I could have easily held a conversation with Nakesha Murray, one of the few girls I talked to, but opening my mouth and maneuvering my tongue required effort I couldn’t muster. I lived in my own head most of the time, and found my thoughts wandering to the nights before often. My sexual awakening was not turning out to be the wonderland I had thought it would be. A consequence of lost virginity, my moods had immediately taken on the unpredictability of agriculture. I thought I was in love. My kind of young, stupid, naïve love always flowed like liquid—fast, sloppy, without bounds. No one had taught me or told me about good old-fashioned love. Evenings with Leroy typically stunned me into immobility, my feelings torn equally in the disparate directions of pleasure, shame, guilt, and giddiness. My fresh heart hadn’t yet learned how to navigate the tender emotions, so it just stood still and often the rest of me followed: my mind, my eyes, my legs, my voice if I was especially troubled.

I just lay my head down along my shoulder, turned over the black-and-white handout with alien babies curled up from months one to nine, and scribbled notes to Nakesha on the back. For the rest of the period I wrote Nakesha and Nakesha wrote me back, in between unbraiding and rebraiding her raggedy extensions that had come loose.

Girl, me and Leroy did it again last night. It was his birthday.

You nasty.

Why I gotta be nasty?

Mrs. Washington gonna kick yo ass if she catch you with her man.

She ain’t gone catch us. We always stop way before she get off.

You gonna get pregnant.

No I ain’t. He use a rubber most of the time.

Most of the time? What about the rest of the time?

A few times we don’t, but he pull it out.

You stupid.

You jealous.

I don’t want no old man.

Yeah he old, but that mean he know what he doin. Not like these stupid boys.

You ain’t never been with no stupid boy. You only been with Leroy. He a stupid man.

They probably all stupid.

I wouldn’t know.

Don’t act like you don’t know. Remember Charles, and Darnell, and I forgot that boy name who was your cousin friend? I bet Leroy do it better than all those dogs you been with.

I guess so. You keep on doing it. And my cousin friend name was Darius and he was good. Girl he made me cry.

Leroy make me cry too but I don’t let him see. But anyway I’m gonna stop. I don’t think I want to do it anymore.

Why?

I don’t know. I want a real boyfriend. Somebody to go to the movies with. Somebody to talk to. Least they be sweatin you.