My drawing of Jacob hung on the Art classroom’s wall. I contemplated skipping school, but my therapist urged me it wasn’t a good idea. My picture is surrounded by a bunch of other ones, and everyone ooohed and awed at my piece. I smiled, feeling better about the day.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Looks really good. Can I keep it?” Jacob asked next to me, a bruise on his face. He hadn’t made eye contact with me since he entered the room.

“I guess,” I said bitterly. Officially, from this day forth, I would stay away from men and dating for the rest of my life. I would die single. That meant no more Jacob.

Jacob thumbtacked his drawing of me up, and I prepared for a drawing of a pig because that seemed like something he’d do. To my shock, the drawing astounded me and the rest of the class. Until now, I had never seen Jacob draw. I don’t think he lifted a pencil in any of my classes, but this drawing of me was amazing. I loved it, and I somehow looked pretty.

“Wow!” I said.

“Thanks,” Jacob said.

“Wow! You guys did amazing! Jacob and Amber, well done. What does everyone think of the drawings?” Mrs.Nicole asked.

Everyone murmured different words. I hoped they liked mine the best, but we all know everyone liked Jacob’s. In a group, we each critiqued each other's work. When we got to mine, Jacob pointed out that his nose was a little low. I frowned. My fragile self-esteem couldn’t take criticism well, and I killed over at the sound of it.

How dare he insult my work?

Afterward, I took my drawing off the wall and gave it to Jacob. I already scanned it, so it would make it on my StrangeArt account.

“Here,” I said. He gave me his. Loosely it hung in his hand, but I didn’t take it. I said no men, which meant no gifts! “No, thanks. You can keep it.”

“Fine.” He crumpled it in front of my face and threw it away. I rolled my eyes. I was better than this.

We all filed back to our desks and I sat next to Ethan’s group. They all collectively eyed each other's drawings.

“I think all your drawings were really good,” I said.

“Thanks,” M said looking at her phone.

“You gave your drawing to Jacob?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah, I don’t want it,” I said.

“He doesn’t deserve it.”

“It’s cool. I didn’t want to throw it away.”

“He threw yours away.”

“Is someone jealous?” Bailey said.

“Of what?”

“Of how smoking hot Jacob is,” Bailey said.

“You have a terrible taste in people,” Ethan said. “Hey, so I am going to watch The Across the Universe tonight. Do you want to come?”

“Who else is coming?” I asked.

“...just you?” He said with pauses between his words, “I thought…that’d be fun.”

Ugh. Is he asking me out on a date? I stared at him. I am pretty sure Ethan was gay, so maybe it was fine. He probably won’t hit on me or anything.

“Why is no one else coming?” I asked.

“I’ll come,” Bailey said.

“Well…I thought it’d be nice just the two of us.” He smiled an uneasy smile.

“Can we go next week?” I asked. Maybe I could talk to my therapist first and see if my mental health was good enough to do so.

“Okay,” Ethan seemed satisfied with this. “Next week.”

“Thanks,” I said.

The bell rang, but as I walked out into the hallway, Ethan quickly followed.

“Which class are you going to?” he asked.

“Algebra. Why?”

“I’ll walk with you,” he said.

Okay…” I said.

Right outside of the door, Someone grabbed my hoodie and pulled it over my head with a harsh tug. Annoyed, I lift it, moving my hair out of my face, and witness Jacob skipping along the halls. I can’t believe I liked that guy.

“Stop it, jackass!” Ethan said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Do you like the game The Minis?” he asked.

“Yeah! I love that game!” I said trying my hardest to forget about Jacob and Andrew. I thought maybe Jacob would be nice to me since I gave him that picture. How naive.

“I know. I saw you playing on your phone.” He laughed. “I used to play the second one when I was a kid.”

“I love the first one. I said.”

“Yeah, the music is amazing. So nostalgic.”

We continued talking about how the music is inspired by classic jazz, and the leaps Will Bright, the creator, went through to get the marketing correct for the series. I admitted I loved the way The Minis was an ant hill game and you can just watch programming at its finest. I sucked at coding, but if I could code, I would make a The Minis game.

Once we made it to my class, we parted ways. What a nice guy. I could have maybe seen myself dating him, but I don’t know. They always started off kind.

“See, you shouldn’t give up on men,” Alyxi said during lunch. She corrected herself. “Or women. There is someone out there.”

“I guess. Everyone is the same, though.”

“I’m not like that.”.

“That’s true. I wish I was gay so I could just go out with you.”

“You could go out with me. I don’t see why not.”

“I don’t know…”

“I thought you were bi,”

“I am Asexual Bi-romantic,” I said.

“Okay? You’re not romantically attracted to me?”

“I guess. Yeah, you’re really cool,”

“Okay,” she said, kicking her feet. “So, we’re dating now.”

“It was so nice when Andrew kissed me. Why did he have to be such a dick?”

“Just because he’s a nice guy on The Minis doesn’t mean he’s nice in real life.”

“It’s not that hard.”

“That’s what you think,” she said. “Just move on. Find someone new. Like Ethan”

“He smokes pot. Why can’t I find someone normal?”

“Hello?” Alyxi said, gesturing to herself.

“Except for you.”

“Look around you. Look at all the normal people,” Alyxi said.

“Yeah, I think I am just going to be single for the rest of my life,” I said.

“Are you going to die a virgin?” she said.

“Yes,” I said confidently.

“You’re not going to die a virgin,” Alyxi said. “Just clear your head about it.”

I sighed. I didn’t really want to die a virgin. Being so scared of sex annoyed me. Can’t I just get over it? Everyone else did. I can’t even buy a dildo. The fear of putting something inside me terrified me, but I didn’t want to be like this forever.

That’s it. This marked a part of my life. A new chapter. I felt a wave of bravery I hadn’t had before.

“Do you have a dildo?” I asked Alyxi.

Alyxi stopped eating. “Yeah, why?”

“Can I borrow it?” I asked.

She burst into laughter. “What?”

“Because I want to get over my fear. I want to have sex with men. I just need to do it myself first.”

“You want to do it together?” She said winking. “I have two dildos. Or we can share one.”

“No, I think I should do it by myself first. Thanks, though.” I smiled. I am glad my friend was there for me.

“Alright, I’ll boil my dildo so you can use it, but then you have to do it with me afterward.”

“I’ll do it next week,” I said. Gotta tell my therapist first. Then I thought about it. “No, we should do it tonight. We should watch porn first, though. Just to see how they do it, you know?”

“Why didn’t you watch the hentai with me before?”

“Because I don’t like hentai. It’s rapey.”

“Fair.” She made a face. “I have really hot porn.”

“Okay, it’s a date then,” I said, happily to myself.

This quickly crashed. On the way home, my stomach turned. How was a dildo going to feel inside me? Will I be turned on? What does being turned on feel like? Will I orgasm? I don’t want to orgasm. Orgasming sounded scary and overwhelming. I’ve never seen porn before. Is the porn going to be gross?

When I got home, I sat at my laptop. I had to get used to porn before Alyxi showed up. That way it was less embarrassing. Okay, you can do this, Amber. Just look up porn GIFs. They’re short and sweet so I don’t have to watch a whole video. Okay. Okay. Here I go. I type in “sex gif” and entered.

Making the window really small, I thought maybe if I saw less it’d be digested better. I inched towards one of the images. I see a woman’s butt and a penis going inside. “Ew!” I screamed and Xed out. I couldn’t do this. I was going to die a virgin. This was it.

I got a text from Alyxi.

“Are you ready ;)”

Oh no. She was driving over. What should I do? What should I do? Okay, it’s fine. I am sure I could type something else in. I typed “romantic sex GIF” and pushed enter. This time the images were a little less graphic. Some were even kind of cute. To me, deep down, I wanted sex to be beautiful. It seemed to have the potential to be, but I thought it looked dirty whenever I saw these images.

How could the two people be enjoying this? I mean, he, in a way, is attacking her with his penis, and not in a fun way. That’s what sex kind of was. A dick stabbing a vagina. Tears streamed down my face as some reminded me of Andrew.

I got another text. This one was from Andrew. Hopefully, this one would be kind, but really I didn’t know. My faith in him was low.

“Hey, I just wanted to apologize about yesterday. That wasn’t cool, and I should have respected your boundaries. If you want to wait to have sex, that’s fine. I am okay with it. Sorry if it seemed like I wasn’t. I just wasn’t in a good head space, and said something stupid.” he said. “Will you forgive me?”

I sighed. Okay, breathe. Remember what your therapist said. Think before responding.

“I don’t know, Andrew. I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Come over to my place. I can cook you something,” he said.

“I don’t want to go over to your place,” I said.

“I’ll cook at your place,” he said.

“My Dad wouldn’t allow it,” I texted. “Can we go out to eat?”

“Yeah, that way I can say sorry and talk about it :)”

“Okay :)”

Someone knocked on my door. I almost thrust my phone and computer off my lap and onto my floor. Screaming, I never became so scared in my life. Alyxi popped her head in.

OH NO.