You certainly had no trouble yesterday. You were rounding second and heading for third without a hitch.
Heck, if you’d given Justin another half hour, he would have taken care of your virginity problem and you would no longer be in possession of Portland’s oldest hymen. Which would probably be great for your self-confidence. Admit it—it would be a lot easier to date without knowing that you’re going to have to break the news about your ancient V-card to Mr. New Guy sooner or later.
It would be easier, but the thought of having sex with Justin makes me feel like I’ve swallowed the entire contents of the arboretum’s butterfly garden.
First of all, I’ve always wanted my first time to be something special and magical, shared with someone I love as more than a friend. Secondly, there’s the very real chance that Justin and I won’t come out whole on the other side of something like that. I could lose his friendship, and I don’t like to think about my life without Jus in it. Not only does he share my geeky love of crafts and make the cutest Christmas ornaments for my tree every year, but he makes me laugh when no one else can. He plays it cool most of the time, but Justin has a soft heart, and he gets me in a way not even Laura or my parents always do.
When a school shooting of innocent babies the same age as my kindergarten kids sent me into a downward spiral of grief and rage a few years ago, Jus was the one who sat with me and let me cry without trying to fix me.
He seemed to realize that I couldn’t be fixed, at least not right away. I needed time to grieve the loss of something even bigger than those priceless, precious lives. I needed to grieve the loss of my own innocence, my belief that my country would pull together and do something in the face of such brutal, senseless violence instead of dismissing the tragedy as the cost of doing business in a country more in love with guns than children. Justin gave me that time, and when the moment was right he introduced me to a friend who volunteers for a group working to improve gun safety and helped me get involved.
It’s just a single example of the ways in which his friendship has made my world a better place, and I know that I do the same for him. That kind of relationship is priceless and not worth risking for a few orgasms, even if they are as incredible as I imagine they would be.
I’m about to text Justin and tell him that I think it’s best if we pretend yesterday never happened—and beg him to give me a few days to recover from my embarrassment before we do our best to return to normal—when my phone vibrates again.
Justin: A Poem for Libby:
If you were a note I’d hold you until I ran out of breath
If you were an addict I’d help you get treatment for meth.
If you were a joke you’d always make me grin, and
If you were a fart I wouldn’t hold you in.
(Or maybe I would hold you in, so we could be together and talk through this until we’re good again. This is assuming we could talk if you were made of gas and lived in my intestines. Please don’t hate me for this terrible poem and disgusting imagery. The end.)
I laugh out loud—loudly out loud—earning myself a curious look from the tweens furiously texting in the seat across from mine. I recognize the “what could someone as old and boring as that lady be laughing about” expression on their faces, and that seals the deal.
I am not old and boring. I’m not even twenty-five! I’ve got my entire life stretching out in front of me, and I want that life to have fun, sexy, surprising things in it. And that’s not going to happen if I keep hiding and running away.
Holding on to the flash of courage, I quickly type—Headed to the arboretum for a walk. Meet me by the meditation chapel in half an hour?—and hit send.
A moment later Justin responds with: Be there in fifteen. Thanks, Libby. See you soon, beautiful.
Beautiful…
The word makes me wrinkle my nose and sends a fluttery feeling through my midsection at the same time. It reminds me of yesterday, when Justin insisted that I was beautiful, not just pretty. He has never said anything like that before. Part of becoming friends when I was a scrawny thirteen-year-old with braces and he was a drop-dead gorgeous high school sex god is that looks never entered the picture for us.
Yes, I was always aware that Jus was pretty to look at, but I was equally aware that it didn’t matter. He was too old, too good-looking, too popular and perfect for me to think of him in that way. Even as we grew older, the mental moat around the idea of Justin as an attractive member of the opposite sex remained. My thoughts didn’t even try to cross it. Like I said to myself yesterday—he’s a shark and I’m a goldfish. Neither is necessarily better than the other, they simply exist in different worlds, different universes.