I was fifteen, and Ethan asked me to his house one afternoon. I didn’t particularly like him, but I said yes because all the other girls were getting into relationships and I wanted to fit in. I had always struggled with intimacy. The idea of opening myself up to someone was foreign. I believed vulnerability to be a weakness punishable with abandonment.

Ethan lived nearby, so I walked to his house and snuck in through the back door, entering into the unfinished basement. My bare feet treaded lightly on the concrete floor, collecting dirt and sawdust as I followed him to his bedroom.

“My feet are freezing,” I said, flopping on the bed and dropping my legs in his lap. He began rubbing them with both hands in an attempt to create friction as particles of dirt fell onto the comforter.

“Are your parents home?” I asked.

“No, I think they went to the store.” Ethan was handsome, with tanned skin and blond hair. He played hockey, went to church every Sunday, and did well in school. My parents liked that he read fiction for pleasure, and responded politely when asked a question.

“Why’d I sneak in then?” I nudged him with my foot, playfully.

He bit his lip, one corner of his mouth rising. “I thought you just liked doing that.”

Picking up a book from his bedside table—something by Charles Bukowski—I began flipping through. I knew he wanted to have sex, he had been hinting at it for weeks. I didn’t want to get a reputation for being easy, so I was making him wait. But I was bored, and I had never been good at waiting.

“Hey.” I peered at him over the spine of the book. “Wanna have sex?”

He lifted his eyes from my feet. “Seriously?”

I nodded and dropped the novel. “Do you have a condom?”

“I think so.”

He slid from the bed, bent down, and lifted the corner of a blue mat, revealing a loose floorboard that he jiggled free before retrieving a box of condoms.

I rolled onto my stomach and laughed. “Clever.”

Ethan kissed me for a few minutes, jamming his tongue into my mouth without any rhythm, before unzipping his fly to reveal his erection. It was the first time I had seen a penis. I thought it was gross, like a big bald head aggressively staring at me. He spent a few seconds trying to manoeuvre the condom. “Sorry,” he said awkwardly as he managed it.

“It’s fine.” Savouring the moment, I took him in, knowing this was meant to be important. I silenced the nun’s voice in my head, her omen about sex before marriage. I told myself I was about to metamorphize. No longer a little girl. I made my own choices. I was about to get fucked.

Grabbing me by the legs, Ethan dragged me to the edge of his bed. Still standing, he hiked up my dress, removed my panties, then pushed himself inside me. I remember the pain—sharp and piercing, like my flesh was being torn. By instinct, my body withdrew, but he yanked me back.