Author's Note: Lisa's in seventh grade, in a different school than Belen

It was June 13th, a Monday, and all us eighth graders at Alfred E. Zampella were eager to move on to Washington, Adams, Zeldem, or any other number of high schools. Graduation was right around the corner: June 25th, which was not the last day of school. For us, the first day of summer was July 1st.

I was very nervous that morning. I'd been nervous the entire month, really. Being rejected from the Aristotle School for the Gifted and Talented had reduced me to tears, and having my appeal approved had made me the happiest girl in the world. But there were three problems that plagued my mind as I stepped out of my stepfather's car on the familiar street.

One; today had been the first day I came to school from my new home in a new town. I had convinced myself that my mother and stepfather would buy a house in this city. Maybe not the Heights, but at least the same city. It was huge, after all. Why couldn't they find a good house midtown and above? No, they had to move to downtown middle-of-nowhere-ville. Nine miles or so away! I'd have to take the bus to school every day now until June 30th, which meant waking up at around 6:30 in the morning; an hour earlier than usual.

Two; my best friend wasn't going to the Aristotle School with me. Elizabeth and I had both applied, and when we were both rejected from the Aristotle School, I thought we'd just end up going to Washington together. Elizabeth wanted to be a lawyer, and if I went to Washington, I'd study to be a teacher. I had applied to the science academy in the Aristotle School, though. Not that I was all that interested in science; I needed to get a full scholarship if I was going to be accepted into every Ivy League school she applied to (but not MIT) like my sister. Two weeks after the first day of school, I was in the performing arts program

Three: I had had the most… disturbing dream I had ever had the other night. Yeah, disturbing seemed like the right word, or, at the time, at least. It certainly made me shudder, and I gripped my pocket bible tighter as I walked towards Elizabeth. We always met up in the morning in front of the back entrance of the school, just like every other sixth to eight grader had to. The younger kids all entered through the front door. Hurray for grammar schools.

She was there before me this morning, which was rare, since we usually walked to school together. I deliberately watched her from the corner of my street she walked up the corner of hers. I lived in Hague, she lived in Lincoln, and we both lived between Kennedy and Central Avenue. As she reached Kennedy, she leaned back against the fence of the auto repair shop, waiting for me to show up. It was around 8:15; school started at 8:30. She waited until 8:20, having checked her phone every couple of seconds, biting her nails in frustration and worry. I would have crossed the street and slapped her hand away from her mouth on a different day, but that dream had changed everything.

I was halfway across the sidewalk, eager to finally get it off my chest, when the doors opened and the teachers spilled out. I hurried over to the girl's line of my class, always careful to be at the end of it, and knew that Elizabeth's line was right behind mine. At her height, she'd have no problem spotting me, even at the back of the line. I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach as we filed up the stairs to the third floor.

Elizabeth was in a different class. I was in the H.O.P.E class. No one could remember what it stood for, not even the teachers. We knew it was the smart-kids class for seventh and eighth graders. For younger kids, it was "G and T". Gifted and Talented. My first year of school started on Valentine's Day of third grade. I had been in the smart class since fourth grade. Elizabeth had been in it fifth grade with me. She'd been in the school since pre-K. Unfortunately, she was now in the fourth dumbest class out of the five eighth grade classes. Not because she was stupid, but because she was too lazy to work for her grades. I barely lifted a finger and got the grades. That stopped once I entered high school.

I didn't see her again until recess, and I told her I had something to tell her that I didn't want to talk about in school. She invited me over to her house after school, where we could talk until four when my mom came to pick me up to take me to Bayonne. The rest of recess and lunch were torture. Every hug, every smile, every bit of laughter was painful. She had such a beautiful smile, such musical laughter, and I realized that day, for the first time, that the Dominican girl I had spent every lunch and recess with since the second week of fifth grade was breathtakingly beautiful.

At her house, I didn't know what to say, so every time the subject came back to the dream, I changed the subject. We had short attention spans; it was easy. Finally, at four, as we walked up the block to Summit Avenue, I knew it was now or never, and she had apparently read my mind.

"So, Belen, are you gonna tell me about your dream? You're mom'll be here any minute." The genuine look of concern on her face made me all the more nervous. I took a deep breath before starting.

"I had a really weird dream last night, and you know that I rarely remember my dreams, so I know it was important. Might be a nightmare, depending on how you look at it."

This seemed to confuse her, but she only said, "Go on."

We were halfway up the block as I began.

"We were at school, sitting against the trailers during recess. We had been sitting in silence for a while, and Marian and Emilia weren't around. Emilia was off with Emilio." I chuckled, as I always did, at the similarity of the couple's names before continuing in a more serious tone. "We weren't talking, we were just sitting there. And then you looked at me, and you were crying, so of course I wanted to help. I asked you what was wrong. After a long time, you spoke up. I waited patiently. You said you had a crush on me, and had had one for a long time."

I had been narrating my dream to the sidewalk, but now I looked up and met her brown eyes with my own, slightly darker ones. Her expression was hard to read. Maybe she didn't want to react until she heard the end of it. I didn't know that, in her head, she was wondering how I had guessed, and if this was my way of telling her I had found out.

"I… I told you I had, too. And after asking me a few times if I was sure, you hugged me really tight and were so relieved and happy. And we both started laughing, and we were just so happy. When we had to stand up to get in line for lunch, we held hands until we had to get in our separate lines."

Again, nothing, so I returned my gaze to the concrete as we reached the corner of Kennedy Boulevard.

"We dated for a while, but then our parents found out. Somehow, I was seeing me and you at the same time, as if I weren't myself. Like I was watching a movie. Both our moms were very mad, and reminding us it's ungodly and against the Bible's teaching. We didn't listen to them. We just packed our bags, called each other to confirm, and ran away from home, just like that. It was night outside, it was cold, it was cloudy. We somehow ended up meeting at the Hoboken station, where the buses are. We were sitting under the roof or shelter or whatever it's called, trying to keep warm and dry as it started to rain. We looked into each other's eyes, on the verge of tears, and then… and then…" I looked away in disgust. "And then we kissed."

I didn't know her heart had broken a little when she saw how hurt and confused and pale my face looked when I finally spit out the news that my subconscious had made us kiss. She waited until I looked back at her, waiting for the response I was sure would be negative and somewhere in the range of "I never want to speak to you again". But she did something else.

"Eww." She exclaimed loudly, and then started to laugh. I laughed along, not sure why exactly, but probably out of relief. "We have the strangest dreams, huh? Well, what do you think it means?"

I wasn't sure what it meant. I wasn't gay; I was sure of that. I was a Christian, after all, and I would never want to face the idea of running away from home. Anything that had such a negative consequence had to be a sin. Romans and Leviticus and all kinds of other books said so. Later, I changed my mind on that.

"I honestly don't know. I'm sure it was nothing. I'm just too weird to believe, sometimes." But as soon as I had said it, I knew it wasn't true. My mom pulled up in her friend's car at that moment, though, so I just hugged my friend goodbye and left. That hug was painful to let go of, and I was left in shock as I climbed into the car, realizing that, for a split second, my mind had considered kissing her right then and there. I shook it off as my mom asked me about my day.

Friday of that same week was Exit Day.

It was one week before graduation, and it was meant to be a special celebration. The whole graduating class went to a restaurant, with boys wearing their nicest shirts and ties, and girls wearing their second best dresses, saving the best for graduation. I felt excruciatingly uncomfortable in a dress, but that wasn't the worst of it.

All week, every day, I had more dreams about Elizabeth and me. It ranged from dreams of me coming out to her, to dreams of me being forced out of the closet at school and her comforting me, to dreams of us already dating in a perfect world. It didn't help that that day, seeing everyone dancing and having fun, Elizabeth just wanted to sit at the table and played games on her iPhone. I sat there, staring at her play, wanting to burst into tears as I thought about my dreams and about my religious beliefs. I was super confused, and when I wanted to go dance with a group of friends, she didn't want to come along, and for some reason, I didn't want to leave her side. Eventually, Marian and Emilia came over and tried to coax us over to the dance floor again. I decided to accept, and Elizabeth watched as I left. Maybe if I had looked back, I would have seen her hurt and confused face.

After three songs of pretending jumping up and down to the beat is dancing, I walked back to the table to get a quick swig of my Pepsi can before returning to the dance floor. Elizabeth looked up from her iPhone, grabbed my wrist as I reached for he can, and asked me to go with her to the bathroom. I followed her, still upset that she didn't want dance with me, feeling a bit personally insulted (in my defense, my emotions had already been so messed up that week that any little thing could get me upset). When we entered the tiny bathroom with just three stalls and a single sink, she turned around and looked at me. I was dancing to the music, trying to remember how to dance salsa, and she seemed a bit frustrated that whatever she was going to say, I clearly wouldn't listen. Eventually, Emilia came over to ask what was wrong, and I followed her out. Elizabeth remained, biting back a confession of love.

We avoided each other the rest of the time. The school bus took us back to school, and when the bus pulled up in front of the doors, the way the wind was blowing was the closest to a hurricane I had ever experienced. We were both very mad, no matter how irrationally, and we walked back to her house in silence. The rain crashing against our umbrellas was the only sound, and it echoes in my ear to this day. That morning we had made plans to hang out. When we got to her house, and I kept walking, deciding to head straight for the lightrail and home. I waited to hear a "Wait, Belen, stop!" or another hand grabbing for my wrist, but my return to Bayonne was uninterrupted. It was the first and only time I've ever cried on public transportation.

We both cooled down over the weekend, and Monday at school we acted like nothing happened. I even went over to her house after school. We had the most interesting and life changing conversation of my life that day. I like to call it the "20 questions session". We were sitting on her bed, up against the wall. There had been a comfortable pause in the conversation, but I became nervous thinking about all my dreams. I kept dreaming about Elizabeth standing up, throwing her iPhone behind her, offering me her hand, and asking me to dance. She seemed to notice my distressed look, and spoke up.

"Still having the dreams?"

"Oh, uh, yeah."

"Am I in all of them?"

"Yes."

"Do we kiss in all of them?"

"… Yes."

"Oh. Have you ever had a crush on a girl, you know, before the dreams?"

"Not that I can remember."

"And you don't remember having any… feelings… before the dreams?"

"You mean, for you?"

"That's what we're talking about, right?"

"… I… guess… so. Um, I think so. Butterflies, a couple of times. Usually whenever you sang."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"And you've never really had a major crush on any guys, right?"

"Well, except Spencer, but he's so effeminate, he barely counts as a guy."

"And you don't think that might mean you could be gay? Or at least bi?"

"I don't know, maybe, I just feel really confused."

"I guess the question you really need to answer here is, do you like me?"

You could probably imagine me going silent at this point, taking a long time to answer. But actually, since I had been looking down the whole time, I looked up into her eyes, which almost seemed to be pleading with me. It took only a second's hesitation.

"Yes, I do."

Elizabeth looked at me blankly for a moment before eventually smiling. I smiled back, feeling a flood of relief. 'Even if she doesn't return my feelings, at least she didn't freak out. She's just happy I trust her enough to know everything.' But that wasn't it. Elizabeth was relieved for a different reason.

One second she staring into my eyes, the next she was looking down at the ground, and the next she was kissing me. I swear I didn't even see her face getting closer to mine. My eyes remained opened for a long time as I sat there, confused, but they closed once the kiss deepened, and our lips began to move together. When Elizabeth finally broke the kiss, I was left dazed, and she as blushing deeply. My glasses were completely fogged up.

Elizabeth grabbed my hand with both of hers and started talking. I stared down at my hand as her hands stroked it. My mind was having a fierce competition with my heart over my Christian beliefs, but I was feeling a bit too faint in all this happiness to think too many concrete thoughts. Somehow, her words were seeping into my brain and I was responding to her. She was reminding me that neither of us should tell our parents, and asking me if this meant we were officially a couple, and officially dating. I looked up at her, smiled, and answered, "Yes."

That response won me my second kiss of the day, of my life, and when I felt her tongue slip into my mouth, I was more than a bit thrown for a loop. I let my instincts take over, and before I knew it, Elizabeth was lowering me onto the bed, and I was complying. She set both fg her hands firmly on the bed on either side of my body and hovered over me as we continued kissing. We must have kissed for eight minutes straight, breathing only through our noses when we desperately needed air.

Four months later we broke up, me single and her with a boyfriend. I started freshman year with a heartbreak. The good news is, I started sophomore year with hope. That's when I met Lisa.