Chapter Text
You're a freshman; all sticky pink lip gloss and doe-eyed smiles. You're riding shotgun in a senior's pride and joy - an old secondhand station wagon with a paint job faded plaster red. You suppose it's not as glamorous as you'd imagined, but the breeze in your hair from the open window and the stereo cranked up louder than your dad would ever have dared gives you a sense of freedom unfamiliar to you yet at this crossroads in your life. You hate to admit you're a cliché but it really is too easy to impress a girl your age.
You're not sure where you're going - a party somewhere in New Coventry, hosted by someone you've never met - that's all you know.
Despite what the hand on your thigh suggests, you're not all that acquainted with your driver either. Some jock too popular to be considered a creep but not popular enough to get with girls his own age.
He tells you it's because you're different from other girls, and you let yourself believe that this is all because you're special. You wish your peers could expand their vocabulary beyond "easy" - you're sick of hearing that word.
You've only been hanging around with him for a few weeks. You met through a friend of a friend, and you wondered what that friend had said about you because this boy had been eager to get to know you ever since. It makes you feel good that someone would want to get to know you.
You make a remark about him keeping his hands at "ten and two" and he snorts. He seems surprised that you'd managed to make a joke.
It was the sort of thing your dad would say - always talking about car safety. You wonder what your parents would make of their little girl now, but you decide it doesn't matter, because you're not with your parents. They sent you here, and when they call to check in you only really need to tell them about your grades and they're just happy you're getting better in English. They don't need to know what you do in your spare time.
When you get out of the car you're greeted by the wandering eyes of your companion's peers. They're already drunk and leering, and it reminds you of all the times you'd come downstairs in the evenings fully dressed in pajamas and still feel as naked as the day you were born when a family friend - old enough to be your dad and with breath ripe with the stench of liquor - would compliment your body's development, like it was something you controlled. The first time you had the pleasure of that experience was in 7th grade.
Your mom soon warned you that men only want one thing, that the reason they pinch and grope and call across the street is because they cant control their animalistic urges. That they're simpler beings than women. Boys will be boys.
The thing that made you feel more disgusted than the comments was the way you found yourself hitching your skirt up just that little bit more whenever you walked past a group of boys, even men; that you left a few more buttons undone when you knew your dad had friends over.
You choose to delude yourself, and it works. You feel wanted, and you feel good.
Even now when your head is spinning from your first ever shots and you're not sure you can even feel it that much when someone much taller and stronger pries open your mouth with their tongue - rough and sloppy but you don't care. They didn't ask anyway.
All you know is that even having your hair pulled can feel like a kiss when you're desperate enough.
You're on your knees being introduced to someone's zipper and your memory kind of blacks out there.
All you know is that this party leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and on the way back being driven above the speed limit by someone you wouldn't trust right now to operate a microwave, you let the tears fall.
When you get out your driver kisses you on the forehead and that gentle act makes everything better. This is why you let these things happen to you, it pays off in the end, right?
You tell him not to let the word get out about the things you do, and he tells you he'll keep it your secret. Even you're not so naïve that you believe that, though - they always go bragging to their stupid friends, and that's what you're counting on. That's how you keep the validation going, so that when you get thrown away there's someone waiting their turn.
It seems a double standard that you always end up the one with the bad reputation, while these older boys seem to avoid the moral judgement, but that's just how it is. Boys will be boys.
When you cry again that night, still dizzy and emotional, your roommate doesn't notice and you're grateful for it in the morning. You vowed never to show weakness.
Part of you wishes she'd be your friend, but the other half knows that it will never be enough. All the friends in the world wouldn't be enough.
This is what you want though, isn't it?