Angie and Preppy Dave had sex the second weekend after school started.
“Where did you do it?” Sasha asks her. It’s lunchtime and the boys are flinging themselves around in the field, punching shoulders and calling names. The concrete step is warm through my jeans. I remember sitting exactly like this and listening to Brooke tell her story.
“We were in his car,” Angie says. “We didn’t plan on it,” she tells us. “It just kinda happened.” She doesn’t look upset though; she looks beautiful. There is a flush in her pale cheeks, and her eyes are bright.
“Really?” I say. I don’t understand how sex can happen by accident. After Jamie and I have been kissing for a long time, I tell him that we should stop, because that’s what the girl is supposed to say at some point. But I’ve never said that we should stop because I thought we actually needed to. I’ve never forgotten that we’re in his car, that the moment isn’t right.
“It hurt like hell, right?” Brooke says.
“Actually,” Angie says, “I threw up.”
“Oh my God,” I say. She looks at my face and laughs.
“Was he…you know, done?” Brooke says.
“Yeah,” Angie says. “But it was, like, right afterward.”
“You threw up in his car?” Sasha says. Angie shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “I rolled over onto my stomach, opened the door, and threw up in the driveway.”
“Oh,” I say. I can’t think of anything to say to this, but Sasha can.
“Wait, if you weren’t planning on it, did you use anything?”
“Well, no,” Angie says. “But it was just the once, and next time we’ll get some condoms, or, I don’t know, something.”
“It only takes once,” Brooke says.
“Mmmhmm,” Sasha says. “And you guys need to sit down and talk about birth control options before there can be a next time.”
“Guys,” Angie says. She sighs. “Don’t ruin this for me.”
I frown again. If being in the backseat of a car and vomiting in the driveway didn’t already ruin it, I’m not sure what we could do that would. I don’t understand how Angie could be happy with such a cliché place to lose her virginity. I don’t understand why Dave didn’t come to his senses when he remembered that there was no birth control. Brooke puts her arm around Angie.
“Sorry,” she says. “We’re happy for you, really.”
“Yeah,” Sasha says.
“Good,” Angie says, “’cause I can’t stop smiling and—” She sighs again. “I love him so much that every time I think of him holding me afterward, I just want to die.”
I would want to die too if I was Angie, but for different reasons. I don’t understand how something like this happens.
On the way home from school, I tell Jamie Angie’s story. He listens quietly and stares straight at the road.
“I mean, I guess I’m happy for her if she’s happy,” I say. “But doesn’t that sound horrible?”
“I dunno,” Jamie says. “I think it’d be cute if you threw up.”
“What?” Jamie looks calm.
He shrugs and smiles. “I’d hold your hair back for you and take care of you.”
“I won’t throw up,” I say.
“And you won’t do it in a car. I know, don’t worry.” Jamie pulls into my driveway.
“Well, not the first time,” I say.
“We’ll get a hotel room,” Jamie says. He glances over at me now. “A really nice one. And we’ll dress up and have an expensive meal first.”
“That sounds—” I pause “—nice.” I unbuckle my seat belt and turn toward him. Jamie kisses me, and I realize that, during that dinner, he will give me a charm for my bracelet, something subtle that only he and I will understand. It’s romantic, and I wish I hadn’t already thought of it so that it could be a surprise. I try my hardest to forget.
