That was until Aidan Gallagher took to calling her a frigid. Connie was smart and perceptive but ultimately naïve, too, to imagine she could turn them down forever. Too many blows to the ego later and he told the other boys that she was boring and stuck-up, someone mentioned it to Orla, and she was the one to pass it on to Connie. None of the boys—or the girls we were friends with, either—ever had anything bad to say about Connie before that point. And she wasn’t willing to let such a comment pass by so easily.

We hung out with the boys just a few days after the comment reached Connie’s ears and I eagerly anticipated the moment she would scold Aidan and ridicule him in front of his friends. Connie had the ability to warp into a flaming bitch when she wanted to be, and I had seen her berate boys before. I foresaw her ripping Aidan a new one, slandering him and casting him into social exile. I thought she would do to Aidan what she had done to Peter Delaney when he called Orla a slut—spread rumors about him and have some of the boys punch him around a few times. The last thing I expected her to do was kiss him in front of everyone.

It happened quite abruptly. We sat on the beach passing a few cans of cider around between us. I didn’t drink much then, at the start, just a few mouthfuls to satisfy my friends. But I was smoking, sharing a cigarette with Orla. We sat together, somewhat on the periphery of the larger group, and Molly was underneath the arm of some boy I didn’t recognize, whose legs seemed too skinny compared to his rather wide torso. Connie was at the center of the action, standing next to Aidan with a hand on his shoulder. It made my stomach jolt to see her like that, but it wasn’t until he leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers that I really felt what could only be described as my innards twisting within themselves, my heart plummeting out of my chest. I watched, open-mouthed, as he grasped at her ass and she curled her arms around his neck. The other boys whooped and cheered as they kissed, on and on for what could have been a lifetime, and when they pulled apart his mouth was stained with her cherry lipstick. They kissed for a second time that evening, his hands holding onto her waist so firmly that he must have left bruises in his wake. I wasn’t able to look away from them even as it tore me up inside. And it confused me, the things I felt. I knew I didn’t like Connie, not like that. She was my best friend. I didn’t like like her in any way, even if I thought she was perfect. I knew that wasn’t it. That wasn’t even worth thinking about. All I knew was that I hated Aidan and that he, of all people, did not deserve to have his hands on her. The nausea that built up inside me—it was simply my own concern for her. It was simply the desire to protect her.