“This,” Adam says, when it’s over, “is the most right I’ve ever felt.” His cheeks are damp against mine, and I think it’s just sweat, but then he sniffles and it sounds like he’s crying.
“What?” I ask, without knowing what I’m really asking. I don’t know the right question or if there even is a question. But I know it’s the most right I’ve ever felt too, and I don’t want to cry. I want him to be happy with me.
“Can I tell you something?” he says.
“Yes.”
“When I was fourteen, I slept with my stepmother.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, she made me. And then she held it over my head that it happened. That she could tell my dad at any moment and he would send me away. So I didn’t tell him and I couldn’t stop her. But then he found out. He caught us.”
“Is that when you were homeless?” I ask.
I can feel Adam nod his head.
“I slept in the park or hid in the library. He didn’t even care until a cop caught me sleeping on a bus bench and brought me home. Then he sent me to live with my grandparents and told them it was because he wanted me in that school district.” There’s a super-long silence, but I can tell Adam isn’t waiting for me to say something, he’s trying to find his words. “My dad didn’t even leave her. Like I was the fault. I was the problem. Even though I was fourteen. He’s still married to her, I think. I don’t know for sure, but he didn’t leave her when it happened.”
“What about your mom?” I ask.
“She’s an alcoholic. I guess my dad felt like it was easier to pay her alimony so she could sit in her condo and drink herself to death. You know, instead of getting her help or caring.”
I hug him tight like somehow it could fix things.
“In college once,” he says, “I told one of my friends. We were up late drinking and I couldn’t get it out of my head, what happened, so I told him, because maybe it would make me feel better for someone to know. But he was all, ‘Dude! Older chicks!’ like it was something I’d chosen to do. It was the worst feeling, to have my friend not get that it wasn’t a good thing, that I was just a kid. So I never told anyone else.”
I squeeze him tighter.
“That’s why I took so long to—for us to—”
I kiss him so he doesn’t have to say it. “It’s okay. It’s nice that we waited.”
“I think I’m conditioned to feel like if I have sex, something bad is going to happen. Like it’s just wrong no matter what. Scars only fade to a certain point, you know?”
I think about the nail mark in my foot and how you can barely see it, but it’s still there and always will be.
“Then, with you, all of a sudden, it just felt right,” he says. “It feels like being with you is the best thing I can do.”
I wipe his cheeks and kiss them and kiss his nose and smooth his hair off his forehead, because I don’t know what to say. I don’t want him to hurt anymore.
“Millie, my ex,” Adam says, “she left because she needed more. She said I was weird about sex. Closed off to her. I just—It never stopped feeling wrong. And I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t make myself say the words, you know?”
I nod, because I can’t say any words. I will never be able to tell him how old I am. There’s no point we’ll come to where he’s so in love and happy that it won’t matter. There isn’t a far-off day when I’m really nineteen and this will be a funny story. He won’t ever see what we just did as being any better than what his stepmom made him do, even though he’s given me things I didn’t know enough to want before.
“I don’t blame Millie for leaving.” His face looks a little funny when he says it, a softness in his eyes, and I think maybe he does blame her some, even though he doesn’t want to. “Now, with you, I realize that it’s better she left. She needed someone who could be honest with her about who they are, and I couldn’t be. Not with her. With you—it’s like you accept me and I don’t even have to ask you to. I don’t have to defend myself. Millie always came out of the gate with something that was wrong with me. You can’t be yourself in defense mode. You know?”
And I wish I didn’t know. I wish I didn’t have anything to defend. So here’s what I decide: Nothing before this matters. It all starts now so I can give Adam everything.