Closets are for Clothes

Chapter 1

I had always felt like a freak, but two weeks before my sixteenth birthday it was finally confirmed.

“What are you? Some sort of lesbo?” my best friend Monica Katz said, in spite of her mouthful of food. We’d been best friends forever so she knew I didn’t care if she talked with her mouth full. Well, it was gross, but I wasn’t going to make an issue of it.

Sarah Foley, the third member and most recent addition to our best friend triangle, was not quite so forgiving.

“I don’t think I need to see your food, Monica. God that’s gross.” Sarah’s blonde ponytail swung as she shook her head in disgust.

Monica rolled her eyes and turned back to me. “Well?”

I dipped a fry into the puddle of ketchup in front of me and shoved it into my mouth, buying myself a minute, maybe two. She was giving me an out, albeit not a very warm fuzzy one, but it was an opportunity just the same.

But of course, being the coward I was, I didn’t take it.

“No, I’m not a lesbo. I just haven’t found a guy I want to kiss yet.”

“Because we don’t need another Shauna Turner at our school. One freak like that is enough. I mean,” she waved her fry for emphasis. “What the hell? Why would a girl be into girls? That’s so wrong.”

I stared down at my food, suddenly not feeling very hungry.

“I don’t know if it’s wrong,” Sarah said, always the yin to Monica’s yang. “It’s just…I don’t know…different. I feel sorry for Shauna; ever since people found out she was gay, she seems to have lost all her friends.”

Monica shot her a dirty look. “It’s wrong. It’s an abomination. That’s what it says in the torah.”

It was Sarah’s turn to roll her eyes. “Give me a break, you’re not that religious. When was the last time you even went to synagogue?”

Returning her attention to me was Monica’s tactic for ignoring Sarah’s question.

“So, Jess, what’s the deal with you?”

I thought of lonely, isolated Shauna and decided a lie was the best method of self-preservation. “I told you, I’m not a lesbian. Jeez, get off it already, will you?”

Even though I was looking down at my half-eaten food, I could tell my friends were exchanging glances and obviously some sort of silent conversation.

“Yeah, I know, Jess.” Monica finally said. “I’m just screwin’ with ya.”

I fought the urge to exhale my relief.

Suddenly, with no warning, Sarah jumped up out of her chair. “Shit, I just realized I have a math test this afternoon!. Dammit, I gotta go study.” And before we could even say goodbye, our friend was gone, sprinting the block and a half from the McDonalds back to our school.

“But,” Monica shook her head, getting back to the conversation as though there hadn’t been any interruption. “You know, Jess, you’re going to be sixteen in two weeks. If you don’t start doing stuff soon, people are going to think you’re a freak.” Yeah, she had the mother tone down, but there was no way my mother would have scolded me for my sexual inactivity.

As I chewed, I contemplated my friend and what she was saying. Was she just trying to get me to ‘do stuff’ because I was becoming some sort of asexual spinster or so she wouldn’t look like a slut in comparison? The latter was a distinct possibility.

Even though Monica was the same age as me (actually she was sixty-four days younger), she’d already lost her virginity to Ryan Moore, her on again, off again boyfriend. Since their first time, which was his first time also, they’d done it seven and a half times (the half was when her parents had come home early from their dinner party, forcing Monica to throw Ryan off her and make him hide in her closet until her parents went to bed. He missed his curfew and got grounded for three weeks, but it didn’t keep him from sniffing around her any). He was an okay guy, though and she could totally do worse.

And as Monica liked to point out at just about any opportunity, I hadn’t even been kissed by a boy, let alone experienced any of the other stuff that many, if not most of the girls our age were expected to have done.

Monica and I were pretty much polar extremes in so many ways. She liked to dress up and lived for going to the mall, where I was more low-key and would rather chill at home listening to music in my sweats. Sarah was kind of like a mixture of both, although she definitely leaned towards the fashionista end of the scale.

And our differences went further than just clothes; Monica was the epitome of experience (she’d also told me details about how boys like when you do oral sex on them, something her and Ryan had done a lot of until she felt she was ready to go all the way) and me with nothing.

“I’m just not in any rush, Mon,” I finally said, feeling the need to defend my lack of sexual experience. “When it’s the right time with the right guy, it’ll happen. I don’t want my first time to be with just anyone.”

Monica rolled her eyes. “You must be reading too many of your mother’s romance novels. ‘Right guy’. Whatever. You should totally just do it and get it over with. It’s not that big a deal anyway.”

But it was a big deal. It was a very big deal. And it would be an even bigger deal if Monica knew…

“Oh, I know!” she said, a gleam in her eye.

“What?” I checked my watch; it was almost time to head back for third period. And Miss Hanson.

“We should make it like a thing.”

“Make what like a thing?”

“You. You getting kissed by your sixteenth birthday. It’ll be like a secret mission.”

A pang of horror churned the chewed up Quarter Pounder in my gut. “I don’t think that’s a good plan, Monica,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. I wasn’t sure what was the worst part: the actual kissing or the fact that it was a mission.

“Oh come on, it’s a great plan. You don’t want people to think you’re a total prude do you? Even Sarah does some stuff.”

The truth was I wasn’t sure what I wanted people to think.

“And you know what?” she leaned over the table towards me. “I think that Dave Harper totally likes you.”

I blushed.

Monica mistook it as a sign I was flattered.

“I know. How lucky are you? He’s like the hottest guy in our grade and he totally likes you.”

“Dave doesn’t like me,” I said as I shoved the last of my fries into my mouth, washing them down with root beer. I was relatively sure Dave didn’t like me. I mean, he was cool and we were friends, but I seriously doubted it was anything more than that. It certainly wasn’t on my end.

“Uh, excuse me; he was checking you out in history yesterday.”

I looked up at my friend. She was grinning, obviously enthused about this recent revelation.

Me: not so much.

“How would you know; you’re not even in my history class.”

“Sarah told me. She thinks you should totally go for him. She thinks since he’s done it with at least two girls, he’d be good for your first time because he has some experience.”

Interesting that Sarah hadn’t mentioned any of this crucial information to me.

Balling up the wrapper from my hamburger, I avoided my friend’s eyes, wondering how I was going to get out of this one. It was going to be tough; it seemed everyone was focused on my (lack of) love life and how bad I needed to get one.

Everyone but me.