

“
What
isn’t working for you?”

“
This.
Us. I’m always wondering: Are you thinking about me or about a guy?”

Her comment took Sergio by surprise. “Why would you wonder that?”

“Because you’re bi! Whenever we’re kissing or anything, I never know if you’re really thinking about me or about some guy.”

“If I wanted to be with a guy,” Sergio replied, “I’d be with a guy. I’m with you because I want to be with you.”

She turned quiet again as though contemplating what he’d said. “I just don’t think this can work. I don’t want to be a couple anymore.”

“But why?” He clutched the pillow more tightly to his chest.

“Because you’re gay.”

“I’m not gay; I’m
bi
. If I was gay I wouldn’t have sex with you, would I?”

On the other end of the line, she took a breath. “I don’t like how you’re talking to me.”

“How do you expect me to talk?
You’re
the one who’s cheating on me with another guy. I told you I was bi from the start. If you had a problem with it, you should’ve said so. Why are you trying to blame this on me?”

The phone line clicked off.

“Hello?” he demanded and started to call her back, but then he stopped himself. What would be the point?

“You bitch!” He hurled the phone onto the mattress but it bounced to the floor. “Shit!” He sprang off the bed and grabbed the cell. Seeing that it was okay, he speed-dialed Kimiko.

“You were right,” he told her, his voice quivering. “I’m sorry I doubted you. She dumped me.”

“Hang on,” she told him. “I’ll be right over.”

“I’m so pissed at her,” he told Kimiko when she arrived. “And at
myself
. Why did I trust her? I was so stupid! Why did I ever go out with her?”