“It might help to talk about it.”
“I can’t,” he says, “I’m too mortified.”
Mortified? What the fuck did Kyle do?
“Was it Kyle?” I ask.
He leans back and looks at me, his eyes red and puffy. I lead him over to my empty bed, and sit him on the edge, before grabbing two waters from our fridge and joining him.
“How did you know?” he asks, his voice small and unsure.
“I didn’t for sure, but he’s hurt friends of mine in the past. I wanted to warn you, but it was a long time ago, and I didn’t want to meddle, I barely know you, and I figured there was a chance he might have changed. I didn’t want to spoil something potentially good for you.”
“You didn’t have to worry,” he scoffs, “I spoiled it for myself.”
Well now I’m confused…
“My friends caught him with other people,” I say, “after he’d invited them to a party and expressed interest in them. Is that what happened tonight?”
“No, there was no one else, just me, and I fucked it up.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” I say, “how did you fuck up?”
“Because I don’t know what I’m doing!” He throws his hands in the air in exasperation. “I’ve never been with a guy; I don’t know what to do. We were alone in his room, and one minute he’s telling me he likes me, and he kisses me, then he wanted to do stuff, but I didn’t understand what he meant. He got frustrated and told me he wasn’t about to hold my hand through it.”
I force myself to count to ten… fucking Kyle.
“Just so I have this right,” I say, trying desperately to keep my voice calm. “He got you alone in his room, made a move on you and asked you for sex, found out you’ve never been with anyone, got frustrated and then said he wasn’t going to hold your hand through it?”
“Yeah,” he says, “can you blame him? What guy is gonna want to have sex with someone who has no fucking clue how.”
“Donovan,” I sigh, wanting to pull him into a hug again, or onto my lap, but I don’t, reminding myself he needs a friend right now. “Kyle is an asshole. He sleeps around, like, a lot. And I’m not shaming him for that, each to their own; but just because he’s more experienced than you, it doesn’t mean he has the right to make you feel that way.”
“Well I agreed to go to the party, I agreed to go upstairs with him, he thought I was there for sex, and I backed out because he was asking me stuff I know nothing about.”
“An invitation to a party and its acceptance doesn’t automatically mean sex. And you didn’t lead him on by going upstairs with him. You can say no to someone at any point,and they should respect that. When he found out you haven’t been with a guy before, he should have checked in with you about what you’re comfortable with, and there should have been no pressure to do anything more than that. You’re not in the wrong here, Donovan.”
“Yeah,” he says, “sure I’m not.”
“Alright, think of it this way. Imagine it was your best friend from back home.”
“Beth?” he says quietly.
“Yeah, imagine she’s never been with a guy before, but there’s a hot guy who asks her to a party, and she goes to his room. Imagine the situation plays out as it did with you, and she’s upset and tells you about it, what would you say to her?”
He takes a couple of breaths. “I don’t know.”
“Would you tell her she led him on and should have agreed to whatever he wanted without understanding it?”
“No, of course not,” he says.
“Right, so what would you tell her?”
He sighs, “I’d tell her that the guy sounds like a dick, and it’s a good thing she didn’t have her first time with someone who treated her like that.”
“Exactly,” I say, “so can you listen to your own advice?”
“I don’t know,” he says, but he gives me a small smile. “It just made me panic, him not wanting to help me makes me think no one will. Why would anyone want someone who has no idea what they’re doing.”
