Our Own Private Universe. Robin Talley

knew very well I never danced in front of people.

      I tilted my head back to get another look at those stars. They swam dreamily in the sky.

      “Stop looking up so much,” Lori whispered. “Your neck is already freakishly long. People are going to think you have no face.”

      “My neck is not freakishly long,” I said, but I lowered my chin anyway.

      Two white girls I didn’t know were half dancing, half standing in the darkest corner of the courtyard. One girl had hair so short you could see her scalp and leather cuffs with silver buttons on both wrists. The other girl had dark hair that curled around her ears, heart-shaped sunglasses perched on her head, a tiny silver hoop in her nose and a quiet smile that made me want to smile, too.

      “Aki, you’re staring,” Lori said.

      “Sorry.” I looked away from the girls.

      “Do you like one of them?”

      “No.”

      “It’s okay if you do. You can tell me.”

      “I don’t. I was distracted, that’s all.”

      Last year I told Lori I thought I might be bi. Ever since, whenever she saw me looking at a girl, she asked if I liked her. Lori didn’t get that sometimes it was fun just to notice people without having to think about whether you liked them or not.

      The girl with the sunglasses turned toward Lori and me. Oh my God. She wasn’t that far away. Had she heard us? I was going to kill Lori.

      The girl was still smiling, though.

      She was cute, but she made me nervous. I wasn’t used to looking at girls that way. Being bi, just like the rest of my life, had always been mostly hypothetical. I scanned the crowd, trying to look for a guy who was equally cute.

      “Is there anyone here you might like?” I asked Lori.

      “Maybe.” She nodded toward a super-tall blond guy drinking from one of the frosted glasses our host family had set out. “What do you think of him?”

      I studied the guy. He had to have been a senior, at least. He had a T-shirt with a beer company logo and he was laughing loud and sharp at something his friend had said, his mouth open so wide I could see the fillings in his back teeth.

      “He looks like a tool,” I said.

      “Whatever, you think everybody looks like a tool.”

      The girl with the sunglasses was coming toward us. She was even cuter up close.

      Oh, God.

      “Look who it is,” Lori whispered.

      As though I hadn’t already seen her. As though she wouldn’t see Lori whispering and think we were incredibly obvious and immature.

      “Hi.” Somehow, the girl was now standing in front of us, her head tilted at a startlingly attractive angle. “You guys seem cool. I’m Christa.”

      I had no idea what to say. I shoved a chip in my mouth.

      “Thanks.” Lori glanced over at me. “I’m Lori.”

      “Hi, Lori.” The girl turned toward me, expectant, but I was still chomping on my tortilla chip. I probably looked like the biggest tool in Mexico.

      But Christa didn’t seem bothered. “What church do you guys go to?”

      “Holy Life in Silver Spring,” Lori said. I swallowed, nearly choking. Lori ignored me. “What about you?”

      “Holy Life in Rockville,” Christa said, her eyes still on me. Then she turned back to Lori. “Does your friend talk?”

      Lori nudged me.

      “Um. Hey.” I was positive there were chip crumbs on my face. Would it look weirder to leave them there or to wipe them away? What if I was just paranoid and there weren’t chip crumbs on my face, and it looked like I was wiping my face for no reason like a total loser? “I mean, hi.”

      My face must’ve been bright red. Why was Christa still looking at me?

      “What happened to your girlfriend?” Lori asked, tilting her head toward where Christa had been dancing before.

      “She went out around the back to smoke.” Christa lowered her voice and added, “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

      “Smoking is revolting,” I said, because I didn’t want to say anything about whether Christa did or didn’t have a girlfriend. Or whether she might want one.

      “For real, right?” Christa said. “I try to tell her, but some people, you know?”

      She smiled at me. I smiled back. There was a pink streak in her shoulder-length hair that I hadn’t noticed before. She was wearing jeans and a yellow tank top, and her sneakers had red hearts drawn on the sides with a marker. I’d never known it was possible for a person to look as cute as Christa did.

      “I’m gonna go get more salsa,” Lori said.

      I shook my head at her frantically. I couldn’t do this by myself.

      Lori only grinned and left. Christa stayed where she was. Damn it.

      “So, what’s your name?” Christa asked me.

      “Aki.”

      “That’s pretty.”

      It was so hard not to giggle. But I managed to keep my face relatively composed as my insides jumped for joy.

      “It’s short for Akina,” I explained.

      “Akina.” I liked how she said my name. She pronounced it slowly, as though it was some spicy, forbidden word. “That’s even prettier.”

      Was this flirting? I’d never really flirted before. Sure, I’d hung out with guys, but they never told me my name was pretty. Instead they made stupid jokes and then looked really happy when I laughed.

      Was it even okay to flirt with a girl here? If someone saw us, would they be able to tell we were flirting from across the courtyard? Or did flirting just look like talking?

      And if Christa was flirting, what made her think I wanted to flirt back? Was it something about how I looked? What I was wearing? Did she know I wanted her to flirt with me?

      Did I want her to?

      If she was really gay, she probably had a girlfriend back home. I didn’t know if I was ready to have a girlfriend. I’d never even had a boyfriend for longer than a couple of weeks.

      “Wait... Aki?” Christa cocked her head, as if she was studying me. “Aki from Silver Spring. I’ve heard about you.”

      “Yeah?”

      Oh.

      My stomach tensed. This cute girl, the first girl ever to flirt with me, knew exactly who I was.

      Of course she did.

      I was the black girl with braids. I was Pastor Benny’s daughter. Everyone in all of the Holy Life community knew who I was. I was one of a kind.

      But then she said, “You’re like a really talented musician, aren’t you?”

      And my stomach didn’t know whether to twist tighter or do flips in the air.

      “I. Um.” I didn’t know what to say.

      “I’ve definitely heard about you.” The smile spread wider across Christa’s face. “You play a bunch of instruments, right? And you write music and you sing? My friend went to a service at your church where the whole choir sang something you wrote. He said it was gorgeous and that everyone cheered and talked about how amazing you were.”

      That had been during Advent in eighth grade. The piece we performed was the same one I’d used for my audition for MHSA. Even thinking about it made me want to throw