Page 4 of You Had Me at Hello World
He cuts his eyes to me. “Serious?”
“Why not?” I try to sound bored, but my heart skips at the thought of losing my virginity. What if it hurts? What if I screw it up somehow? Would it be weird if I find a wikiHow on sex and sex-adjacent topics? That’s definitely weird.
After a beat, he nods and twists the ignition to life.
During the drive, Drew puts on a Pink Floyd album, which is fine by me, because my brain is still replaying the incident with Michael. Every time I think about him shoving the envelope into his waistband, how easily he claimed the one thing that wasmine, bam. New surge of anger. New wave of homicidal bloodlust.
I guess it’s good that I’m hanging out with Drew.
When we pull up to Osprey’s Point, it’s abandoned, although someone must’ve been here recently—there are seltzer cans littered across the ground. In the sunlight, their tabs gleam like rubies.
He asks, “Do you want something to drink? I have Coronas.”
I hate the blunt taste of alcohol, but I find myself nodding anyway.
We find a clean-ish bench facing the water and crack open our bottles. He wraps his arm around me, and I lean into his shoulder.
It’s almost romantic. The ocean is humming with sunlight, and there’s a soft breeze coming in. A whiff of salt. Somewhere far away, a seagull shrieks. If we wait another hour or two, we could watch the sun dip below the horizon, the same way it does every day.
As we sip our beers, Drew yaps about his older brother David, who recently got out of rehab.
“Dad thinks my brother is this total disaster, but David’s still kinda my hero,” he says. “He was always so badass. For his senior prank, he and his friends got this cow onto the second floor of the school. They set up all these hay bales. It refused to go back downstairs, so the school had to bring in a farmer to help. It was awesome.”
Wait, I saw this on the local news in seventh grade. There was so much mooing. “That wasyour brother? No way.”
“Yes way.”
I shake my head, amazed. “Has your class decided on a senior prank?”
He smirks. “Wait and see. It’s going to be spectacular.”
Until right now, I didn’t even know David was in rehab. Around here, it’s not rare for kids to end up there, but it isn’t something that people openly discuss. Drew and I don’t really have a relationship like this, where we actually talk about things.
I remind myself that he’s leaving in September and I’m not out here trying to be besties with a guy who once joked about me eating his goldendoodle. He did apologize for that one, but still. We don’t need to start spilling our guts out to each other.
When I kiss him, he tastes like Corona Light and mint-flavored lip balm.
We do that for a while and I climb into his lap; then his hands start roaming toward my hips. I let them roam. His body is hard and bony beneath mine. When I first started kissing Drew, I thought there would be some hunger clawing through me, some ravenous and obviousneed—but it’s always been more like a mildly interesting science experiment. Maybe I’m not the type to feel anything stronger than that.
I don’t know how far he wants to go. I don’t know how farIwant to go. And maybe it’s bad to do this here, outside, in plain daylight. But I want him to keep touching me. I want to forget about the rest of my shitty life.
“Char,” he mumbles into my mouth.
“Mmm?” I don’t really want to talk. It gets in the way of making out.
“Char. Stop.” Then he pulls away. “What’s wrong?”
“Huh?”
“You’re kissing me like you’re upset. Like you’re trying to get rid of your own feelings.”
“I’m not upset.” I lean in for another kiss, but he dodges me.
“Uh-huh.” He pushes me off his lap, and my butt slides onto the bench. “If we’re gonna, um, do it, I wanna be more serious.”
I give a faint laugh. “What, like, girlfriend-boyfriend or something?” Why would we define the relationship now? He’s going off to college in a few months.
“Not even that. But you never want to talk.”
