Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez Read Free Book Online Page A

parties.
    “Well, when I got inside,” Kimiko continued, “I realized there was no way I wanted to kiss a boy. So I told him that I had mono. Of course I didn’t, really. And I buried my face in the clothes rack, although I felt kind of bad for him.”
    The story was so different from Allie’s experience: She’d wanted to kiss boys since she could remember and, despite her doubts about Chip, she still thought guys were hot.
    “After that,” Kimiko continued, “one day I saw these two women on a motorcycle. Actually, I wrote a poem about it. Poetry is like my über-passion. . . .” She thought carefully for a moment about the impulse she was feeling. “Would you like to hear it?” It amazed her that she’d asked, considering she hardly knew Allie.
    “Like, yeah !” Allie replied excitedly. “I love poems.”
    “Really? Okay . . .” Kimiko chewed nervously on her yogurt spoon, hoping she’d be able to remember the lines without screwing up. “It’s called ‘To the Two Women on a Harley at the Intersection of Twelfth and Independence.’”
    “I like the title,” Allie said, smiling with encouragement.
    Kimiko took a breath, collecting her thoughts, and began:
    “It’s the morning of my twelfth birthday and Mom has taken me shopping downtown.
    While waiting to cross the street, we notice two women stopped on a motorcycle,
    engine throttling. The woman seated in front turns and
    kisses the woman behind her.
    On the lips.
    I’m aware of my mom beside me, shifting her feet from one to the other,
    clutching my hand.
    Our eyes are glued to the women and I hear an ‘Ah!’ of understanding.
    It’s my mom’s voice, soft and low—except it escapes from my mouth, from me .
    Mom and I, we’re spinning off the curb, realizing: You, Kimiko, you’re one of them .
    I try to stop the feeling of floating into the hot blue sky.
    How has this happened? What has made me one of them?
    I glance down at my boy’s jeans and flannel shirt.
    The sun slips behind a cloud and appears again.
    The traffic light changes, the Harley roars away.
    Nothing so weird has ever happened to me, and nothing more weird could ever happen.
    Mom lets go of my hand and tells me,
    ‘Be careful, promise?’”
    Kimiko let out a breath, relieved that she’d actually made it through the poem without messing up. She stared at Allie, waiting for her reaction.
    “Wow,” Allie said softly. “You write beautifully.”
    “Thanks,” Kimiko said, proud but turning red. “So anyway . . . You asked me how I knew I liked girls. I think seeing those two women helped me figure out that’s what I wanted: to one day be in love with a girl.” She grinned awkwardly. “And have a motorcycle.”
    Allie thought about Jenny’s boyfriend, Jack, who had a motorbike. Then she thought about something else: “I had a sex dream about a girl once.”
    Kimiko stared at her, even more astounded than before. “You did?”
    “Only once,” Allie clarified, suddenly nervous. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you: Do you think some people are truly bi? Lance doesn’t. He thinks bi is kind of a copout. He says people are born either gay or straight. What do you think?”
    “Well . . .” Kimiko paused and watched the crowd passing by. “Did you ever hear of this famous doctor-dude named Kinsey? He did research on like hundreds of people back in the fifties. And he found that some people are super-straight, some are über-homo, and most people are actually somewhere in between.”
    Allie shifted on the carpet. “So does that dream mean I’m in between?”
    “I don’t know. . . .” Kimiko tugged at the collar of her borrowed cowboy shirt, feeling warm, in spite of the frozen yogurt. “Maybe you should talk to Sergio. He’s the bi expert, not me.”
    Allie glanced down at the Girl Panic manga that Kimiko had bought her. She was glad that they’d talked about this stuff, but it felt like they’d gone far enough for now.
    “So, what’s your favorite anime?”