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“Your mom just abandoned you after she raised you for six years?” Madison sounds stunned.
Yeah, it baffles me, too.
“She did. I’m not entirely sure why, so don’t ask.” I don’t mention the letter in my bedroom that I got a few days before I left. I haven’t opened it; part of me is scared it will give me the answer, and part of me is scared that it won’t.
“Was she … crazy?” Benson asks hesitantly.
Only he could get away with asking something like that.
“I think we’re all a little crazy, but in the way you mean, no, probably not.”
She wasn’t crazy. She was selfish. I don’t need to know her motives to understand that.
“People say I’m crazy.” Benson’s eyebrows pull together.
“What fun would the world be without a little madness?” The left corner of my mouth lifts.
He likes my answer and nods, a smile plastered on his face.
“Okay, so what about the boy?” Madison moves us along, switching to part two of Benson’s question.
“Not much to tell. He was at Golden Heights with me. Neither of us had any interest in each other. I actually think he might have been gay and was trying to prove to himself that he wasn’t. For me—and probably him, too—our fooling around was a way for us to feel like normal teenagers, which we clearly weren’t. Plus, there were no parents around to tell us not to.”
I never explained that to anyone. Not even Ryan, the boy who took my virginity. I assumed he felt the same way, but who knows? When he touched me, I would imagine he was Ryan Gosling and I was Rachel McAdams. That scene in The Notebook when Allie asks Noah why he didn’t write her would often play in my head. But my sexual experiences were nothing like kissing Ryan Gosling in the rain; that’s for damn sure.
“You’re young. Brazen knows that. He probably assumes there might be a bit of inexperience on your part, but that doesn’t mean he assumes you’re a virgin. But, even if he does, who cares?” Madison makes it sound so simple.
“Is he way out of my league?” I ask the room.
“Girl, I’d better not hear you talking like that again. No one—I repeat, no one—is out of your league. If you want him, then go and get him.” Benson points to the door, as if Brazen is standing right on the other side.
“I want love. Is that naive? I want to be passionate about the next person I sleep with. I want there to at least be a potential for something really special.” I look down at the floor as I admit my romantic notions.
“There are no guarantees in life, sugar. A man could be sweet right up until after he gets into those pretty little panties I assume you wear. But you’ll never know if you’ve found something special if you don’t go after it,” Madison says.
“Well, that’s true.”
Benson and Madison are right.
And Brazen just might be worth any potential heartbreak I suffer after his touch.
