Page 58 of You Had Me at Hello World
Chapter Twenty-Six
When I squelch back to our dorm, Aisha immediately pounces. “What’s going on with you and Khoi?”
“Nothing?” I don’t know what she’s getting at.
She crosses her arms. “Char. Babe. I love ya, but if you were drowning, I’d call the Coast Guard or something and let them rescue your ass. I wouldn’t try to play the hero.”
“He’s my teammate. If he died it would completely ruin our chances at winning.”
“Riiight. So you jumped into the water because you were so concerned about your hackathon project.”
“Yep,” I say. “You get it.”
She does an overly dramatic, heaving sigh. So much theater-kid energy, and she’s not even a theater kid. “Did I ever tell you about my first girlfriend?”
“Trinity?”
“No, no, this was a girl I was besties with in middle school. Her name is Emma. We were crazy inseparable. Wewere on the dance team. I’m a huge simp for dancers.”
“Your middle school had a dance team?” My middle school didn’t have any extracurriculars. You showed up at eight thirty, tried to avoid getting thrown into a locker, then left at three.
“Yours didn’t?” She shrugs. “Anyway, I caught feelings in seventh grade while we were backstage getting ready. She was applying my lipstick, and this lightning bolt zapped through me when she cupped my chin with her palm. And I knew this wasn’t how I was supposed to feel about a friend.”
“Sooooo you fessed up?”
“No! I spent the next year in complete denial. I even went to the school dance with some boy from homeroom. Alvin James, bless his heart. I didn’t want to be queer. It felt like I was making my own life more difficult. At night I would pray to the deities that I’d wake up hetero. Which didn’t work, by the way. Hinduism. What’s the point of having so many gods if they’re all asleep at the wheel?”
“Aisha, I’m sorry.”
“Also, I thought she was straight. I didn’t want to get hate-crimed.”
I nod. Lola’s told me similar things before, about being scared to hit on a straight girl. After she came out, somebody scrawled DIKE on her locker. She put on this act like she was outraged only by the terrible spelling, but I know that it chipped away at her heart too.
Aisha continues. “Like, Emma’s celebrity crush was that boy fromStranger Things.”
“Finn Wolfhard?”
“Nah. The cute one.”
“But Finn Wolfhard is the cute—”
“Let me finish! On the last day of eighth grade, I finally confessed. She was moving to London, and I was heading to boarding school, so I thought even if she rejected me and told everyone we knew, my life wouldn’t be over. But it turned out she’d felt the same way the entire time.”
I crack a smile. “That’s sweet.” Sickeningly adorable, really. Then something occurs to me. If Aisha is with Trinity, she’s not dating Emma anymore. “What happened?”
“Oh. We broke up three months later when she flew across the pond, although we stayed in touch. She has this fake British accent now.”
I’m pretty sure Aisha is doing story time because she’s suggesting something about Khoi and me but her tale isn’t super compelling. All this struggle and angst just to date someone for like, one summer when she was fourteen. The math isn’t mathing. Not sure what the point of love is if it ends before the next iPhone even drops.
She notices my skepticism. “It was worth it. Because of Emma, I found out that I like girls. And having that experience gave me the confidence to pursue other relationships in high school. Plus, our memories are really awesome? First date. First kiss. First kiss with tongue. First—”
“Okay, I get it,” I interrupt.
“But I do wish I’d confessedwayearlier. We could’ve been girlfriends for so much longer. I wasted so much time and energy hiding.”
“You waited until you felt comfortable. That makes sense.” I can’t imagine how intense it is to come out, especially at that age.
“Yeah, yeah. Sure. I still regret not speaking up sooner.”
