Stars Collide

Chapter 11

It took Leah and Ben two hours and seventeen minutes to get back to her dorm. When they did, they were both soaking wet as Ben gave Leah one last hug. Leah shut the door after he left before turning around to face me. From the huge grin that took over her face, I assumed she had a good date.

"So?" I asked. "Tell me everything."

"Well," she said slowly. "We were planning on going to that bookstore-"

"Walden's."

"Right," she said. "Anyway, we were going to go there but we couldn't go because the principal wasn't letting anyone go off campus today. So we went to this little garden-slash-park kind of thing behind our building that his dad owns that is technically off-campus but has no physical boundary separating it from the school and we hung out in this gazebo and talked while it rained around us and then we came back."

"That's all?" I asked, unimpressed. "No action?"

"Chiara!" she hissed. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"I didn't mean that," I assured her. "But did you guys at least kiss?"

"No," she said firmly. "We were fine without it."

"Alright," I told her. "Tell me more."

She glanced at me. "Will you feel weirded out if I change in front of you? I just really need to get into something dry." I shook my head. "Okay," she continued. "So after we went to the office and found out we couldn't get passes, Ben decided to take me to his park and when he does, he grabs my hand and we run through campus together. But the weird thing was that when he grabbed m hand, it felt really natural. Like, I wasn't worrying about whether my palms were sweaty or if it was going too fast or whatever." She waved her last word off. "It felt like we'd done it a billion times before. And when we sat in the gazebo, well... Okay think of it this way. So if you go out to a restaurant on a date with a guy and it's your first date, you would probably sit across from him, right? Well, it felt like something was drawing me to him and we sat right next to each other. And we talked and it felt great. I really like him, Chiara."

"I'm glad you do," I told her.

I had a secret. I was never going to go out with a guy. I was lesbian.

I couldn't tell Leah. I wasn't close enough to her yet. No one knew except for me. When I was thirteen, I thought it was just a phase but if it was, it was a really long one if it lasted till I was fifteen.

I felt like Papa wouldn't accept it. He was a great father and all, but he had sky high expectations for me, and something told me being gay wasn't one of them.

Other people not accepting it wasn't a problem- they wouldn't even bat an eyelash. But I didn't feel comfortable telling someone else. It was like a piece of who I was.

But Leah felt comfortable changing in front of me. I realized I could trust her with my secret. "Leah?" I said before I could back out.

"Yeah?" she replied, running a towel through her wet hair.

"I feel like I should tell you something." She stopped drying her hair and looked up at me.

"What is it, Chiara?"

"I-I'm kind of... gay?"

Leah laughed. "That's not a huge deal," she told me. "Plenty of people are gay."

"I know," I told her. "It just took a lot to tell someone."

"I understand," she said. "I'm glad you decided to trust me."

I felt better now that I got it out to someone. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. "Thanks," I said to Leah.

"For what?" she asked, resuming drying her hair.

"For everything. For being my friend and for being there for me."

"You too," she said. "I thought I was going to have to be alone over here."

"I did too," I told her. "I was scared that I would be that one weird kid who didn't speak everyone's language."

"But you do," she said. "You're really good at English. I think you just underestimate yourself." She stopped drying her hair. "You know what?" she asked, jumping onto the bed to sit next to me. "Let's have a talk right now. Let's get to know each other. Tell me your story."

"My story?" I asked her. She nodded. I took a deep breath. "I was born and raised a few blocks away from here. I started to learn English when I was ten and that is why I'm a little bit... shaky." Leah opened her mouth to say something but quickly shut it and let me continue. "I have a nine year old sister named Aurélia and you already know about Julien. I have a mother and a father and my grandmother occasionally comes to live with us for a few months."

"Wow," Leah said. "I'm an only child. It gets kind of lonely sometimes. I never really had any real friends."

"Oh really?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because everyone assumed that I was all high and mighty just because my parents had a little more money than theirs did."

"Your parents have a lot of money?"

"They own a company," she told me.

"Oh," I said. "So there wasn't even one person?"

She shook her head. "That was one reason I was excited to come here. No one knows about my parents. And even if they do, their parents are probably rich too so they don't have any preconceived notions against me."

I thought about that for a moment. I wouldn't have called my family poor but I wouldn't have called them rich either. I felt like an outsider again.

"But I'm trying to let everyone know that money doesn't matter," Leah continued. "That doesn't shape you into the person you are today."

"Yeah," I agreed, grateful that I had a nice family, regardless of their income.