By: Stygean Hugh

I woke up this morning with him on my mind. It wasn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last. I think I was fourteen or fifteen when I eagerly lost my virginity to him, thought I haven’t given it that much thought – a testament to my devotion to our overall friendship. Even at that ripe young age, I didn’t let immaturity get the best of me.

I can’t for the sanctity of anonymity give a name. It’s probably cliché  to write about the boy I lost my youth to, the boy I gave my child hood too – to falsely become a woman, but I think being who we are now, at least I hope, that he would be as proud and shameless as I am. Our youth is an accurate number to rate our experience. He’d come to me at some point, mid-summer, and given to me what he had to offer and visa versa. It was just that, two teen agers eagerly fooling around.

There was a difference that made things somewhat unhinged for us. We’d schooled together, since the 2nd grade. We knew each other well. He was the popular bad boy that all the girls, popular or not, swooned for. He had no fucks to give to the teachers, he had no fucks to give to some of his peers. But then there was my best friend and myself. She had given him her child hood in the 8th grade, and myself a year later, in late August or September. It was a choice I made with little merit, nor do I second guess the decision that I made that day. It’s later that the guilt, misplaced or not- would settle in – years later.

In my mind it seems like eons went by before I saw him again after, yet like any young teenaged girl, I wondered why he hadn’t come back for seconds. I knew he had fucked my best friend, just like he’d fucked me. She told me in the girl’s room of our military style intermediate school. Though we were separated by social classes at the time, I being the least popular of the three of us- as my best friend, she had abandoned me for peers who pushed her to do things she wouldn’t normally.

“I lost my virginity to (him)” she told me, pressing her sticky glossy lips together for the mirror. She eye balled my nonchalant reaction in the reflection. I recall shrugging, perhaps. Maybe I said ok. I don’t honestly remember.

But in the summer that transgressed between 8th and 9th grade, I would come to understand the title of what I even then called his harem. He had made his mark with the girls at school, so when he came to me – meek, unpopular me- and asked to fool around, I complied. I didn’t care about whether he had fucked my best friend, or if we were in a relationship. Popular Bad Boy wanted to fuck me and I agreed. I wanted to fuck him too. It resonated with me. We had known each other since 2nd grade. Who else could I trust? So I did it. And though I expected nothing in return, no relationship, no strings, when I started high school and didn’t find him on campus, I was confused. We had schooled together for over a decade at that point. He was Popular Bad Boy, everyone. . . EVERYONE would know if he had moved. But I didn’t ask around. I knew I would hear about it sooner or later.

Yet, I didn’t.

Months went by and I gave up on high school my first chance. By October of freshmen year I had completely fucked off high school as I knew it, and had little noticed my bestie, my own personal Judas – who had sold my hide for a good time to the popular students, wasn’t around much either. Home was a small town; three high schools, one of which was a continuation school, less than actual high school. . . A short cut for those deemed lazy, fucked up, or socially incapable, were our options. The very best of us ended up there, later – but she started there first.

Sometime after I had abandoned school for my own. I found myself in need of a phone and wound up, fully dressed in the latest Hot Topic garb, at the pay phone near her mom’s work. She came out of the back, hugs on blast, like she hadn’t betrayed our friendship for the company of those who could never fully appreciate her.

“Where is (Popular Bad Boy)?” I asked. She was the girl to ask because they were neighbors. I knew she would know.

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” she replied with sad eyes.

“Hear what?”

“He is in juvy.”

“For what?”

“He raped me.”

I nearly choked on his dick post-partum. “What?” I stammered, clearly recalling her braggadocio in the 8th grade girl’s bath room.

“He raped me. He plead guilty to it. I have the transcript.”

It seems that simple. One should, as a devout friend, hold their tongue and not mention their own sexual adventures with the person their bestie called rape on. But confusion settled in a thick haze over me and I just couldn’t put the facts together. Popular Bad Boy, who could have any 13-16 year old pussy he wanted, chose to instead of plucking ripe pussy from the trees like fruit, take her. . . Against her will . . . ?

“He raped you?! I mean we fucked. . .  But it was never. . .”

“Wait?! He fucked you too?” she exclaimed. “Did he tell you he loved you? He told me he loved me!”

“No. We just fucked.”

Looking back, it was not the conversation any 14/15 year old girl should have with their best friend, and it put me in an ugly predicament. I wanted, even though she didn’t show me the same loyalty, to be loyal to her. I wanted more than anything to believe her. Yet, I had my own experience with him, and god damn it, we had known each other since we were fucking 6 years old! How do I simply just throw that friendship away on either side? So I shut my mouth. I shut my mouth and I held my breath.

A few months went by and by chance he came knocking – again looking for sex. Brazen, I thought, even though our friendship too had last the years, Popular Bad Boy was the first boy whose loyalties I put before my female friend. Unfairly so at that. She had, even in her lack of loyalty and blatant accusations, been a far better friend as far as time went on, even in the vast number of childhood years, as far as a confidante, and I knew I should keep with her.  But bold, rough and tumble me didn’t hold back.

As he tilted the blinds in my bedroom to a close, I asked, “What happened? Tell me. I need to know.”

His big brown 16 year old eyes locked dead with mine. “You and I both know I didn’t rape her.” He addressed it. He acknowledged her accusations, and denied them. That was enough for me. He and I tussled once again before he went his way and I went mine.

Guilt seeped into my soul for the crime committed against my best friend. I felt like my betrayal of our bond was far worse than his betrayal of their trust. But I never fully believed the accusations.

It’s a conundrum that had brought me to my knees more than once – a betrayal I would take with me to the grave.  My own accusations I would keep tight lipped. How was it she could brag? Brag to me in the cold concrete bath room of our upper middle class predominantly white middle school, that she fucked him? Then turn him over . . . Roll him over . . . like he meant nothing to us?

Sure, we hadn’t risen to heights of popularity with him. Sure, we weren’t the Stacy’s or Andrea’s of our middle school graduating class, but we were the CLOSEST girls to him. We knew him the longest. We knew him better than those girls. Would he deny us? Even as ridiculously dressed as I was, he never denied me. How was it she could expect me to take her word over his?

The years went on, and she took heat in to high school. We had ended up, the two of us in the continuation school, with the rest of the bad kids. . . Except him. He was out of options- she had seen to that. But he had a harem of girls at the helm, ready to beat her ass at the drop of a word. And they did. She suffered for accusations and she stood strong behind it. Her strength reinforcing her own conviction was awe inspiring.

Girls in the hall way would talk. “He didn’t rape her. She is a liar,” they would say. Sometimes they said it to me, sometimes they said it to her. I don’t believe either of them ever took my unique position to heart, nor did I bring it to any one’s attention. Our bond, the three of us, that in my heart expanded way beyond sex, had been broken. I was left to choose sides, but I couldn’t. I loved them both and it was a shitty pill to swallow.

I supported her. I listened when she cried. When she married the wrong man for a second time, I was there to hear her sins and her flash backs of what ‘he’ did to her when we were young. And when I saw him, I held him tight in my arms. If my memory serves me right I slept with him a third time when were older, because I simply could not choose a side.

Years went on where I would have random dreams of him after we’d grown and long parted ways. I’d stayed in touch with her, loyal through my disloyalties, and prayed for the best for him. It was three or four years back, I was headed to a bus stop from the welfare office in town that I met a random not so unfamiliar stranger on his way down the street.

Between hugs and “oh my god,” I could scarcely believe it. We caught up briefly and exchanged numbers and text messages and my heart just felt a little lighter. I never told her that he asked about her – her kids and her well-being- or that I told him she was well. I knew it would tear open hopefully partially healed scars, so again I stayed silent. Silent, but thankful he was well – that he had persevered through whatever darkness I imagined came from those horrid teenage years of ours, I was relieved he was still with us.

This morning, like previous scattered dreams throughout the years, I saw him and heard his name as I slept – an echo of my child hood lusts and friendships- but unlike dreams of the past I didn’t let it go. I searched him out and found him as so many do on social media.

“Hey, if you haven’t figured it out, it’s me,” I wrote. “It might seem weird as fuck, but I woke up thinking about you and thought I should look you up.”

Immediately he responded, “No, not at all. I’ve been asking about you.”