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✱

SEX SHOULDN'T COMPLICATE things. But of course it does.

It didn't seem to with Landon and I, everything seemed perfectly fine until it didn't. After the first time we made love to each other, we talked for hours, only to have radio silence fall between us for the next two days. He wouldn't answer my calls, would go offline whenever he saw I was online, and even skipped a debate meeting. It was awful, thinking that maybe I had ruined it for him, this grand moment he had been waiting his whole life for that was losing his virginity.

Of course, it was just as momentous of an occasion for me and I felt just fine after. Sure, the bar was lowered for my first and I wasn't as well-versed in adult movies as my other friends were. I had only seen sex simulated for me in PG-13 movies where two lumps under the covers would make the headboard slap against the wall until the couple finally came out from beneath the sheets with their underwear on. But I was glad that nothing of the sort had happened.

Despite how important and momentous it was for us, that definitely didn't make it glorious. In fact, it was on the third day that Landon had finally reared his head and worked up the nerves to talk to me. And he had felt completely embarrassed about the whole situation. He thought he finished too early (he did, but not too early), he thought he didn't make me feel good (he did, or at least I'm pretty sure he did), and he was scared to see me because he felt like he had ruined both of our first times (he did by going off the grid and making me feel like crap for two days when all of it was in his head).

But that's what Landon did, he was always disappearing or being "low key" until the smoke cleared and he had no choice but to come out of hiding. In fact, the day he broke up with me was right after he went a whole day without calling or texting me.

And history was a cruel mistress, because that's exactly what was happening again. For a week, Landon had been absent from school, as if in those moments when he would spin out of control, he only came back for me and this time, I was nowhere to be seen. Well, whose fault is that, buddy? Now he was back again, almost as if popping out of the woodwork once Mr. Ali exposed that Carter was sending me lewd text messages.

Because I had seen him in the hall and my heart stopped. Among all the people I never really seemed to notice, he really stood out being the one person I hoped I could go the rest of this year avoiding since Carter was out of the question at this point.

But luck wasn't on my side because I saw his eyes light up as they met mine across the space between us, almost like seeing me for the first time.

"Hey," he said at the top of his lungs so that I couldn't play it off like I didn't hear him call me. Then again, I still tried it, but even I knew there was no point.

"What do you want, Landon," I asked as we made our way towards the middle. "I have to get to class."

"Who said I wanted anything?" He tried to smile at me like he used to, with that crooked smile and the way his brows dipped in the middle of his face, but it didn't work like that anymore. It felt like now his smile was too crooked unlike the way it used to be and his eyebrows made him look more menacing than approachable. I just wanted to take a step back, and then as many other steps as it took for me to get out of the door and back in the comfort of my own home. "But of course, I do want to talk to you."

"Alright," I said without sparing a second between us. "Talk. What's on your mind?"

That stupid grin was wiped off his face, almost like he had no idea what to do with himself now that I wasn't the same girl around him. I had my guard up. He broke up with me, I had no idea what he wanted to talk to me about when nothing between us was how it had been before.

"Oh," he said, "I didn't even think I would get this far."

I hiked my bag up on my shoulders. "I mean, do you need some time to figure out what you're trying to say? Because I can just go to class and..."

"No, no, no," he said, throwing his hands up in front of himself to tell me stay where I'm at. "Don't go anywhere, please. This is going to sound completely crazy, so forgive me if it's weird, but...it's not true, is it? Like none of that craziness is actually true?"

I frowned, not knowing what in the world he was talking about. "Well, if you told me what it is, then I'd be able to tell you."

He sighed, scratching the back of his head and I knew that he knew whatever he was going to say to me would end this conversation right here and there.

"It's not true that you and Carter are like...a thing, right?" Landon asked. "Please tell me you're not sleeping with that Neanderthal, like it's all a joke, right?"

I blinked, unable to believe what I was hearing come from out of his thin lips that bothered me now in a way they hadn't before. What was it to him if I was with Carter? He was the one who dumped me, who said we shouldn't be together anymore and now he was concerned with what I did about it? There was no way in hell I was going to entertain this, not even for a minute.

"Fun fact: I don't owe you an answer to that," I said with a huff of finality before brushing past him to get to my next class. I could hear him calling out for me to stop, but I didn't. Not until I made it to my seat and the bell rang.

✱

FIRST TIMES WERE important in our culture.

You always had one shot to set the standard for yourself and then everything else was regarded as either better or worse than your first time. Detention, however, was something I had intended on never going to in the first place and my standard was already beneath the floor.

As I had suspected, the rumor had gotten out, especially if an out-of-the-loop guy like Landon knew about it. This was high school where everyone was involved in some kind of debauchery that was only legal for adults -- or some things that were not even legal at all -- so it wasn't that big of a deal that Carter was sleeping with someone below him on the social ladder, but it definitely turned some heads towards me like I had expected it to. People I didn't normally talk to would smile at me or I would catch them looking at me every now and then, making me uncomfortable.

And getting to detention, where there were only twelve or so other people there and an excited Carter waving for me to sit next to him, only made it worse.

"You're Casey," Mrs. Stand, the gym teacher asked me as I came in the door. She didn't seem to pay any mind to the fact that Carter was trying to get my attention. She clearly had her full of disciplining delinquent children and was just trying to ride these thirty minutes of silence out with no issues. At my nod, she sighed. "Alright, get to it."

Of course, I was new here, I had no idea what I was getting to. "Mrs. Stand, sorry, this is my first detention. What do you want me to do?"

I had always been told that asking questions the first time around so that you didn't get it wrong was the best thing to do, but the way Mrs. Stand's eyes darkened, clearly debating whether it was worth yelling at me for asking such an idiotic question -- in her opinion, not mine -- made me decide that it wasn't worth getting the answer.

"Sorry about that," I said quickly, scooting to the first seat I knew I could get to without making a scene, which just had to be the one Carter wanted me to sit in. On my way over, I could see all of the kids stifling laughter at my inexperience, even Carter found it hard to suppress a giggle. I blushed and sat down, looking straight down at the desk and not daring to look at anything or anyone else.

"Alright," Mrs. Stand said with a sigh, clearly not wanting to be there. "You all know the drill, at least for the most part. Me being here is not helping you, nor is it helping me, but we're mandated by the school to be here, so I can't send you guys home. I don't care what you freaks do as long as it's not too loud or gets me in trouble with the Board. I'm going to head outside and do this paperwork, but if you guys are too loud, best believe I will be back and you will be completely silent."

My mouth gaped, unable to believe what was happening here. Sure I was mostly scared of this infraction going on my permanent record, but I was also terrified that detention would be a grueling experience that all of my years on the right side of the code of conduct wouldn't have prepared me for. Of course, I was still made to look like a dork in front of my peers by Mrs. Stand, but it definitely wasn't the level of humiliation I was expecting to face.

Mrs. Stand quickly packed up her papers and made her way out of the door, even saying a greeting to another teacher on the way out, almost as if detentions weren't a big deal to anyone at this school. Anyone but me.

As the door closed behind her, Carter turned to face me with a smile on his face. "Your first detention, Mia, isn't this exciting?"

I rolled my eyes, unable to believe him. He was the reason why I was here in the first place. Well, him and David's big mouth, but he was definitely the root of the issue. If I was getting text messages from my parents like I was expecting to, then I would've gotten off with a warning, but they just had to be inappropriate messages from the king of inappropriate himself.

"No," I answered truthfully, "not really. I shouldn't be here. I have a clean record." The reminder to myself of that fact made me poke him in the chest with my finger, so angry that I didn't bother with letting it linger there like I normally would when my guard is down around him. "But you sent me those texts in class and got me in trouble."

He chuckled, draping his arm over my shoulder. "Relax, this doesn't actually go on your personal record, only suspensions do. You're gonna be fine, babe."

I had half a mind to duck under his arm since there were so many people in the room with us, putting together the pieces in their head that yeah, Carter and I were a thing. I didn't like that, I didn't want to be a thing with Carter like this, I liked what we did behind the scenes while he seemed not to care what anyone thought. Even about what a guy like him was possibly doing with a girl like me.

But he didn't want to be boyfriend and girlfriend, did he?

I took a look around the room at all of the other detained students laughing and chatting in low registers, Carter and I's will-they-or-won't-they probably long past gone from their minds. They had filled in the blanks for themselves, they had all of the answers they needed. But I didn't know where to start.

I had given in to the part of me that wanted to be free of him, ducking under his arm and watching him wince a bit before playing it off like he was fine.

But was I fine?