My cheeks burn at the casual dig. Being a virgin shouldn’t be a big deal—I know that—but the fact that Danielle shared the label with me always made me feel a little better. If Danielle Oliver does something, it automatically shaves five million points off the embarrassment scale.
Ava was the first girl in our class to lose her virginity. She and Jason Ryder did it middle school grad night on the playground behind the big slide. I was horrified back then when I first heard about it. Sex was still something foreign to me, something people did in movies—and not even in the movies I watched. Then other girls started doing it too—Molly Moye lost it to one of her older brother’s best friends, Jessica Rogers to a girl she met over winter break in Vancouver. My friend Hannah lost hers junior year to her boyfriend Charlie. They spent the night at his lake house, lit a bunch of candles, and played her favorite album. Turns out, even Morrissey couldn’t save them.
When we first heard these stories, the rest of us were eager with questions. What did sex feel like? Did it hurt? How did you know what to do? And now Danielle has joined them. Now we’re seniors and the questions are drying up.
Now I’m the only one left.
I can hear the low thumping sound of music downstairs, a high female screech and peal of laughter, a crash as something falls to the floor—a water glass maybe, or a table lamp. I wince, hoping Andrew’s mom won’t kill us, because even though it’s his house and his party, she’ll know I was here. I’m always here.
Danielle grabs a hand towel and scrubs the smudged lipstick from her cheeks. I want to reach out a hand to stop her— Andrew’s mom will flip out about a stained towel, especially after the broken something downstairs—but it doesn’t seem like the time. She leans closer to the mirror and stares. And I swear, her expression is of someone wise—someone who will never again wonder if a boy likes her back, never again get a huge pimple in the middle of her face. Danielle has always been confident, but now she looks unstoppable.
Next to her I still look like I’m twelve years old, even though as of today I’m officially eighteen. I’ve always been ridiculously short, but now I look even smaller because Danielle is wearing these black chunky heels and I’m in my socks; I took my snowy boots off at the door like we were supposed to. I touch my hair—darker blond than usual because I didn’t wash it—cursing myself for thinking some dry shampoo and a ponytail were proper party attire. It’s like I’m setting myself up for failure.
Danielle purses her lips. “Do you think I look older now?” She moves her head back and forth to check out her reflection from all angles. “Now that I’m a woman I really feel older.”
I don’t want to admit to her what I’ve just been thinking, so I cross my eyes, throwing back her question. “Do I look older?” I know birthdays don’t magically change you from one day to the next. Still, there’s a part of me that wants to feel the way Danielle is feeling—I want to be unstoppable too.
She looks at me blankly. “Why would you look older?” Of course she doesn’t remember, even though Hannah brought cupcakes to school today to celebrate and Danielle said the recipe was too eggy. Even though this party is supposed to be for me.
“It’s my birthday.”
She wrenches her gaze away from the mirror and turns to me. “Oops, I totally forgot.” Her hand catches on a tangle in her hair. “Chase was so sweet tonight. He knew it was my first time, so he didn’t rush it.” So we’re back to Chase. I guess I can’t blame her. If I had just lost my virginity, maybe I wouldn’t want to stop talking about it either.
“I’m glad it was just how you imagined,” I say. “There are a lot of jerks at this school. It’s good you found a nice one.”
“I know,” she says, “Chase Brosner.” She grabs my hand and pulls me to the door, unlocking it and yanking it open. “Remember,” she says. “This never happened.”
We leave the bathroom together and head downstairs. The air is warm, despite the snow falling outside, and it smells like sweat. We’re almost at the bottom of the stairs when it starts.
The applause.
It’s quiet at first, over the din of the party, over the flow of the Kendrick song playing through the speakers from somebody’s phone. But then as more people notice us, it picks up. People stop talking, stop dancing, pause their games of beer pong mid-throw, and join in, hooting and hollering and cheering. Somebody grabs the phone, and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” blasts through the living room.
Danielle stiffens beside me on the staircase.
Across the room from us, Chase is sprawled out on the couch with Jason Ryder and Simon Terst, a sleepy smile on his face.
Simon leans forward, practically twitching with excitement. “Not bad, Brosner!”
Jason Ryder takes a long swig of his beer and then pats Chase on the back, hard enough it probably hurts. “Guess she’s not unfuckable after all,” Ryder says, his words slurring together.
Danielle is still frozen in place, one heel hovering over the next step.
“Danielle,” I whisper, clutching her arm, trying to steady her, trying to steady myself. “Are you okay?”
How has everyone found out so fast? We can’t have been in the bathroom for more than ten minutes. Did Chase announce it the second he came down the stairs? Maybe he told Jason Ryder and Ryder opened his big dumb mouth.
“I’m fine,” she hisses. But her hand grabs on to mine and she squeezes for just a second before she pulls away. She takes a deep breath and reaches a shaky hand up to smooth down her hair. And then she bows.
The crowd goes wild.
TWO
DANIELLE STRAIGHTENS back up, smiling like she’s Chase at a home game and we’re all holding signs with her name on them. It’s like the Madonna song is just her entrance music. I follow behind her the rest of the way down the stairs, hoping that nobody has made the connection between the song and me, how it’s my entrance music too.
At the bottom of the stairs, Ava barrels over to us, grabbing Danielle possessively by the arm. Ava is tiny—more boobs than body—with pale freckly skin she keeps perfectly tanned even in winter, due to a passion for tinted coconut body lotion. Her hair was red once upon a time, but last year she started dyeing it different colors to match the holidays. Right now it’s a faded pink from Valentine’s Day, and it looks just like the cotton candy they make down by the lake in the summer. She’s wearing the same bright red lipstick as Danielle, her ears decked in the same silver studs, and in her hand is the same matching purple phone case. It’s a uniform that makes things clear: even if we’re technically friends, I’ll never be able to penetrate their two-person club. Sometimes I think she and Danielle are so used to being exactly the same that dyeing her hair is the only way Ava can think of to stand apart: her one tiny rebellion.