Punk Love

I looked up at the waitress, a relieved smile on my face. “I’ll take the pasta.”

We didn’t drink a lot that night, but I drank enough that I could call it liquid courage. Two beers. Enough to get tipsy, but not trashed. I also made sure to call my parents—twice and separately—to avoid any missed calls or text messages. Knowing them, they were a breath away from sending a search party to find me if I didn’t take their calls. Which would be disastrous, because I was definitely not in the woods I told them I was going to be in.

It was a great setting, with a great boyfriend, at a great age to lose your virginity to someone you trusted and loved. And I think, in a lot of ways, this set the tone for the rest of my romantic life.

What to expect from the person you’re with.

Alex set the bar high.

The night he took my virginity, he was so slow, so soft, so sweet.

The day after, he was the same. Though maybe a little less soft, and a little less sweet.

And when we got back home after that trip, he took the entire blame for the car.

Alex’s parents didn’t even blink, let alone punish him.

And my parents? Well, they still think I went on a camping trip that weekend.

There was a moment in time in which Alex and I were the golden couple.

It happened a few months after we’d gotten back from our first vacation together.

Jadie and Tom were out, Alex and Lara were in. Everyone knew that. We were the Brangelina of the scene. Sans….well, all the post-breakup BS.

And then…lo and behold, occurred a drama that didn’t involve me.

“W—what do you mean you broke up?” I stuttered into the phone.

“What part do you not understand?” Jadie yelled at me through the receiver, and for the first time, she didn’t sound chill or sweet or completely, utterly and perfectly composed. “Tom and I broke up. Are you coming here or what?”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” I was already shoving my feet into my Chuck Taylors. “Should I bring anything? I don’t know, ice cream?”

“Yeah,” Jadie growled. “And none of that vegan shit, either. I want it to be full of dairy. For all I care, there could be pieces of the cow in that shit, too.”

Another fallen convert. I had spent the last few months happily vegetarian, and I no longer hid it from the world. I liked cheese too much. Hate me or love me, that was my truth.

“Got it. Be there in an hour with some cow remains.”

My parents didn’t give me the car—maybe because I was the worst driver in the entire world, I don’t know, this is purely a speculation—so I called Alex and asked him to drive me to Jadie and to buy ice cream on his way.

He did both, but when I tried prying information out of him about Tom’s side in this mysterious and sudden breakup, he kept mum.

“I know you and Jadie are friends, but please don’t put me in the middle of this bullshit. Tom is my friend.”

“All I’m saying is that it’s surprising,” I huffed, though I had no reason to be upset or short with Alex. He was a perfect boyfriend, who also acted as my chauffeur and personal assistant more often than I cared to admit. Like, literally right now.

“Yup,” Alex agreed. “But shit happens. People break up. Even if they love each other.”

I gave him the stink eye.

“I’m not saying those people are going to be us.” He parked in front of Jadie’s house.

“But you’re not saying it’s not going to be us, either.”

“Not sure how Tom fucking up has gotten me in the doghouse.” He was trying really hard not to roll his eyes at me.

“Tom fucked up?” I felt my eyes widening.

He leaned forward, opening the passenger door for me, kissing my temple.

“Okay. Enough talk. Go see Jadie. Let me know if you need a ride back home. I’ll be around.”

I kissed him hard on the lips and darted straight to Jadie.

“He cheated on me.” Jadie blew her nose noisily into a pile of damp, tattered tissue.

She was gorgeous even when she cried, which I found absolutely infuriating. I wanted to tell her so. To lift her spirits. I would want to know if I looked like Venus rising from the foamy Mediterranean Sea while bawling. I mean, Tom was great (pre the cheating revelation, anyway), but wasn’t so great that he deserved one of the sweetest, most beautiful women to grace this planet.

“He did?” I tried to keep the shock out of my voice. The last thing she needed was my joining her hysteria. She needed someone to lean on. A rock.

Jadie nodded, bursting into another sob.

“It happened at a party. He was drunk, I guess, and it only happened once. But…how, you know? How could he do this to me?”