Tell Me Three Things(29)

“Since when are you an expert?” Dri asks, and throws a pillow at Agnes. “I don’t care what you say. Technically, you’re still a virgin.”

“I am not! I totally technically lost my v-card,” Agnes says with faux indignation. They sound like an old married couple who has had this particular fight before and neither cares how it turns out. The fun is in the fighting.

“Technically? What does that even mean?” I ask, and look at Agnes. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those weirdos who, you know, count, um, oral.”

“Course not. There was just a minor penetration issue,” Agnes says, and giggles. “But it counts. It definitely counts.”

I start laughing too, though I don’t really get it.

“What the what?”

“Agnes was half penetrated. She got slipped a half peen.”

“Half peen, that’s hilarious,” Agnes says, and soon we’re all laughing so hard we have tears falling down our cheeks.

“Literally, I have no idea what that means. You have to tell me the whole story,” I say.

“Okay, here’s what went down,” Agnes says.

“No pun intended,” I say.

“Touché. So, last summer at drama camp, and yes, I know, cliché, blah, blah, but at least it wasn’t prom. Anyhow, this guy Stills and I are hooking up outside my bunk, and we’re on the ground, and I think, Okay, let’s do this. I was kind of bored of the whole virginity thing, and so we get a condom, because safety first, right, and start to you know, have sex, with, you know, some penetration, and then all of a sudden he totally freaks out. Apparently, he’s all into, and I quote, his ‘bro J.C.’ and wants to wait till marriage.”

“No way,” I say. “He actually said ‘my bro J.C.’?”

“Yup. Humiliating on so many levels. So that’s how I lost my virginity. It counts, right?” Agnes asks me, and I decide that maybe I’ve been too quick to judge her. She’s funny and super honest and willing to laugh at herself. I get now why she and Dri are best friends.

“I vote yes,” I say, because it’s a hell of a lot closer than I’ve ever come to having a penis inserted into me.

“But Dri’s right too. I totally got half peened. How about you?” Agnes asks so casually it’s like she’s asking what my favorite subject is.

“Not yet. I mean, I’m not waiting till marriage or anything like that, but, yeah, no real opportunity has presented itself,” I say, which is the truth. What I don’t say: that I wouldn’t mind if it happened with someone I liked and found attractive and who liked me back. I assume I won’t lose my virginity until college, because that’s when it seems to happen for girls like me.

“Me neither,” Dri says. “And to go back to my original point, I’m not saying it’s some huge deal or anything, but, come on, it’s not nothing.”

Agnes says, “So my sister goes to UCLA, and she’s like this huge hobag there, right? And she says that sleeping with all these randos is her way of owning her sexuality.” Agnes now sits up and faces both Dri and me, her bangs restored. “She even has a file on Evernote where she keeps track of everyone she’s slept with.”

“You kind of have to admire her commitment,” Dri says. “Banging for feminism.”

We laugh again, and I think about Scar and how she’d feel right at home here. I continue to flip through the yearbook, looking but not looking for SN.

“Hey, can I ask you guys a question?” I ask.

“Course,” Dri and Agnes say at the exact same time. Scarlett and I used to do that too. We called them our mind meld moments.

“Do you know anyone in our class who had a sister who died?” I know I shouldn’t try to figure out who SN is, that finding out might just ruin the best thing to happen to me in forever, but I can’t help myself. I have this one nugget of information, and I want to run with it.

“Don’t think so. Why?” Dri asks.

“Well, there’s this guy…,” I say, and wonder how to tell this story without making it all sound weird. SN and me, our constant texting despite his anonymity. How I feel like he’s really starting to know me, to see me, even though we’ve never even met.

“So many great stories begin ‘There’s this guy.’?” Agnes giggles.

“Shut up,” Dri says. “Let the girl talk.”

And so I do. It feels like I’m in a safe room, and not despite Agnes’s teasing, but maybe because of it. These are people who, if they aren’t already, are well on their way to becoming my real friends. I don’t mention the specifics: our new three things game or how he told me to befriend Dri in the first place. The former, at least, belongs only to us. But I confess that I like him, whatever that means when you’ve only talked online.

“You totally want him to half peen you,” Agnes says.

“A girl can dream,” I say.

—

Later, when I get back to Rachel’s house, I find Theo lingering outside our parents’ bedroom, obviously eavesdropping.

“You are not listening to them, you know, doing the nasty. Please, please, please tell me that’s not what’s happening here,” I demand.

“Ewww. Gross, no. And shush. They’re fighting,” he says, and pulls me next to him, right near the door, so I can hear them too. Turns out that’s unnecessary, because soon they’re shouting so loud I’m sure the neighbors have turned off whatever reality show competition they are watching to tune in to this instead. “I think they might be breaking up, and then this long national nightmare can come to an end.”