Forever for a Year (22 page)

“I got a boyfriend my first month of freshman year too. His name was Mark. He was a senior. I thought I was so special. Too special for anyone my age. Plus Mark was the captain of the basketball team, student council vice president. It made so many girls jealous. Which I loved. My parents thought he was great. His parents were very well-off. So my mom and dad thought I was suddenly so grown-up. Which I also loved. But Mark wasn't very nice to me when we were alone. He'd tell me I was stupid. That I wasn't pretty. That I was immature. Especially if I didn't do what he wanted.”

“Mom…” I said, again not really knowing what else to say. Then I did. “Did he…?”

“Oh … not … that. No. He didn't force me … physically. But we had sex on our third date. He had made me feel that if I didn't, I would be worthless without him. It was painful and I cried when I got home that night. He never cared how I felt. Never cared about if it was pleasurable for me. We must have had sex a hundred times my freshman year, and I hated it every time. I loved him. I told myself I did. A girl has to love the boy she's having sex with or she'll hate herself. Mark dumped me before he went to college. I cried, but even then I don't think I was sad about being dumped. Just sad about everything. After Mark, I'd either date boys who were so boring and weak I could control them or I'd date ‘cool' boys who treated me like garbage. I was dating college boys by the time I was sixteen and thirty-year-olds by the time I was in college. But it didn't matter how old they were, they would either bore me or hurt me.”

Why. Was. She. Telling. Me. This.

“Your first love … is important. Very important. That's what I'm trying to communicate. It will shape how you choose every future relationship.”

“Carolina and I are going to be together forever.”

“Trevor, I know you think that—”

“WE ARE, MOM!”

“Great. Okay. Great. I hope you are. It's still just as important that you treat her with respect.”

“I DO!”

“Please don't yell, Trevor. I'm sorry I'm bad at this. I'm trying to tell you that … in some ways, you have Carolina's whole future in your hands. You're going to want to have sex with her soon. Sooner than you realize. And she'll want it too. She'll want to be as close to you as possible even if her body isn't ready to enjoy it. Because she loves you. You're a wonderful person, but it will still terrify her.”

“Oh my God, Mom, can we please end this conversation?”

“Not yet. Last bit of what I want to say. Talk to her about things. Okay? Don't not talk about it just because it's awkward. If you want to do things sexually, ask her how it makes her feel first. Ask how it feels during it, ask her how it feels afterward. This might sound easy now, and in the moment it's going to seem impossible, but it's very important. Trust me.”

She stopped. It felt like she had been talking for five hours. But she finally stopped. I'm not even sure I understood half of what she said. But once she stopped, I stopped being angry and uncomfortable almost as fast.

*   *   *

When we got back in her car, she reached into her purse and pulled out a box of condoms.

Condoms.

My mother was handing me a box of condoms.

“We aren't having sex,” I said, but quiet. Not yelling. Not even mad. Just … overwhelmed.

“I know. But when you decide you are ready, when both of you decide, I want you to feel prepared. Any parent would love if their child would wait until they were older. But I always promised I'd be a parent who wouldn't put my head in the sand. You're in love. She's in love. If I didn't make you aware of what's going to happen, you might not be prepared when it does happen … and then mistakes can happen.”

“I'm not going to get her pregnant, Mom.”

“I know. You're very smart and responsible. I was a very smart and ‘mature' girl when I was a freshman. I didn't think it could happen. My parents never talked to me about it. They didn't talk to me about anything. And I did … get…” She stopped, sucked in two deep but quick breaths, then continued, “I never told my parents. Mark stole money from his parents, and we drove to Wisconsin to have the abortion. I don't even know why we drove to another state. I think I just wanted it to be far away.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, the words coming out of my mouth before I realized they were. My mom started crying. I hadn't seen her cry in a long time. She looked so young. So fragile. I felt like I was the parent.

“It's okay, Trevor. I'm okay. I never told anyone. I can't believe I told you. Your father doesn't know … and I don't think he'd understand. So let's not tell him, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. What was strange was … suddenly, I don't know, I understood my mom. At least a little bit. And that made me trust her. A little bit.

*   *   *

She turned on the car and drove us back home. When we were in the garage, before she opened the door, I said, “Thank you for the talk, Mom. I'm sorry I was cold and angry. I don't … I'm just … I'm happy you said everything. I don't think many moms would say what you said … and I'm glad … you did.”

She nodded, sort of smiled, then got out of the car and walked toward the door to the house. I almost tried to catch up and hug her before she went inside, but I didn't.

 

41

Carolina talks to Peggy about hooking up

After I got the flowers from Trevor asking me to homecoming, I started thinking about who we would go with. See, you have to go with a group to homecoming. At least, that's what Katherine had told Peggy and me over the summer. I didn't freak out about it then because I never thought I would go to homecoming freshman year, and if I did, it one hundred million percent would be with Peggy and two boys who wouldn't matter. But then I met Trevor and now I was going and Peggy and I were barely talking and Kendra said she didn't want to go and Trevor didn't have any friends, so Trevor and I would have to go by ourselves. Which made me super sad. This was going to be the most important date of my life and it would be ruined. So after my dad cheered me up this afternoon, I texted Peggy:

ME

Trevor asked me to homecoming  :)

I didn't even think she would text me back. At least not right away. But she didn't JUST text me back, she called me, like, one second later.

“That's amazing!” she said, and it felt so good to hear her voice. “Henry asked me last night, so we should all go together!” Henry McCarthy? Trevor's cousin? I didn't even know he and Peggy talked to each other, and now they were going to homecoming together?

But I said, “That's so amazing! It would be so amazing to go together!”

“I know. After he asked me, Carrie, I thought about you so much, and I know we got mad at each other but that was stupid.”

“I agree,” I said. “I miss you.”

“I miss you!”

“So Henry's your boyfriend?” I asked.

“Katherine said to call someone your boyfriend is not cool, but we hooked up last weekend and then we hooked up again last night. He asked me afterward.”

“After you hooked up?” What did “hook up” mean? DID PEGGY HAVE SEX WITH HENRY MCCARTHY?

“Yeah, it was romantic.”

“That's amazing,” I said even though I had no idea if it was amazing or not.

“How did Trevor ask you?”

“He sent roses to my house with a note.”

“Oh,” she said, then was quiet, then said, “that's nice. It's, like, old-fashioned. It's nice.”

“Yeah,” I said, and wasn't sure if I was mad at Peggy for calling it old-fashioned or at Trevor for being old-fashioned. I just knew I was starting to feel mad.

“So you two haven't had sex yet? Everyone says you're having sex because you can't stop touching each other at school, but I said that Carrie wouldn't have had sex and not told me.”

“No! No. We just kiss.”

“You only kiss?” she said, like I was a silly five-year-old.

“No! I mean, he touched my boobs and I've rubbed his … thing.” Gosh, it was hard to say the word “penis.” Even to my best friend. Peggy was my best friend again, right?

“So you gave him a hand job?” Peggy asked. Wait a minute. Did Peggy just say “hand job”? We had never, ever talked like that. At least not like it was nothing.

“I mean, sort of.”

“Have you touched it or not, Carrie?”

“I've touched it through his jeans.”

“You guys are practically married and you haven't touched his dick? Carrie, I know you always talked about waiting, but you can't be a prude or boys won't like you.” Peggy was talking so fast and using language that she never used. It made my head want to pop off my body.

“Have you had sex with Henry?” I asked, then held my breath because if she said “yes,” I would cry because that would mean she hadn't told me, which meant she wasn't my best friend and maybe Trevor would leave me if I didn't have sex with him.

“No!” Peggy yelled. Which made me feel sooo much better. “We've only hooked up two times.”

“So what does ‘hook up' mean exactly?”

Peggy laughed. Laughed at me. Gosh. She said, “You are still so immature, Carrie. You need to hang out with me more so I can help you grow up.” Last time we had really talked, Peggy said she wanted to go back to eighth grade. Now she was telling me to grow up. I had a best friend who used to be nice to me all the time and now she wasn't nice to me that much at all.

But I said, “Okay.” I think I probably looked like my mom looks when she gets hurt.

“‘Hook up' just means you did stuff with a boy. All these junior boys asked me out but Katherine said I couldn't go out with anyone her age. So last Saturday, Henry and I just French-kissed and he went up my shirt and he put my hands down his pants. And then last night we did the same stuff but I gave him a real hand job.”

“What's a real hand job?”

“Where the boy goes at the end. You're so out of it, Carrie!”

“I'm sorry,” I said. I felt so dumb. I wish Trevor and I lived on an island by ourselves and could just kiss and maybe when we were married.… Never mind. That's so dumb. I need to grow up. Peggy was right. I almost asked Peggy how to give a real hand job, but she would make fun of me even more and then I might hate her again and I wanted to go to homecoming with her, so I just said, “You're the
best
best friend, Peggy.” It sounded fake, but Peggy didn't care because she said, “So are you. I'm so excited about homecoming.”

“Me too.” Which was true I guess. We talked a little more but all I could think about was that I needed to look up on the internet how to give a real hand job so that Trevor didn't think I was a prude like Peggy says.

*   *   *

So. Anyway. That's what I meant when I said I wasn't
just
going to kiss Trevor tonight. But now we were in his basement and I was thinking about what Peggy had said, and what Lily had said about him being sad, and what my mom had said, and how I wanted Trevor to love me forever.… I didn't know what to do. The internet gave horrible advice. I even watched a porn of a hand job, and oh my, gosh, it looked so weird and how could that feel good and how would I even start?

And I liked kissing him sooo much. Why couldn't we just kiss? I liked feeling his weight on me. And grabbing his head and his shoulders. I liked how he had his hands around my back.

And then he stopped kissing me and I was, like, positive he was going to say that I was a prude, but instead he said, “Does this feel good for you?”

Oh. My. Gosh. He's the most amazing boy ever. He is. He is. He is. “Yes, so good. I love kissing you. Trevor, oh, I just love it. Do you like it?”

“Very much.” And then we kissed more. And then I stopped.

I said, “I just want you to be happy.”

And he said, “I just want
you
to be happy.” Because he is perfect and too perfect and I have to be perfect or I'll lose him.

So I said, “Do you want to do other stuff?”

He said, “I like just kissing you.” Which was the exact right thing to say. Because kissing felt good and not scary and everything else felt scary in my head. But then he stopped kissing me again and said, “Do
you
want to do other stuff?”

Which was nice, but it made me think he didn't want to just kiss. Maybe he did. Maybe he was just being super nice. But why would a girl want to do anything besides kissing? What could I say? I didn't want to be a prude. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY! So I said, “I just want you to be happy,” again.

And he said again, “I just want you to be happy.” Then we went back to kissing, except I wasn't that happy anymore and I don't think he was happy, so I stopped our kissing. Again.

“Trevor…”

“Yes?”

“I…” But then I kissed him, fast and wild, and turned off my brain and turned off the brain in my hand and then it reached down along his stomach and my fingers stopped at the top of his jeans. Just inside. I could feel the edge of his underwear. Oh. My. Gosh. Then I kept pushing my hand until it was just under his underwear. Oh. My. GOSH. And he was kissing me harder and it felt exciting and I couldn't see anything and I don't know.

 

42

Trevor …

Stop her, Trevor. Stop her. Your mom told you to talk to her. So talk to her. Stop her
.
But feeling her fingers against my skin, under my underwear … It tingled everywhere. My whole body shivered, but didn't shiver, just shivered under my skin, inside my body. My breath stopped. I sucked in my stomach. Because of the tingle. And maybe because I wanted to give her hand more room to move, to go farther. If I undid my jeans, she would have more room. But I could never do that. That would be such a jerk thing to do. So I should stop. My mom was right. My mom is not as broken and pathetic as I thought. She's smart, she knows things … I should stop Carolina … but her hand feels so good, her hand hasn't even touched it but it feels so good having her fingers so close.…