Chapter Twenty-One
NINE YEARS AGO
Icrept through the house, careful to avoid all the creaking floorboards and squeaky hinges. It was a sweltering August night, which meant that the house was noisy with the sound of deafening box fans. The perfect cover-up for a sixteen-year-old girl determined to sneak out but who knew she’d be murdered if she got caught.
It was just after midnight, but my mom had worked the brunch shift at her bar that day and she had to work the same shift in the morning, so she was definitely asleep.
I stepped lightly past her door, my gait gentle and silent from the years of ballet. I basically had to jeté over the loudest of the wooden floorboards, but I landed as quietly as a cat.
I paused for a full minute to make sure the small sound didn’t wake her, resolving to simply say I was getting a glass of water if she did come out.
My ears strained for the hint of every sound, my gaze locked on a spot in the dark living room as I waited.
When I heard nothing, I moved toward the door, which I opened as soundlessly as possible. I pushed open the squeaking screen door, then urged it closed, trying to prevent the rusty metallic hinge from doing the loud boing-click sound it sometimes made, since it barely worked anymore.
But this time, it obliged me. Even the house was on my side.
Nick had been my boyfriend for almost a year. My mom knew and she didn’t approve. Not because she was trying to keep me pure or anything; she was not weird in that particular way. It was actually that she objected to the relationship side of things. She must have told me a hundred times to stay out of serious relationships while I was young. She preached endlessly about how long-term relationships were pointless in high school, how they were designed to be painful and were doomed to fail. She told me that men were bad enough, but to catch them while they were in puberty and try to wrangle any sort of commitment out of them or to have any expectations from their underdeveloped brains was just stupid.
But I knew that Nick was different.
He had floppy brown hair and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He had brown eyes, but they were a pretty, chestnut brown. He played baseball, so he understood my commitment to ballet. He’d also been in piano lessons since he was a kid, so he had a sensitive side to him, too. One time I snuck over to his house in the middle of the night like this, but his parents were out of town. We lit candles like we’d seen in movies, and he played old music on the piano for me while I watched his hands.
He was one of the good ones. I knew he was.
I walked quickly down the street from my house. There was a soundtrack of cicadas in the trees and frogs in the swampy ponds nearby, and it met with the electric buzzing of the streetlights that cast pools of golden light onto the hot asphalt below.
Once I was far enough away, I broke into a run, the rubber of my Goodwill Nike sneakers padding on the pavement, the zipper pulls of my backpack rattling. My heart was pounding, not from the cardio, I was beyond used to that, but because I was going to see Nick.
Almost a year, and I still felt excited to see him. I knew enough to know that was unusual. Most of my friends who’d had boyfriends or girlfriends broke up after like three months, seven months max. But we were more in love than ever.
And tonight, I was going to do it. Do it, do it. For the first time.
I was waiting to lose my virginity for the right time, the perfect time. But it’s never the perfect time. We didn’t have access to hotel rooms or peaceful, private places where we could do it romantically like a movie. In theory, the night I went over to his house and he played piano would have been the perfect time. But we hadn’t been together long enough then. I wasn’t ready.
I turned the final corner toward the park where we’d decided to meet. It was romantic, with weeping willows and long grass, a few benches there along the brick pathway. There was a fountain of a little girl pouring out a bucket of water that was constantly running.
I found him just where he’d promised to be, and when he saw me, his face broke into a smile. He was the only person I knew who had perfect teeth without braces. He also didn’t seem to get pimples and his face was always clear and perfect.
“Hi,” I said, slowing my pace when I got close. Suddenly, I was bashful.
“Hi,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets. “Come here.”
I beamed and then ran to him, jumping into his arms and throwing my own around his neck. We kissed once, twice, then again, then more urgently. There was a desperation in our touch, his hands on my back, my legs tightening around his hips.
“I want to,” I whispered into his ear.
“You want to…”
I nodded. He knew what I meant. We’d been talking about it forever.
He looked up at me and then ran his fingers through my hair, tucking it behind my ear and then letting me back down to the ground. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure.”
I took off my backpack, set it on the bench, and then pulled out a blanket.
I held it up and laughed. “You’re always teasing me for being unprepared, but I am this time.”
“Do you have a condom?” he asked.
Disappointment welled in me as I said, “Oh, no.”
He smiled. “It’s okay, I have one.”
“You do?”
“I always do. Just in case.”
I rolled my eyes, but didn’t have time to do much more, because his hands were on me again, his lips on mine. Barely disconnecting from one another, we laid out the blanket and spread it on the grass. The water from the fountain streamed and the sound of the bugs was even louder here, since there was so much greenery.
Despite the heat, I was shaking, especially my legs, which felt like Jell-O.
I lay on my back and he was above me, kissing me for a moment before saying, “You’re sure you’re sure, right?”
“I promise.”
I don’t know what I expected, I guess a little more ceremony or something, because the next thing I knew, he had taken off my shoes, socks, and jean shorts and was about to take off my underwear, and it all felt so fast.
“Just—” I said, stopping him before he took off my purple thong. “Can you kiss me for a minute?”
He was patient, just nodding and then obeying. And then after another moment of that, he took off my underwear, sliding it down my tan legs and putting them in a pile with the shorts and shoes.
I was completely exposed to the night air and I felt cold even though that was impossible in the ninety degrees.
He then unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and pulled out his…thing. He put on a condom that he retrieved from his wallet, and I smelled the latex and thought of the doctor’s office.
I knew it was about to happen. But instead of feeling a sense of warm anticipation, my mind was distracted by how odd it was that he had to get so much less naked than I did. I was naked on the bottom half, and he had pushed my tank top up to expose my padded bra.
From behind, you wouldn’t even know he was exposing himself at all.
Then it happened.
It was a strange, unfamiliar feeling, a shock of searing pain that I pretended didn’t happen. My mind was racing, thinking again and again that I just couldn’t believe it was happening, that I was really doing it.
The movements felt natural and yet completely foreign. I was aware of how to move with him, but the strange, primal nature of that compulsion made me feel disconnected from the experience itself.
There were moments where it started to feel good, but mostly I felt nervous and eager for it to end. I was suddenly anxious we would be caught. If we were, I’d be so…bare.
I could tell it was almost over when Nick’s breathing changed and his posture shifted.
And then it was over.
My legs were shaking worse than ever as he climbed off of me, panting and saying, “I love you so much.”
I said, “I love you, too,” in a voice that felt far away and small.
“That was so good,” he said. “You’re so good.”
I wasn’t sure how this was possible as I had pretty much lain there. But I said, “You too.”
I scrambled to put everything back on, surveying the area around to make sure no one was there, watching us.
Then a surge of panic, almost like buyer’s remorse, hit me and I asked, “Was everything—like, normal with the condom?”
He laughed. “What do you mean?”
“Like—it didn’t break or anything?”
“No, it was fine,” he said. “Fuck. That was so good. You’re so fucking hot.”
I smiled, but felt a little cold toward him and I couldn’t put my finger on why. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was my idea. I wanted it. So why did I feel so…off?
“I should get back,” I said.
“Already?”
“My mom wakes up sometimes, it’s just better if I’m there. I don’t want to get caught.”
“Okay. Do you want me to walk you home?”
I shook my head before thinking about it. “No, that’s okay. If she woke up or something, it’s better if I’m alone. I can just say I went for a walk or something.”
He shrugged. “You’re sure, then okay.”
I gave him a kiss and then said, “Well…bye.”
I couldn’t figure out why the hell I was feeling so awkward .
I ran the whole way home, my body feeling weak and hollowed out.
I turned onto my street, feeling weird that it was so the same as it had been just a little while ago when I left. My whole world had changed. So how were the frogs here singing the same song as ever?
The house was obliging yet again as I snuck inside, and I was grateful. I stepped lightly past my mom’s bedroom door, then into my own room. I shut the door.
I slept in my clothes that night, not really wanting to be naked again. When I woke up the next day, it took me a moment to remember why I felt so different inside.
I went about the day normally, acting like everything was fine, and even sometimes believing it was.
Just before dinner that night, as my mom made the usual healthy stir-fry, my phone rang.
“It’s Nick,” I said, answering the phone and covering the mouthpiece. “I’m gonna go out front for just a minute.”
My mom said nothing, only exclaiming as she nicked herself with the knife as she cut the onions.
I shut the front door behind me and stepped out into the lavender dusk and sat on the front step.
“Hey,” I said.
“Uh, hey.”
“What’s wrong?”
He let out a big exhale, and then said, “I didn’t want to do this on the phone.”
Every function in my body froze at the words, knowing exactly what they meant.
“Nick?” I asked, the syllable coming out as a sharp staccato.
“Last night was just kind of weird for me,” he went on.
I was almost surprised he didn’t hear my racing heart through the phone.
“It was weird for me, too,” I said. My tongue wrapped clumsily around the words.
“Yeah, I could tell. I don’t know, Jocelyn.”
“Are you breaking up with me?”
There was a long pause of confirmation and I felt my soul pool at my feet.
“It just didn’t feel right,” he said. “I don’t know what else to say.”
It didn’t feel right for me either, but somehow, even though we were saying the same thing, it didn’t feel like we meant the same thing.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’m actually at practice right now.”
“You’re—you’re at practice, but you, like, stepped away to call and break up with me?”
“Jocelyn, come on. Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?”
I felt clammy all over. I was spinning my anklet around my ankle again and again, the small chain scratching deeper and deeper with each revolution.
“I’ll see you around,” he said.
I shook my head, though I knew he couldn’t see it, and never got a chance to say anything else because he hung up without waiting for a response.
I hadn’t even noticed that tears had begun falling down my face.
The phone dropped from my hand and then so did the heartbreak.
I curled over my bare knees and cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. I was there for a few minutes when I heard the front door open behind me.
“Jocelyn?”
I braced for her to yell at me. For her to tell me to get inside, to tell me she’d been waiting for me. For her to realize what had happened and start lecturing me about how she’d known it would happen all along and how I should have listened to her.
I heard the screen door open, too, then my mom’s footsteps behind me.
I cried harder, dreading whatever was coming.
She sat next to me, put an arm around my shoulder, and pulled me into her. “Come here,” she said. “It’s okay. I know. It’s okay.”
I cried even harder at the unexpected kindness, and for ten minutes, that was all I could do. She said nothing, just rubbing my arm and telling me it was okay.
When finally my breathing started to normalize, my mom said, “Did you have sex with him?”
The moment with my mom was so precarious. I didn’t want to tip her in the wrong direction and receive her wrath. But I couldn’t muster the energy to lie, so I just nodded.
“Ah,” she said.
“It—it was only last night,” I said.
She hesitated a moment, and said, “You had sex with him last night? For the first time?”
“Yeah,” I said, choking on my breath.
“Your first time?”
“Yeah.”
“His?”
“I don’t think so.”
She let her head fall, gave it a slow shake. “Fucking men,” she said, then.
I couldn’t have possibly been more surprised by this reaction.
“You want to know the best thing to do when you’re upset?” she asked.
I sniffed. “What?”
“Go to the movies. Go see a sad movie and just cry it out in the dark theater. What do you think?”
“What do—”
“Let’s go to the movies. We can get some popcorn. Come on.” She patted my tear-covered thigh twice and then stood up. “I’ll put dinner away and we’ll have something out. Come on.”
I stood weakly and followed her inside.
An hour later, we were at the local movie theater watching some sappy romantic drama. I didn’t remember the name, and I barely knew what was going on, but it helped. I just cried and ate salty food and sugary candy.
My mom cried, too, and I wondered if it was about the movie or something else.
It wasn’t until later that night as I crawled into bed that I realized and understood what I had learned about my mom that night. My mom understood heartbreak.
And she went to the movies an awful, awful lot.