Firsts (11 page)

I’m about to open my mouth to defend Charlie’s loyalty, but I think twice when this morning’s encounter flashes through my mind.
You know that little secret I mentioned? Maybe it can be ours.

“Do you still have yours, Mercy?” Angela says quietly. She doesn’t meet my eyes as she says it. Angela has never asked me this before, but I have thought about what to say if she did. I wonder how long she has been waiting to ask this very question, how long those words have been strung together in her brain, waiting to come out.

I’m not ready to answer, but I have to. I look down at my binder and hope nobody noticed the panic that has shot through my stomach and up my throat like a ball of fire. I focus on the equation written there to steady myself. 1 CH
4
+ 0
2
–> CO
2
+ 2H
2
0. Logic and numbers and balance, exactly how life isn’t naturally, exactly how life isn’t unless you make it so. But there’s no way I’m telling Angela the reality. So I reinvent the truth.

“It was last summer. A guy from that art class I took.”

“You took an art class last summer?” Angela looks as surprised as if I said I killed someone last summer. I mentally want to kick myself for saying something so stupid. Not only do I have zero artistic ability, but I spent most of the summer hanging out with Angela and obviously never mentioned any art classes.

“My mom made me go twice a week,” I say quickly. “She was in her ‘try new things’ phase.”

Angela nods and I feel a pang of guilt. I’m not just a liar—I’m a good liar. And that makes it even worse.

“Anyway, there was this guy there. Luke. We went out a few times and one thing led to another, and we, you know, did it.” I almost choke on his name. I haven’t said it out loud for so long that it feels like a wad of poison I have to spit out.

“Why have you never mentioned him before?”

“I don’t know; it just never came up. And he moved back to Nevada.”

“So let me get this straight.” Faye props herself up on her elbows. “A guy crossed a state line for some
art class
?”

I cast a sidelong glance at her, hoping she doesn’t punch any more holes into my story.

“He was spending the summer in California with his dad,” I say.

She nods, causing her hair to pool around her shoulders. “I can see his point. Nevada in the summer can get pretty dull. Even Vegas gets old. What part is he from?”

“You’re from Nevada,” I say slowly. Of all the states, why did I have to pick the one Faye is from? Probably because it’s true. The real Luke is from Nevada, although I have no idea where he is now.

“I’m from Sparks. Born and bred,” she says with an eye roll. “Your guy? Maybe I know him.”

“No, Carson City,” I say, feeling a sliver of relief. Maybe I can pull this off after all. “He was from a rich family. Told me they wanted to get rid of him for the summer.”

“Do you still talk to him?” Angela says. Her eyes are wide with curiosity.

“No,” I say, a bit too quickly. “Well, not regularly. We e-mail from time to time. I don’t know if anything will come of it, though.”

“A summer romance,” Faye says, eyes raised to the ceiling. “I had one of those once.” She gives me a deadpan look. “I was thirteen. He bought me ice cream and we made out behind my parents’ shed.”

“Well, I can’t believe you didn’t mention him before,” Angela says, and I can tell she’s hurt. “You’d be the first person I would tell. Probably the only person.” She glances at Faye and her face reddens slightly.

“I wanted to tell you,” I say, my voice small. “I was just waiting for a good time.” I want to smile to prove it, but the corners of my mouth don’t want to turn up, leaving my mouth a quivering line. I didn’t know Angela when I really lost my virginity, and I could never tell her the truth. But if I close my eyes and imagine things were different, I can almost visualize having a normal first time and telling my best friend about it. Almost.

“What was it like?” Angela averts her eyes. “You know, the sex part. Did it hurt?”

I look down at the lined paper again, the equation written there. I can train my mind to be a formula, too.

“A bit, I guess. I don’t know. It was nice. He made it special.” My throat hurts with the effort of choking out the words.

“I remember my first time,” Faye says. “It was with the same boy who bought me ice cream. Two summers later.”

“You were fifteen?” Angela says, her mouth hanging open.

Faye shrugs. “And that was only because he wanted to wait.”

Angela shakes her head. “I’m even more behind the curve than I thought.” She presses her cheek against the palm of her hand. “I don’t know what to do. Virginity is a big deal. I don’t just want to lose mine and regret it.”

I wiggle closer to her, close enough to rub her back sympathetically, which is unusual for me and Angela. We don’t have a touchy-feely friendship like a lot of girls at school, who hug and kiss and walk down the halls with their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders. But right now I just want to bury my face in her hair and tell her everything. I want to tell her virginity isn’t something you just lose, like a spare key or a homework assignment. It’s something you give away. Or something that gets taken away from you.

“Did you love Luke?” Angela says, leaning into my shoulder.

The question catches me off guard. I can’t let her know how much this question means to me, how often I have thought about it, even after everything.

“I don’t know,” I say. This, at least, is honest. “Maybe I don’t know what love is.”

“Fifteen,” she whispers, gazing at Faye. “I was still kissing my Justin Bieber posters when I was fifteen.”

I wish I could tell her so many things. I wish I could tell her that there really is a Luke, and he really was from Nevada. But there was no art class, and it wasn’t last summer.

And if Angela thinks fifteen is bad, I wonder what she’d think of thirteen.

14

I don’t plan on sleeping with Jeremy Roth. He isn’t part of my plan, and Don Wannabe really
was
supposed to be the last one. But when Angela and Faye leave, I need something to take away the edginess I’m feeling. I don’t want to be alone. Jeremy didn’t even find me the old-fashioned way—in person. I told myself when this started that I would never sleep with a guy who solicited me through Facebook or via text message, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do.

Hey beautiful. I have a situation I could use some help with. Can we meet somewhere?

The message has sat in my in-box for days, but I haven’t paid any attention until now. I didn’t click on it, but I didn’t delete it, either. I almost didn’t want Angela and Faye to go, because I knew I was going to open the message and respond favorably when they did.

“You guys could stay,” I told them before Faye ushered Angela out the door. “We could order pizza or something.”

Angela looked at me wistfully, like she wanted to take me up on it, but she had plans with Charlie, like a normal person in a relationship would on a Saturday night. And Faye had her own plans.

“I have a date,” she said. “And I can’t go out looking like this.” She looked down at her perfect body in her tight jeans, which prompted Angela to roll her eyes.

When I shut the door behind them, I was equal parts sad and confused. Sad because I’m the only one without plans on a Saturday night, the only one with an evening of bad reality TV and stale microwave popcorn stretching ahead of me. Confused because all afternoon Faye seemed to be flirting with me, when the other day she was flirting with Zach. If this is her idea of playing with my head, I can play that game, too.

So I do the only thing I know will make me feel better. I message Jeremy back with my address and tell him to come over in an hour. I know he will be late, because he’s in my English class and always sneaks in late and heads for a desk in the back row. Which happens to be where I sit, not because I’m late but because I hate being called on in English class, where there’s no right answer and no wrong answer. I hate the murky in-between and when Mr. Bell brings up some cloudy subject like “Iago’s motivations as the antihero” and expects somebody to spout out some brilliant response. “Enlighten me,” is his catchphrase of choice. I wish somebody would just hit him over the head with “enlightenment” and help him see things in black and white, like they should be.

“Hello,” Jeremy says, standing at my doorstep with a bottle of wine an hour later. “I thought this might be nice. I stole it from my dad’s stash. The label says it’s a Merlot.” He says it like Mar-
lot
. Not surprising from a guy who thinks
Hamlet
is a type of deli meat.

“I don’t drink,” I say, leading him upstairs. Which is only partially true. I do drink occasionally, but not with guys like Jeremy and never before sex. I only had to make that mistake once to learn from it.

“That sucks,” he says. “It loosens you up. Don’t mind if I do, though.”

He doesn’t wait to see if I do mind before unscrewing the top and downing a quarter of the bottle. A few droplets leak down his chin and onto my cream-colored carpet, where they proceed to bloom like little flower petals. Jeremy doesn’t notice.

“I’d watch how much of that you drink,” I tell him. “Alcohol and soft dicks have a very close and personal relationship.”

He laughs, a slow, overly confident laugh, a laugh in which every staccato syllable—“ha, ha, ha”—can almost be seen as well as heard.

“Wait here,” I tell him as I slip into my walk-in. I have already decided what not to wear for Jeremy. Nothing light colored. He has proven that he’s the kind of guy who leaves stains where he shouldn’t.

But the drawer containing my black lacy negligee is suspiciously empty. I mentally catalogue where I could have left it. It’s not in my laundry basket, which is the only place it would be if not in its proper drawer. I momentarily entertain the horrifying thought that Kim found it—or even worse, borrowed it—but that’s impossible. I keep my closet locked unless I’m in my room. And the only time I was in my room today was—

All afternoon, with Angela and Faye. Angela would never steal something from me, which only leaves Faye. But why would she steal a negligee? She did mention going on a date, but I would assume she has her own fancy undergarments. I shrug and decide to blame Kim after all. Of the three of them, she’s the least trustworthy.

“Everything okay in there?” Jeremy says. I shoot him the middle finger, almost wishing he could see it from his side of the wall. If he has this little patience now, I feel sorry for his girlfriend.

I pull out my second choice, a sheer crimson teddy, and shimmy into it. The color matches the wine.

Jeremy lets out a low whistle when he sees me, a noise I always thought was super cheesy.

“Bring that hot ass over here,” he says. His shirt is already off, revealing a chest with just enough muscle. Jeremy might not be my type, but his body is. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. It might even be kind of fun.

Jeremy unbuttons his jeans and kicks them off. He has his dick in his hand and it’s already hard. He’s grabbing my hand, trying to make me touch it. Then he does something completely inexcusable.

He tries to push my head down.

“I don’t think so,” I say, springing away from his grip with trembling hands. “You don’t need it.”

He pouts, but only for a minute, before pushing me onto my back against my pillows. Usually I’m the one in control, but this feels different. This feels like everything is moving a bit too fast.

“Slow down, stud,” I say in a tone I hope is playful. “Let’s get a condom first.”

I let him open the packet and roll it on. He does everything right. And once he’s on top of me, he does everything right there, too. For a minute I forget I’m even supposed to be showing him how to do it. For a minute I start to feel like I’m his girlfriend and he’s my boyfriend and we’re just taking a study break.

I’m surprised he’s still going strong when I flip him onto his back. Usually this is where they’re happy to let me take control to show them what to do. But he’s still leading somehow, locking his hands on my hips and grinding deeper into me. When he finishes—loudly—I look at the clock.

Jeremy lasted eight minutes. In my bedroom, that’s a new record. He’s panting a bit but doesn’t even look all that winded. I guess some people were just meant for sex.

Either that, or Jeremy has done this before.

He turns away from me and I stare at his back, at the little red dents my fingers left. I’m definitely not going to come out and ask him. What would I say? “Are you
sure
you’re a virgin?” Somehow I don’t think that would go over well and would probably hurt my reputation more than his. And if he really was a virgin until eight minutes ago, I would be giving him a seriously unnecessary ego boost.

“You’re not going to have any problems,” I say instead, poking him in the back. “Your girlfriend is going to be very satisfied. Maybe just go a bit more gently on her.”

He turns around and gives me a strange little smile. “Can we do it again? That was great. But I’d feel way more prepared if we could do it one more time.”

I bite my lip. I really shouldn’t. I have no reason to sleep with him again, and I should kick him out. But at the same time, it felt so good. Maybe if we do it again, I’ll get off, too.

“I know how to convince you,” he says and snakes down to the end of the bed. Before I know it, he’s between my legs, working something I can only describe as magic with his tongue. This is definitely not the work of a virgin. Now I know he must be lying, but I’d rather he not admit it at this point. The deed has already been done, so what’s wrong with doing it again?

He takes me right to the brink, to the point where we both know a second time is inevitable. And a third. A third time has never happened in my bed until now.

Neither has a guy sleeping over.

But I’m learning that there’s a first time for everything.

15

I’m woken up by two things: Jeremy’s morning wood poking into my back and a loud knocking on my door.