by Cameron Lund
“Next year everything will finally be different,” Hannah says. “I can’t wait to get out of here.” Hannah is Korean—one of only three Asian kids in the entire school—and I know it’s part of the reason she’s excited to move to New York. Her parents actually met at NYU and then moved here from the city when she was five, and she’s been talking about going back ever since, living in some bohemian artist loft. I mean, I get it. New York is vibrant and exciting and diverse. Vermont is one big bowl of crunchy white granola.
“Prescott is the most depressing place on Earth,” I say. “But I’m glad you’re stuck here with me.”
“I’m so happy you were born, birthday girl,” Hannah says. “And I’m happy Andrew exists too. He’s one of the good ones. He gave us this room.”
I laugh. “I’ve just been using him for his bed this whole time.”
“I actually don’t think Andrew would mind you using him for his bed,” Hannah says, waggling her eyebrows.
“You’re disgusting.” I make a fake gagging noise like I’m in kindergarten. Hannah has been joking about Andrew and me getting together since middle school, but it’s never going to happen.
“You know”—Hannah frowns—“I really thought Chase was a good guy too. I bet he didn’t mean to tell everyone about Danielle. You know how Ryder is. He probably punched it out of him or something.”
I’m not sure if she actually believes what she’s saying or if she’s only trying to convince herself. Hannah has always tried to see the best in people, even when they don’t deserve it.
I pull back Andrew’s sheets and climb under them, not bothering to change. Hannah tucks herself in under her blanket. We lie still for a few seconds, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and then I hear Hannah’s voice, soft and muffled.
“It kinda reminds me of Charlie.”
I roll over to face her, propping my chin up on my hand. Cheating-Asshole-Charlie, as he’s more commonly called, broke up with Hannah mere days after they first slept together. Turns out he was also sleeping with Julie Spencer the whole time. I know being in Andrew’s room sometimes makes Hannah think about Charlie because this is where we spent the night after they broke up. Andrew looked up how to play all the best power breakup songs on his guitar, and we scream-sang along to them off-pitch and at the top of our lungs. You’re a Gryffindor and he’s a Squib, Andrew told her. You remember that.
He’s not a Squib, Hannah said. He’s a fucking Death Eater.
“What Chase did is bad, but it’s not the same,” I say now, needing to believe it for Danielle’s sake. “She’ll get over it. She’ll be okay because she doesn’t . . .” I trail off, but Hannah finishes the sentence for me.
“. . . love him?”
“Yeah.”
“Sex and love are supposed to go together,” she says. “But anyone who falls in love is screwed.” She reaches up to switch off the light. “Falling in love with a high school boy is the single stupidest thing you can do.”
I wake up a little later when I feel a weight press down on the mattress beside me. Turning toward it, I crack open an eye and see Andrew sitting on the edge of the bed, his hair sticking up in all directions. He’s got my purse in his hand, and when he sees me he drops it, the contents spilling out at his feet.
“Sorry,” he says. “I tripped on it.” He reaches down to stuff everything back in, then lies down next to me.
“What time is it?” I whisper, my voice hoarse from sleep. He glances at his phone, the light from the screen bright in the dark room.
“Four thirty.”
“Where’s Cecilia?”
“Basement. We were trying to sleep on the couch down there, but there wasn’t enough space. I kept sliding onto the floor. I bruised my elbow.” He holds it out for me to see.
“So you just left her?”
“It’s your birthday,” he says, like this is an explanation.
“You’re an asshole.”
“No way.” He slings a heavy arm over me. “I’m the best.”
“No, get off.” I roll away from him so that I’m practically falling off the other side of the bed. There’s a noise from the couch and Hannah turns away from us, snuggling deeper into the cushions.
“Shhhhhhhhh,” Andrew says loudly, slinging his arm back over me.
“No. You’ve got Cecilia all over you!”
“We showered, remember? I’m clean as a whistle.” He lets out a soft whistle, as if this somehow proves his point. I sigh but let him keep his arm on me, too tired to give any real protest. His phone buzzes and he lifts it back off the pillow, the light of the screen blinding us both when he clicks it on.
“Love poem from Cecilia?” I whisper. “‘O Dearest Andrew. O Captain my Captain. Why did you leave me all alone on the couch in the basement?’” I can’t see his face very well but can practically feel him rolling his eyes.
“She’ll be fine, Collins.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of tortoiseshell glasses with big thick frames, glasses I’ve always thought make him look sort of like someone’s grandpa. He always keeps them tucked away in his pocket, only putting them on when it’s extremely necessary, like he finds them embarrassing. I scoot closer so I can read the text with him. It’s not from Cecilia after all, but from Susie Palmer, Cecilia’s friend—the one who had like way too many shots and couldn’t drive.
Are you asleep? I’m alone in the guest room if you want to find me
“She realizes you just did her best friend, right?” I ask.
“I’m not gonna answer her.” He clicks the phone off so the screen goes black. My eyes take a second to adjust to the dark, and for a moment I can’t make out the shape of his face next to me on the bed. Then slowly his glasses come into focus.
“Really?”
“You sound surprised,” he says, voice soft. “I’m not that big of an asshole.”
“Or you just have a massive crush on Cecilia and you don’t want to mess it up,” I say, grinning. “I get it.”
“It’s because her conversation is so stimulating.” He smiles, and I shove him, rolling away and closing my eyes. I’m used to this side of Andrew now, Party Andrew, who hooks up with girls like it’s no big deal, joking about taking coed showers like it’s something we all do.
In comic books, superheroes have this big moment—a spider bite or a puddle of radioactive goo—that turns them from someone normal into something extraordinary. But Andrew changed from Peter Parker into Spider-Man slowly—so slowly I didn’t notice while it was happening—the years morphing him from the gangly kid, all hands and feet and freckles, into someone girls find cute, someone with power over girls like Cecilia Brooks and Susie Palmer. And with great power comes great responsibility, so I try my best to keep him in check—to keep him from becoming SuperDouche.
Still, I can’t help thinking about how he’s so much farther along than I am. It’s like everyone else in school is competing to beat each other’s high scores and I’m still trying to put the batteries in my controller.
“G’night, Drewchebag,” I say into the dark. But he’s already asleep and he answers me with a loud drunken snore.
THREE
“NOW THAT I’M a woman, I’m going to order an espresso,” Danielle says from the driver’s seat on our way to Dunkin’ Donuts the next afternoon. “That’s the little one without any milk and sugar, right?”
“Yeah, and it tastes like gasoline,” Ava answers from shotgun. “Besides, you’ve put five Splendas in your coffee since seventh grade. I don’t think one magical night can change that.”
We’ve just spent all morning helping clean Andrew’s house—scrubbing down counters, mopping the floors, shoveling the driveway so everyone’s footprints and tire tracks are gone. Andrew’s mom is a bit intense about the house—she refers to her bedroom as �
�the sanctuary” and spends so much time at Crate and Barrel she probably gets the employee discount. So we know she’ll notice if something is out of place. The morning after a party is always a several-hour ordeal if you’re nice enough to stick around. Guys like Jason Ryder never do.
I have this idea in my head that things will be different once I get to California, that the kids there are classy and drink wine with their pinkies out, that the guys don’t get drunk on Keystone Light and then try to smoke weed out of the empty can. But maybe people are the same everywhere.
We’ve been sent on a dumpster drive, so the car is piled with bags of trash we’re supposed to drop—empty bottles and cans that we couldn’t leave as evidence inside the house. I’m in the back seat with Hannah, who looks a little green, probably from the smell wafting out of the trash bags. Unfortunately for all of us, Ava loves musical theater, so we’re currently listening to a song from Wicked that’s about three octaves too high for the day after a party.
“For the love of God, can we turn this off?” Danielle reaches for the stereo, but Ava slaps her hand away.
“No! ‘Defying Gravity’ is literally the best song of all time. Are you telling me this doesn’t make you feel something?”
“Yeah,” Danielle says. “It makes me feel like I want to die.”
“Careful,” Ava says. “I could put on Cats instead. Cats is terrifying.”
Ava has been the star of every school musical since freshman year. She’ll be at NYU next year with Hannah, and although their majors are different, the image of the two of them exploring New York City together makes my heart hurt if I think about it for too long.
“Is there a musical where all the songs are just relaxing ocean sounds? Let’s listen to that,” Hannah says, leaning her head against the window.
We’re on a curvy back road lined on either side with pine trees. Prescott is full of roads like these, carving through the middle of nowhere. Downtown is only a four-block strip lined with shops and restaurants. In the summer, the nearby lake draws tons of tourists: families with inner tubes and giant tubs of sunscreen, or hikers with backpacks and dreadlocks passing through on the Appalachian Trail. Fall brings the leaf-peepers, city people from New York or Boston who drive so slowly on the roads they’re a hazard to traffic. But in early March, we’re a ghost town.
As we pull onto a busier street, Dunkin’ Donuts appears on our left, a glorious pink and orange beacon of all things good in the world. Danielle drives right past it.
“What are you doing?” Ava shrieks. “I need caffeine! I have a headache!” This is hard to believe from the decibel of her voice. Ava always projects like she’s trying to reach the back of an auditorium. Sometimes people get on her about being too theater kid, but I kinda like that about her. She always feels everything totally and completely. One time in ninth-grade English she cried while reading this poem out loud to the class and she wasn’t even embarrassed about it.
“We’re going to the one on Base Hill instead.” Danielle rolls her eyes as if this should be obvious. Dunkin’ Donuts locations dot our state like confetti. There are three in our county alone, even though we don’t even have a movie theater and have to drive almost an hour to get to a mall. “They just put one in right next to that gym where all the EVmU guys work out.”
Eastern Vermont University, our local college, is known for its herbology department, if you know what I mean. Lots of kids from Prescott go there on the weekends to crash parties, but I’ve never wanted to put myself through that; a college party sounds like literal torture.
“What, now that you’re a woman you only want college boys?” I ask Danielle, grinning.
“We’ve given high school boys too many chances,” she says.
“I hate that expression by the way,” Hannah says. “The concept that you have to get penetrated by a peen in order to become a woman. Like, why are we giving guys so much power?”
“And what about lesbians?” I add.
“Yes!” Ava says. “Chase Brosner does not have a magical penis.”
“Thank God,” Danielle says. “His ego is already big enough.”
“No guy has a magical penis,” I say, laughing. “They all just think they do.”
“Have you talked to Chase?” Hannah asks. “You know . . . since?”
Danielle pulls the car sharply into a turn, ignoring a yield sign. “We both got what we wanted. He’s an idiot if he thinks it’s ever going to happen again after that show last night.”
“He’s such an asshole.” Ava nods in agreement. “It’s like Charlie all over again.” She glances back at Hannah. “They act like they care about you, but it’s all a big joke, isn’t it? They only care about you until they cum.”
“There’s already a bag of trash sitting next to me,” Hannah says. “Do we really have to talk about Charlie?”
“I’m just being honest,” Ava says, her voice rising. “Isn’t it depressing that none of us is still with the guy we lost our virginity to? When you care too much, it just hurts you.” She turns around in her seat, eyeing me pointedly. “Keely, you’re lucky you’re still a virgin.”
“Whatever. I don’t regret it.” Danielle pulls into the parking lot and stops the car in front of the gym, shifting a little too forcefully into park. We watch as a beefy guy in his midtwenties pushes open the gym door, holding it for a girl behind him. She walks through into the cold air, wrapping her arms around his waist like she belongs there.
“It’s only going to get worse in college,” Danielle says. “You’re supposed to be done with the awkward part, right? You’re supposed to get that out of the way in high school.” She looks right at me. “Being a virgin in college is like having a disease.”
Ava was right about the espresso, of course. Penetration did nothing to change Danielle’s taste buds, and after one sip, she orders something that’s mostly whipped cream. While she and Ava wait at the counter for her second drink, Hannah and I walk our coffees back to a table in the corner.
“Danielle’s just putting on a show, you know,” Hannah says, taking a hesitant sip of her latte. “She’s pretending she doesn’t care, because Chase literally screwed her over. That thing she just said about having a disease is such an unhealthy mind-set.” She fiddles with the lid of her cup. “Honestly, virginity shouldn’t even be that big of a deal. We only make it a big thing because we put all this pressure on it. You shouldn’t worry about being a virgin. Everybody thinks it’s fine.”
“That’s the problem though.” I set down my coffee. “Everybody knows. Everybody shouldn’t think it’s fine, because everybody shouldn’t know.”
I went with Hannah to The Rocky Horror Picture Show last Halloween, dressed up in wigs and corsets. When we first arrived, the show’s emcee took a tube of bright red lipstick and drew a big V on each of our foreheads to let the rest of the audience know we were “Rocky Virgins” and this was our first time seeing the show. This is how I feel every day in the halls of Prescott—like everyone in school can still see that big red V on my forehead, like I never washed it off.
My parents have always been really open with me about sex. They very willingly gave me the “birds and the bees” talk in fourth grade, going into way more detail than was absolutely necessary at the time. The phrase “clitoral stimulation” will probably be seared into my brain for the rest of eternity.
We aren’t a town of churchgoers for the most part, at least not in the way you’d think. It’s not uncommon here to identify as “spiritual” instead of “religious”—to believe in an energy in the trees or to look for guidance from the stars. My family celebrates Christmas, but it’s always been more about presents than anything else. Danielle has always described herself as Jew-ish; she never bothered with a bat mitzvah and usually cheats during Passover, saying she could never last more than a day without a bagel.
I know in some other parts of the wo
rld, in cultures different from ours, religion plays a much bigger role in shaping ideas of sex and purity. For some people, sex comes with marriage. It’s not embarrassing to wait, it’s expected. Sex is a demonstration of love, something sacred.
But then, Hannah thought her first time was sacred. She loved Charlie, and he claimed to love her back. She waited for the moment it felt right. When he suggested they spend the night at his lake house, she knew what was implied. It was romantic, special—perfect. Until the next week, when he dumped her for Julie Spencer.
I’m not waiting for marriage. I’m not even really waiting for love. What I want is respect and trust. I want to know that whoever I have sex with will make me feel safe, that they won’t leave me for a junior in their French class, or never talk to me again, or tell everyone at the party in a matter of minutes. I don’t think I could handle a public humiliation as well as Danielle did. For that matter, I don’t think I should have to.
Wait until you’re ready, people always say. But how are you supposed to know when you’re ready? Do you wake up one day and suddenly feel more grown-up, more like an adult? I don’t feel like an adult at all. If having sex means opening yourself up to heartbreak, or ridicule, or pain, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.
“If it’s this bad now, how’s it going to be next year?” I ask miserably. “We’re going to college in the two biggest cities in the country. There probably haven’t been any virgins in LA since the eighties.”
“We have six months until college,” Hannah offers. “You still have time. And next year is our fresh start, remember?”
The little bell above the door jingles and a cold gust of air swoops into the store, blowing a guy inside with it. He looks college-aged, probably an EVmU student coming from the gym next door. I watch as he puffs into a pair of fingerless gloves, rubbing his hands together. He’s all dark hair and clean lines, with warm chocolate eyes and hard cheekbones tinged pink from the cold. And I swear—he’s the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen in real life. Hannah and I gape at him, pausing mid-conversation.