Boyfriends with Girlfriends Read Online Free

her mouth, then began again: “I’m a better person because of you. I doubt I’ll ever love anybody as much as I love you.”
    “I love you, too,” he’d told her, even though he felt nervous she might be putting the make on him. But she hadn’t, and the next day she’d apologized for being “kind of a mess last night.”
    “Maybe you should just be honest with him,” Lance now suggested. “Tell him how you feel.”
    “I don’t want to hurt him,” Allie said, turning onto her street. “Besides, I’m not sure how I feel. I mean, even though I don’t feel like he completes me or anything like that, I still care about him. You know what I mean? I feel comfortable and safe with him. Shouldn’t that be enough? Maybe I’m expecting too much. But if I’m not in love with him anymore, am I like misleading him?”
    “You’re not in love with him anymore?” Lance asked. It was the first time he’d heard that from her.
    “I don’t know. On some days I wonder if I ever was in love with him. Maybe it was just infatuation. But then I wonder if maybe it’s not really about him; maybe it’s about me. I mean: Maybe there’s more to me I still want to explore.”
    “That’s cool,” Lance said. “Like what?”
    “I’m not sure.” She gave a long, questioning sigh as she pulled into her driveway. “Anyway, thanks for listening.”
    “Sure, anytime.” It was apparent she’d gone as far as she wanted to go with the topic for now.
    When she got into her house, her mom and dad were watching Saturday Night Live . She sat with them for a while, and on the way to her room she peeked in on Josh and watched him sleeping.
    Inside her room, she pulled Kimiko’s kanji out from her bag. And as she undressed and got ready for bed, she recalled times growing up when she’d met a new girl and become friends; and how she’d felt a sort of crush, thinking how pretty the girl looked and how much she liked to be with her. The feelings had eventually died down, and she’d never thought of them as romantic or sexual.
    But there was one night in middle school, when she dreamed she had sex with a girl, and the next morning she woke up with her whole body tingling. The experience had felt as intense as any sex dream she’d ever had about a boy.
    On the school bus she’d told Lance about the dream, giggling nervously.
    “You’re gay!” he whispered, thrilled to think his best friend since first grade was a latent lesbian.
    “You really think so?” Allie stared out the window, thinking about it. “But then why do I get turned on by guys? Lesbians don’t, do they? Maybe I’m bi.”
    “I think bi’s kind of a cop-out,” Lance argued. “Maybe you should try it with a girl—I mean, at least try kissing or something.”
    “With who?” Allie asked. She felt too chicken to do anything with any girl from her school or church. No way. Nevertheless, she did mention the dream to her friend Jenny, after field hockey practice one day—or at least she tried to.
    “I’ve got a question for you,” she said in a low voice. “Have you ever had a sex dream about . . . a girl?”
    “No!” Jenny scrunched up her face in disapproval. “That’s gay! Why? Did you?”
    “No,” Allie lied, regretting having asked. “I was just curious.”
    “I mean,” Jenny said, softening her tone. “I like Lance and I’ve got nothing against gay people, but that doesn’t mean I’m gay. So why would I ever have a sex dream about a girl?”
    “I don’t know,” Allie said, and quickly changed the subject.
    After that experience, she’d put the dream aside, and never had another like it. And as she began to date boys, she’d almost completely forgotten about the dream. Now, as she pinned the kanji up on the bulletin board above her computer, she remembered the dream for an instant and thought how cool it was going to be to have Kimiko as a friend.

O n Sunday morning when Lance’s alarm rang, he mistakenly grabbed his cell phone