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Cady Heron has been dating Aaron Samuels for three months in a row.
They have only kissed once.
She isn’t mad about it, she supposes. Aaron is more than cute. He’s smart - at least he tries to be - and he’s good and he helps her and loves her. At least, that’s what he says.
They kissed at the dance. She locked her arms around him and didn’t want to let go. But since then he’s avoided spending time with her in private. He comes over to her house, but only when her parents are there, and when she suggests going upstairs to her bedroom he always finds a reason to leave.
She isn’t mad about it. She isn’t.
But she can’t stop wondering if there’s something wrong with her.
~
Regina George was Aaron’s first kiss.
He knows he was not hers.
Regina wanted to make sure the school knew they were together. They kissed in the hallway, the cafeteria, classrooms. He did what she wanted, loved her, did everything he could to make her happy.
It took a lot to make her happy.
Cady tells him Regina is cheating on him with Shane.
He’s not surprised.
Cady tells him that he was her property.
He gets mad at her. But really, he knows she’s right.
Aaron knows he’s handsome. Regina has told him so. He sees the way Cady looks at him.
He breaks up with Regina, again. Except this time she doesn’t tell him he’s not enough. This time she doesn’t have to.
He isn’t Regina’s anymore. Now he’s Cady’s.
~
“Why did Regina cheat on me?” Aaron asks one day, and Cady almost chokes on her lemonade.
“Excuse me?” She asks, and Aaron winces.
“Probably not the best thing to ask my girlfriend, huh.”
“No,” Cady says, but answers anyway. “I think she wasn’t happy.”
“No kidding,” Aaron snorts. “I knew that.”
“Shane was just mindless pleasure, I guess,” Cady shrugs.
Aaron looks down. “I guess.”
“I don’t think she loved him,” Cady says, and wonders why she’s trying to convince her boyfriend that his ex cared about him. “Why do you ask?”
Aaron doesn’t meet her eyes. “I don’t want the same thing to happen with you.”
Cady frowns. “Aaron, I wouldn’t.”
“Not you, I mean - I can’t control you.”
“You can’t,” she agrees.
“I wasn’t enough for Regina,” Aaron says. “I didn’t do enough for her. I couldn’t be - I wasn’t what she wanted.”
Cady stares at him. He’s being serious. “How could you not be what she wanted? You’re perfect.”
Aaron laughs. “I’m not.”
“You are to me.”
“Thanks,” Aaron says, and she takes his hand. She wants to kiss him, but he’s across the table and he still won’t look at her.
What is she doing wrong?
~
“We should go upstairs,” Cady tells him, eyes bright and eager.
He wants to deny her for the sixth time.
Regina, he thinks. Don’t let this become Regina.
“Okay,” he smiles, and watches her face light up.
She’s beautiful. He could stare at her smile forever.
“Really?” Cady starts, then jumps up. “Okay!”
He follows her up the stairs.
He’s only been to her room once before. She was drunk and called him property and vomited on him.
The picture of her on the elephant is still there. He stares at it and tries not to worry about what’s happening.
“Forget the homework,” Cady laughs and pulls him down onto her bed. He sprawls out beside her, and she grabs his hand.
They end up on their sides, staring at each other, noses almost touching.
“Aaron,” she says, and her eyes are the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.
“Cady.” He smiles at her. Her hands are so small. Her fingers squeeze his, arms pressed together. He wishes he could freeze time, right here.
But he’s aware of how close her face is to his.
“Aaron,” she whispers, and closes her eyes, and then she kisses him.
Aaron knows how to kiss. Regina taught him. Cady is softer, less demanding, clumsy.
It’s endearing if he can ignore the way his throat freezes up and he can’t breathe.
Cady smiles into his mouth. He doesn’t know what to do. She reaches for his other hand and pulls. He almost falls onto her. She’s touching his waist, pressing closer.
He breaks away. He wrests his hands from hers.
She looks at him, shocked. Her eyes are wide and full of hurt.
He should say something, but his heart is racing, and what has he just done?
It’s silent for a single moment.
“What is going on?” Cady asks. It breaks the silence with a crack. “What am I doing wrong?”
Aaron gapes at her. “What are you doing wrong?”
“Yes,” Cady says, and her voice starts to shake. “You haven’t wanted to be alone with me since we started dating, and ever since the dance you’ve been distant, you barely hold my hand anymore.”
“Cady, it’s not -“
“I can change,” she says, rushing through her sentences. “What do I need to fix?”
“No, no,” Aaron says, desperate. “It’s not you, you’re perfect, you’re better, I can tell -“
“They why won’t you kiss me?” She pleads.
“I don’t want to!” Aaron says, and it’s almost a yell.
“I knew it,” Cady sniffs. “I knew it -“
“It’s not because you’re not pretty,” he says. He feels like he’s drowning. “You’re beautiful. Cady, please -“
They’re both starting to cry.
“What is it, then?” she mourns.
Aaron cannot answer her.
The awful silence suffocates their tears. Eventually their breathing evens out.
“I think you should go home,” Cady says after a while. “I’m sorry.”
Aaron stands. There’s something burning in his chest. “I love you.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“I’ll call you,” he says.
“Okay,” she says, and listens to him walk away.
~
“Hello?”
“Cady?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Aaron.”
“I know.”
There’s a heavy sigh.
“Regina hooked up with Shane because I wouldn’t.”
“You wouldn’t hook up with Shane.”
“No. I wouldn’t hook up with her.”
“Oh.”
A strained silence.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t want to have sex with her.”
“Abstinence. You’ll die.”
“No, it’s not just that - I don’t - I’ve never -“
“You’re saying you don’t like girls?”
“No. I like you. I love you.”
“Oh.”
“I never wanted to have sex with anyone.”
“Oh.”
“Do you think -“
“I think that a phone call isn’t the way to talk about this.”
~
They meet in the park.
The stars are out, and Cady can’t take her eyes off them.
Aaron’s gaze is fixated on the ground.
“So.” Cady talks like she’s conducting an interview. “Let me get this straight. You don’t want to break up with me.”
Aaron shakes his head. “No.”
“You don’t think I’m ugly.”
“No.”
“You don’t think I’m not good enough to kiss.”
“No. You’re a great kisser.”
“But you don’t want to kiss me.”
Aaron picks at his fingernails. “I don’t.”
“Why?”
Aaron thinks about his answer for a long time. Cady starts to wonder if he’s fallen asleep.
“I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone,” he finally mutters. “I didn’t mind it when Regina did it, at first, and at the dance it was fine because you were happy.”
“You kissed me to make me happy,” Cady clarifies.
“I guess,” Aaron says.
“But you didn’t want to?”
“It doesn’t do anything for me.”
“So what does it for you?”
Aaron grimaces. “Nothing.”
Cady sits back. “Nothing?”
“Everyone always talks about how high school boys are supposed to be all horny and girl-crazy,” Aaron says, throwing his hands up, “but I’m a freshman in college now and I’ve never once felt sexually attracted to anyone.”
Cady blinks. “Alright, okay.”
“No, not okay,” Aaron emphasizes. “I can’t give you what you want. I couldn’t give it to Regina, so what’s to stop you from -“
“Aaron, you think I’m going to leave you cause you won’t kiss me?” Cady interrupts.
“It’s what Regina did,” he shoots back.
“I’m not Regina,” Cady says, and that stops him.
“I thought it was something wrong with me,” she says, quieter. “But if you just don’t like that -“
“You’re beautiful,” Aaron says, voice breaking. “I could stare at you all day.”
“So are you,” Cady says. “But you’re also nice.”
Aaron looks up from the ground.
“You’re nice, you listen to me. You care about my problems. I don’t care that you don’t want - that,” she flusters. “You’re more than what I can get out of you.”
And Aaron starts to cry.
~
Cady holds his hand now. It’s nice. She squeezes it and he knows she’s there.
He’s happier, now.
She leans on him when they watch a movie.
It’s alright. He likes it. Her hair tickles his nose, but it’s a small price to pay for how warm she is.
They lie on her bed and talk for hours. She presses her nose into his shoulder when they hug. He can fit his arms all the way around her.
He still feels guilty, sometimes. He still feels like he’s wrong. Like he should make her happy no matter what he wants or doesn’t want.
She tells him that she is happy, and when he looks at her eyes he can see she’s not lying.
They do not kiss in the hallways, the cafeteria, empty classrooms. And nobody cares.
Least of all Cady.