“Yeah… ‘cause you saidyes.”
When he gave me a quick kiss, I was smiling, and I wondered if he felt like he’d said too much—and it made me tempted to say the words that had been coming to mind more and more over the past few weeks:I love you.Because I did. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but it had. My heart was tied to him, wrapped in a beautiful bow that would be hard to unknot.
Had he seen it in my eyes?
His grin told me that, if he had, he wasn’t going toacknowledge it—at least, not right now. And then he let go of me and walked over to his drum kit, sitting behind it at the same time as several giggling girls appeared in the backyard following Mark.
Soon, the band was set up and, after Mark brought out four lawn chairs for us girls, we sat to watch. I exchanged a briefhiwith the cheerleaders but they too were people I knew but didn’t socialize with. There was one who’d been in several of my classes, a girl who planned to go to college in Boulder after she graduated—and she was nice enough—but I didn’t feel comfortable around them. They were obsessed with their looks and didn’t seem to care much about school. We just had different priorities—but I’d found that to be true with most people I knew. Each girl here had on lots of makeup and still wore their cheerleader uniforms that showed off most of their toned, tanned legs.
It wasn’t long before the guys started to play—and it was their usual lineup of songs. They played a lot of covers, many I didn’t know, simply because I hadn’t been exposed to much of this kind of music before Jason—but I had to admit it was growing on me. They played songs by Metallica, Korn, Marilyn Manson, and other bands, and Jason always had the radio in his car tuned to the rock station in Colorado Springs, so I was hearing more and more hard rock music…and I realized I really liked it.
I wouldnevertell that to my parents.
Even though I kept my eyes mostly on Jason, I did watch the rest of the band as they went through their setlist. Kage played bass and sang—which I found odd, because he alwaysseemed almost shy and withdrawn, but as soon as he got behind the microphone, he was like a different person. He had a magnetic stage personality, and Fay was eating it up.
“Oh, my God,” said one of the other girls. I could tell she was trying to be quiet so I couldn’t hear, but I couldn’t miss it. “Kage is so sexy. I get it now, girlfriend.”
Fay all but growled. “Hands off my man.”
“I was just saying. I wouldn’t steal your man, especially when all the guys here look like hot rock stars.”
The third cheerleader, the one with her brown hair up in pigtails, wasn’t as concerned about trying to be quiet. “One day when they’re famous, we’ll be able to say we fucked them!”
The quieter blonde said, “I’m not just gonna have sex because they look like rock stars. They’ll still have to wine and dine me.”
When Fay spoke again, it was much quieter, and the only way I could have actually heard her would have been to lean over and be obvious that I was now actively eavesdropping—and then, when the guys started up the next song, I even had a hard time hearing the other two who’d been talking louder.
But Ididhear one of them say Jason’s name.
Until that point in my life, I would have told you I wasn’t a jealous person. Actually, I could have still said that. I didn’t feel jealous about another girl finding Jason attractive, because he absolutely was. But having overheard these three girls talk about wanting to have sex with these boys before hearing one of them talk aboutmyboyfriend, I began to wonder if I should worry. After all, Jason and I had not hadsex yet. I’d never had sex. We’d had some really steamy sessions in the backseat of his car over the summer, but I’d told him honestly that I wasn’t ready. And he’d seemed okay with that. But…
Would he have sex with someone else to satisfy his needs? Someone far more willing?
I’d been contemplating taking that next step, because I was eager and curious, even though I was also a little afraid. And, after hearing how these other more willing girls talked about my boyfriend, I thought maybe we’d need to take that step sooner rather than later.
I simply had to remind myself that I wanted this.
two
. . .
Ididn’t dare tellmy parents what I’d just done.
The next night, I was eating dinner with my mom and dad, trying to remind myself that what we were doing was normal…and that if I stayed calm and acted like nothing had changed, they wouldn’t figure out that I’d done something they would be disappointed in.
We sat at the dining room table eating one of my father’s favorite meals: dry aged steak, medium rare (although my mom knew I much preferred it medium well or well and cooked mine longer), truffle mashed potatoes, and asparagus. It almost made me laugh that this meal reminded me of when I was little and we ate meatloaf with mashed potatoes and salad.
But ever since we’d moved into this larger house when I was in second grade, the food had slowly changed.
I didn’t necessarilyhatethe food—but it was often toomuch. Seared scallops, caviar, charcuterie boards…those had been the latest food items on the menu, especially when my father had guests over.
I missed spaghetti and hamburgers—which was why I sometimes liked the cafeteria food at school.
This evening, my mom and dad were discussing his day at work, and I was thinking about the application I’d just sent off…to the University of Colorado. There was no way I was going to tell mom and dad about that now. They wanted me to go to Harvard with the idea that I would then slide into Harvard Law School. But now that my senior year in high school had just begun, I’d been thinking a lot about my future with Jason. If I went to school in Colorado, it would be much easier to maintain our relationship. Boulder was one hundred miles away as opposed to thousands. Besides, CU was a respectable university with a solid law school.
I’d already done the research: Two hours by car to Boulder.
Almostsixhours by plane to Cambridge, Massachusetts. And that didn’t even include the time to drive to DIA in Denver to catch the plane. Another two hours.
