And by “we” I meant Brendon more than me.
I just wanted to know what it felt like to have sex with him. And I loved him; it just didn’t feel like it did with Fisher. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to feel like it did with Fisher.
“I’m so nervous my hands won’t stop shaking,” Brendon said as he fumbled the condom.
After he rolled it on, I closed my eyes—another sign things weren’t great with Brendon. He touched me, and I imagined it was Fisher.
He started to push into me, and I replayed moments with Fisher. But Brendon didn’t touch me like Fisher had touched me. He didn’t really touch me at all, just his cock suited up between my legs and his lips nervously hovering over my lips.
Did he not notice my breasts? Maybe he wasn’t a breast man.
Did he not want to kiss me between my legs? Locate my clit? Run his tongue along the length of my neck before biting my earlobe?
It was all so different.
I winced when he pushed all the way into me. It didn’t feel great, maybe because he wasn’t doing anything to make it feel at least a little less than awful and painful.
For the next five minutes, maybe not even, he jabbed me with an erratic rhythm. He missed my clit every time while his heavy breaths washed over my face—grunting and occasionally pressing a limp, sloppy kiss to my mouth.
“Oh my …” Brendon squeezed his eyes shut and stilled for a few seconds before a full-body shiver shook him. He opened his eyes and grinned. “That was…” he blew out a breath “…amazing. I love you so very much.”
When he rolled off me, I slowly sat up with my back to him and tears in my eyes. I gave him my virginity, and I didn’t regret it, not on my part. Brendon deserved it because it meant something to him. I think it meant more to him than it meant to me.
The tears?
Guilt?
Not because I’d sinned.
Because I tempted him. He sinned for me. He did it because he loved me. He did it because it seemed a little less wrong since I agreed to marry him.
Tears … I couldn’t stop the tears because I knew I couldn’t marry him.
And I couldn’t go home to Rory … to Fisher.
It was time to do something for myself. It was time to fall in love with endless possibilities. Time to walk alone. Time to grow up.
Time to “fucking think for yourself.”
Chapter Two
Four years later …
“Oh my BABY GIRL!” Rory threw her hands in the air and charged me like she did at the airport in Denver after getting out of prison.
I was a teenaged adult then. Deer in the headlights. And no clue where my journey even began, let alone where it might take me.
It took me to Fisher, then it took me to Thailand, then it took me to Ann Arbor, Michigan. In Thailand, I volunteered to help a woman named Alesha. She was fifty-three. A midwife. Much like working for Fisher, I was grunt labor. No experience needed. And much like Fisher, Alesha taught me a lot. I watched (sometimes helped) her deliver thirty-three babies during my year in Thailand. But I knew after the very first delivery, that she had the best job in the world.
After breaking Brendon’s heart that night in Tokyo, I changed my travel plans. Instead of going back to Colorado, I returned to Houston. My grandparents helped me make financial arrangements for college.
Nursing school at the University of Michigan.
A new place where I didn’t know a soul. The perfect place to follow my dream.
“Your dad would be so proud.” Rory hugged me the day I received my bachelor’s degree.
I loved her for acknowledging Dad. He really would have been proud of me.
My mom’s parents were overjoyed for me too. My dad’s parents plastered on their fake smiles, watching Rory and Rose congratulate me. They were not okay with my mom and her lesbian partner. I loved my mom, and I loved Rose too. During my four years in Ann Arbor, they averaged three visits a year. I never made it to Denver, but they didn’t mind coming to me.
The sour looks on my dad’s parents’ faces didn’t bother me. They were old. Set in their ways. And their opinions no longer shaped mine.
I thought for myself. I found a way to love God without fear or guilt—the most liberating feeling ever.
Sex? Yes … I’d had a handful of boyfriends during my four years in Michigan. And they were all better lovers than Brendon. To be fair … it was his first time too.
Alcohol? I wasn’t a binge drinker, but I enjoyed a fun night out with friends.
Friends … I had so many friends from nursing school. They felt more like sisters and brothers to me.