Afterward, I went back to my mom’s apartment and heated up some leftover penne alla vodka takeout and ate it while watching True Blood. I felt quite calm about what had just happened. I didn’t walk funny or bleed excessively or feel different in any way. After Haley had sex for the first time with her boyfriend, she told Tasha and me all about it in excruciating detail. It had sounded so exciting and emotional and adult, but after I had sex with Zachary I wondered why my first time was nothing like Haley’s experience. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Maybe I was emotionally stunted.

Zachary didn’t seem to think I had a problem. “You’re like a guy,” he told me once, approvingly. “Sex is just sex, you know?”

I agreed with him—at least when it came to the sex we had. It was just sex, and I liked it. I liked his body and sometimes I even craved it with a physical urge that shocked me. But I didn’t crave anything more from him. At the end of the summer we traded contact information, but I knew neither of us would reach out.

Chapter 41

Steph didn’t let me touch her the first time we had sex. She told me, apologetically, that she was still on her period. That startled me not only because it reminded me that she was not a boy, but also because I’d never been with someone who didn’t seem to need to have an orgasm during sex. She said she was more than happy to have pleased me, that it was more than enough, it was plenty.

Before she left, she spent some time in the bathroom washing her hands and face. She came out with damp hair, and I wondered how she would explain that to Lisa, but I didn’t ask. I got dressed in pajama pants and a T-shirt and walked her downstairs. Outside it was still dark. I kissed her good night, and her mouth tasted faintly of my toothpaste. I watched her walk down the path until she went out of sight, and then I heard the creak of the gate as it opened and closed. The sound of her truck turning on was a jagged scratch in the quiet. I stood on the front stoop until the rumble of the truck faded away into the deep silence of predawn.

I couldn’t bring myself to go inside. I sat down on the doorstep. I didn’t know what time it was, but I guessed it was almost sunrise. I wrapped my arms around my knees, trying to keep warm against the cool air.