I tell them that when puberty started I noticed rolls around my belly when I sat on the toilet and even my fingers began to look fat. My flesh reminded me of the raw cookie dough I would eat from the fridge after school, soft and easy to squash. The worst thing would be to turn into my mother.

I don’t tell them about how in my English and history class there was a boy, Jake, with a flop of hair over his eyes. When he smiled there was a single dimple in his right cheek. His binder had stickers of band names I’d never heard of. The boys at school all knew when we started to wear bras; there were a few who ran around in the lunchroom feeling for straps on our backs, giving them a sharp snap. Jake wasn’t one of those boys.

In eighth grade we went on a field trip to Colonial Williamsburg, to see a Revolutionary War re-enactment. The buses left early and came home late—it was a two-hour drive each way. Mom dropped me off early, so I was one of the first people on the bus. When Jake paused beside me, my heart stuttered.

‘Is this seat taken?’

I had been saving it for my friend Amy, but she’d understand. I shook my head, whispering no. He threw himself down. I breathed on the glass and drew a picture with my finger of a tree, mountains behind it. He didn’t say anything. I spent the first hour trying to think of something to say.

‘Have you ever been to Williamsburg?’

‘Did you pack a lunch?’

‘What are you doing your report on?’

Everything I thought of sounded stupid, so I stayed silent. My face was hot. Every once in a while I saw Amy peer over the top of her seat at us. She’d want to know what happened as soon as we got there. It was too hard. He’d pulled his headphones over his ears and I could hear a muffled beat sometimes, indecipherable, the sound of his fingers tapping the vinyl seat. I decided I’d pretend to sleep instead. I put my jacket over my lap, my backpack against the window as a pillow. I shut my eyes.

I’d nearly fallen asleep when his fingers crept beneath my jacket. Like insect legs along my thigh. I froze. He must have felt my muscle tighten. The hand slid up along the side, where the seam of my jeans sat. Then the hill of my leg, the top of the thigh. What was I meant to do? His fingers were on the inside now, almost tickling. Higher. And again. I wanted to push him away. I didn’t. I’d forgotten how to move.