“I just want some advice,” I say finally. “And you seem to know what you’re doing. I mean, I’ve seen you hooking up with a lot of girls, obviously, and so you must be able to help me out a little.”

The waitress comes back with our food and I jump as she interrupts. She sets our pancakes down and I force a smile.

“Careful. The plates are hot,” she says in a cheery voice as she walks away. “Enjoy!”

I pick up my fork and begin to tap it against the table, not touching my breakfast. Andrew takes a big bite of his pancakes. Apparently nothing is awkward enough to dampen his hunger. I take a deep breath and the words tumble out of me.

“I want to have sex with James Dean at prom but I don’t know what I’m doing. He’s clearly pretty experienced, like, he’s in college, right? So he doesn’t know I’m a virgin. But I don’t know if I really want him to know I’m a virgin because that might scare him away. I want him to like me, you know? And I’m just nervous, because I have absolutely no clue how to . . . um . . .” I trail off. “And you could probably help me. It was Hannah’s idea, so it’s totally fine if you’re not into it. Don’t feel pressured.”

He swallows his pancakes. “Um, okay. I can give you some tips, I guess.” He runs a hand over his forehead, scrunching his eyebrows with his thumb and pointer finger, then looks back at me, taking another bite of pancakes. “Why would I feel pressured?”

“Oh,” I say, realizing I haven’t actually gotten to the crux of it, haven’t actually said the part that’s the most important. “Oh. That’s not what I meant.” I clear my throat again and take a sip of coffee, but it’s tepid and bitter. I force myself to swallow and then push my mug aside. I lower my voice to a whisper, glancing behind me at the table of stoner sophomores. They’re not paying attention to us.

“Collins?” he asks. “Keely?”

I choke out a whisper. “I’m just sick of being a virgin. And I trust you. You would never spread rumors about me or anything like that. I just thought, maybe, we could”—I cough a little—“maybe we could have sex. Like, you could teach me. We could practice.”

He makes a choking sound and knocks over his mug of coffee with his elbow. It rushes across the table toward me, liquid spilling into my lap. I jump up, grabbing for a pile of napkins.

“Sorry.” He jumps up too, out of the booth, before realizing the coffee isn’t rushing in his direction. He sits back down, then stands up again, reaching for some napkins to help.