Instead of Me

∆16∆

Once she got the word out, Annie seemed so much calmer and so much more confident. She appeared as though the weight of the sky was lifted off her shoulders. "Finn?"

I had stood up almost as soon as she had replied and started pacing around the room, stroking my chin, and trying to figure out the best way to go forth with the conversation. Did Annie really just drop a bomb like that on me? She wanted me, her best friend for years, to basically teach her about sex, but not in an educational way, but also kind of in an educational way. I stopped all of a sudden, my back facing away from her. "Oh my . . ." I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck. Annie wanted me to have sex with her. Shouldn't I be pouncing on this idea? Shouldn't I feel the need to pick her up right now and carry her to my room, place her on the bed, and make crazy love to her? Why was I so apprehensive? Would this technically be taking advantage of her? Annie deserved better than that. I said the only thing that could come to my mind that I could form into coherent words: "Wouldn't you be cheating on Heath this way?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, not technically." I gave her a look. She was better than this. "Finn, we're not officially dating! We have yet to have the talk of if we want to be boyfriend and girlfriend."

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. "Anastasia Wright, that is such a stretch and you know it. You would never want to see Heath again in your life if he did something like this to you. Think about it from his perspective." What was I thinking? Defending Heath LaMontagne? Who had I become? Since when did I become so self righteous? I had just slept with a classmate with no intentions of ever getting into a relationship with them and I'm giving Annie relationship advice? 

Annie was clearly conflicted. "Heath is never going to find out though." She pursed her lips. "I just know that we wouldn't think of each other differently afterwards. I'm afraid of that kind of thing with Heath, you know?" 

I grit my teeth. Do most best friends like Annie and I go through conversations like this? Or was I the only one that had to suffer through this? "Annie," I said, sitting down across from her again, "I want you to tell me that you've thought about this. I want you to tell me that you have seriously considered the consequences of this." Was I actually about to agree to this? I was going to get myself into so much trouble because of this girl.

"Finn, I have thought about it," she replied defensively. It almost seemed as though she was about to start crying to seal the deal. "I am positive that this is what I want. Give me a reason, other than Heath because that is not valid because I know you hate him. Give me a reason that it shouldn't happen. It's not like we're going to fall in love with each other or anything afterwards, right?"

My breath caught in my throat, but I couldn't let her see my thoughts through my eyes. She was so good at that usually. I bent my head over and scratched my head. "Annie, I don't have another reason." She was silent for a while. I was silent for a while. The whole house was silent for a while. The world was silent for a while. I glanced up, making sure she didn't leave. Sure enough there she was, deep in thought, playing with a loose thread on the hemline of her hoodie. "Annie?" I whispered. 

She looked over at me, her eyes big. I stared at her. Annie's lips were parted and I could see the little gap between her front two teeth. It reminded me of when she fought with her mom for the first three years of high school to get her braces. 

"It's so ugly, Finn," she had said, pointing to a photograph in my room that was placed in a pile of my Polaroids with her. "You can see the gap. You know my mom still won't let me get braces. She says they'e too expensive. I even told her that I would pay her back whenever I could, but she won't buy it." She closed her AP Euro textbook and tossed it onto the floor.