I shook my head against his naked chest. “No,” I choked out. “I’m just…just over-overwhelmed. N-not upset.”
He sighed in relief. “You’re not mad at me?”
I giggled through my tears. “Mad? Why would I be mad?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. You saw the blood and started crying, and I thought…I don’t know. I thought maybe you regretted doing this…with me.”
I wrapped my arms around him, sitting on his lap and still crying. “No, Jason. No. I don’t. I’m overwhelmed is all. It was so much better than I’d ever thought it could be, better than I’d heard some girls talk about their first time having been.”
“Really?” He sounded hopeful.
I nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think most girls have an…an orgasm their first time.” I tilted my head back to meet his eyes. “You gave me that.”
He blushed but looked pleased. “I’m glad. Did it hurt bad?”
I shook my head. “A little at first, and then it pinched when…you know. But then it didn’t hurt at all after that, and it started to feel good. Really good.”
There was still so much going on inside me that I couldn’t express. I didn’t regret what we’d just done, but I knew I was different. That was a moment that could never be experienced again. I wasn’t a virgin any longer, I wasn’t a girl anymore; I was a woman now.
I came again the second time, even harder than the first, and Jason lasted even longer, bringing us both to rapture and trembling ecstasy. I knew, as I drifted sleepily in his arms after the second time, that I’d never be able to get enough of this. I wanted more even as I felt the aftershocks still shaking me.
Jason brought me home five minutes before my 1 a.m. weekend curfew, and we kissed slowly and tenderly in the warmth of his truck’s cab before I got out. We kissed differently, I realized. We were aware now of what came after kissing.
I waved to him from my front door and went to my room, flopping on my bed with a crazy grin on my face, thoughts floating around my head as I fell asleep. I was a little sore between my legs, and I knew I would be tomorrow, too. It was worth it, even though I wondered, at the bottom of my heart, if it had been too soon, if we were too young, if I’d been totally ready.
NINE: A Tree Falls
Jason
August, two years later
I lounged on my couch, expecting a call from Becca. My phone was on my thigh, the TV on, tuned to Sports Center. It was odd to be graduated, at loose ends. I had acceptance letters from the University of Nebraska and the University of Michigan, full-ride scholarship offers to both on the merits of football and grades. I needed the scholarships, especially since I’d stopped accepting any money from Dad for anything. I’d broken the national records I had my sights on by the middle of my senior-year season, and Dad had tried to give me something like two thousand dollars for each record broken. I refused it, he got pissed, we fought, and I put him in the hospital. He hadn’t even looked at me since.
Becca was supposed to call me when she was done with her hair appointment, and we were going to go out for a late lunch to discuss university options. She was set on U of M, to the point that she’d only applied to there. Of course, she’d gotten in with a huge grades scholarship on top of all the other grants and scholarships she’d applied for. She was the valedictorian of our graduating class with a 4.26 final GPA. Yeah, she was that kid. Her speech was moving and fluent, not one stutter. She’d even gone down to one ST session a month from twice weekly. She had so many scholarships her entire BS degree was going to be totally paid for, and I wasn’t quite sure how she’d done it. Well, I did, actually. She spent hours every day her entire senior year applying for them, writing essays, mailing them out, hunting for more scholarships. Her parents could afford to pay for her education, I was fairly sure, since they were pretty loaded—although they were quiet about that fact—but Becca refused to accept their help since it came with conditions. Namely, that she and I couldn’t live together. A deal-breaker for my girl, god bless her.
I glanced at my phone: 3:52 p.m. She was supposed to call me at 3:30. I wasn’t worried or mad, just curious. She was punctual to a fault, so her being this late was unusual.
I flicked off the TV and went to the dining room table, where the bills and mail were piled up. I lifted the two acceptance letters and stared at them, unsure of what to do. I really liked Nebraska’s football team, plus they had a great architecture program that I was interested in. Nebraska was Dad’s first choice for me, which sort of worked against it, in my book. The big issue with the University of Nebraska, of course, was the fact that it was in Nebraska. Fucking Nebraska. Six hundred and ninety-five miles from Ann Arbor, where Becca would be.
Hell, no.
U of M, of course, meant living with Becca. It had a couple of academic programs I was interested in besides their football team, which had improved over the last few years. Their starting quarterback was promising, and I was pretty sure his style would mesh with mine. Kyle and I had talked about going to the same college just so we could play together, but we had different careers in mind, and it just wouldn’t work. He didn’t really plan on trying to go pro, I didn’t think. He liked football, and he was damn good, but…it wasn’t his focus. He wanted to be a trainer, I think. I wasn’t sure. Me? I wanted to go pro, but I also wanted to have a degree to fall back on, a secondary career in mind. I’d learned something from Dad after all. He’d never planned on anything but playing ball. He’d floated through school, had a degree in English that wasn’t good for shit when it came down to jobs, since all his life was focused on ball.
I didn’t want that for myself. I knew I was smart; I knew I had potential beyond football. I hadn’t spoken to another living person about this, yet, not even Becca, but I’d been browsing degree programs on the U of M website, and the one that had jumped out to me was their art and design department. Photography.
I had a huge portfolio of photographs put together. Becca had helped me with it, claiming it was for herself so she could leaf through my photos in physical form. I knew better. She loved my photography. She was always encouraging me to pursue it. She’d be over the moon if she knew I was even considering a degree in photography.
As stupid as it seemed, the biggest reason keeping me from it was my father. He’d disown me. Photography was art, and art was for sissies. I’d play ball, and that was it. As much as I hated my dad, deep down I knew I still wanted his approval.