“You were swerving a bit there, son. Have you been drinking?”
My face goes beet red and I sink into my prom dress, which you insisted on picking out. (“I know what looks best on you. Besides,” you added with a devilish smile, “I need to make sure it’s easy to take off.”) You wouldn’t let me buy it, either. I guess you’d overheard me telling the girls I’d have to work extra shifts at the Pot to cover prom. It’s a gown that goes all the way to my feet—you said the super-tight and short ones were for skanks who wanted to make their boyfriends jealous. Depending on the light, it shimmers pink, tangerine, gold. I want to hide underneath it, turn it into a fort. My hand strays to the necklace you gave me: intertwining ribbons threaded with beads that match my dress.
“No, I haven’t been drinking, sir. I swear on my mom’s life,” you say. “My girlfriend was … um…”
I lean toward the window and give the officer the most charming smile I have in my arsenal.
“I was kissing him,” I say. “On the cheek only, but it totally distracted him. I’m so sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.”
The officer frowns as he takes in your tux and my fancy updo.
“Prom night?” he asks.
You nod. “I’m a senior. At RHS. And … a totally responsible virgin.”
The officer laughs. “All right,” he says. He hands you back your license. “You two be safe now.” He fixes us both with a stare. “And stay virgins.”
“This is the kind of story we’ll tell our grandkids someday,” you say as you pull back onto the road.
I raise my eyebrows. “Our?”
The corner of your lip turns up. “I’m thinking we’ll have ten.”
I go all warm and gooey inside. You want to be with me forever, don’t you?
*
THE DANCE IS magic. You are a perfect gentleman. In every photo I look happier than I’ve ever been—I’m always mid-laugh or grinning or kissing your cheek. During slow songs you sing softly in my ear; during fast dances you pull me close.
“How did you do it?” you ask.
“Do what?”
“Be the most beautiful girl here.”
Something about you in a tux makes me want to do a striptease for you right there on the dance floor. I love how you lose the bow tie almost immediately, how the top two buttons are undone. And your sleeves, rolled up to the elbow so I can see the muscles in your forearms from all that guitar practice. Oh, and the way you carry your coat slung over your shoulder, one finger holding it up like an eighties movie star. Perfection.
Girls stare at me with jealousy. I know they’re wondering how I snagged you. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.
After the dance, you get me into the backseat of your Mustang and we kiss so much my lips get swollen. Someone raps on the window, shines a big flashlight at us.
“Kids,” the security guard says, “clear out.”
I look out the window as you scramble into the driver’s seat. We’re the only car left. When we got here, the parking lot was full.
For the next hour we drive to some of our favorite make-out places: the Mormon church parking lot (a favorite among local teens—who knew?) and that fancy neighborhood across town that doesn’t have that many streetlights. Except someone in one of the houses calls on us.
The cops come by again. After they let us off the hook, we both burst out laughing.
“I have some pretty salacious stuff to write in my diary tonight,” I tease.
“You have a diary?”
I nod. “Ever since I was in kindergarten.”
“Damn. Do you write about me?”
“Of course I write about you. But don’t worry—it’s well hidden.”
We end up at a dark patch of street in your neighborhood, in the backseat once more. It’s surprisingly comfortable. You bunch my dress up around my hips and I run my hands through your hair. Your lips, your tongue, your fingers—they’re all over me. I should be embarrassed by what you can see and taste, the moans coming out of my mouth, but I’m not. I close my eyes and a shudder of pure bliss rolls through me and I get it, I know what that is. And I love you so fucking much.
My eyes snap open and you wipe your mouth on my knee, smiling against my skin.
“God, I love doing that to you.”
“Really?” I whisper.
“Are you kidding? Yes.”
Natalie would say sick. Mom would … god, I don’t even know what she’d do.
I know it’s not true, but I can’t help feeling that no one in the history of ever has felt this way about each other. How can anyone have wanted another person this much? Or felt like they were a part of them?
I sit up and reach for your belt. “Come here,” I whisper.
I remember one time a cheerleader in my geometry class was talking about Justin Timberlake and said something like I want to have his babies and I thought that was so weird.
But I have that thought, out of nowhere. I want to have your babies. I want you inside me. I want to melt into your skin so that I’m with you all the time.
“I love you,” I whisper against your lips.
Your mouth turns up in a love-drunk half smile. “I love you more.”
I’m obsessed with you. When you said that to me, I felt proud. I can’t stop thinking about you. Sometimes I can’t sleep until I write a song about your lips, the sound of your voice, the way your middle finger curves slightly to the left.
We stop before we go so far we can’t turn back and when I catch my breath, I feel relieved. I don’t want anything to ruin tonight. As much as I want you, I don’t want to lose my virginity on prom night. I don’t want the first time I have sex to be a cliché.
We get back into the front seat and head toward my place, the college indie station playing quietly. It’s nearly curfew—Mom is letting me stay out until midnight. This is a good thing, her rule. It keeps us from going to the housing development that’s still being built, the one where we first kissed. You know I don’t want to have sex yet, but we talk about it all the time. You’re not pushing me. I want you just as much as you want me. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. I’m just scared. Sex seems like a huge step, one I can’t ever go back from. I don’t want to be one of the girls in my high school who have sex. It would just feel … wrong. Like suddenly belonging to an alien race. All of my friends are virgins. I don’t want to be the first to lose it. And I don’t want anything between us to change. I’m scared what will happen if we do it.
I want to be your first, you said the other day. Then you changed your mind: I want to be your only.
I still can’t believe you’ve never had sex. I am so going to deflower you, I’d said. You laughed your head off, told me no one makes you laugh like I can.
We’re almost home when I feel the atmosphere shift from blissful giddiness to something … bad. I have no idea where it’s coming from. Your hands tighten on the wheel. Without realizing it, everything in me tenses up. The happy evaporates. This is how I’m supposed to feel at home, not with you. Never with you.
“I’d really like to read it,” you say quietly. “Your diary.” You turn to me. “Can I?”