“Oh.” I take another sip of my water and think about it. “So have you ever been?”
“What? Questioned by the police?”
“Yeah.”
He shrugs. “A few times. But nothing they could get to stick. My parents have really good lawyers.”
“Oh.” A lump comes up into my throat. He’s a criminal. I have slept with a criminal.
“I’m just kidding, Quinn,” he says, grinning. “You should see your face. No, I’ve never been questioned by the police.” He shakes his head. “What kind of guy do you think I am?”
“Oh, I don’t . . . I mean, I don’t think you’re any kind of guy, really.” But I’m kind of shocked to realize I want to find out. Is it because we slept together? He’s so not my type. In fact, that was the whole point of having sex with him in the first place. It was supposed to be a one-off, one of those things I could just forget about and move on from.
Am I having some kind of mental breakdown? I’ve heard about things like this happening—girls who are smart and competent until they go away to college and then bam! They start getting drunk and sleeping with frat boys until finally they flunk out. Am I going to flunk out? Am I on a downward spiral? I haven’t even graduated high school yet!
“So what do you want to do now?” Abram asks me.
“Oh, um . . . I’m not . . . I don’t know.” Suddenly, I’m confused. Half of me wants to run out of here, back to my hotel room, back to the safety of my old life. I’ll hang out with Celia and Paige and just forget this whole thing ever happened. It’ll be a story I’ll tell my daughter someday, one of those “you shouldn’t have sex before you’re ready” stories. Actually, it won’t be that kind of story. It was nice, sleeping with Abram. I never felt like I was doing something I didn’t want to do, I never felt disrespected or dirty, and we made sure we were safe. He held me all night and kissed me this morning and now he’s giving me water and asking me what I want to do today. It’s all very confusing. I’m supposed to be heading back to my hotel in the same clothes I wore yesterday, feeling guilty and regretful and wondering what the hell I just did.
But instead I’m here, realizing I want to spend more time with him. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. It was supposed to be a night I could just get caught up in, to forget about everything else that was going on in my life. It was supposed to be an escape.
“Are you hungry?” Abram asks. He leans back against the counter and looks at me. “I know a good breakfast place.”
I think about it. I’m starving. My stomach feels empty, but not in a bad way. “Yes,” I say honestly. “I’m hungry.”
“Well, let’s go then.”
“I need to go back to my hotel first,” I say. I look down at what I’m wearing. “I need to shower and change.”
“You can shower and change here.” He reaches out and pulls me toward him.
I shake my head. “I don’t have any clothes here.”
“I can find you some clothes.”
“What? Your T-shirts and shorts?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. Or you can borrow some of my sister’s stuff. She’s away at school, she won’t mind.”
“I don’t know . . . ,” I say. He’s stroking my back now, his fingers slipping up under the bottom of the T-shirt I’m wearing. His touch feels good on my bare skin, and I shiver. I want to stay here with him, I want to shower here and wear his clothes and just . . . be with him. But I’m scared. How can I not go back to the hotel? I need to talk to Celia and Paige, I need to wear my own clothes, I need to shower and . . . I need to think about everything that happened yesterday. I need to regroup.
“Come on,” Abram says, then kisses me softly. “Don’t you want to hang out with me?” He puffs out his bottom lip, like he’s actually really upset at the thought of me not wanting to spend time with him. I know it’s an act. How upset could he be about me leaving when he just met me yesterday? I think about yesterday, seeing him on the beach, talking to those girls in bikinis, the way they were looking at him. If I left, he could probably just head back out to the strip and find another girl to go to breakfast with. Does he do this all the time? Am I just one in a string of dozens of tourists he’s brought back to his house and dressed in his clothes and taken out to breakfast?
“Come onnnn,” Abram says. “You have to eat.” He takes my hand and starts pulling me down the hall toward his bedroom. He stops at a linen closet and pulls out a towel and a fresh bottle of shampoo. “Here you go,” he says. “Herbal Essences, girls love that.”
I want to ask him how he knows what girls like, but something tells me I won’t like the answer.
He brings me to his room. “Sit,” he commands.
I sit on the bed while he disappears back down the hall. I pick up my phone. Texts from Celia and Paige, demanding to know where I am, threatening to call the police if I don’t answer. Which is pretty dramatic. Also they couldn’t have been that worried, because even though they threatened to do something, obviously they did nothing. They didn’t try to find me, they didn’t call the police, they didn’t try to figure out where I was or what I was doing. (Although I guess it was pretty obvious.) In fact, the only one who seemed to really give a crap about me was Lyla. I text Celia and Paige back and tell them I’m fine, even though they don’t deserve it.
Abram reappears in the doorway, holding a pair of gray yoga pants, a purple tank top, and a pair of flip-flops.
“My sister’s,” he says, proud of himself. “They still have the tags on and everything.”
“Thanks.” I take the stuff, but I don’t move from the bed. Is this really how I want to spend my senior trip? Hanging out with a random guy I just met? Shouldn’t I be on the beach, hanging with Celia and Paige, experiencing my last moments with them and my classmates before we all graduate and go our separate ways?
My phone vibrates.
My mom.
Calling me.
To talk about Stanford, to talk about how I didn’t get in, to talk about how disappointing the whole thing is. She loves that word. Disappointing. She won’t come out and say I’m a disappointment, but she has no problem letting me know situations are disappointing, or that I’ve let her down in some way.
I don’t feel like dealing with that right now. I don’t feel like dealing with Celia and Paige, either. Just because they’re in my class and just because this is our senior trip doesn’t mean I have to spend it with them, doing things I don’t want to do. I should be doing what I want, what sounds fun to me, what makes me happy.
And right now, what I want is to spend time with Abram.
So I send my mom’s call to voice mail.
“Okay,” I say, smiling. “Let’s go to breakfast.”
“Are you carbs or protein?” Abram asks as we walk down Ocean Boulevard an hour later.
“Carbs or protein?”
“Yeah, you know . . . like are you a waffles and pancakes kind of girl, or do you stick with your standard eggs and bacon?”
“Oh.” I think about it. I don’t go out to breakfast that often—weekend mornings are for studying or working on school projects and applications—but when I do, I always get the same thing. Western omelet, wheat toast, and home fries. But now that order seems completely boring. Of all the things I could get, I pick wheat toast? What about Belgian waffles or crepes or even eggs Benedict? Why do I have to be a wheat toast and omelet kind of girl? Do I even like wheat toast and omelets? Suddenly I’m not so sure. Suddenly I’m the kind of girl who hooks up with random boys. And the kind of girl who hooks up with random boys doesn’t eat something as boring as plain old wheat toast.
“Pancakes,” I say. “Definitely. Chocolate chip ones. With a side of bacon.”
Abram grins, like he approves of this choice. “I should have known,” he says. “Any girl cool enough to order a barbecue bacon cheeseburger isn’t going to settle for an omelet.”
I flush. I like the fact that he called me cool, that he thinks I’m the kind of girl who d
oes cool things.
We continue walking down the main street of Siesta Key, along with the tourists in their beachwear. Everyone else is heading toward the water, while we’re going in the opposite direction, toward the restaurants. Of course, this means we have to dodge people as we weave in and out of the crowds, but it’s kind of okay because otherwise I’d have to talk to Abram, and I’m not sure exactly what to say.
It feels weird making conversation with someone you’ve already slept with. What am I supposed to ask him? All the stupid small-talk stuff that you ask when you’re on a first date with someone? That seems so weird, since he’s actually . . . seen me naked.
Oh my god, he’s seen me naked. I have a flash of him last night, on top of me, the moonlight shining through the window, his arms wrapped around me, his lips on mine. I flush hot. Oh my god.
I. Had. Sex. With. Him.
What the hell was I thinking? What seemed daring and crazy last night now just seems ridiculously reckless. I’m completely different than I was yesterday. I’m not a virgin anymore. Abram will forever be in my memories, will forever have the place of being the first person I had sex with. I suddenly feel very world-weary and grown-up. Does everyone walking down the street know we slept together? I know that’s ridiculous. People can’t tell just by looking at you if you’ve had sex or not.
But still. If they knew, they wouldn’t be surprised. A guy and a girl, out in comfy-looking clothes late in the morning, their hair disheveled. Not that my hair is that disheveled. I made sure I brushed it this morning after my shower, using the brush I always keep in my purse. It’s not good to brush your hair when it’s wet, but I didn’t want to make it too obvious that I’d been up to something nefarious.
This whole sleeping-with-someone thing is very confusing. It is a BIG DEAL. And here I am, just going out to breakfast like it’s nothing, like everything’s the same. How can I think of food at a time like this?
I should be . . . I don’t know, doing whatever it is people do after they have sex for the first time. I should be telling Celia and Paige about it, I should be dissecting it moment by moment, I should be calling my mom to share the news. My mom! Ha! The whole Stanford thing aside, my mom and I don’t have the kind of relationship where we share things like that.
Even if everything was fine and I’d gotten my acceptance letter the way I wanted, I wouldn’t have called her to tell her I’d lost my virginity. The only things we bond over are things like grades and academics and working hard. The only time I ever tried to bond with my mom over something else, the only time I went to her for advice, it was a disaster. So much of a disaster it ended up costing me my friendship with Lyla and Aven.
“So here’s the thing,” Abram’s saying now, and I realize I was so caught up in my thoughts I didn’t even realize we’re standing outside a cute little breakfast place. Tables spill out onto a huge outdoor patio, and umbrellas are set up all over, blocking patrons from the sun. Every table is full, and there are a couple dozen people hanging out on the stone benches outside, waiting for tables. “This place has the best breakfast on the key. Which is obvious, because there’s a wait.” He leans in close to me and whispers in my ear. “Although most of these people are tourists, and they’re just here because they saw the place and so they stopped because it’s convenient. They’re lucky, because the breakfast is amazing, but they’re also annoying because they’re taking up our spot.”
He’s so close that his breath tickles my ear, and I can see the tiny bit of stubble that’s starting on his jaw. My breath catches in my chest. How is it possible to be this attracted to someone I don’t even know?
“Oh,” I say dumbly.
“So,” Abram says. “We can wait for a table, or we can get our breakfast to go.”
“Get it to go?” My voice sounds weak. Does he mean get it to go and then take it back to his house with us? If we go back to his house, I’m definitely going to sleep with him again. I can already feel how badly I want to.
“Yeah. I know a great place we can eat. Near the beach.”
Oh. He doesn’t mean go back to his house. I don’t know if I’m disappointed or relieved.
“Okay,” I say. “Sounds good.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re joining the crowd of people on their way down to the beach, bags of food in our hands. Well, actually not in our hands. In Abram’s hands. He insisted on carrying my bag for me.
“So have you been to Florida before?” he asks as we walk.
“Um, just once when I was really little. My grandparents took me and my brother to Disney World.”
“Did you have fun?”
“All I remember is throwing up on the teacup ride and then crying.”
Abram laughs. “So, no then.” He turns and looks at me. “Well, hopefully this time your trip will be a little more memorable.”
It already is, I want to say. But I don’t. I can’t. I don’t know if he knew I was a virgin, and I’m not going to tell him. I don’t want to freak him out, make him think that I’m going to become all psycho obsessed with him or something.
We walk all the way down the main road, past the main part of the beach, until we’re almost at the very end of the street. There are beach access points all off the main road, and we end up at the very last one, following the path until we hit the rocky part of the sand.
“This is going to be tricky,” Abram says, looking over his shoulder at me. “Do you have good balance?”
“What do you mean by good?” I ask warily. My balance is not the best. I almost got a B in gym because I kept falling off the balance beam during our gymnastics unit. I had to do a whole bunch of extra credit so I could get my grade up. (I couldn’t end up with a B in anything, because that would have brought my whole grade point average down, and if I wanted to get into Stanford, I needed it to be perfect. Looking back, I should have just let myself fall off the damn beam and not worried about it.)
Abram laughs. “Just pay attention, you’ll be fine.” Obviously he never saw me in Ms. Mercurio’s fifth-period coed gym class.
I take a breath and keep walking. At the very end of the beach, right before the sand curves around and disappears out of sight, there are a bunch of vacation houses with stone walls in front of them. Abram jumps up onto one and disappears around the bend.
I stand there, hesitating, until he pops his head back around and looks at me.
“You coming?”
“I don’t know.” I glance at the wall. I can’t see what’s around the corner. “Isn’t it . . . I mean, isn’t it trespassing?”
He cocks his head and thinks about it. “I guess. But only for a second. Think of it not like trespassing but more like cutting through someone’s yard.”
“I guess that’s not so bad.” But I still stay frozen in place. I don’t like breaking rules. You already broke a pretty big one; walking on someone’s stone wall in the middle of the day is not the end of the world.
Abram holds his hand out, and I reach up and grab it.
He pulls me up beside him in such an unexpectedly fluid motion that I almost lose my balance.
“Whoa,” he says, steadying me with his hand. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I’m dizzy from his closeness. I drop his hand. “I’m fine.” I regain my footing and follow him around the wall. We have to walk single file because it’s so narrow, but it gives me a chance to try and slow my heart rate down.
When we get to the end of the wall, Abram jumps off, making it look easy. He’s holding our bags and everything, and he doesn’t lose his footing on the sand below for even a second. I sit down on the wall, then gingerly push myself off, and even then I have to take a big step forward to keep myself from falling over.
“Nice job,” Abram says.
“Sarcastic?”
“No, not at all. I’m impressed you didn’t fall or ask for help.”
I wonder why he’s surprised. Does he bring girls here a lot? Is this just the last step in an oft-repeated pe
rformance? Has he let tons of other girls sleep over before taking them out to breakfast while they’re wearing his sister’s clothes? Maybe he doesn’t even have a sister. Maybe she’s completely made up, and he just buys the clothes and then puts them in a random room. I thought it was kind of suspicious that the clothes fit me so well—he must pick things out in a variety of sizes.
We walk farther and farther down the beach, past different houses and apartment buildings, until we get to a stretch where there’s nothing but sand and water. Right when I’m about to ask him where we’re going (let’s face it, he’s pretty much a stranger—what if he’s taking me somewhere shady?), the beach narrows and a small inlet appears.
We turn the corner into a rocky cove, and the view is breathtaking. Palm trees cast shade onto the sand, the ocean sparkles in the morning sun, and gulls dance and swoop across the sky.
Abram sits down on one of the huge rocks that line each side of the inlet.
“Worth it?” he asks as I take in the view.
“So worth it.” I sit down next to him, then kick my flip-flops off and let my toes dangle into the ocean. The water is warmer than I would have expected.
Abram rustles through the bags and hands me a Styrofoam box. I open it to reveal the most delicious-looking pair of chocolate chip pancakes I’ve ever seen—plate-sized and covered with a pat of butter that’s just about finished melting. A small plastic container of dark maple syrup is nestled in the corner of the box, along with three strips of crispy bacon and a small fruit salad.
“Thanks,” I say as Abram opens his own box, showing an identical breakfast.
“Sure.”
“You got the same thing as me.”
“No, you got the same thing as me.”
I shake my head and take a bite of pancake. It’s light, fluffy, and sweet. I close my eyes and take a moment to savor its taste and the feel of the sun warming my skin.
“Good, right?”
“So good.”
We sit there for a few seconds, not saying anything, until finally Abram wipes his mouth and looks at me seriously. “So listen,” he says. “I think . . . I mean, I need to talk to you about last night.”