A Chemical Moment

The 'damn' got him a quick, disapproving look from Mom, which he pointedly ignored. Dad just smiled warmly and gave me a hug, and then Mom hugged me as well, saying "You do look very nice, dear."

I'm not sure she entirely approved of the look - she was the one who used to cut my hair, and who bought that hideous dress I have to wear to Mass - but I think she was happy to see me in something other than blue jeans.

I replied in a happy, sunny voice "Thanks, Mom. The dress was a birthday present from my roommate Anne. She also helped me find the guy who cut my hair, and pick out my new glasses."

Dad said, "I'm glad you've found yourself a friend, mija." In the part of town where we live, even the gringos can't help but pick up a little Spanish. He's been calling me 'mija' since I was little.

Dinner was great, as always. It was nice to be home.

After dinner, though, I realized it would be almost two weeks before I would be back at school, which seemed like an eternity to me with this big, unresolved thing going on between me and Anne. She was in Boston with her family for the holiday too, and I thought about calling her, but decided that would be much too weird. And to make matters worse, there was nobody I could talk to about it. I certainly wasn't going to tell my parents. The one person in whom I would normally confide such things was Anne.

Fortunately, some relief arrived, or at least distraction. The weather was actually nice, which meant everybody with any kind of car trouble wanted it fixed before the next snowstorm. Alberto, who owns the garage where my Dad works, called Dad into work the Saturday after I got home, and Dad asked if I wanted to come along and help out. I love going to the garage - it's hard work, but I've always liked messing around with mechanical things and getting my hands dirty. It's almost as much fun as chemistry. I can do oil changes and routine maintenance by myself, and sometimes they even let me help out on the more complicated stuff. Plus, Alberto pays me a pretty decent rate, much better than my stupid summer job at the big box store. The work isn't regular enough to count on, but it's really nice when it's there.

Between working at the garage most days, all the holiday family stuff, and a little reading for the next semester's classes, I kept my mind pretty well occupied for most of the break. The only time I thought much about Anne, and what was going to happen when we got back to school, was at night after I went to bed. I had disturbingly specific erotic dreams, which were an entirely new experience for me. I had to share my room for part of Christmas week with my cousin Siobhan, so I couldn't even get myself off for relief. I just hope she didn't hear me talking, or worse, in my sleep. By the end of the holiday break, I was wound up tight as could be and very ready to go back to school.

~~~

I was lounging on my bed reading when Anne arrived after the break. I made a point of wearing my new outfit - I wanted Anne to see it. I had used a little of my earnings at the garage to go shopping at a second hand clothing store, and I managed to find a long flowing skirt and a peasant blouse that looked reasonably good. I thought so anyway.

Anne was duly impressed. I got up to show off my new clothes, and then she gave me a big hug and said, "Well, look at you! You look really nice."

I beamed at her approval and said, "Thanks. I was hoping you would like it."

We caught each other up on the holidays as Anne unpacked, and then talked a little about the upcoming semester. We had planned our schedules to have more classes together, including the second half of OChem and a comparative religion class that fulfilled one of the elective track requirements.

The moment we had before finals was still there, in the background, but it wasn't awkward like it had been that night. Anne didn't seem interested in bringing it up. I don't think she knew that I had responded to the moment like she had. Maybe she was embarrassed or ashamed at letting me see her get turned on. Maybe she was afraid I'd be upset about how she felt about me. There's a big difference between just knowing your roommate is a lesbian and having her actually interested in you, as I was discovering. I don't really know what her motivation was, but I could tell she just wanted to pretend it never happened.

But I couldn't do that. Anne had affected me in that moment in a way that I had never experienced before, and I had to find out where it was going to go. I just had no idea how to do that. I was shy enough that I had never seriously talked to a boy I liked. How in the world was I going to talk to a girl I liked, even if that girl was Anne? It was going to take more courage than I thought I had in me, but I had to find a way to do it.

~~~

A few nights later, we had spaghetti and a salad for dinner, like we do about three times a week. If you make your own sauce, it's cheap, it's healthy and it's pretty tasty.

I had tried to work out how to tell Anne how I felt about her a few times, but I always got flustered and chickened out. That night, over our spaghetti dinner, I finally found a way. It was a conversation we had had before, one she usually started. This time would just end a little differently. I said, "You know how you keep pushing me to get up the courage to talk to somebody I like? Well, I've decided you're right. I'm going to do it."

Anne looked excited when I brought up the subject. She asked, "Who is it? I saw you looking at that Chinese guy in OChem on the first day of class. He's cute, and those cheekbones..." Her voice drifted off into a dreamy sigh. Anne never had much interest in dating guys, as much as she tried, but she could recognize handsome.

I played along. "Nope. He is cute, but it'll take a few more classes before I decided if he's interesting."

Anne tried again. "How about Vijay? I think he likes you."

I frowned - I felt a little bad about Vijay. "Yeah, I think he likes me too, and he's sweet, but he just doesn't do it for me. He's cute and all, but he looks more like a little lost puppy than a man."

Anne was enjoying the guessing game. She thought a minute and guessed again, this time with some sarcasm in her voice. "I hear CS Dave broke up with his boyfriend. Gonna try to see if he's a switch hitter?"

I was having fun too. "Wrong again. He's nice, but still very definitely gay."

Anne got a silly grin on her face with her next guess. "What about Jim?"

She caught me off guard with that, and I blushed a little - Jim was our OChem TA, and I had admitted to Anne last semester that I thought he was hot. "Wow - somebody has a very naughty mind! Good guess, except for the fact that dating the teacher is a spectacularly bad idea."

Anne giggled at my discomfort, and then breathed an exaggerated sigh. "Fine! I give up. Who is it?"

I kept my tone light as I answered. "Well, it is somebody from OChem. Very smart, good student and super cute..."

Anne looked at me with amused exasperation as I dragged out the pause, keeping her waiting.

My heart was in my throat when I finished. "... She's also my best friend, and the most wonderful person in the world."

Anne's face went white. I'd seen her flustered and upset before, but nothing like this.

She started to speak, pausing a few times before anything came out. "Allison, sweetie, you don't have to . . . you shouldn't . . . I mean I'm not really . . . Fuck! I don't know!"

It was funny - I expected to be the terrified one in this conversation, with Anne as calm and collected as she was about almost everything else. But I was the calm one, and I knew what I had to do.

I took her hand and said, "Sweetie, it's okay. I'm not saying anything because I have to. I'm saying it because I want to. Because I want you. I felt something I've never felt before in that moment before finals, and I have to find out what it means.

I want you to be happy, and I won't push you, but I know you felt it too. I heard that gasp you made."

She looked about to cry, but she pulled herself together enough to respond. "Okay! Yes! I like to play around with girls. But it's never anything serious. It's just fun. I'll get over it after college.

You like guys, and you should keep liking guys. You're really important to me, and I don't want to fuck up your life by playing around with you and confusing you."

My answer was a little harsh - a firm verbal slap. "You let me worry about me and what I want. I'm not at all confused. I care about you, and I think you care about me, so nothing we do with each other could ever fuck up my life, or yours. I want to see what could happen with us. Now you need to decide what you want."

I don't know exactly what I expected - some perfect romantic moment where I confess my love and she responds with dewy-eyed adoration? This was definitely not that.

I got up from the table and gathered the dishes. Anne sat there for a moment, looking dazed, and then picked up the rest of the stuff from the table. I started towards the kitchen and she followed me, looking like a puppy whose master had scolded it.

I washed the dishes in silence, waiting for Anne to figure out what she wanted to say. She dried everything and put the common stuff away, and I put our dishes in our assigned cabinet. After we finished cleaning up, Anne took my hand as we walked back to our room. I don't know whether she did it out of affection or contrition or both.

Back in the room, with the door closed, Anne said, "Look, Allison, I don't know what I want. I never know what I want. I think I know what I should want, but then I see a pretty girl and my head just goes fuzzy.

And you - you're the prettiest girl of them all, at least to me. Last year, before we even met, when you worked out that problem on the board in calculus after those three guys all tried and failed - I thought you were the sexiest thing alive, even hiding behind your hair and glasses.

And then when I saw your name as my new roommate, my heart did a little flip. You're sweet and smart and wonderful, and now you're my best friend. I don't want anything to mess that up. Dana yelling at me last year was bad enough; I couldn't bear it if you hated me too."

Her face was filled with fear and longing, and she looked so fragile standing there that I worried she would break apart. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, and I spoke softly into her ear. "Sweetie, it's okay. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. You're my best friend too, and nothing is going to mess that up. No matter what happens, I will never hate you."

I kissed the top of her head and released her, taking her left hand in my right. She wiped a few tears away with her free hand and looked at me, face to face. I wanted to kiss her right then, passionately on the lips, and it took all the discipline I had not to, but I couldn't. She would kiss me when she was ready, and all I could do was reassure her and hope and wait.

I saw the two sides battling across her face, one wanting to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss her, but the other side won, and the moment passed.

She let go of my hand and asked, "Ready for the exam tomorrow? I know all the material pretty well, but I don't think I'll ever really understand Hinduism. Maybe Buddhism will be better."

I shook my head and answered, "Probably not. I don't think it's Hinduism - I think it's religion. I don't understand any of it either, even Christianity. I sometimes envy those who do."

Anne pulled out her textbook and said, "Well, you don't have to really understand it for the exam. Just remember the principles and history from the book. I'm going to study for a while and then head out to the lounge for TV."

I sat down at my desk and replied, "Yeah, me too."

~~~

A few snowy weeks went by, packed with exams. I felt better about life than I had since I started to notice boys - for once I knew exactly who I wanted, and I knew she wanted me. She would come around, eventually, and I was happy to give her time.

Sometimes I could see Anne struggling with herself, trying to figure out what to do about me. But most of the time, we were just roommates and friends. I did notice a few changes, though. Anne lost, or gave up, any romantic interest in anyone else, for which I was grateful. And she suddenly got a little shy about her body - she still changed in front of me, but she made sure to always have her clothes and underwear ready before taking off her towel. I thought it was cute, and I made sure to be respectful of her discomfort - she had done the same for me.

Things changed for the better on a Wednesday night. We were in the middle of an experiment that had some fairly long reaction times, so our whole lab section was in the ISB building late into the evening. It's always ten degrees warmer in the undergrad lab than the rest of the building, so we were all sweaty. On top of the sweat, the weird odors of the chem lab sink into your clothes and never really come out; I had one pair of sweats and a few sacrificial tee shirts that I only wore to the lab.

Anne and I were the first to get to the crucial step, and everyone assembled around us to watch. It was a bit nerve-wracking, really. When the canary yellow solid finally started precipitating out of the solution, just like it was supposed to, the whole room cheered. We high-fived each other, and then waited around for some of the other students to finish, with varying degrees of success.

Anne gave me a big hug as we headed out into the night, and held my hand as we went back to the dorm together. It was the first time I had felt simple, unalloyed affection from her since that dinner, and the feeling of it kept me warm on the cold walk.

When we got back to the room, I immediately started to strip off my lab clothes - I really needed a shower. We both did, but Anne had other priorities. She sat down on my bed, grabbed my hand and pulled me over to her. I sat down, wearing just my bra, panties and socks, wondering what was up.

Anne said, "Tonight was awesome - I don't know how I would have managed without you as my lab partner. And my friend."

I replied, honestly, "You're the hardest working student in the class - you would do just fine in lab with any partner."

Trying to keep things light, I added "Except maybe Curtis - that guy can screw anything up. It's really kind of amazing."

Anne giggled a little, and then continued "Still, thank you."

And then she leaned over, without any warning, and kissed me. It wasn't passionate, just sweet and soft, and perfectly wonderful. I had no basis for comparison, but if this was what kissing was about, I was all for it. It seemed to go on for a long time, but it also felt much too short. After we parted, Anne smiled and said, "We really need to go take a shower. You smell terrible, and I smell worse." I didn't argue.

Anne slipped out of her clothes and underwear, shyness apparently gone, and rummaged through her drawers for her shower stuff. I admired her body until she was ready. We walked down the hall together to the bathroom, hung up our towels outside adjacent shower stalls and stepped in. The warm water was heavenly after a long, hard day and a cold walk.

When we got back to the room, we both changed into our nightshirts. It wasn't even midnight yet, and neither one of us had eaten since lunch, but we were both exhausted. I crawled gratefully into my bed, hair still damp, but Anne stood for a while in the middle of the room, looking indecisive. After a minute or two, she turned off the light, and then she surprised me for the second time in an hour. Instead of climbing into her own bed, she walked over to mine, sat down on the edge, and asked, "Can I . . .?"

I lifted the comforter to let her in, and she spooned her back into me. It was ... cozy. I really don't know how the guys ever get anyone else into their dorm beds, or even the bigger girls. But Anne fit perfectly, and her soft, warm body made my little dorm bed the best place in the world.

After snuggling into just the right position, she said, "Goodnight, Allison." It was the same thing she said that night, just before finals, when we had our moment, but her voice couldn't have been more different. This time, it was filled with affection and contentment, and she seemed quite ready to drift off to sleep.

I replied, "Night, Anne. Sleep well." I don't even know if she heard me. After a few moments listening to her breathe, I was asleep as well.

~~~

The weeks between that night and spring break were like a dream, the kind you don't want to wake up from. The landscape went from white back to green, gradually at first and then suddenly, in an afternoon. People poured outside in their free time, eager to see the sun again. Clothing layers disappeared, and Frisbees and soccer balls reappeared on the athletic fields. It was still cold, but New Englanders are a pretty hardy bunch.

The campus preachers resumed their shouting, which made for some very surreal walks between classes. They preach from pretty much the same bible I hear at Mass, but Mass doesn't sound anything like that. And most important to the people in my dorm, Unicycle Guy was back out on the streets. For the past three years, Unicycle Guy had marked the unofficial start of spring, and he got cheers from everyone in the dorm on his first day out.

After the first set of exams, the workload eased off a bit, and then gradually ramped back up before another set of exams, right after the break. On the plus side, it meant a week to study. On the minus side, it also meant a week to study. What can you do?

Life with Anne was simple and wonderful. We held hands and kissed and nuzzled at any opportunity, but it didn't go any further. We slept together every night, pushing our beds together and rearranging our dorm room for comfort. At night, our hands made their way into each other's nightshirts, but our panties stayed on. That was fine with me - I was in no hurry for sex. I wanted to wait for the right time. I didn't know what that really meant, but I figured I would understand when the moment came. I don't know what Anne wanted, but she certainly didn't push.

The one minor disagreement we had was, in retrospect, about me being a little silly. After just a few weeks with Anne, I threw myself completely into my new identity as a lesbian. When I take up a new interest, I tend to go a little overboard, whether it's working on cars with my Dad, running track in high school or science pretty much all the time. This wasn't any different - it was something new, and I had to know everything about it.

I wanted to get involved in the LGBT student organization somehow, but Anne really didn't. "Calm down, Allison," she said. "Give yourself some time to figure things out. Life is a lot more complicated than you make it out to be."

She was right. She was always right about me. She did eventually humor me and come to a meeting, where we both sat in the back, just like class. We met some very nice people, but that was about all we got out of it. I discovered that being gay was both simpler and much more complicated than I thought. Simpler because there were no mechanics to it, no secret handshake or anything. All I had to do was be in love with Anne, which was easy. More complicated because, well, because of just about everything.

~~~

Spring break came much too soon. It seemed like everyone else on campus couldn't wait to get away, but for me it just meant a week without Anne. I forced myself to look on the bright side - I did miss my family, and I'd get to spend some time with them.

Anne rode with me on the trip back, splitting gas money. I dropped her off at a nice house in a nice section of Arlington, one of the northern suburbs. My old clunker really stood out among all the new, fancy cars. I'd never really thought about the differences in our backgrounds before, and I was glad Anne wouldn't be driving through the neighborhood in South Boston where I lived. I've never been ashamed of where I'm from, and Anne wasn't the type of person who would look down on anyone, but she didn't need it rubbed in her face.