I HAD SEX WITH Jason for the first time underneath a set of bleachers on the football field. The early crocus bulbs were in bloom, the grass starting to green its way out of dormancy, but the nights were still frosty, cold air that burned bare skin. I'd snuck out. I remember that it hurt but not that bad, that Jason made fun of me for not knowing how to manage a condom, that the bright white of the moon seemed ominously far away and too close, moonlight so bright it blocked out the stars. Back home, I hid under my bedcovers, thinking that was it, I'd never get to have that night again, my virginity gone forever to the wrong boy in the wrong way. I felt all the shame I'd been taught to feel, resigned to the loss, bound by it, like that one yes meant yes to every future encounter, like I'd lost the right, somehow, to say no ever again. You are your choices. I took a bath so hot my skin stayed red for an hour after.

Mom was at the kitchen table with a plate of buttered toast and a mug of black coffee, watching a squirrel devour the seeds she'd put in the bird feeder.

“Morning, Mom,” I said. Everything felt awkward, new, like I had been taken apart and reassembled, all my joints just a little off where they once were.

“Sleep well?” Mom asked.

I scanned her face, trying to see what she knew, what she guessed, but she was inscrutable.

“Not really,” I said.

Mom smiled, shrugged, turned back to the window. Nothing was going to happen. I didn't know whether the adrenaline rush I had then was terror or relief.

Jason took to coming over pretty much every night. My room was in the basement. I'd unlock the back door after Mom went to sleep. We'd have hushed, quiet sex, and he'd sneak back into his room before his dad got home from the night shift. I wanted it until I didn't want it anymore. It felt like something separate from me, like I was watching an unrecognizable movie version of myself. I have trouble explaining all this, even to myself, even now, until I remember that I was only fifteen. There's no explaining the naked human frailty of fifteen.

I tried saying no one time, but Jason put his hand over my mouth, entered me anyway. I know he heard me, but he never acknowledged it, and I didn't confront him. After that, it was less heartbreak to pretend I wanted it than to say no, have to endure him taking it anyway.

At school, Andy punched my shoulder. “Heard you been writing love letters,” he said, “heard they're all about how much you love having Jason Alles inside you.”