Monday, December 20th
Idon’t think I’ve ever felt more mortified than I did last night.
When Maeve came back to the room after what felt like forever, it all clicked into place when I realized she didn’t have any snacks. She left because she thought I was a weirdo; that had to be it. She’d left so abruptly, I thought I’d scared her away for good this time. I knew my virginity would come up during the game; I’m not that clueless. I knew how those games worked—they were meant to get all the hidden secrets about someone out in the open.
Well…it was out in the open, all right.
She never mentioned it again; she just took a long shower and crawled into bed, where we watched old 80s rom-coms until it was nearly midnight and fell asleep. It was like the giant elephant in the room. I mean, she’d barely said two words to me.
I’d even thought about sneaking out and disappearing from the way my body wanted to shrink into the mattress in embarrassment. It was all I could think about all night.
Nearly fifty percent of males in the age range of eighteen to twenty are virgins. The percentage goes down to nearly twopercent between the ages of twenty-five and thirty, so…I’m in the middle. Statistically, I’m normal, but in real life, I may as well be a third-world wonder.
Maeve was even pretty quiet this morning when we woke up and got everything ready to hit the road again. I didn’t dwell on it because if she really was uncomfortable, I didn’t want to make her feel more so, so I just loaded up the truck and got us all checked out.
But then the first thirty minutes of the drive are also quiet. Too quiet. I can’t take the freaking quiet anymore. Usually, quiet is okay, but now I just worry that everything is weird and she thinks I belong in a freak show. I’m scared that the train has derailed. I…likeher. The last thing I want is for her to think I’m some strange, virgin loser. Although I guess Iam.
Say something.
Just man up and say something.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out suddenly, like word vomit spilling from my lips, “about, uh…last night.”
“What?” In my peripheral vision, she sits up straighter in her seat. “Why?”
“I-I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“I wasn’t uncomfortable, Tate,” she says, her voice soft.
After my sudden courage to speak, now I feel depleted. Everything in me wants to say something, to ask her if she’s sure or just trying to let me down easy, but I can’t. Words feel too heavy on my tongue. I’m too embarrassed to form coherent thoughts.
“I made it weird by leaving like that, I knew that the moment I left,” she admits, “but I didn’t want to makeyouuncomfortable. I just wanted to give you some space, you know?”
A few beats of silence pass before I gain the courage to speak.
“You don’t…think it’s weird?”
“No, I don’t think it’s weird,” she says.
“Oh…”
“Shocking, maybe, but in a good way.” Her feet lift into the seat as she twists in my direction, her knees brushing the center console. “I’m just…surprised. I won’t lie. I don’t want you to think that’s me assuming you’d be a manwhore or something.”
I clear my throat. “Um, no, I didn’t think that. I just…”
Her hand falls on my arm, and I swear, I almost have a stroke. My heart stutters against my chest as it tries to remember how to pump correctly.
“Hey, you don’t have to talk about it,” she assures me, “but you can. I’d never judge you. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression last night. I guess I just sort of…freaked? I thought I’d said all the wrong things and wanted to give you some space.”
Here I am, breaking a literal sweat about this, when she was just worried aboutmethe whole time. There’s a foreign knot in my chest knowing she was only trying to protect my feelings. I’m not accustomed to someone caring about how I feel at all.
“T-thank you.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m jealous of you, actually.”
I risk a brief glance over at her. “Jealous?”
“Yeah, you’re not tainted. You can find someone you love, and it can be special. Not everyone gets that.”
