How You Get the Girl

I Take a Walk on the Wild Side, Sort Of

The next Friday, we were only having a half-day of classes. In the afternoon the school was going to hear a series of speakers on alcohol, drugs, and sex education. Since we were going to college in a few months it could have been useful information. Unfortunately, the school had been bringing in the same speakers, who gave the same talks, every year since we were freshman. There were only so many times you could hear them tell you the same thing before your eyes glazed over and you fell asleep. The entire senior class had been dreading it all week. Most of my friends' parents had called in and excused them but my parents refused. They insisted I go. I had tried to tell them that I was good, I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, and I wasn't having sex. I even reassured them that when I did decide to have sex I would go on the pill and use a condom. If anything, that it made them more convinced I needed to go to school that day.

So, there I was, one of a handful of seniors at school on Friday morning, latte in hand, ready to face my fate. I was feeling sorry for myself. I had the sex ed talk first. One more year of putting a condom on a banana. Seriously? Minnesota was a pretty liberal state. We had covered the topic a bunch of times in health class. I felt very confident that I understood birth control. Personally, I thought it would be more useful if the school gave a talk about knowing when you were ready to have sex. That had been on my mind a lot recently. How exactly did you know you were ready? All of my former friends had done it already but it had been pretty clear they had not all been ready. Frida had had sex with a guy last year and he had dumped her right after. She had been a wreck about it and the same thing had happened again when she had slept with Michael. Julia had actually had a pregnancy scare this fall and Sasha liked to pretend that sex was just for fun and had no meaning but I could see it upset her when a guy she was sleeping with ignored her or hooked up with another girl. Beth and Maria were serious about each other. They were my only friends who seemed to have made good choices about sex.

It all seemed so complicated and it didn't help that Ben was really hot. We were moving beyond kissing and he was driving me crazy. The question was, how far beyond kissing did I want to go? I was in love with Ben, even if I wasn't sure if he loved me. But did that mean I wanted to sleep with him? Hormones and emotions made the whole thing really confusing. Ben and I had not talked about it at all yet. I was not sure what he thought. Did guys always want to sleep with you? They seemed to always want to in movies and on TV but what about in real life? Had Ben ever slept with anyone? Maybe we were in the same boat and we would both be doing it for the first time? Would that make things better or worse? I was so confused. I should probably talk to him but it was so awkward!

I was deep in thought when Ben walked up. I jumped when he spoke.

"Come on, let's go," he said.

"I can't, I already told you yesterday, I have to be in school today. My parents won't excuse me. I have to be here," I explained.

"I had Kenzie call in as your mom. You're feeling sick and have to go home right now," he said.

"I can't cut school," I told him.

"Don't worry, I do it whenever there's a boring assembly or a class retreat day," he answered.

"You cut class?" I said, not really believing him.

"Not class, just the useless stuff," he responded.

"Won't they call my mom to check and make sure it was really her?" I asked him.

He looked at me levelly, "They never do that. You're excused for the day. Let's go have some fun."

The angel and the devil on my shoulders had a quick fight but the devil won. I headed out the door with Ben.