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"I thought you were going to go out there and lose your virginity so you could have fun. Wasn’t that what you said last time?"
"It’s what you said last time," I say. "I said I would think about it. And I did. But you know how I felt about it, Lisa. It?
?s not like I can just change my programming. It was important to me that I’m in love when I did it."
"So, you’re in love, now?"
I nod. "I think I am, yeah."
Lisa shakes her head and leans forward to put her empty cup on the coffee table. "That’s not possible," she says. "You barely know the guy. It hasn’t even been a month."
I pull up my shoulders. "We’ve been seeing each other a lot."
"And you think that’s the equivalent to knowing each other enough to be in love?"
I'm not going to argue with her. My definitions of love, sex, and life are different than hers. I don't argue with her because she sees things differently than I do. I don't have to defend myself, either.
"Look," I say. "He’s a nice guy. We get along well. What is time, anyway? Don’t you believe in soul mates and true love and all that?"
"I believe in a guy taking what he wants and then leaving," she says. "That’s the way they usually play it. You better be careful. What if he ditches you?"
I shake my head. "He doesn’t seem like the type, to be honest. He’s been good to me about everything. He didn’t pressure me into anything. He let me take my time. I think he’s like, an honest to goodness gentleman."
Lisa snorts. "They don’t exist. Trust me. It’s a mask. Sooner or later, they all show their true colors, and trust me, it’s never pretty."
I'm getting angry. "I know you’ve had a bad run, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t hope for the rest of us. Just because your love life didn’t work out, that doesn’t mean mine is doomed."
I’ve hit a nerve, and I know it. But she isn't being fair. This isn't her life. It's mine. And Thomas is the guy I want to be with. If I’d been nervous about it before, I'm sure of it now. We’d slept together. He was the one I’d given myself to. That means something to me.
"How can you know that he’s the one for you?" Lisa asks. "You don’t know him. You can’t know him. Not this quickly anyway."
"I do know him. We know each other quite well. We’ve spent a lot of time together."
Lisa shakes her head. "You’ve got it all backwards. That feeling that you’re talking about, knowing it’s your true love or love at first sight, that’s sexual chemistry. That’s lust. That’s infatuation. It isn’t the same as love."
"But we didn’t sleep together until now."
"Three weeks after you met him? Honey, don’t kid yourself thinking you held out for something. Three weeks is nothing."
I'm furious. "Don’t tell me that it meant nothing. I know what it means to me. I know what I did, and I don’t regret it."
And I don't. I don't regret what I did because it felt right. My gut and my head and my body had all been on the same page, and that was all I’d needed. It had been the right time for me, and Thomas was the right man to do it with.
"You’re right," Lisa says. "I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Sometimes, you think you know a guy. I was with Graham for almost a year. I thought I knew everything there was to know about him. And where am I now? I don’t want that for you, and three weeks is so little in comparison."
I calm down now that she isn't attacking me. "I get that," I say. "I know you’re just trying to look out for me. But what am I supposed to do? Never give any guy a chance? If I assume every man is an asshole who’ll betray me, how will I ever have a decent relationship? How will I ever fall in love?"
Lisa looks up at me. I'm expecting her to tell me that I can't know what I'm doing. I've never dated before. I haven't had sex before. I don't have anything to compare this to. What do I have by way of experience? But she's wrong. I don't need experience. I have my heart, and it's happy. That's all that matters.
"I know what you’re saying," Lisa says. "And I know how that young-and-in-love naiveté feels. But I’m just saying, three weeks? You can’t know him that well."
"I do," I say.
"Really? What does he do?"
I shrug. "He just finished an MBA. He said he was going to work for his parents."
"Doing what?"
