“Hmmn,” the bed creaks as she rolls over to look up at the ceiling. She chews her lip thoughtfully, the
“Truth” you bite your lip, trying in vain to make your voice sound noncommital, “when did you… know you liked girls?”
“Hmmn,” the bed creaks as she rolls over to look up at the ceiling. She chews her lip thoughtfully, the warm blue shade a little more vivid in the low light than the pastel blue of her gloriously long hair.
How is this happening? How is she in your bed, or you in hers, whichever it is you have no idea how you're meant to keep your heart from exploding!
This certainly hadn’t been what you’d expected from your first “Faculty Orientation Camp.” You’d read the description on the website over nad over to try and prepared yourself for "A long weekend away from home with all the other new first-years that you’d be spending your degree with! A chance to break the ice, get to know everyone, make a lasting impression!” Or, as it turned out, a chance to stand shyly in-front of the d’oeuvres table, all the colourful trays of bite-sized foods unseen before your watering eyes.
You can feel your plans of this being a new start and a new you all crumbling around you, your crippling nervousness rolling into your guilt and shyness and bundling up your self-consciousness into a ball of lead filling your chest and leaving you struggling to stop your hands from shaking around you empty plate. You’ve been standing here for minutes, or hours, you don’t know, meekly pretending you just can’t decide what to eat as you blink back the tears.
“Can you help me,” a warm voice asks beside you.
You turn, trying to smile politely, hiding what you’re really feeling so you can, so you can…
The girl standing next to you is so beautiful it takes your breath away, leaving you basking in the all-encompassing warmth of her smile - ironic given the blue shade of her lips. Her floor-length dress is blue too, a deeper shade than the pastel blue of her floor length hair. Somehow the colour looks natural on her, probably because of the palest blue tone of her near-white skin.
She’s not all pale though: a dense pattern of spots cup the edges of her face, her neck, and splay out over her shoulders, all shining reflective blue, green, orange and red, the iridescent surface catching the light to silhouette her in vivid rainbows. And her eyes - the same iridescence shining in her large irises, rimming her pupils in gleaming colour.
She’s still smiling at you, the expression a little fixed now, her rainbow shine seeming to lessen somewhat. You’re staring at her!
“I’m sorry,” you blurt out, “I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to stare.”
She sighs, “It’s okay.” Her rainbow eyes look down, leaving your world a little less bright. “I’m used to it,” she turns towards the buffet table, trying to hide her disappointment by taking a plate, “most people aren’t used to seeing an ikawere.”
“It’s not that,” you earnestly insist, and lose all your words as she looks up at you again, all but the four words you’re feeling so ardently it hurts. “You’re just so beautiful!”
Now it’s her turn to stare at you, looking deeply into your eyes, so deep it feels like she can see into your thoughts, or where your thoughts would be if you could form any.
Your eyes widen. “Did I really just say that?!”
She smiles, making your heart leap. “You did.” She turns back to you, “I admit, when I came over here, I wasn’t expecting you to be so forward.”
“I’m not,” you insist, apparently as surprised as she is, “not usually.” You remember yourself all at once, “I’m sorry, I’m in the way, you wanted the buffet and I’m… sorry.” You manage to stop talking only by looking down, seeing your own tacky pink top and mismatching brown skirt, your hands ungainly large around your empty plate.
You see another hand reach out, fingers rimmed in rainbow as they warmly cup your palm. You look up, and don’t know if she’s stepped closer, or if her eyes are just drawing you into her tender gaze. Her voice is gentle but sincere as she insists, “I came over here to talk to the pretty girl standing all by herself.”
Pretty? Well that makes no sense! You know people have called you that over the last year, and no matter how wonderful it makes you feel every single time, there's always that niggling doubt that they're just being nice. They're your friends and family, they have to tell you you're pretty.
But she doesn’t have to. So why on Earth is this beautiful woman lying to you, and how is she telling such an obvious lie so convincingly, looking at you with those earnest eyes and that wonderful smile. You feel that niggling doubt again, but this time it’s doubting your doubts, asking: what if she isn’t lying?
What if you are pretty?
She squeezes your hand, feeling like she’s squeezing your heart, “I’m Lunu. May I know your name?”
“Cate,” you hear yourself say.
“Cate,” you hear her say, your chosen name in her mouth filling you with a rush of joy that makes you breathe in sharply, hoping she didn’t notice. She smiles warmly, and you swear her spots become more radiant, her blue-white skin looking a little warmer, almost purple-white. “Can you help me, Cate?”
“What… oh, uh, yes sorry what did you, how can I… Yes?”
She gestures to the expansive selection of d’oeuvres, “I was hoping you could fill me in on what all these tiny foods were. I’m afraid I’m a little out of my depth.”
“Oh, oh yes, of course,” you point at the various dishes, naming and giving their ingredients, overjoyed to have something you can talk about with any kind of confidence. And you keep talking, over your food, throughout the rest of the meet-and-greet, whispering in the back of the welcoming presentation and in the back of the open-air movie, all the while swearing she’s becoming more radiant, the blue of her lips warmer. Not that you’ve been staring at her lips, her beautiful lips, having only the vaguest sense of the world beyond her, barely even feeling the weight of your heavy bag on your shoulder as you try in vain not to gaze adoringly at her, as she raises her iridescent hand to answer: “We’ll take it.”
You look around sharply, the world coming back into focus. You see the camp volunteer standing before you all, the long veranda having more than enough room for them, you, and all the other girls now staring at you. The volunteer nods, “Thanks girls,” and checks something on their pad.
The other girls around you start sniggering and whispering to each other, looking back at you as they walk in groups towards the various doors of the cabin building, hauling their bags inside to hushed conversations. Lunu hefts her large green rucksack on her shoulders and starts walking too, turning back to wait for you. “Coming?”
You’re suddenly hit by the realisation that you have no idea where you’re going. But you follow Lunu anyway, wondering again why every open door you pass has at least one girl looking at you and smirking. It makes you more than a little uncomfortable, and you hold the strap of your bag in both hands as you walk closer to Lunu, leaning over to whisper, “Sorry, what did we, um, ‘take’ again?”
“The teacher’s room,” she points down the long row of doors to the one at the end. She gestures dismissively to the other doors and the groups of whispering girls within. “All the other rooms are full of bunk beds, and for a highschool trip the last room would usually be for the supervising teacher. But given university students are adults,” she looks into the second to last room, the girls that were whispering in the doorway suddenly going silent, waiting until you past to start giggling madly, “in theory, then there’s an extra bed.” Her voice becomes a little smaller, “And I hoped you’d, maybe, like to keep talking?”
“Oh definitely,” you insist, trying not to balk at the fact that half a day has passed in what felt like one long conversation. One long converation with an enchanting woman who smiled so warmly at you it made your heart hurt. But a niggling thought tugs at your mind. ‘Bed’ singular?
Lunu reaches the last room and opens the door wide, barely turning on the light before she’s thrown her rucksack into the small room beside the large, grey-green double bed. One double bed.
She turns to you, standing frozen in the doorway. Her face melts. “I’m sorry!”
It’s the first time you’ve heard her say those words, your surprise doubling as the formerly confident woman rushes forwards, taking both your hands in hers. Her spots shine in the room’s overhead light, but they’re not shining as brightly as you’d come to expect them too. Her spots now look far less dense, like they’re all thinner somehow, her blue-white skin a much colder shade of blue-white now.
Her rainbow eyes still shine brightly, all but glowing with concern, “That was really presumptuous of me, wasn’t it. I should have asked if you were okay sharing a bed.” She gestures to the other rooms, “I’m sure we can still trade with one of the other girls if you’d -”
“No no,” you blurt out, startled at the thought of needing to crawl back to one of those doorways of smirking girls. But more so, you’re suddenly worried about losing something you didn’t know you had, something precious. “I’m, I’m okay, just surprised. And,” you think about the room next to yours full of giggling girls, “and I don’t really know anyone, other than you.”
Lunu’s eyes swell, shimmering almost watery, her spots seeming to lose all their luster as her skin seems to lose its blue edge of colour. Her lips too, formerly vivid, now look visibly greyer. “I’m sorry, that’s my fault too. I completely monopolised you when you should have been out making friends.”
You laugh weakly, “And I was doing so well at that, staring at the d’oeuvres table and waiting for it to swallow me whole.” You squeeze her hand back, overjoyed for the point of physical contact, and for the person before you. “I’m very happy with how things turned out. And I would,” you avoid looking at the one bed, “like to spend more time with you. I’d really like that, if that’s okay with you?”
She smiles warmly, the warmth expanding outwards as her spots shine radiantly, her skin becoming a shade of blue-white so warm it’s almost purple. “Of course.” She bites her purple lip, “I’d really like that too.”
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