Layla nodded again. “I just wish the physical and the emotional weren’t so tangled for you,” she said as plainly as possible, but she could still hear a bit of sharpness in her voice.
“Of course they are. I think that’s how it works. But that doesn’t mean whatever’s not connected isn’t, you know . . . great.” In Layla’s head the word “great” basically sounded the same as the word “awful.” “Come on, Layla, you know I love you, right? To the moon and back.” Logan waited for Layla to nod before saying anything else. “And you gotta know I’m gonna love you even if . . . I mean, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen tonight, but I wrote the clues when I thought we were gonna have sex, so . . .” Logan paused for another moment before asking, “We’re . . . we’re not, right?”
“I feel like you’re holding out on me,” Layla said, avoiding the question.
“Can I say the same thing? Or does that make me an asshole?”
“You’re not an asshole, but you should tell me if you’re mad—”
“I’m not mad, Layla, but I think I’m allowed to be, like, disappointed if we don’t end up having sex.” Layla could feel her face and all of its features sinking towards the floor. “I know you think I’m all perfect all the time, like this perfect boyfriend, but I’m really not . . .”
“No, stop that, you are perfect—”
“Then, why don’t you want to have sex with me?!” Logan asked, finally allowing himself to get heated.
“I don’t know!” Layla said loudly, filling all the space inside the car with her voice and her breath and her emotions. “It just feels like . . . pressure. All the clues and everything—”
“I only did all that stupid shit because you asked for it! I was ready to just do it in my car a month ago—”
“Jesus Christ, Logan, yes, I know, your stupid car,” Layla yelled, annoyed they were even having this conversation in Logan’s car let alone somehow still sort of entertaining the possibility of having sex in it. “I don’t want to ‘just do it’, but if that’s what you really want, then maybe we should pull over right now—”
“Layla, stop it—”
“Why? We both know you have a condom in your glove compartment!”
“I actually have two condoms in my glove compartment!” Logan said, trying to calm Layla down, but the words came out of his mouth loudly—very, very loudly—which caused him to break into an unexpectedly big belly laugh.
Layla couldn’t help but join in on the laughing too.
And before they knew it, their laughter had taken over completely, wrapping them both up in an uncontrollable fit and giving them a much-needed break in the conversation.
“What are we doing?” Logan finally managed to ask, far more softly.
“I hope we’re still driving to the pier.”
“Okay, good. Me too.”
“I’m sorry,” Layla said after a bit of a pause.
“It’s called Love Story,” Logan said after some more silence.
“What?”
“The movie with that quote, ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’? It’s called Love Story.” Layla couldn’t help but think that maybe Logan had written that in one of the envelopes she wasn’t going to get to read. She agreed with Logan’s mom, it was one of the stupidest things she’d ever heard. She was in love with Logan, but she was also sorry.
Very sorry.
And she simply had to say it to him.
Then, the red light they’d been sitting at for a small eternity finally turned green, and Logan continued to drive west toward the Santa Monica Pier as if nothing had changed between them.
Even though, clearly, everything had.
127 days until graduation . . .
EMMA glanced at the stack of phones in the center of the table.
So far it was just hers and Alex’s and Zoe’s. There was no sign of Layla.
Normally, Layla was the first one to arrive and claim a spot in The Bigg Chill line, which was usually so long it went all the way out the door. The rest of The Crew would arrive before Layla reached the front, and they’d all order together. But today, it was Emma, Zoe, and Alex who made it all the way to the front of the line without any sign of Layla. Alex had already tried every flavor. And Bigg Chill Aaron had already filled their orders. And the girls had already claimed their usual table in the back corner. Now, the three of girls sat together, more or less in silence, picking at their yogurt, and blatantly stalling as they waited for Layla.
Just as Emma was about to ask if maybe they should try texting or even calling, Layla came bounding through the door of The Bigg Chill, causing the welcome mat to make its familiar, happy ding-dong noise. “There she is!” Alex said, using an outside voice, “Layla Baxter, ladies and gentleman . . .” Emma applauded along with Alex, making a bit of a scene in the Sunday afternoon froyo parlor. Emma noticed that Zoe hadn’t really joined in on the merriment.
* * *
LAYLA humored the girls with a bit of a wave and then beelined for the counter.
She knew she was late, but she desperately needed some froyo before she’d be able to talk to them. Luckily, Bigg Chill Aaron was waiting to take her order.
“Good timing,” he said, remarking on the rare absence of the usually long line. “You want The Layla?” He didn’t seem to realize that he’d called her order “The Layla” until he’d already said it. “I mean, uh, the usual,” he corrected as quickly as he could. “Half peanut butter, half chocolate, Sno-Caps on the side?”
“Yes, please. And, for the record, I love that you just called it The Layla.”
“Cool, yeah. Don’t worry. I’m only, you know, marginally embarrassed . . .” Bigg Chill Aaron said as he flashed his sideways smile. Layla smiled back, holding his eyes for an extra moment before joining the rest of The Crew at their table.
She dropped her overnight bag on the floor.
She put her cell phone on top of the phone stack.
She pushed her bangs out of her eyes.
She stuck her spoon in her froyo and took a big bite.
And then, when she couldn’t think of any more ways to delay the inevitable, she took a little inhale and finally just came out with it: “Still a virgin.”
“Whoa,” Zoe said softly, almost reflexively.
“Yeah.” It was still sinking in for Layla, too.
“I kind of figured . . . ’cause you didn’t send a sexie,” Alex admitted. “Are you okay?”
Layla was okay.
More or less . . .
“You know I don’t like it when the plan changes, even if I’m the one who changes it.”
“Did . . . um . . . did you guys break up?” Emma asked carefully.
“What? No—no!” They hadn’t broken up, and to be honest they hadn’t even discussed that as a possibility, but Layla could feel the quick cadence of her words and the weight of her body language . . . she knew it was all overcompensating. The fact that Layla had to try so hard with her face and her smile and everything made her sick to her stomach or maybe even sick to her heart, which was sitting all the way down on top of her feet again.
Layla had hoped some of her heaviness might have disappeared now that she and Logan hit the snooze button on their V-card swap, but it felt like her emotions simply didn’t work like that.
Layla looked over at Zoe, who looked like she was about to burst into tears, so Layla managed to put on an even braver and happier face, so much so that her cheeks started to hurt from smiling. “I promise we’re good. We still had a fun Valentine’s Day—and night. We went to the pier and watched the sunset and slept at Logan’s uncle’s beach house in the marina, which was pretty cool. We’d never actually, like, slept in the same bed before.”
“But he wasn’t, like, mad?” Emma asked.
“Well. He wasn’t thrilled. But I just . . . I don’t know. I wasn’t ready . . . He understood that.”
“And then you gave him the best head of his entire life?” Alex asked even though
it was more of a statement than a question.
“Duh. Twice,” Layla admitted, which made her and Emma and Alex laugh.
* * *
ZOE wanted to laugh along with the other girls, but she couldn’t.
Instead, a tear dropped down her cheek.
“Oh, Zo, don’t . . . It’s okay. Logan and I are gonna be all right. I promise.”
Zoe nodded. She knew that they would. Or at least she believed Layla when she said it.
But that’s not why her tears kept falling.
“What’s wrong, Zo?” Emma asked.
“I, um . . . ,” Zoe started to say, but a few more tears fell down her face before she could push any more words out of her lips. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I mean, I know . . . but . . .” The girls waited lovingly as Zoe took a deep a breath and then finally explained herself.
“Austin and I had sex yesterday.”
“Whoa.”
“What?”
“Zoe . . .”
“Yep.” Zoe could feel even more tears bubbling up and then pouring down her cheeks. She hated that she was crying. “Sorry I’m such a girl . . .”
“Hey. No. Do not apologize for being a girl,” Alex said sternly. “Or for crying, either. You don’t get any bonus points for pretending not to have emotions. Tears are so important. And totally underrated.” It wasn’t the sort of thing Zoe would expect Alex to say. Most of the time Alex protected her thoughts and feelings, bottling them up inside, which made her words seem even more true and important.
“Why didn’t you tell us when it happened?” Layla asked.
The simple answer was that Zoe hadn’t wanted to step on Layla’s big day. She and Logan had been planning to do it for so long . . . and it all just happened so fast with her and Austin. She figured she would text The Chat after Layla did, but then Layla never did.
“I’m sorry,” Zoe said again. “Not for crying,” she clarified, almost laughing a little through her tears. She still didn’t know exactly what was making her cry. She wasn’t sad, exactly, but it felt like she was having a lot of emotions all at once. All of the feels, apparently. And they were all showing up in her eyes and then falling down her cheeks. She simply couldn’t stop them.
“If you don’t want to talk about it . . . ,” Layla said.
“No, I do,” Zoe replied. She could feel that not talking about it had actually been making her feel worse, as if having sex with Austin were some sort of secret, which it wasn’t. Or as if she’d done something wrong, which she hadn’t. Zoe told the story as completely as she could, giving Layla and the girls the “full mental picture.” She started from the beginning, explaining how she had been giving Austin head and how he’d mentioned wanting to have sex . . . and how she said she did too. And how, even though they hadn’t talked about it before, they couldn’t think of a reason not to do it right then and there, except that Austin wasn’t sure whether or not he had a condom. Zoe said she didn’t want to have sex if he didn’t have one, so literally he ripped his entire room apart until he managed to find one tucked in the back of a drawer on his nightstand. Zoe went to the bathroom to freshen up, and when she came out Austin had cleaned up his room the best he could and lit a bunch of candles to try and set some sort of mood. It was afternoon, so it was still light outside and the candles weren’t all that effective, but it was a nice, sort of romantic gesture—except that one of the candles smelled like a pumpkin spice latte, and Zoe had to blow it out because it just kept making her think of Thanksgiving dinner, which was a decidedly unsexy thought. After they figured out the candle situation, Austin turned on some music on his phone. It was a song Zoe had heard before but she couldn’t quite remember the name. It certainly wasn’t a song that Zoe would’ve picked to listen to, especially not at a moment like this, but she’d been so particular about the pumpkin candle she decided to let it slide.
After that, everything felt like it happened at the same time. Zoe and Austin were kissing and then they were naked and then Austin put on the condom. The good news was that Austin seemed to know what he was doing, or at least what he was trying to do. He’d had sex a few times before, but it took him a minute to line everything up just right. . . . Once Austin found the proper angle and body position and all that, he managed to successfully push inside of her, but it wasn’t very graceful. Zoe decided it was probably whatever the exact opposite of graceful is . . . Clumsy? Ugly? Awkward? Probably all of the above combined.
“Yeah, it’s definitively not pretty.” Emma laughed.
“Ohmigod, I can’t even imagine what we actually must’ve looked like . . .”
“Whatever. The real question is did you like it?” Layla asked after a little bit more laughing.
Zoe had to think about that.
The truth was that it felt . . . well . . . it felt better once Austin found a rhythm.
After a little bit of time had passed, he had stopped to ask if she was okay. She was—and she said she was. And then he asked if it felt good. She knew he wanted her to tell him that it felt amazing or something all big and perfect like that, but that truth was that it actually kind of hurt. But she still told him it felt okay, which was more or less true—or at least true enough—and so Austin kept going. And then, after a few more minutes—or maybe just one more minute, Zoe wasn’t sure exactly—it really did start to feel more painful than pleasureful, and Zoe felt like maybe Austin’s penis was just too big for her vagina, which, under normal circumstances, might’ve made her giggle, except that right then whatever was happening really did actually start to hurt—a lot, way more than it had even just a moment before.
Zoe was about to ask him to stop or at least take a break, but before she could, he said he was gonna cum—and he did.
He fireworked.
Zoe, unsurprisingly, didn’t.
But she did feel a whole rush of emotions. Predominately she was proud that she had just made Austin do that. She was proud that she’d made him look like that and feel that way, all primal and euphoric . . . but then she had two more overwhelming thoughts at the very same time. One was that she didn’t feel that same way he did (even though maybe she wanted to) and the other was that she hadn’t actually done much of anything at all. Austin had done most of it. He was the one moving or thrusting or whatever it was exactly. Zoe had just been on her back, lying on the bed, trying to figure out whether or not it hurt . . .
Afterward they’d cleaned up and Zoe’d snapped a sexie that she never ended up sending.
And that was it.
And it was only then, as Zoe got to the end of the whole story, that she realized she hadn’t answered Layla’s original question: Did she like it?
Honestly?
She still wasn’t entirely sure.
“That’s okay,” Emma reaffirmed. “It’s a lot.”
Yeah. It was a lot. Zoe certainly didn’t regret what had happened, but the reality of it was more than she had anticipated.
“Do you want to do it again?” Layla asked rather carefully.
“Not today,” Zoe said with a little laugh. “But, yeah. I do.”
A few hours later Zoe found herself standing in front of her bathroom mirror. She was wrapped in a towel, freshly showered, staring at her reflection. She’d seen this same reflection a million times before, but tonight she wondered if she looked any different. Would anyone be able to tell that she wasn’t a virgin anymore? Probably not, she thought. She looked the same to herself. Same pale. Same red. Same frizz and freckles and all that.
Then a new text message from Austin had just appeared on her phone: Hi sexy
Zoe looked back at her reflection.
She didn’t feel particularly sexy.
It was ironic, she thought, to feel like she knew less now than she did before she had sex, or maybe now she just understood that there was still so much more to know. And it made her think about “I Know Things Now,” the song from Into the Woods that had been echoing in her head. The very last lyric
of the song said that it was “nice to know a lot . . . and a little bit not.”
Now that is how Zoe felt: nice and also not.
Both, simultaneously.
Hi, she texted back.
Thinking about you, Austin responded quickly.
Aw, that’s sweet, she thought.
But then she thought about what exactly he might be thinking about . . . and laughed as she realized that, yes, Austin really was a sweet guy, and yes, she was sure his intentions were good, but mostly, yes, she was sure his thoughts were most likely dirty, too.
And she liked that.
But, then again, she also did not.
118 days until graduation . . .
ALEX was running out of time.
Literally.
Lately she’d been spending as much time as she could on the track, but it still felt like there would never be enough runway to run as fast as she needed to run in order to break the record.
“You gotta believe!” Coach K said, or almost scolded, as Alex pulled off her track shoes after practice on Tuesday.
“I do believe . . . ,” Alex grumbled.
“Then why don’t I believe you?”
“I don’t know!” Alex said.
At least that sounded like an honest answer.
More than anything, Alex wanted to clear her mind and just focus on her feet, but it didn’t work like that. She had a whole body of parts in between that needed attention. And she still had to show up at school every day. And Oliver was still her car pool driver, and they were still riding to school together, even though they hadn’t actually spoken since Valentine’s Day. And it was fine, really. But then again it also really wasn’t. And they were just both so stubborn, Alex was starting to think they might never speak to each other ever again.
But. As was the case with so many of her thoughts and plans, Alex was mistaken.
“Hi,” Oliver said far too casually as she approached the parking lot. He was sitting on the hood of his car, his hair still wet from a recent shower.
“Hello,” Alex replied with enough emphasis to let him know she was surprised to be hearing from him let alone seeing him here and apparently waiting for her.
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