Forever for a Year(55)

“I know. After he asked me, Carrie, I thought about you so much, and I know we got mad at each other but that was stupid.”

“I agree,” I said. “I miss you.”

“I miss you!”

“So Henry’s your boyfriend?” I asked.

“Katherine said to call someone your boyfriend is not cool, but we hooked up last weekend and then we hooked up again last night. He asked me afterward.”

“After you hooked up?” What did “hook up” mean? DID PEGGY HAVE SEX WITH HENRY MCCARTHY?

“Yeah, it was romantic.”

“That’s amazing,” I said even though I had no idea if it was amazing or not.

“How did Trevor ask you?”

“He sent roses to my house with a note.”

“Oh,” she said, then was quiet, then said, “that’s nice. It’s, like, old-fashioned. It’s nice.”

“Yeah,” I said, and wasn’t sure if I was mad at Peggy for calling it old-fashioned or at Trevor for being old-fashioned. I just knew I was starting to feel mad.

“So you two haven’t had sex yet? Everyone says you’re having sex because you can’t stop touching each other at school, but I said that Carrie wouldn’t have had sex and not told me.”

“No! No. We just kiss.”

“You only kiss?” she said, like I was a silly five-year-old.

“No! I mean, he touched my boobs and I’ve rubbed his … thing.” Gosh, it was hard to say the word “penis.” Even to my best friend. Peggy was my best friend again, right?

“So you gave him a hand job?” Peggy asked. Wait a minute. Did Peggy just say “hand job”? We had never, ever talked like that. At least not like it was nothing.

“I mean, sort of.”

“Have you touched it or not, Carrie?”

“I’ve touched it through his jeans.”

“You guys are practically married and you haven’t touched his dick? Carrie, I know you always talked about waiting, but you can’t be a prude or boys won’t like you.” Peggy was talking so fast and using language that she never used. It made my head want to pop off my body.

“Have you had sex with Henry?” I asked, then held my breath because if she said “yes,” I would cry because that would mean she hadn’t told me, which meant she wasn’t my best friend and maybe Trevor would leave me if I didn’t have sex with him.

“No!” Peggy yelled. Which made me feel sooo much better. “We’ve only hooked up two times.”

“So what does ‘hook up’ mean exactly?”

Peggy laughed. Laughed at me. Gosh. She said, “You are still so immature, Carrie. You need to hang out with me more so I can help you grow up.” Last time we had really talked, Peggy said she wanted to go back to eighth grade. Now she was telling me to grow up. I had a best friend who used to be nice to me all the time and now she wasn’t nice to me that much at all.

But I said, “Okay.” I think I probably looked like my mom looks when she gets hurt.

“‘Hook up’ just means you did stuff with a boy. All these junior boys asked me out but Katherine said I couldn’t go out with anyone her age. So last Saturday, Henry and I just French-kissed and he went up my shirt and he put my hands down his pants. And then last night we did the same stuff but I gave him a real hand job.”

“What’s a real hand job?”

“Where the boy goes at the end. You’re so out of it, Carrie!”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt so dumb. I wish Trevor and I lived on an island by ourselves and could just kiss and maybe when we were married.… Never mind. That’s so dumb. I need to grow up. Peggy was right. I almost asked Peggy how to give a real hand job, but she would make fun of me even more and then I might hate her again and I wanted to go to homecoming with her, so I just said, “You’re the best best friend, Peggy.” It sounded fake, but Peggy didn’t care because she said, “So are you. I’m so excited about homecoming.”

“Me too.” Which was true I guess. We talked a little more but all I could think about was that I needed to look up on the internet how to give a real hand job so that Trevor didn’t think I was a prude like Peggy says.

*

So. Anyway. That’s what I meant when I said I wasn’t just going to kiss Trevor tonight. But now we were in his basement and I was thinking about what Peggy had said, and what Lily had said about him being sad, and what my mom had said, and how I wanted Trevor to love me forever.… I didn’t know what to do. The internet gave horrible advice. I even watched a porn of a hand job, and oh my, gosh, it looked so weird and how could that feel good and how would I even start?

And I liked kissing him sooo much. Why couldn’t we just kiss? I liked feeling his weight on me. And grabbing his head and his shoulders. I liked how he had his hands around my back.

And then he stopped kissing me and I was, like, positive he was going to say that I was a prude, but instead he said, “Does this feel good for you?”

Oh. My. Gosh. He’s the most amazing boy ever. He is. He is. He is. “Yes, so good. I love kissing you. Trevor, oh, I just love it. Do you like it?”

“Very much.” And then we kissed more. And then I stopped.