Étoilé (Love Bites) - February 2013

Featured story: It Was You

I finally let loose, after everyone complained about me being too uptight since me and Damien broke up, and I managed to get drunk, lose my phone and my virginity, and break my curfew in one night.

I was lucky if I didn’t turn into the next Rapunzel or something after this.

Okay, cross out lose my phone because I found it in my back pocket. So now all I did was lose my V-card, drink illegally, and miss my curfew by nearly twelve hours.

But at least I had my phone, right?

Quickly, I dialed Stacy’s number and waited impatiently while the dial tones rang in my ear as I put on my pants and heels, in the dining room. But there were, like, five people sleeping in that exact same room so I wasn’t so bad for only putting on my pants, right?

“Jade?!” I flinched, causing my phone to fall and crash onto the floor. She always had to be so freaking loud. “Jade, where are you?! Have you been kidnapped?!”

I noticed that a guy, wearing not one, not two, but three party hats, lying down on the table, was shooting me a look as I grabbed my phone. “No,” I told her quietly. “I fell asleep, that’s all.”

“Where?” My heels clicked on the floors as I passed through the dining room, through the kitchen, and into the living room. “I was at that party too, you know! And you just—bam!—disappeared!”

I stopped cradling the phone as I looked for my purse. “I can’t explain now,” I told her and I could hear her sigh. “But I will soon, okay. Can you come pick me up?”

“I guess.” She sighed again, the sound drawling out in my ear. “Are you still there? Oh, Jade, pleeeeeeeease tell me you did not sleep on those floors.”

I paused. “I did not sleep on those floors.”

I wasn’t lying, because I really didn’t. I slept in a bed . . . just with someone else in it . . . in my underwear.

“Well, good, because you can get diseases from those floors, you know!”

Diseases. I stopped looking for my purse, even though I already spotted it in the fireplace (what on earth?). Who knows who I slept with? Maybe now I had AIDS or syphilis?

Oh, man, I did not want syphilis.

But we used a condom, right? I mean, even drunk me would think about the possibility of diseases, HIV, pregnancy. . .

Oh crap, pregnancy.

“Can you just get here soon, Stace?” I couldn’t tell her on the phone, not here anyway, and I needed to tell someone, just so she could say something like thinking about HIV and babies was crazy.

“I’m already in my car,” she replied and I sighed. That wasn’t good enough. She needed to be, like, pulling into the driveway before I had a meltdown or something. “I’ll be there in five. Bye”

As I hung up, I heard footsteps behind me and a groggy voice saying, “Hey.”

Whirling around, I bumped into the chest of my ex, Damien, who I could blame this all on. No one said anything about my homebody-ness until after we broke up.

And now I could syphilis or some other disgusting, gross STD.

“Hey,” I said begrudgingly, not meeting his eyes any longer than two seconds. “What’s up?”

I turned away then, but I stayed put. I wasn’t really mad at Damien. I missed him more than I hated him. Or that was, I missed him until I saw Jordan and then it was bye-bye old feelings for Damien.