“In all that time,” I said, lowering my voice to ensure we weren’t overheard, “you never once put it on for him?” I wished I could ask the question without blushing, but no matter how hard I tried, it was useless. Hannah was my best friend. I knew all about her sex life with Jake, but I had little experience myself. Whenever we talked about it, I felt like zero help.

She shook her head. “He always does it.”

“Why try to switch it up?”

“Because,” she said, shrugging, “I was, like, trying to be adventurous. I don’t know. It was a total, horrid fail.” She glanced toward the seminar room and lowered her voice to barely a whisper. “You think Ms. Conner will cover the art of rolling a condom onto your boyfriend’s dick in the ‘sexual awareness’ assembly today?” Hannah put the words in perfectly timed air quotes.

Every year on the first week of school, the students of Wilmont Academy were ushered into seminar room #3 for an education on the dangers of being sexually active. Wilmont might be the last non-religious school on the planet still operating under the abstinence only policy.

Ms. Conner and Principal Tanner had to know more than half the juniors and seniors, and, hell, some underclassmen, were having sex. They couldn’t be that blind. But they treated the topic like a plague warning—if you have sex while in high school you will either suffer from diseases or get pregnant. Not once had they ever talked about where to get birth control or how to handle a pregnancy scare. It was ridiculous and totally not helpful to those seeking advice on how to be safe and healthy. Like Hannah.

“This is such a waste of time,” I whispered. “If they’re not actually going to teach us anything about healthy sex, then they could at least use this time to talk about more important things.”

“Like what?” Hannah asked, looking happy to delay entering the room for as long as possible.

I shrugged. “Maybe a lecture on sexual harassment? Or voting awareness—some of us are actually old enough to vote now. Or the double standards between boys and girls in this school?”

“Whoa,” Hannah said, her eyebrows climbing high on her forehead. “Someone ate her feminist Wheaties this morning.”

I chuckled, waving her off. “I’m just saying those things would—might—have more of an impact than this.” I jerked my head toward the door. “Everyone tunes this out because barely anyone in school actually believes in abstinence.”

“Ugh,” she groaned, pushing off the wall and turning into the room.

Our chat had forced us to the back of the long line of students piling in, and that meant the only available seats were front row and, miserably, center. We both swallowed our groans as we sank into the practically spotlighted chairs.