Page 23 of All the Way
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“You were gone all night, little lady.” Jamie and I slide into a booth at Kaitlyn’s as she flips the sign on her front door over to let the world know she’s closed for the night. Flicking off the lights behind the counter, she leaves on the lights over the tables along with the colorful lights inside the windows. It feels intimate and safe to be in one of my favorite places with my best girlfriend and my sister, but I feel like a storm is about to hit me at any second on the inside.
“Oh my God. Please tell me you were with some random guy screwing all over a hotel room.” Kaitlyn sets a small silver tray down with three piping-hot cups of cocoa stuffed with a roasted marshmallow each.
“Hm. I think the screwing part might be accurate, but I don’t know about the random guy thing,” Jamie says, taking her drink and wrapping her fingers around it.
I look down and my face betrays me as a smile tugs at the corners of my lips. “Now, you know I wouldn’t have sex for the first time that way. With a random guy? No.” My body is responding to the memory of his touch, but my mind remains confused.
“Please tell me this did not have something to do with the mix tape,” Kaitlyn says, her wide eyes peeking out from behind wisps of her long bangs.
“Actually, I think this might have everything to do with the mix tape, and if by mix tape you mean Chris, and by Chris you mean sex.” Jaimie licks the corner of her marshmallow and winks at me and Kaitlyn.
“Yeah.” I scratch the back of my head and drum my fingers on the table. “It did have something to do with the mix tape, and also everything else you just mentioned a second ago.”
Both of the girls scream and I wince playfully, sticking my hands over my ears.
“How?” Kaitlyn says, pulling a leg up under her. “Wait. Huh?”
“Yeah,” Jamie says, waving a hand in the air. “He even came over and helped decorate a tree. You know that shit’s legit.”
“I’m happy if you are,” Kaitlyn says, looking from Jamie to me, “but I thought you wanted to leave all this all in the past. Make a clean break.”
I sigh loudly and struggle to not let the lump in my throat get the best of me. “That’s the thing. Iwashappy when nothing happened, and then I wasthrilledwhen something finallydidhappen. And now I’m just confused. He took me to this party last night.”
“Party?” Jaimie raises an eyebrow at me and curls up a corner of her lip. “That’s not like you at all.”
“I know,” I say, “that’s the thing. I wanted to go because I wanted to be in with his group, or something. And then his weird friend made this weird comment to me, and now I don’t know what to think.”
I repeat the comment Josh made and the girls groan.
“That’s bullshit,” Jamie says. “Pure crap. No way.”
“Well, that can’t be all,” Kaitlyn says. “That’s a dumb comment, I agree. But is that all that made you upset?”
“Well, no,” I confess hesitantly. “I also saw him come out of a room with this girl. She was very nice, I happened to talk to her for a few minutes. Sweet girl.”
“Nope. No. Give me her name.” I can’t tell if my sister is really angry or just faking it for my benefit.
“It was probably nothing,” Kaitlyn says, opening her hands on the table. “I can’t imagine anything would happen so out in the open like that.”
“This is the whole thing I’m confused about. I felt so hurt and embarrassed in that moment, but then I realized that I had no reason to be. It’s too many emotions. It’s all too much. Having sex has made me feel so much more, I don’t know….”
“Vulnerable?” Jamie says, putting a hand on mine.
“Yeah. That. And it sucks. And I have no right to be upset, right?”
“I mean, you would, if something happened,” Kaitlyn says.
“Now all I can think about is the fact that he thinks I’m only here for a few more weeks, and how he probably assumes we’ll be apart after that. So what is this whole thing to him? Does it mean as much to him as it does to me?”
“Wait,” Jamie says, “what do you mean, hethinksyou’re only here for a few more weeks?”
I bite my lower lip and smile. “I didn’t tell anyone yet because I wasn’t sure if I was going to do it, but I got into the vet medicine program.”
Jamie and Kaitlyn scream again and my sister throws her arms around my shoulders.
“Oh my God! That’s fantastic!” Kaitlyn puts her hand up to high-five me, and I put mine up in return.
