I could feel myself blushing as I talked about it, not because I was thinking about the moment or the intimacy, but because I felt an embarrassment start to curdle in my chest. I’d never felt it like this before—like I wished I could go back and not tell anyone. Not have sex in the first place. Keep this as a memory for only me, like I had done with my first kiss.

Why did I do that? If I had just stopped and thought about it with a clear head—would I have still agreed? If I took a second and realized that I was about to have sex on the dirty ground outside a barn in the freezing cold at a stranger’s house, would I have done it? Or would I have asked him to take it slower? To just kiss me. To be my boyfriend first.

My head felt hot and I was getting dizzy. I felt like a slut. How did that happen? An hour ago I was the most prudish virgin they’d ever met and now, just one spin around the clock later, I’d had sex? They were asking me how I felt?

Not okay. I didn’t feel okay.

I don’t know why I did it.

I wished I could go back. I wished I could blink, and we’d be back at school getting ready, or in the car, Ruthie’s hair blowing in the freezing wind. I wished I never came here. I wished I never met any of them.

Back inside the barn, we walked up to the boys and Timothy handed me a drink with a wink that made me gag a little. I hated that I’d let him do that. I hated that he’d let me do it.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

I turned to Ruthie, who was standing next to me, staring into her cup like she was trying to figure out once and for all what alcohol was actually inside.

“Ruthie, can we—” When she looked up at me, she wasn’t smiling anymore. She wasn’t trying to seem interested or happy. She looked emotionless. Dead.

Something about that look—her stagnant eyes, her bleak expression—made me want to rip her head off. This was not right. She was my best friend. Fuck her if she’s going to make me feel guilty for something I wanted to do. Something I had been more excited to talk to her about than anything else in my life.

She was the one who brought me to this party. She was the one obsessed with finding our party group, becoming party people. She was the one excited—desperate, even—to meet boys, to lose her virginity. Why was she acting like I shouldn’t have done the same?