by Lauren Wood
I just wanted to cry when I got out of the cave. He was behind me and it was then that I realized that not only was I in the middle of nowhere, but that he was going to have to take me home because I’d ridden with him.
When he caught up, he was confused and wanted to know what was going on. I wish I could have told him. The truth was that I wasn't sure. I just knew that I was extremely embarrassed, and I wanted to get away from him.
“Can you just please take me home?”
“Can we talk about this for a minute? I really think that you took this all the wrong way.”
“I don't want to talk about it. I just want to go. Why can't you see that?”
“Yeah, sure, if that's what you want. I feel like there's a lot of miscommunication going on right now. I wasn't trying to upset you.”
I waved him off and said that it didn't matter, but I could tell that it did. It mattered to me, too, but I couldn’t have this conversation right now.
He agreed to take me home. It was obvious that he didn't understand what was going on and I really didn't either. All I knew was I did not want to have the conversation about it. His reaction to me telling him that I was a virgin was something that I was never going to forget. It hurt me because I really wanted him to be different. He had seemed different to me, but I guess I’d been wrong.
“At least let me try to explain myself. I know that I was probably looking at you like an idiot, but it just threw me off. You don't hear about people waiting that long anymore. After what we did the other day, I don't know, I just never would have thought that. You seemed quite ripe.”
It really wasn't hard to imagine his confusion. What we had done the other day was something that I’d never done before and even that had brought me some guilt and confusion. When I wanted to take him up on his words and not be upset about it, I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t. I was so embarrassed, and having a conversation about it was surely only going to make it worse. Couldn’t he see that I just wanted to go hide my face for a little while?
We got in the car and we didn't say anything for several moments. I was ever so thankful for that because anything said would have made matters worse. It didn't last long, though. We were about ten minutes from our houses when he tried to apologize again. I told him that again, I didn't want to talk about it, and he seemed to have something on his mind that he wanted to talk about. Whether I wanted to have a discussion or not, obviously didn't matter to him.
“I'm not really sure what happened today, but I had a good time with you. I didn’t expect anything. I’m not mad. It just threw me off, and I’m sorry that I couldn't pull myself together quick enough. I was really just in shock. I never would have guessed that.”
“Can we really just not talk about it? I don't want what is going on between us to be ruined because of it. I just want you to understand that. It’s a weird subject for me, and people usually change. I don’t want you to change, too.”
The more we talked, the worse it got. I wanted to tell him just to stop, but he didn't seem to get it
When we got back to his place, I got out of the car pretty quickly and went into my house. Whatever conversation we were supposed to have, I was dropping out of. My face was on fire, and I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts and my humiliation.
Mom was there when I opened the door, and she told me that dad was mad that I took off this morning, instead of going to the meetings that he had set up.
“Your father is very disappointed in you, young lady.”
I didn't blame him. I totally ignored the meetings and went and did what I wanted. It was not how he had taught me to be, and I knew that he was not going to take any excuse that I had.
She said that he was furious. I embarrassed him, which was pretty much the worst thing I could do.
“I really didn't mean for it to happen. I got sidetracked and I wasn't supposed to be gone that long.”
“You know that he is not going to want to hear any of that.”
I agreed and told her that I wouldn't give any excuses. It did me no good.
“Do you know where he's at?”
“Maybe he's in his office. Just make sure he's not on the phone already. He has been having a long morning and he has been on the phone, apologizing to all of those people you had meetings with. Maybe it wouldn't be the best idea for you to go in there right now. Why don't you give your father a little space and come shopping with me? You can tell me what you were doing out this morning that has you looking that way now.”
Even though she had framed it as a question, I was not stupid enough to believe that's what it was. I obviously did not have an option, and the cool and calm offer was actually mandatory.
“That sounds good. What are we shopping for?”
My mother started to bubble up. She loved shopping, and it was obvious that she was trying to distract me and maybe herself, too. I didn’t take near as much pleasure out of it, but I was willing to try anything, if it was going to help me stop thinking about Nick.
“A little bit of this and a little bit of that. You know I never know until I find it. Does it really matter?”
I told her that it didn't. I wasn't too much into all of that, but I needed a clear mind. I would feel better when I had to fight with dad later. If I had mom on my side, it would be a lot easier. She would be the one to calm his anger toward me.
I actually found that I was rather enjoying myself with mom. She was in a really good mood, and I forgot how funny she could be when she wanted to be. No matter how much I tried to find fault in the day, I really couldn't. It was just the thing that I needed. My mind was going a mile a minute and she was able to help me think about something other than the mess that had just happened with Nick.
That is, until she asked me what was going on, and there was nothing I could do but spill it all out to her. I needed another opinion anyway, because I really didn’t have much of any experience with boyfriends and men. I’d steered clear of them because of this moment, the one when they found out that they weren’t going to get sex from me. The one where Nick freaked out as well.
“Let's just say that things are complicated.”
“Things are always complicated. What is complicated now?”
“Nick.”
“Aww, that’s a shame. I really liked him.”
“I like him, too, but I don't think that I am the type of girl that he's looking for.”
She looked at me little strangely and asked me what that meant.
It occurred to me then, that my mom didn't really know much about my love life. Obviously, that was my fault, but it would have been helpful if she knew already that I was a virgin. I think that her reaction wasn’t going to be much better than Nick’s.
After I told her, mom was looking at me incredulously. Of course, I didn't want to repeat it and I didn't have to. She was just taking her time processing it. I could almost see the smoke coming out of her ears.
When she finally did say something, it was not at all what I had expected. She was almost nonchalant about it, which really set me at ease. That was something that my mom rarely did, especially when it came to boys.
“So, what did he do when he found out?”
I sighed and told her that he looked at me about the same way that she was.
“Why is it so hard to believe?”
What she said next kind of floored me, because I hadn't thought about it and it was really one of the sweetest things she had ever said to me. She was a bit self-absorbed, and when she said that I was too beautiful for that to be an option, it just threw me off.
Anna did not throw out compliments and certainly not ones like that. Beauty in the eyes of my mother was literally one of the most important things to strive for. So for her, that was another level of compliment that she just didn't use usually. I didn't know what to say, and I felt a little awkward about it.
“I thought that you would be happy about it. You are always the one that tells me I should know my wor
th.”
“Yes, that's what I tell you and I completely agree with it. But at the same time, there is a lot of wonder to be found in the arms of a man. I would never want you to not feel that part of life. You can’t hold out forever, so you have to find the one worth plunging head-first. Trust me, though, you don’t want to avoid that for too long.”
“What are you saying?”
She sighed and then just spelled it out for me. I guess that’s what I needed.
“I'm saying that being with a man can be one of the best feelings that you probably will ever feel in your short life. I'm not saying to give it up to just anybody, but I am saying that you shouldn’t wait forever. We only get to be young and desirable in youth once. When women wish for their youth back, it has nothing to do with what they see in the mirror, and everything to how men make them feel.
“Don't waste it, Betty. I would give anything to have men look at me the way they did when I was young. Your beauty is power.”
I didn't really know what to think of mom's expert advice. It was clear that she was working out some of her own issues on me and even though that was obvious, maybe she was on to something.
After the day with mom going shopping and getting advice that came out of left field, I didn't know what to think. My morning with Nick was back on my mind, and I had to wonder if I had made things worse than they really were. I shouldn’t have run off like I did. It was a defense mechanism, but I wanted to see Nick. We needed to talk, and I hated to admit it, but it looked like I hadn’t been fair to either one of us. If I was to listen to mom.
Was I really missing out on something so great?
20
Nick
I was still floored about what Betty had told me. How could she be untouched? Was I the first one that touched her like that, made her come? I knew that I had been affected in real ways with her sounds, but the idea that they were her first, was harder than ever to come to grips with.
I was at home, but an hour before dad had come over, he said he was shocked that I didn't have some little strumpet underneath me.
“Is that why you didn't knock just now? Were you trying to get your jollies off that way?”
As soon as I said it, I couldn't believe that I had. I thought things like that all the time, but I usually kept them to myself. I don't think my dad knew how to take it and he just kind of looked at me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I'm just not in the mood.”
“Neither am I. But we need to talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
When he said Betty, I just kind of closed my eyes and hoped that I wasn't hearing him correctly. Why in the world would he want to talk about her?
“What about her?”
“I hear that you were cozying up to her and her parents. Is that true?”
The way he was asking, I didn't know if it being true would be a good thing or a bad thing, so I didn't want to answer right away. I was wondering which way I was supposed to go with it and finally I just shrugged. “We have seen each other a couple of times.”
“You know that she was the one that I wanted you to get close to, right?”
I agreed, but told him that it didn't have to do with that. I just really liked her. My father, of course, didn't want to hear that. He wanted to hear about how I had cozied up to her just to make him happy. That's what he wanted to believe, and I was a little ashamed that I let him think that. It was only going to continue the madness.
“Well, I take it back.”
“What?”
“He is not the businessman that I thought he was.”
“What, he didn't take the deal you wanted?”
He frowned at me and again I was forgetting myself. I was mainly just in shock that he expected me to turn it on again, off again. I guess that was because he thought that I was only with her because of him.
“It doesn't matter why I'm asking this of you, just that you do it. We do not want to go to bed with them and I know that you won't stay with her long anyway. You never do, so no harm, no foul.”
“What if I told you that this one is different?”
He looked at me a little funny for a moment and said that he didn't care.
“The only thing that I'm worried about is making sure that you do as I say. End it with her and you don't have to be polite about it.”
Whatever her father had said to mine, they were not happy with each other. I wasn’t going to argue, say anything one way or another. I just nodded like I agreed, when I knew that all he was saying now was just hot air. I wasn’t going to listen.
“They're all the same. Trust me on this one. None of them are any different and the quicker you learn that, the better off you'll be.”
After a little more conversation that I would have much rather been out of, he left convinced that I was going to heed his warning. I wasn't, of course. I didn't even want to talk about it.
I had a set later on that evening and for the first time in a long time, I didn't want to go. I knew that there would not be Betty in the crowd. I knew that I wanted her to be there. The rest of it, none of it really mattered. That’s how I knew that Betty was different. Never before was I thinking about a girl when I should have been thinking about music.
The second song was starting up, when I saw a familiar and rather surprising face in the crowd, one that I didn’t think would be there. It was Betty and quite frankly I couldn't believe it. She was literally one of the last people I thought I was going to see after the ugliness from the day before.
It was a little distracting to have her in the crowd. Before, I liked it, but now I had too many questions and too many thoughts and wonder. I was too worried about wondering what she was doing here. I wanted to believe that she was no longer mad about the other evening, but I can't say that I believed it. She didn't look mad, but women were strange that way, holding on to emotions until the least opportune time.
When the first set was over, I talked to Tommy for a moment, before I went to go see Betty. I think more than anything, I was trying to get the guts up to say something. I knew that she was going to be hard to talk to. Was she still going to be mad at me for the day before or was it something else now? I didn't like not knowing what was going to happen next, but ever since Betty had moved in next door, nothing had been the same.
“Hey, it's good to see you, Betty. I didn't expect to see you here.”
“No, I guess you didn't.”
“So, what are you doing here?”
She told me that she wanted to have a conversation with me when I was done and again, I didn't know what that would entail. As soon as I thought that I had gotten the courage up, I lost it almost immediately. She was looking at me with questions in her eyes and I didn't know how to respond. If she would tell me, then I would know where we stood. At the moment, I just felt awkward and did not know where that was.
“Sure, of course I want to talk about whatever you want to talk about. If you don't want to talk about anything, though, we don't have to.”
“Why are you acting so weird?”
“I just don't want to upset you again. I felt really bad last night when you went home upset. That was never my intention.”
Betty waved me off like it wasn’t a big deal, but obviously it was. Or, at least it had been. I was afraid that she was going to spring some more information like that on me and I wouldn't be able to respond correctly. It was hard to keep a straight face when such things were being told. Not only that, there was a little bit of lost hopes and dreams slurred into the middle of that. I'd really hoped that we would be this power couple that I knew we could be. Like fate had something to do with it. But a virgin? What was I supposed to do with that?
“I actually wanted to apologize to you about what happened. I'm really not good at this and you are actually one of the first guys I've ever told that. Nobody knows that about me, and I guess I was just hoping for a different reaction. That is not to say
that I didn't completely understand your reaction, but it was embarrassing, as you can imagine.”
Even as she said the words, I could see her face getting red. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t embarrassing at all. That it was no big deal, but then again, that would not be telling the truth. It was a big deal, but it wasn't a deal breaker. It was going to change the way that I approached her. How could it not?
“I didn't mean to embarrass you.”
“I know. It's just a little embarrassing, I guess, because I'm getting so old. It was bad enough when I was in college. The few people that knew about it always gave me shit. Guys never wanted to stay with me very long, because I wouldn't give them the one thing that they wanted. It’s a big deal.”
I told her that I could see that happening. She looked at me a little funny and I just agreed that I could see where she would be pressured. I could see that because that's exactly what I wanted to do to her. That's what I had tried to do. I had tried to talk her into it like she somehow didn't know what she was missing. I couldn't have been closer to the truth if I had tried, but then again, it still wasn't right, was it?
“So, you think that we could still hang out? I mean, even though we will not be doing that?”
She said ‘that’ like it was some foreign alien that she had never seen before and didn't want to see again. Is that how she thought about sex? There was so much that Betty didn't know and so help me, I wanted to be the one, desperately wanted to be the one that showed her. I wanted to be her first. I didn't know that until she told me that she had never been with anybody else. Knowing that it was an option, made me want it even more.
“Of course, we can hang out. I really enjoyed our time together. I can't say that I won't stop wanting you, because I think that's impossible, but I can control myself. I won't let anything happen to you.”
It was time for the next set, and I told her that I had to go. I didn't want to, I wanted to fix whatever this was between us.