At the top of the stairs, I wait for Jethro to fall into step beside me. His knuckles brush against mine so lightly, I might not have even noticed except for the thrill of electricity it sends up my arm. I’m about to brazenly (drunkenly) grab his hand when a pair of paintings grabs my attention.
“This is Diane Tesler!” I yell-whisper, putting my face against the glass door to get a closer look.
Jethro puts his head next to mine. “Who is she?”
“Uh, only the greatest living painter in driving distance.” I bonk his head gently for emphasis. “I mean…how many painters can make an abandoned truck and an antique toy look like that?”
He peers through the glass, trying to see what I see. His face glows in the dim light. In his green eyes, I can see the tiny flecks now. Any half-decent artist would call them coyote brown. They glint with something burning behind them that I’m sure I can feel dancing across my shoulders, making my breath a little shakier. It’s a rare and exquisite kind of panic unfolding in me right now that feels…so good.
I lower my eyes. I’m so aware of how close our faces are, of the warmth coming off his skin.
“Anna,” Jethro whispers. His voice sounds careful.
The word rebound pops up in my head, surrounded by question marks and teardrop emojis. I swat it out of my head like a fruit fly. My hand reaches for him almost reflexively, and his fingers slip between my own. My heart hammers behind my ribs.
What am I doing?
He inches a step closer.
I can’t look up. So I bury my head in his chest and breathe him in. Tide detergent and delicious boy smell. What is that magical smell? He feels so solid, and I can hear his heart racing with mine.
“I missed you,” I whisper to his T-shirt.
I hear his breath catch and then the smile in his voice when he says, “I know. I’m pretty awesome.”
With a laugh, I whack his chest with my fist. “I know.”
Jethro slides a hand along my neck, his fingers catching in my hair, sending a bolt of lightning down my spine.
Suddenly, the beam from a flashlight bobs around the corner, followed by the static of a security guard’s walkie-talkie.
I feel my eyes bulge in my head, very real panic ready to set in, but Jethro just grins, grabs my hand, and pulls me down the hallway.
—
We race from the Torpedo Factory, sprinting past the last few reception guests and across the dim parking lot, my boots kicking against the Eubankses’ fur coat. The cold air bites my flushed cheeks as we catch our breath between bouts of laughter.
“Whew! Close one,” Jethro says. His wide smile makes his eyes crinkle, and I want to run my fingers through his wild, Hemsworthian hair.
I fumble for my keys. My teeth clack loudly. Jethro moves to stand square in front of me and rubs my furry arms. I forget what I’m doing as I look up at him. His face is bright from our run and the winter air; his breath puffs out around me in the thick darkness.
I click the button to unlock the car, but neither one of us moves.
Without a second thought, I push myself up on my toes to close the space between us and press my lips against his once, quickly.
He looks at me, stunned, and blinks. I’m shaking, but I’m not sure it’s the cold anymore. I feel energized and reckless and want him so badly—
I lean in again.
This time Jethro moves forward and kisses me back, hard. His lips move against mine—slow and searching at first, then greedily, hungrily, like he never wants to stop.
I wrap my arms around his neck and lean back against the car, letting him pin me there. His whole body presses against mine, the weight of it lighting my nerves, and somehow it’s not close enough. I don’t think he could ever be close enough.
I kiss him until I’m gasping. His mouth moves down my jaw and my neck. I wind my fingers in his shirt, clutching his shoulders as his teeth graze the curve of my ear.
Something like a groan vibrates deep in Jethro’s throat.
My lips find his again, desperate and wild, as he presses me harder against the car and pulls open the door.
I lean back and fall, stolen fur first, onto the backseat, pulling Jethro with me. My hands search for the warm skin at the bottom of his T-shirt.
He shudders, says against my mouth, “Your hands are freezing,” but his words are as wobbly as mine get when I’m nervous.
I reply by pulling his fur off, then his shirt over his head. He snakes his arms around me and kisses me deeply.
When my alarm goes off, I’m positive there’s been some mistake. There’s no way it’s already 6:30 a.m. But when I turn to my bedside table, the numbers 6, 3, and 0 are flashing at me in demonic red. Before I can groan, a thought pops into my head that crowds out all the rest.
I lost my virginity a few hours ago. To one of my best friends.
Maybe it’s the wicked hangover I have right now that’s overwhelming every other physical sensation, but I don’t feel any different. No more like a woman than I did yesterday. After basically five years of thinking about sex in one way or another every day—wondering what it would be like, what I would feel like after—everything seems pretty much the same. It was a little painful at the beginning last night, but then it got better fast. I can’t feel anything different down there now, like I always heard you do. He used a condom, and it didn’t last that long, but I don’t really know how long it was supposed to last anyway.
Wiping drool from my cheek, I struggle through tangled blankets and the throbbing in my head to sit up. The bit of sun seeping between the drawn curtains hurts my eyes. My tongue is a dried-out crust. I slap the clock and let autopilot take me to the bathroom, turn on the shower. The one other time I’ve been hungover in my life was at a wedding in Bogotá when I was fourteen, when my older cousins got this unsuspecting half gringa lit on canelazo. I feel a billion times worse today.
Scalding water crashes down, steam clouding my vision, and the night slowly comes back to me. I feel a weird detachment from the specific events, but I remember everything in detail—drinking those beers, Palmer and Vanessa, then Haven and Vanessa, the panic attack, Jethro, the Torpedo Factory, the car, the condom.
The sex.
I had sex with Jethro.
I whisper it out loud several times into the hiss of the running water, but that doesn’t make it seem any more real. It happened. I know it did. I was there. I…started it. He asked me half a dozen times, every step of the way, if I was ready. If I thought it was a good idea. But I didn’t want to think. My whole life feels like one big thinkfest. All I wanted, for once, was to feel. To throw thinking to the curb.
I smush my forehead against the cool tile while the hot water runs off my nose, over my squeezed-shut eyes. My brain feels like a cracked-open egg sloshing around in my skull. And in my stomach. I gag and force the feeling back down, turn off the water. The bathroom begins to cool. I breathe deeply through my nose, hold it, let it out slooowly.
It’s been almost two weeks since Palmer and I broke up.
Who am I?
I went from barely having been kissed to having a serious boyfriend, breaking up, and now losing my virginity in less than six months.
As I turn off the shower spigot, the word rebound flashes through my head like it’s on some sign held up by a game-show host.
I chug a glass of water, and then another. Hydration kills hangovers, I remember Rad saying once. I throw on my least high-maintenance outfit—my body needs some TLC. A long-sleeved tee and my reliable overalls. Then I stumble over to my bedside table and grab my phone. I unlock it with my thumb and see there’s one new text. A long one.
From Jethro.
Certain phrases instantly leap out at me, almost knocking me over:
ever since sophomore year
even better next time
greatest night of my life
nothing else matters now
Oh God. No. What?
My mind races. It’s a sweet,
mushy, flattering message. It does make my insides feel like butterflies just moved in and will be living there forever. But—how can he be so sure about this? What happened to the great, casual hookup culture that the millennials before us invented? I know Jethro’s had sex a couple of times before too, so it’s not even his first! And it’s senior year, for God’s sake!
I love Jethro. I really do. As a friend, and maybe…maybe it could be more. Maybe it is more. Maybe it’s always been more.
But!
This text is intense. Do I have to respond right away? I’m not at all sure what to say. Here are a few things I am sure of, though:
1. I have never, in my entire life, been more desperate for that kind of attention or affection. Which means I can’t really be trusted to make rational decisions about boys. Even ones I love in some way or another.
2. Jethro doesn’t want to be a rebound. He told me that himself just yesterday, and Jesus, I did it anyway, which he must see as proof that I am as totally sure about this as he is, ’cause what kind of friend would do that to him unless she was sure?
3. Rad said not to screw anything else up. How many more strikes till I’m out?
I stare at the phone screen like it holds a key to this enormous new problem I’ve just created in my life. The more times I reread his message, the more I realize last night was too far, too fast.
Jethro’s always been there for me. He’s completely adorable; he’s always loved me, never abandoned me, always made me smile no matter what’s wrong in my life. He knows all the worst parts of me, and maybe that’s a good thing, after all, not something to avoid. And yet I know one thing for certain: Jethro’s friendship is too important to me to let it get messed up.
A knock on my door makes my head feel like it’s exploding with every knuckle rap. “Anna,” my dad says from the other side, his voice sharp with concern, “your mother and I went to sleep at eleven. You still weren’t home. I called and you didn’t answer.”
“I told you, Dad, I was shooting for the paper.”
“You shouldn’t have screened my calls.”
Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have done a lot of things.
“Sorry, Dad!” I call out, and grab my backpack.
—
I turn my hand into a visor as I walk through the Prep hallways between classes because the fluorescent lights are hella bright. By lunch, not one academic fact has penetrated the fog of my pounding headache. Still, fortunately, I have managed to have zero encounters with friends or more-than-friends, or ex-friends or ex-more-than-friends.
I have fifth period free, so I head out to the parking lot to nap in my car, which is, admittedly, a pretty low depth.
“ANNA!”
Rad’s right hand is behind her back. A thin tendril of smoke rises above her head like she’s sprouted a single devil’s horn. Rad often sneaks a smoke in the parking lot during lunch. If all my synapses had been firing, I’d have gone somewhere else.
“Heyyy,” I say. But as the word escapes my mouth, I realize there’s about ten times too much enthusiasm. She’ll see right through it.
“Been looking for you,” Rad says, eyeing me skeptically. “I was thinking you could do one of my calc problem sets as your punishment for today.”
“Rad, not now. I’m, like, really hungover….”
“Were you that drunk at the party?”
“Nothing too crazy…” I trail off. And I pray she’ll leave it at that.
She runs an appraising eye over my face, my clothes. “You’re making Lindsay Lohan look like Kate Middleton today,” she says, not mean, just matter-of-fact. “You must’ve had a really good time last night.”
“Yeah, it was okay. Thanks for inviting me.”
“Have you seen Nikki?”
“No. Why? She okay?”
“She’s more than okay. Don’t worry, she’ll find you. Which is more than I could say for you last night. You disappeared after the Eubanks-Dodd smackdown.”
“Oh,” I say cautiously, trying not to lie. I seriously doubt Jethro would ever say anything to the girls about what happened. “I got panicky. Had to get out. I thought you were off with Andrew, anyway.”
I don’t know if Rad even knows Jethro showed up at the party. But what I’ve decided is that, while I won’t lie if she or Nikki asks me a direct question about what happened (honesty equals part one of getting your friends back), I’m not going to volunteer anything either. Not yet, anyway. Of course I want to tell her that I’m no longer looking over the wall of virginity from the other side. I know that she of all people will be proud. Impressed, even. Of course I want to spill my guts and confess and ask her how to handle Jethro now. But I have to figure out what the hell to do with these kinda-sorta feelings.
Fortunately, Nikki comes jogging up to us and saves me from having to talk about last night anymore. She has a huge smile on her face.
“Did you tell her?” she asks Rad, breathless.
I squint. “Tell me what?”
Rad shakes her head. “She hasn’t done nearly enough penance yet today.”
Nikki: “Come on, Rad.”
She looks at me warily. “Fine. We will show Anna that we are real friends, that we aren’t monsters, like she is.”
Nikki turns to me with a smile. “I was with Mattie last night!” she squeals.
“Last night?” I say. “You hooked up?”
“Oh, it was so much more than hooking up, Anna,” she says. “It was like…a Nicholas Sparks movie, except not cheesy. He told me how much he likes me and was glad I joined the crew, and he thinks I’m hot and talented, and then he kissed me.” She pulls down the neck of her shirt to reveal a hickey. “Then,” she continues excitedly, “after Vanessa kicked the crap out of Haven, we went out to his car, and…” Nikki’s eyes dance from Rad’s face to mine, back to Rad’s. “Well, I lost it.”
I’m trying to process what she’s saying.
“Wait. You mean…It with a capital I?”
Nikki nods.
Oh wow. Big night last night. Two-for-one special at the V-card incinerator. I lost It with a capital I in a haze of confused feelings and nostalgia and ill-timed decision making, and Nikki got her fairy-tale First Time.
“Our little girl, gone wild,” Rad says.
I know I have to say something. Now. “How do you feel?” I ask.
Nikki, in a hushed voice: “It was perfect. Well, actually, it really, really hurt. Why didn’t you tell me it hurt so much, Rad?” She smacks Rad’s arm. “Anyway, it was amazing being with Mattie, and now I’m just thinking…are we a couple now? How do I ask him without sounding desperate or like a complete clueless dork?”
“Whoa, eager beaver,” Rad says. She points at Nikki’s crotch. “Or whatever you have down there these days. I love a good Sparks flick, but Zac Efron doesn’t just walk into your life, take your V-card, and love you forever and ever, amen, in real life.”
Nikki frowns. “Mattie’s more of a Ryan Gosling, I think, but—”
“Nik, focus. Take one of Anna’s weird deep breaths,” Rad says. I look at the sky. Oof, that sun is too much for my headache. Rad is still going strong. “Play it cool, like it’s no big deal. Less Sparks, more…Amber Rose. Besides, and most importantly, it’s senior spring. Hos before Bromeos,” Rad says, pointing to me. “Be careful or you’ll end up in the sixth circle of hell with this one.”
Nikki says, “Don’t worry. No matter what happens, you guys always come first.”
Rad shakes her head, nods at me. “That’s what she used to say. Look how that turned out.”
Nikki turns to me reassuringly. “It turned out okay in the end. Here we all are.”
“Thanks, Nik.”
“Speaking of people with too much mercy for you in their heart,” Rad says, clearly bored with this love-fest, “I saw Jethro in third. He was, like, acting super hyper. It was weird. Like he was high or something, he was so happy. I think Andrew must’ve gotten some really strong stuff. Do you know what his de
al is?”
I know Jethro wasn’t high; he rarely smokes, and he definitely doesn’t do it at school. But I know exactly why he was bouncing off the third-period walls.
“Not a clue,” I tell them.
So much for honesty.
—
Friday-afternoon chapel is one of Prep’s oldest traditions, dating back more than a hundred years. Because it’s the twenty-first century and we live in secular times, the ritual is stripped of most religious implications, even though it takes place in a large, vaulting space full of pews and kneelers and stained-glass windows depicting famous scenes from the Bible, with a Jared Leto–looking Jesus hanging from a cross. I sit toward the back with Rad and Nikki, whose face is stuck in a permanent, postcoital smile.
Headmaster Nichols’s address is about the Knock List. He talks confusingly about how an upgrade to the school’s app, Prep for Today, caused yesterday’s glitch, with some techie mumbo jumbo about “cloud vendors,” “mainframe terminals,” and something else no one cares about.
Rad points with her chin to the other side of the chapel. Haven, head tipped back against the pew, Adam’s apple jutting out, is dead asleep. Next to him, Andrew stares off into space. Then, on the other side of Andrew, farthest from us, I see Jethro for the first time. He must have slipped in late.
My breath quickens at the sight of him. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m excited to see him or if it’s because I’m terrified to talk to him. Either way…it’s going to be awkward. Maybe I can avoid him all day. Or forever? How are you supposed to act around someone you’ve had sex with? I wish I could ask Rad without having to actually tell her anything about my situation. But I’m pretty sure an I have this friend question isn’t going to cut it. He runs a hand through his hair, and a thrill ripples through my stomach as I flash back to those fingers in my hair, to kissing in the parking lot.
Damn it.
“Every word you type and text, every pic you snap and chat, is recorded somewhere on the Internet,” Nichols continues booming. “Your generation is the first to have your entire lives digitized, and it’s up to you to manage what gets recorded forever. You never know when it will come back to haunt you. Seniors, especially, should take great care, as colleges are most certainly watching…”
Antisocial Page 6