I remember the exact moment I began to question my sexuality. I was an understudy for Peter Pan in High School. In my opinion, I was a better actor than the guy they picked, but since I’m not white, they made me his backup instead. Either way, he got mono, and I ended up performing opening night so joke’s on him. But I digress, the point is that I was now in a position where I would be kissing another girl. The ‘kiss’ in Peter Pan was typically a symbolic item, but our theater teacher was a boundary pusher. As a theater nerd, that wasn’t weird or off-putting for me at all. It was a quick peck once per show and even as a teenager I could be professional about it.

During rehearsal it was just business as usual, and since I was the understudy anyway we mostly just pantomimed the kiss and saved the real thing for opening night. On opening night, however, the kiss became much more real. Chelsea Halbrook, the girl playing Wendy, and I had always been friendly to each other, but I wouldn’t have called us friends. I liked her as a person, we just didn’t really hang out before the play and my school was very cliquey so we didn’t cross paths outside of the play either. She was a talented actor, and frequently stayed in character. Not really method acting, but just very devoted to a role.

Anyway, opening night, the show goes perfectly. I’m proud of my performance all the way until the closing kiss where I say my farewells to poor Wendy. Like I mentioned before, we only pantomimed or half-heartedly rehearsed our kiss before, so now was the real deal. I leaned in, eyes closed, thinking nothing of it, when suddenly our lips met and her tongue flicks into my mouth. It was so fast, so subtle, that I wasn’t even sure I felt it. A surge of butterflies filled my stomach at that moment, and suddenly I was thrown off my game. 

I forgot my line and looked into her eyes, which had a new admiration behind them. Shut up, she’s acting! I told myself, and the light crew mercifully went to black without waiting for me to remember what I was supposed to say. The curtain fell, and that damn Chelsea Halbrook held on to my hand for just a little too long. The butterflies in my stomach went from mingling to moshing. She smiled at me, let go of my hand, and we pretended like nothing happened. I couldn’t help but look at her in a new light from then on. The first choice for Peter recovered from his mono by our second performance and his mom was on the school board, so the director benched me. 

Chelsea never talked to me about that night, and I never had the courage to ask. We stayed in our cliques and drifted apart after High School, but I never stopped thinking about it. It wasn’t just that she slipped me some tongue and held my hand. It was the feeling I got when she did. I didn’t feel like ‘just acting’ to me, and I wasn’t embarrassed by her forwardness. It just felt… right. That night put into motion years of doubt and curiosity. I still liked guys, dated guys, had sex with them, etc. That didn’t stop me from forming crushes on women I liked too. More than just ‘Ohmigosh you’re soooo cute right now!’, they were genuine infatuations I battled with. 

My father is Filipino, and my mother is half Filipino and half Vietnamese. They immigrated here as children and found each other in college. I’d say they are both reasonably open-minded, but sexuality was never discussed at our house. The idea that I could be anything but straight was not something that was ever brought into question and although I didn’t think they’d ostracize me, I wasn’t sure how they would react and that put enough fear into me to never entertain ideas of the opposite sex. It wasn’t until a crazy night in college that Pandora’s box opened once again.

My friend Hailey had recently met this older black guy that she was totally smitten by. I mean, this girl is head over heels, no question. She had been telling me and our mutual friend Courtney about him for a while now, and Courtney wanted to meet him. I did too, but she started the idea. We went over to his place one night expecting to chat and eat ice cream, then one thing lead to another and we kind of had an orgy. I’m not one to kiss and tell, so ask her or Courtney about it if you must know the details. Anyway, her boyfriend is a very handsome man and very well… equipped to handle women, and we all had a fantastic time. 

What surprised me was that although we had a studly stallion giving us the business, I couldn’t keep my eyes off my friends. Hailey is a stupidly curvy redhead, naturally giant boobs on a petite frame. I’d say I envy her, but she complains about her back a lot, so maybe not. Courtney is your typical skinny, blonde Barbie type and a real ‘free spirit’ if you catch my drift. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. Or my hands. Or my mouth. It was like all the feelings Chelsea Halbrook brought out in me came rushing back to the surface, making me question my sexual identity.

At first I was very conflicted. This was something I wanted in my life, but would my friends and family accept that? Being the only Filipino at a 90% white High School gave me enough experiences to know people can be cruel. And the few relationships I built during my time there and in college meant a lot to me. If I divulged this unfamiliar part of me, if it was even truly who I was, and the people I cared about turned their backs on me it would devastate me. 

When Hailey, Courtney and I went back to Hailey’s place for the night I was upset. Being my friends, they spotted it immediately. They squeezed me for info and I came out to them as bisexual. My heart pounded in my chest and I was prepared for the worst. Then Courtney, who is usually not the type to drop bombs of wisdom, said “Sexuality isn’t like picking a sport team. You don’t choose a side and make them your ride or die. It’s more of a sliding scale, and we don’t really get to pick where we fall on it. A lot of people tend to be on either side of the scale, but many more are somewhere in the middle.”

That stuck with me. It helped a lot. First, it told me that neither of them cared. I was still the same old Jasmine, just batting for both teams. Second, it made me feel safe. Like I could trust them. Maybe that even meant they’d have my back if someone got shitty with me. That gave me a confidence I hadn’t felt in ages. It put the world into a whole new perspective for me, made me feel like it was my oyster again. I was now in a place to start coming to terms with my sexuality, and I was happy about that. Then, walking through the quad to my new class one morning, I got hit with another bomb.

“Jasmine?” a voice came from behind me. I turned around and none other than Chelsea Halbrook stood before me. She had longer hair and some new tattoos, but it was definitely her.

“Chelsea?” I asked, gobsmacked.

“Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?!” she opened her arms for a hug. I hugged her and looked her up and down.

“You’ve got tattoos now!” I didn’t know what else to say, my brain was still catching up.

“Yeah, I tried to get one in each place I’ve visited. After High School I traveled for a bit, but I’m ready to hunker down and do some adulting!” 

“Wow, I can’t believe this. What’s your major?”

“I don’t know yet, I’m taking gen eds until I find my calling. What about you?”

“I’m sort of in the same boat, but I’m focused on nutrition and sport science right now. I came here on a volleyball scholarship and although I don’t really wanna go pro, I’d like to be involved in the fitness world somehow.”

“Like a personal trainer?”

“Hopefully a little more scientific than that, but we’ll see. I’m still figuring things out.”

“Well damn, girl, look at you! Wanna catch up later? Over coffee or something?” My heart skipped a beat as she asked that. The first thought that ran through my head was you mean like a date? but that was silly. Whatever feelings I felt in High School were probably a figment of my imagination anyway, I sincerely doubted she meant anything by it. And besides, people catch up over coffee all the time. It was presumptuous of me to think she was being anything but polite. For all I knew she didn’t even want to catch up, she was just being polite.

“Sure, that sounds great! Have you found The Pickup Spot? It’s a coffee shop just off campus where people go for the ‘best pick-me-up in town’, or so they say.”

“I’ll find it. When are you free?”

“How about seven?”

“Perf. See you then!”

“Great, it’s a date!” I said and immediately felt foolish.

“Only if you’re buyin’,” she winked. It felt playful, but platonic. As we parted ways, I forced myself not to think about it too hard.
I failed.

All day my mind raced with potential conversations. I made a list of questions in my head and played out her answers. Then my responses to those answers. I thought of the questions she’d ask me, and the questions I wanted to ask her that she’d ask back. I wanted to have a fun, witty, or interesting answer no matter what she threw at me. But why? It's just coffee. Calm your tits, woman. But my tits would not calm. Try as I might, my heart and brain raced all day with possible scenarios all because… what, I was reliving a crush? So what, she’s just an old friend. Barely a friend, we were acquaintances. Get over it.

Though I spent all day mentally preparing, when the time came I felt like I had jumped into deep water without knowing how to swim. I arrived almost a full thirty minutes early and sat tapping my foot for twenty before she arrived. “You’re early! Usually I’m the first one to any meeting, I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

“No worries, I sat down just a minute ago,” I lied. I stood up to give her a hug, and she kissed my cheeks. I froze, unsure if I should kiss back.

“Oh, gosh, sorry. It’s a habit I picked up in Italy.”

“Totally fine, just wasn’t expecting it,” I said as we sat down. “Oh, did you want to order something?” I asked, standing back up.
“Sure!” She stood up and went with me to the counter. As she perused the menu, I ordered a caramel mocaccino for myself. “You know what? I’ll have one too. Wanna split one of these giant muffins with me?” she asked, pointing to a chocolate chip muffin the size of my head. 

“Uhhh, absolutely!” I said, pulling out my card to pay for mine.

“That’ll be twenty-one fifty-nine,” the barista said. That was high for a single coffee.

“Oh, they are separate,” Chelsea said. The barista looked down at her screen, trying to figure out how to split it.

“Y’know what? I got this, it’s fine,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m probably gonna eat most of the muffin anyway.” I gave the barista my card, and we returned to our table with our items. I peeled the wrapper off the muffin and split the softball-sized treat in two for us to share. “So you said you did some traveling, right? Where all did you go?” I asked right as she put a chunk of muffin in her mouth. She tried to speak, but it came out muffled. With an impatient roll of her eyes, she bobbed her head back and forth, chewing quickly to answer my question.

“Standard European trip. Started in Spain and moved up through France, the UK, Ireland, moved back over to Belgium and worked my way down to Greece. I thought about hopping through Asia for a bit, but I ran out of money.”

“Wooow. Well, that’s cool and all, but I worked at Duncan’s the summer after High School and then went straight to college. Bet you didn’t see any fat guys in overalls with no shirt underneath asking you for a triple bacon cheeseburger, large fries and a diet coke over there, didja?” I joked.

“You’ve got me beat,” she laughed, “I’m sorry if I came off snooty or something.”

“Oh no, not at all! I was just teasing is all. Sorry if I, uh, I didn’t mean…” I stammered, trying to think of the right word. Why was I so nervous?

“No, I get it, I just didn’t want to come across like some rich bitch or something,” she said.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have joked.” I felt foolish for teasing her. We barely knew each other, and she was just sharing, I didn’t have to be rude about it. I didn’t mean to be rude about it, I was just trying to break the ice. We sat in awkward silence for a moment, and I shoved a piece of muffin in my mouth to give me an excuse.

“Do you remember when we were in Peter Pan together?” Chelsea asked after what felt like forever.

I nodded. “Mhmm.”

“Yeeeah,” she said, an air of hesitation in her voice. “Can I confess something to you?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I,uh… well, do you remember how we had to kiss? On stage, for the show?” 

My head skipped a beat. Of course I remembered. “Mhmm.”

“Well, uh… That was sort of a big moment for me.”

I swallowed. “How so?”

She averted her eyes and pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She took a deep breath and looked around the crowded little coffee shop. “I just, um… It really made me want to consider acting, you know?”

“Yeah,” I replied, “Yeah, me too. Acting was fun.”

“So maybe after my gen-eds I’ll look into that. We have theater classes here, right?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure how good they are though.”

“Would you ever consider taking one with me? For fun? For old time’s sake?”

I scarfed down the last of my muffin and took a sip of my coffee. “Yeah, for sure. Maybe we could even do Peter Pan again sometime. For old time’s sake.”

She smiled. “You’ll never believe this, but I actually still have the script.”

“Shut up.”

“I do! I kept it after all these years, I loved that play.”

“You’re not messing with me?”

“No! It’s up in my dorm right now if you want to see it.”

My heart raced at the thought. “Well now I have to see it just to call your bluff!”

She downed the last of her coffee and smacked the cup down like an empty shot gloss. “Follow me!” she said, standing up and leading me to her dorm. On the way she told me a few stories of the places she’d traveled and I told her how boring my life was in comparison. The tension in my shoulders finally relaxed as we warmed up to each other, but that only lasted until we arrived at her dorm room door. She fiddled with her keys for a moment and had trouble getting the door to open. A few shoulder shoves and wrist wiggles later and she led me in to her dorm.

It looked pretty much like every other dorm I’d seen, with two unique decorating philosophies on either side of the room. I assumed hers was the one with maps and travel photos, while her roommate had mostly band posters and Christmas lights. “Don’t those lights bug you?” I asked.

“She turns them off at night. Plus, it’s kinda nice to come home to, I don’t mind.” She kneeled down and fished out a box from under her bed, then pulled a battered old script from inside. What a blast from the past.

“I seriously thought you were bluffing!” I said, taking the script from her hands and thumbing through it.

“I told you, that play was a big deal for me,” she said, standing next to me. I grinned so hard my cheeks hurt. She had notes in the margins and her handwriting had little hearts to dot the ‘I’s. It was adorable. On the front and back covers were a bunch of signatures from the cast. 

“How come you never asked me to sign it?” I asked.

“I, uh… I don’t know. I guess since you weren’t there on wrap night it didn’t come up.”

“Can I sign it now?”

“Would you? That would mean a lot to me!” she said, grabbing a marker from her desk. I pulled the cap of with my teeth and looked for a place where I could squeeze my name in, but her friends claimed the lion’s share of the space. I then flipped to the scene where we kissed and signed the bottom of that page instead. “Why there?” she asked.

“So you’ll always remember that awkward-ass kiss we had to do in front of all our parents and classmates,” I said.
She didn’t respond and for a moment I worried that I embarrassed her. I capped the marker and turned to look at her. Her beautiful blue eyes were already staring at me, a longing wistfulness in them.

“It wasn’t awkward,” she said. I stared at her. My eyes drifted down to her mouth. She quickly leaned in and gave me a soft peck on the lips, keeping her face mere inches away from mine to see my reaction. I threw her script on the bed and cupped her face with both hands, pulling her in for the passionate, tongue-filled kiss that I’d always wanted to give her. She wrapped her arms around my waist and returned my passion tenfold, sliding her hand up my back and running her fingers through my long black hair as we locked lips.

The next few seconds turned into a blur. My face was hot and beads of sweat formed on my brow. Desperate, hungry sounds came from our mouths and our breath still smelled like chocolate chip muffins and coffee. She pushed her body against mine and we went tumbling on to her bed. She straddled my hips and her blonde hair fell into my face. I reached up and held it back for her, pulling on her lips with mine and sliding one hand down her slender waist to grab hold of her firm little booty. She sat up and peeled her top off, then reached behind her back with both hands to unclasp her bra.

Rusty hinges creaked as the door to her dorm flew open and her roommate walked in. Chelsea practically jumped off of me and fumbled to recover her top. Her goth-looking room mate stopped dead in the doorway and stared wide-eyed for a moment. She then spun on her heel and closed the door behind her without a word. Chelsea looked over to me and laughed, burying her face in her hands. I sat up and leaned my shoulder against her, laughing too.

“I guess we should have put a sock or something on the door,” I said.