it. Don’t get me wrong—that in and of itself was completely humiliating. I begged him not to tell anyone, and he was actually a pretty decent guy. He said he wouldn’t. And then . . .”
“And then?”
“Then he suggested that I should try kissing an actual boy, because it was a lot better. And I don’t know if it was just a mixture of embarrassment and adrenaline or what happened, as my brain wasn’t actually functioning in that moment, but I pretty much leaped on him with my teeth bared and smashed our faces together while attempting to ‘kiss’ him. I knocked him over and landed right on his face.”
His eyes widened in horror.
“I completely cut his mouth up. There was blood everywhere. He ran out of the room. As far as I know, he didn’t tell anyone the details, but it was pretty obvious what I had done. Everybody called me BB, for Bloody Braces, the rest of high school. The online bullying was relentless. Which meant that I wasn’t going to date any guy I knew, because everybody teased me constantly.”
“Understandable.” He paused. “To be honest, I thought you were going to tell me that someone hurt you. And that was why you steered clear of men.”
“No. Nobody hurt me. I was the one committing face felonies with my teeth blades.”
He smiled slightly at that, and it emboldened me to go on. “Then I went to college. And it was really awkward to be so far behind everyone else. I’d hated that feeling in high school, like there was this race everybody else was running, but I was still stuck at the starting line wondering when it was going to be my turn. Everybody else was having sex, and I’d never even kissed someone. So freshman year I decided to find a guy to make out with. I was friends with this girl from one of my math classes, and she said her boyfriend’s best friend was into noncommittal make outs and hooked up with different girls constantly. And I wasn’t going to sleep with him, but I thought kissing someone who knew what he was doing would be a good option.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t go well?”
I hugged the pillow tighter. “This friend brought along her boyfriend and the four of us were hanging out and watching a movie, and then she came up with an excuse to leave. So here I was, alone with this guy in his living room, not knowing what to do and feeling fully freaked out. Waiting for him to make a move.”
“And what happened when he did?”
“He didn’t. The guy who was known on campus for cycling through every available woman wasn’t interested in me. Which was this total blow to my self-esteem and put me off the idea of dating for a long time. And then when I tried to get back into dating again, there was this boy in my statistics class who seemed decent and interested in me, and we went to a movie and ice cream and I was like, This is it. I’m going to kiss this guy. I thought I was too old to keep waiting.” I stopped for a second, worried that if I brought it up again, I’d be back in that moment, feeling the way I felt. I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly and then kept going.
“So we were at my front door, saying good night. And he was moving in, getting closer and closer to me, and then it was like I’d been hit by a truck. I seriously thought I was having a heart attack because my heart was beating so hard. I was shaking, I couldn’t catch my breath, my chest hurt, I wanted to vomit. I couldn’t feel my hands or my feet. I thought I was going crazy. Somehow I said good night and went inside and I was about to call an ambulance, but after a couple of minutes on the floor, I was able to calm down.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It wasn’t fun. And I didn’t know where it had come from or why it had happened. And I couldn’t face that dude again. So I tried going out with someone else. And it happened again. Every time I got close to somebody, where it was possible they would kiss me, I was so terrified that I thought I would die.”
“Is that . . . is that how you feel when you’re with