Camila’s face lights up, and a crinkle appears on the corner of her eyes. “Perfect,” she says, squeezing Valeria’s hand a little. “That was my plan all along.”
Valeria shakes her head, smiling despite herself, but the nervous flutter doesn’t fade. If anything, it grows tight and hopeful for their future.
“I know this isourfirst date, but what was your first date like?” Valeria asks, wanting to know everything about Camila, but also needing a second to process the feelings buzzing through her.
Camila taps her chin, trying to recall the memory. “It was at the church camp my mom sent me to. It technically wasn’t my first date ever, but it was my first date with a girl, which I’d argue mattersmore.”
“Hey, I agree, you don’t have to convince me, but didn’t you have a girlfriend before going there?”
Camila nods, almost sad. “I did, but we barely saw each other outside of school, so we never went on a proper date. Honestly, I don’t know why I was so obsessed with her.”
“I mean, you were a teenager, I think we all obsess over our girlfriend or boyfriend for literally no reason.”
“True, true.”
“So tell me about this date,” Valeria asks, leaning forward, chin resting on her hand.
“It was super sweet. We were at the same camp, but they’d separated us into groups, so we didn’t talk for the first week we were there, but I spotted her the second she stepped off her bus. I thought she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, but I was too shy to walk up to her and introduce myself.”
“What happened next?” Valeria asks, leaning in further.
“One day, I found a secluded little spot by the lake, and a few minutes later, she walked in. I guess she’d found the spot a few days earlier and liked to read there. We decided to share it, and from there we quickly became friendly. Every day we’d sneak off and meet there to read or talk, anything but join any of the activities they planned for us.”
Valeria laughs. Relating to it completely.
“After about a week of sneaking off to read, I opened up to her about why I was sent to the Christian camp. She told me she was gay too, and that only made us closer. A couple of days before we were both scheduled to go back home, she took me on a picnic by the lake with food she’d stolen from the camp counselor.”
Valeria’s chest tightens, or rather freezes for a heartbeat, as the words echo inside her. She’s heard this before ... orrather, lived it. Every detail—the camp, the picnic, the friend forced to go to a Christian camp.
“I wish we’d kept in touch. I liked her,” Camila adds. “After that date, I doubled down on my gayness at home. If it hadn’t been for her, maybe I wouldn’t have come back with so much fight. I wish I had asked for her number or her name. I tried asking the other girls at the camp about her, but she was so quiet that no one got to know her. Till this day, I only ever call her what I did then,Docinho.”
Valeria’s eyes widen so sharply that for a second, she swears her vision splits in two, her heart hammering violently against her ribs, as if trying to escape.
“What’s going on?” Camila asks, concern creeping into her expression.
Valeria tries to shake herself out of her own head. She lets out a small breath. “Okay, this is probably going to sound kind of wild,” she says, leaning in a little closer. “But ... I think that was me. Actually, scratch that, Iknowthat was me.”
Camila’s brows knit together as she tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
“Okay, maybe this is a wild coincidence,” Valeria says quickly, “that both our first dates sound the same, but when I was fifteen, I met a girl at summer camp, and we used to hang out by the lake, kind of like you and that girl.”
“Okay,” Camila says, waiting for Valeria to continue.
“I went on my first date with her, too. I made her a picnic with a bunch of stuff I stole.” Valeria huffs a small laugh. “And the first day I met you, I told you your eyes reminded me of someone. It was her, because she also had one dark brown eye and one that almost looked like honey.” Valeria second-guesses herself but keeps going. “Her name was Maria, though. That’s the only part that doesn’t line upwith you.”
Camila’s eyes widen. “My name is Maria Camila,” she says. “When I was younger, everyone called me Maria. I didn’t start going by Cam—or Camila—until college.”
It clicks for both of them, and then they’re laughing, surprised, and a little breathless. It’s louder than they mean it to be, enough that a few nearby tables look over.
“I can’t believe it,” Camila says, reaching for Valeria’s hands. “I’ve always wondered about you, hoped I’d magically meet you one day.”
“Me too,” Valeria says. “I wanted to ask for your number, but I got so nervous I didn’t.”
“Same,” Camila admits with a small smile. “I was going to on the last day, but you left a day early, and I ran out of time.”
“Wow,” Valeria says, after a few minutes of silence, both of them wrapping their heads around the wildness of it all. “Talk about invisible string theory.”
Camila squints and shifts her weight. “What’s that?”
