When I was a kid, we used to decorate shoe boxes at school and use them as Valentine’s Day mailboxes. We’d leave them on our desks all day. I never liked for anyone to see me check my box. It wasn’t that I was scared of not getting any valentines. Everyone gave each other cards. It was required. But it was that I always hoped for more. I wanted to be the girl with a special card signed Your Secret Admirer.
It may not be a note in a shoe box, but it still makes my heart feel like it’s made of springs.
As I unwrap the sucker, I think about texting Ellen, but turn my phone facedown when I can’t decide what to say. I slump down in my chair and savor my candy. She could be having sex right now. She could be an official non-virgin and I wouldn’t even know it.
I wonder if she talked to Callie after I left. She’s probably done it. She’d know what to say to El. After I finish my sucker, I chuck the stick and the wrapper in the trash can. I stuff my phone in my bra and as I’m passing through the kitchen, my boobs buzz. I stop right there to check my phone before I go up front.
ELLEN: kinda nervous. will call you later.
ELLEN: like, after.
ME: you’re going to be a total sex kitten. meoooooow.
ELLEN: you’re the best. maybe I can stay over tonight at your house and talk. xo
My sticky lips break into a faint grin. I look up to see Bo staring at me as I put my phone back in my bra, only to realize two seconds too late how awkward it might look to be stuffing your hand down your shirt in front of the guy you like.
I’ve been stared at a lot in my life. Enough to know that when someone gets caught staring, instinct says to look away. But Bo keeps on lookin’, like he’s got nothing to be ashamed of.
Color floods my cheeks. I wipe the back of my hand across my lips and start my closing duties up front.
Ron lets Marcus leave a few minutes early at the end of the night because Tiffanie is waiting and she’s pissed about something. Sitting in his office, Ron finishes the end of the night paperwork while Bo mops up the kitchen and I scrub down all the countertops.
“Watch out,” he says. “I just mopped behind you.”
I step lightly, careful not to slip, and wash the grease from my hands using the big industrial sink.
All my jobs are done, but I find myself keeping busy while Bo finishes the floors. I fill the sink for him so that the mop can soak overnight how Lydia likes it.
“You two head on home,” calls Ron. “I’ll see y’all later.”
I rush to my locker to grab my things, like I’m scared Bo might leave without me or something. I follow him out the back and he holds the door open for me so that I have to duck beneath his arm. Which doesn’t even smell bad, by the way. How can he spend the night flipping burgers and not smell like a fast-food menu?
As we walk to our cars in silence, his hand accidentally brushes mine and I wonder what it might feel like if he caught it, letting our fingers entwine.
Standing at my car, I look over the hood and say, “Thanks for the sucker.”
He doesn’t turn, but tilts his head up to the sky. “Good night, Willowdean.”
SEVEN
Without me even having to ask, El gives me every gory detail of losing her virginity. They did it in Tim’s bedroom because his mom was out of town visiting his grandma, and his dad, a police officer, was working the late shift.
We lay nose to nose in my bed with the lights off. “How did it feel?” I ask. “Not it, but like, how did it make you feel?”
She closes her eyes for a second. “I felt . . . in control. Like, of my life.” She opens her eyes. “And loved. But I feel funny, too.”
“How do you mean?”
“We did this grown-up thing. This really adult thing. But we were still ourselves. We still laughed and made jokes. I expected to feel like this whole new person, but really it was me—plain old me—making this decision that I can never unmake.”
I nod. I nod with fervor because paired down to those terms, I understand.
With the tips of her fingers, El touches my cheeks and, for the first time, I notice the sparse tears rolling down my face. She touches her forehead to mine and I don’t know who falls asleep first.