In other words: Afton is well-versed in sex.
Right then we hear the garage door opening. Mom coming home. I glance at the clock; it’s after eleven. Abby has been asleep for hours. Pop read her stories and then went into his den downstairs and shut the door. He likes to read, comic books mostly, a bit of high fantasy thrown in now and then. It’s one of the ways we connected, early on. He heard that I liked art and let me borrow these old-school graphic novels about elves, but not like cutesy Santa elves—sexy badass elves who rode wolves and were descended from aliens. I loved it.
We listen as Mom creeps up the stairs and passes my room on her way to her and Pop’s bedroom. After a while we hear the water in the master bathroom go on: she’s taking a shower. She didn’t bother to stop by the den to apologize to Pop for missing family night, even though she knows he’s still up. Pop must have heard the garage door, too. But he didn’t come out to talk to her.
I get a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. They aren’t fighting, so far as I know. But they aren’t exactly getting along.
Dear God, I think, even though I don’t know if I exactly believe in God. Please don’t let them break up.
“So tell me about this plan of yours,” Afton says to disrupt the silence that’s fallen over us.
I tell her. It’s embarrassing, talking about sex with my big sister. But the upside is that by the end of the conversation, my first-time-having-sex plan is much more solid than “show up at Leo’s swim meet.” Granted, it involves my sister explaining the delicate art of grooming one’s bikini area.
“Why do boys even think hair down there is gross?” I complain, pushing aside my earlier freak-out over my unshaved legs. “I mean, I don’t want to look like a little girl, do I? That’s creepy.”
“It’s a societal norm,” Afton says, shrugging. “Like we’re supposed to be Barbies.”
“I hate the patriarchy,” I sigh.
“I know. But we still have to live in it. I knew this girl at school who hooked up at a party one time, and afterward the guys in our circle started calling her ‘Hairy Mary.’”
“Ugh. Boys are awful.”
Afton nods. “Boys suck.” She looks genuinely upset for a minute.
“Not our boyfriends, though,” I add.
She only smiles sadly. I wonder if she’s thinking about that other party, the one with the college boys. She didn’t tell me what happened or act like it was any big deal, but I think it weighs on her sometimes, whatever it was. She’s not like me, eager to blab all about my feelings. Afton’s always kept her feelings to herself, mostly. Probably because she doesn’t want people to find out that she’s not perfect. Only she kind of is perfect.
I try to lighten the mood. “Well, this shaving/waxing thing doesn’t make any sense, because boys also seemed to be grossed out by vaginas. It’s like an insult now. You’re such a vagina. Your face looks like a vagina.”
Afton snorts. “Like the penis is so attractive. You know that phase where boys draw penises on everything?”
“That’s a phase?”
“You’re right. It might not be a phase. They always think it’s so funny, drawing that, but if girls went around drawing pictures of vaginas, everybody would be horrified. Vaginas are no laughing matter.”
My vagina definitely doesn’t feel like a joke. It feels like a goddess who occasionally demands a blood sacrifice.
“But you should still probably shave,” Afton says. Then she also makes me commit to going underwear shopping first thing in the morning. She finishes up her big-sister advice session by telling me about some kind of how-to sex website that Afton swears is a total game-changer that I flat-out refuse to investigate.
“Some things should just come naturally,” I say as I rummage through my closet, holding up various tops while Afton gives each a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. “Without, you know, like an app.”
Afton makes a face at the next top I show her. “No. Definitely not that one.”
“I like this one,” I protest. It’s a purple tee with various pens and pencils drawn on the front, along with the words, “Draw, Paint, Create.” “It’s like my favorite shirt.”
“It’s not even a little bit sexy.” Afton reaches into the closet around me and pulls out another shirt, this one wine-colored with a V-neck that I didn’t even remember I owned. “This would look amazing on you. It’ll set off the hidden red tones in your hair.”
I close the closet door to access the full-length mirror on the back of it. We both examine our reflections for a minute. Afton is too skinny, Pop regularly says. Which we all know is not really a thing. I can’t help but focus on my own image in the mirror behind my sister. I’m horrifyingly tall—I’ve been five eleven since I was thirteen, looming over the other students in my class. Wide shoulders. No hips to speak of. Legs like tree trunks. Also, I’m not skinny. I’m not overweight, according to my parents, who are both health-care professionals. I am simply, for lack of a better term, “big boned.”
So Afton took after our gorgeous and enigmatic mother, and I took after our father, the caveman. Life is unfair.
I take the wine-colored tee from Afton and hold it up to my chest. “Weird. There are red tones in my hair.” Normally I just think of it as being the color of straw.
“See? You’re not the only one with artistic ability,” Afton says.
“I guess not.”
“Wear it with the jean shorts,” she adds. “And put on some mascara. Waterproof, in case you cry or something.”
“Why would I cry?”
“It hurts the first time.”
Oh. Right. “How bad is it?”
Afton shrugs. “I don’t know how well you tolerate pain. On a scale of one to ten, I’d give it a six. But I’m such a delicate flower, as you know.”
I try to imagine a part of my body tearing. I’m not even sure that’s what really happens down there, or what the point is. The most I know about the hymen is that it’s named after the Greek god of marriage. That’s seriously messed up. I begin to feel nervous again. What is my tolerance for pain?
“It’s normal pain, though, right?” I say. “Everybody has sex.”
“Not everybody,” says Afton faintly.
“Right. Not old people.”
Afton stifles a laugh. “I think old people do occasionally have sex, Ada.”
“Stop. You’re ruining it.”
Afton grabs my hand. She’s being uncharacteristically serious about this all of a sudden. “All I’m saying is, you can wait, if you want.”
I pull my hand away. “What, you don’t think I’m mature enough?” This is something we argue about a lot, whether I’m “old enough” to do certain things that Afton does.
Afton sighs. “You’re not immature. You’re just sixteen, and—”
“But you think you were more mature when you were sixteen.”
“I think my first time was a mistake,” Afton says softly.
I stare at her. “You do?”
“Come on, it was ridiculous,” Afton admits. “It was in a garage. It wasn’t romantic or sweet or special. And my second time, I—” She gets that look like she tastes something terrible. “Sometimes I want to have a long talk with sixteen-year-old me and tell her to make better choices.”