I nod right away, even though sometimes I wonder about that myself.
“The town I’m from, in Texas… it’s really small. Like, one of those places you hear about or see on TV but you don’t think actually exists. Barely any stoplights, everything shuts down by nine, and everyone knows everyone else. L.A. is like another world. I’ve been here for a year now and I still can’t believe I can walk down the busiest street in the city and not run into someone I know.”
She picks up her fork again, but only to push food around her bowl. I could eat the rest of my serving and another one right now, but it seems insensitive to be chewing when she’s clearly about to tell me something important, so I abandon my fork and put my hands in my lap.
Rafaela looks at her pasta as she continues. “To be honest, the only things to do there were drink and get high and get in trouble, so that’s what my friends and I did. There was this guy and he was a real piece of shit, but I only found that out after I slept with him. No… I found out he was an actual piece of shit after I got pregnant.”
“Oh.” I don’t know anyone my age who’s been pregnant… or at least no one who’s told me.
“My mom refused to even discuss any option other than having it, and as far as I was concerned, that wasn’t an option.” She takes a long drink of wine and I follow suit, draining my glass. “My sister was my only other family there, and she’s twelve. So I called Ora and she said she’d help me, and here I am.”
I definitely don’t know anyone who’s had an abortion, but I don’t tell her that. I don’t want her to think I’m judging her, because I’m not. It’s easy to think you know what you’d do if you were in a certain position until you find yourself there, feeling completely lost.
“Ora paid for it,” she says slowly. “And we don’t talk about it. And I was going to go home after that—just spend the summer here and go back to start the school year with my friends. But my mom told me I was a sinner, and that willful sinners aren’t welcome under her roof.”
“Your own mother?” When I was told I had to go away, to Dinsmore, I felt like I was being kicked out. But that’s nothing compared with this, and I can’t think of one reason my mother would kick me out of our house for good.
“Oh, it gets worse. She sent my Bible, with this passage in Hebrews highlighted: For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.” She looks at my surprised face and gives me a small smile. “I just kept looking at it, for hours, until Ora figured out what had happened and took it away from me. She dumped it in the trash bin outside.”
“Ora kicks ass.”
“Well, that part gets better,” Rafaela says, and her smile widens. “She called my mom the next morning and told her she’d sic the devil himself on her if she sent any more of that religious propaganda to her house. Her own sister!”
I smile back at her, because Ora is one of the good ones, too.
“I don’t regret it,” Rafaela says, softly. “I still think about it a lot, and the only thing I wish is that I hadn’t ever let that loser get anywhere near my naked body. I might want kids someday, but not now.”
“I think you’re brave.” I don’t mean it to sound trite or patronizing, and I hope she doesn’t take it that way.
“Thanks,” she says, and the openness of her face, of her voice, of those golden-green eyes, tells me that what I said was exactly right.
I hesitate before I ask my next question. “Do you think you’ll ever go back?”
“I’ll have to at some point, if only to see my sister. I miss the hell out of her.” She picks up her fork and stabs another bite of pasta. “But I don’t know if I’ll ever talk to my mom again. Even if she got over the abortion, she wouldn’t exactly agree with my lifestyle.”
“But you’re dating my brother.”
“Okay, calm down—we haven’t even been out yet. I think dating is a little too much right now. But even if I do date him, that doesn’t mean I’ll never kiss another girl.”
My face flushes hot and I pick up my glass of water to distract myself from it, but I end up knocking over the glass. It sends a flood of liquid across the table, soaking our napkins and leaving wet rings under the bottoms of our dishes.
“Shit, sorry.” I jump up to get a towel, but Rafaela waves me back into my chair.
“It’s just water.” She grabs two dish towels she was using while she cooked and swiftly mops up the mess, then wrings them out in the sink and hangs them over the edge to dry. She gives me a funny look when she gets back to the table. “How do you ever talk to DeeDee about anything?”
“What?” My face still feels warm and now there’s nothing to hide behind.
“I mentioned kissing a girl and you almost lost your shit.… Are you weirded out by that?”
I see Iris’s face as she hovers over me, her breasts bare and her blond curls messy and damp from our sweat. If this weirds you out too much, we can stop. Anytime you want.
“I’ve kissed a girl,” I say. What I don’t say is that if I had my way, I’d have kissed her by now, too. At least I know Dee was right: Alicia hasn’t told anyone about me.
“You’ve kissed a girl? Brava!” Rafaela cheers, and it feels a bit like she’s mocking me, but at least she doesn’t think I’m a bigot. “Did you like it?”
I nod. “So… are you bi?”
“Pan,” she says, and when I don’t say anything right away, she clarifies, “Pansexual?”
“I know what it is.” At least I think I do.
“I just don’t really believe in restricting love to one or two genders.” She shrugs and finally takes that bite of pasta, though now our food is cold and the table is still wet in some places. “What about you?”
“I don’t know.” I sit back in my chair. “There’s only been one girl, and she… she meant a lot to me. But now there’s a guy I like…” I think of Emil, how he texted the day after I brought him the soup to say it was good, and that he was feeling better and wants to see me soon. I wonder, for a long moment, if he thinks of me as often as I’ve been thinking of him.
“Maybe you’re bi,” Rafaela says. “Maybe not. Maybe you’re somewhere else on the spectrum.”
“But I feel like I should know what to call myself.”
“Why? Bi, queer… it doesn’t really matter, as long as you’re happy. Just make sure you don’t let anyone tell you what you are. People can be real assholes about labels.”
Later, when we’ve cleaned the kitchen and I’m grabbing my bag before she takes me home, I pull out my phone and see two new texts. Both from Lionel.
Feelin kinda off. Can you tell me where you put my meds?
Then, the next one, sent forty-five minutes later:
Never mind, false alarm.
I’m good
Fuck.
then.