The past

A friend from my past is going to be in town in early July.

She was my best friend for a while in high school. She could make me laugh harder than anyone else... for a while.

She was smart and daring and funny.


And mean.

I don't think she intended to be. She just was.

Remember my Homecoming Dance story? My first real kiss, and my first passionate crush? Well, of course she knew about it. She knew how I felt about him.

We were all friends, of a sort. One night, after a bunch of us had been hanging out in someone's parents' jacuzzi, he gave my friend a lift home. They lived in the same neighborhood, and well, I guess Jennifer was playing footsie with my dream guy under the bubbles.

A couple days later, she and I rode bikes (neither one of us had our license at 16) to Aloha Burger. Those were the days when I could eat double-chili burgers, fries and vanilla shakes without gaining an ounce. It was a great little place, close to the university, and sometimes cute college boys hung out in there.

She started to tell me what happened after the ride home. They started kissing in the car, it got heated, and she told him her folks wouldn't be home the whole next day. Told him to "stop by," if he wanted.

(Remember, dear readers, she's talking about this boy as if he wasn't the love of my life... as if I hadn't confided my deep feelings for him to her. As if it was just something fun she did on a whim.)

Of course, as a footloose and fancy free 19-year-old male who thought he might get some, he stopped by.

And they got... um... into it. Went upstairs, took off their clothes, and Jennifer decided to lose her virginity to him.

(You know how you are hearing something you really don't want to know, but you can't say anything yourself? That open-mouthed-gawking-of-the-mind, if you will? That was me. I had no idea how to react. This was my best friend. Telling me how she had sex with the boy I was crazy about. Giving me all the details as if I would want to know them. Acting as if what she was telling me was just part of being girlfriends. I said nothing.)

Then, she said it really hurt, and they didn't get too far before she made him stop. She said it was over in about two minutes. That neither of them "finished." That it got really weird and uncomfortable, and then he left.

"I can't believe you did that." was all I could say.


We finished our burgers, went to Fedmart to look at the records, and went home.

I cried quite a bit that night. That, in and of itself, wasn't that strange. I was a 16-year-old girl you know.

But these were horrible, can't stop, ugly tears. I couldn't really get my head around what she had told me; I just knew I'd been betrayed. That word wasn't in my head though. In typical teenage fashion, all that I could think was, "Why didn't he want me? What was wrong with me? What's she got that I don't?"

Because of course, it had to be some lack on my part.




Wait.

I'm not done. Oh, did you think that was it? That was the "mean" thing I was talking about? Oh no, not that it wasn't mean of her, of course it was.

But then she really did it.

As talk happened, as it is wont to do among the pre-women of high school, Jennifer wasn't coming out of this looking so sweet. See, she had been on a sorta kinda date that night in the jacuzzi. And it wasn't with my dream man. And, the girl whose backyard we were in? She was the one on the date with my dream man. This second girl had no idea of the feelings I harbored for him in my little heart, because she also had a mad crush on the guy.

Anyway, Jennifer was starting to being referred to as a slut. Although, I don't think we used that word. We were quite a group of goody-two-shoes actually. But maybe we used that word. I know that's what some of the girls were thinking...

And the story started to morph into something dark and bad.

The story changed.

Oh, the kissing in the car was the same. But Jennifer wasn't sure about it. Now, he was the one asking to come over the next day, and her response has become, "well, I don't know, because my parents aren't home."

And now he comes over anyway, univited.

And yes, they do start kissing again, but in this version, Jennifer doesn't want to do anything else, but he's pressuring her. She's vague here, but somehow he convinces her to go up to her room, and he starts taking off her clothes, and then forcing himself on her.

And then she starts calling it rape.

Not at first, but as the story develops over the next few months.


I don't believe her. I know this boy.

But she made me doubt him. Just a little. Just a tiny little question mark.

In my better moments I know she would have told me right away, that next day when she was taking such pleasure in telling me that she lost her virginity with the guy I loved.

In my better moments, I know she changed the story so she wouldn't look like a manipulative bitch to the other girls.

In my better moments, I wish I had confronted her fully. But I never did.

Dream man? He and I are still friends. Still talk. We went on to an odd sort of romantic friendship that never really flamed into anything lasting. Well, other than friendship with a bit of flirting on the side. If I'm honest, with a bit of "what if?" thrown in once or twice a year.

I asked him about it a few years later. Directly asked him about it one night when we had ended up in bed together.

He told me the exact story Jennifer had told me that day at the burger place.

I believed him.