Grow up and use your cell phone,

Arizona

Dear Arizona,

Like I said….You owe me twenty dollars

Sincerely,

Carter

She gasped as she read my final note, looking over her shoulder and shaking her head. She sent me a text right before the bell rang:

I’ll see you after my Home-Economics class? Your place?

Yours.

I texted back.

My mom is having her therapist over later. If you guys bake brownies again, bring me one.

Done deal.

I floated through the rest of my day at school, not paying any attention to anything that was happening around me. I even spent an extra hour at test-prep tutoring—something I never did unless I was bored out of my mind.

I walked the long way to Ari’s house—stopping every minute to look around at nothing in particular, but when I arrived she wasn’t there.

“Hey, there, Carter!” Her older sister, Ariana, ushered me inside. “You want something to drink?”

“Water, please.”

“Coming right up,” she said, quickly pressing a cold bottle into my hand. “You can go wait for Ari upstairs in her room if you want. She should be home in a few minutes.”

“No, thanks.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “I’ll wait here until she gets back. Thanks to you, your mom thought we were up there having sex last time I was here. Or do you not recall lying to her about that?”

“It was a joke.” She laughed. “I honestly think we’ve all accepted that you two are just friends. Weird, strange, and way too damn close friends, but just friends.”

“Not trusting it.” I plopped onto the couch. “I’ve been scarred for life. Sorry.”

She smiled and crossed her arms. “You know, I was just telling one of my friends about you two. I was telling her that although I think it’s nearly impossible to be strictly friends with a guy, that I think you and Arizona are the rare boy and girl friends that will always remain strictly platonic.”

“Thank you for your random thoughts,” I said. “I was hoping that you would throw some my way today.”

“Well, smartass, between you and me, have you ever had any non-friendly thoughts about Arizona? Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe one day she’ll be your girlfriend? Or maybe—”

“You know what? I’m going to take you up on that room-pass now.” I immediately stood up and walked up the stairs, ignoring her cackling laughter. I shut the door and sat by the window, resorting back to far more entertaining thoughts of sex.

It was ten times better than I thought it would be, and I couldn’t wait to tell someone else about it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to focus on anything else at school this week because I was going to need to have sex in my life a lot more often to cling to this current feeling.

“Can you stop smiling like that?” Arizona threw a pillow at my face. “You’re giving it all away.”

“So, you believe me now?”

“After seeing you sit there with that dumbass grin on your face for over five minutes?” She plopped onto her bed. “Yeah. I have no choice.”

“Sorry, I can’t help it.” I walked over and plopped down right next to her. “It was so great.”

“Who was it? Erica? Adriane?”

“Amber,” I said. “We did it at her place Sunday afternoon while her parents were at a BBQ.”

“How classy.”

“We did it more than once, too.”

“You’re lying! There’s no way…”

“Oh, young and unworldly, Ari…When thou hast experienced the wonder of the body, thou shall be able to effortlessly relate to the need and insatiability of bodily desires.”

“So you do pay attention in Literature class?” She laughed and placed a wrapped brownie onto my chest. “I knew she was a pedophile…”

“She’s only three years older than us.”

“Whatever…” She rolled her eyes. “Who else knows?”

“No one.” I hadn’t told any of my guy friends yet—Josh was still serving out a suspension for skipping school last week, so Ari was my first call.

“What did it feel like?” she asked.

“Apple pie.”

“I’m being serious.” She rolled over on her side. “What did it feel like?”

“Good.” I swallowed. “Really, really good…But…”

“But what?”

“You know how in all those dumbass chick-flicks you make me watch, when the actors have sex and they look into each other’s eyes and act like their world has just changed forever?”

“Yeah?”

“It wasn’t like that at all.”

“Really?”

“Really…” I shrugged. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s like the best feeling ever in life—especially when I first thrust inside of her and felt how tight her—”

“Ugh. Please spare me the grisly details…”

“Okay, okay.” I laughed and turned on my side to face her. “It’s really, really amazing, Ari. But if it’s supposed to be anything like the movies, then I must be missing something.”

“Or, maybe you did it wrong?”

“No.” I laughed harder. “I definitely didn’t do it wrong.”

“What about in the pornos then? Was it anything like that?”