For the longest minute in the world, I brace myself for a literal or metaphorical slap in the face, or worse. The words came out easily enough, but my entire body is trembling. Then she squeezes my hand and like magic it stops, long enough for me to make my rounds hugging and kissing everyone goodbye when Jasmine announces that we’re heading back. I make promises to text and otherwise keep in touch but I barely even know what I’m saying because I’ve just flat-out told a girl I want to have sex with her and we’re on our way to do that and I feel like I’m gonna burst into flames.

We don’t say a word on our way back. We don’t say a word when we crash into each other the second we make it inside the house, kissing so furiously I expect one of us to draw blood. There’s no talking as we pull at each other’s clothing and fall onto her bed, shutting and locking the door behind us.

There’s no talking, but it isn’t silent either. For the first time, I don’t waste precious energy holding in every desperate sound that rises into my throat at the scrape of her nails on my skin. I make no effort to hold still against the way her teeth have me writhing on the sheets. This is the most in the moment I have ever been, and with every gasp of air I’m grateful for the scrap of honesty that got us here.

Beyond that, I’m not doing any thinking.

Her breathing goes fast and shallow as I kiss and touch down her body to her hip bones, and look up for an okay for more even though I’m not a hundred percent sure that I’m okay. Her nodding is fast and furious but it’s the sight of her hands grasping the sheets with white-knuckled fists in anticipation that halts any hesitation I might’ve had at venturing into new territory.

It isn’t silent, not when she cries out minutes later, and not when our bodies find new ways to fit and rock together, and not when we grasp each other so tightly we leave claw marks in each other’s skin. Every time I think we can’t get any closer, I learn I’m wildly underestimating us. We spend so many tangled and sweaty hours exploring each other that I’m not even sure at what point I finally pass out.

It takes a second for the night to come rushing back, for me to remember why I’m completely naked in Jasmine’s bed and clutching a sheet around myself. I spent last night having sex—so much sex, incredible sex—with a girl. A girl I’m leaving behind today when my mom and I fly back to New York.