GROW UP GINGER

CHAPTER NINE — His Apartment

His apartment was clean and adult in a way that I registered as sophistication before I registered it as distance.

The lighting was low, not bedroom-dim, but the kind of warm, careful lighting that someone has thought about. The furniture was expensive without being showy. A small bar in the corner, two stools, a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the counter. The kind of apartment that belonged to a person who had figured out who they were and dressed their home accordingly.

I had not figured out who I was. I will be eighteen tomorrow.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said, and I sat on the couch on the edge, because I didn’t know how else to sit.

He came back with two beers and handed me one and sat down close to me. Not aggressively close. Just close.

“Here we go.” His voice was soft. “You know, Anna, there’s something about you that I’ve found so alluring.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I can’t help but feel this undeniable attraction.”

He leaned in. The kiss was different from the bar. Slower. More deliberate. He took his time. His hand found the back of my neck and I felt myself respond before I’d decided to, and somewhere between that kiss and the next one we stopped being two people having a conversation and became two people doing something else.

I felt wanted. I felt brave. I felt, in flashes, slightly panicked in a way I did not give voice to.

What I remember most clearly is the momentum. The sense that I had made a series of small choices that had added up to a large one, and the large one was already in motion, and getting out of motion seemed harder than continuing.

He asked. He paused. He gave me what looked like every opportunity to stop.

I did not stop. I cannot fully explain why.

I won’t give you all of it. What I will say is that afterward, lying in the grey-dark of his bedroom with the city noise coming through the window, I thought: I wanted this. I held onto that. I needed it to be true, that I had chosen this, that it was mine.

Afterward we lay in the half-dark and he traced patterns on my shoulder with his thumb. He kissed the top of my head. He told me I was beautiful and I let myself believe him, because what else was there to do at one in the morning in a stranger’s bed.

I wanted this, I told myself. I needed to want it.

Warmth isn’t the same as safety. I was learning that, though I hadn’t gotten all the way there yet.

The phone rang in my bag. It was Megan.

“Anna, where are you? We just got to my mom’s.”

“Sorry, something came up. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I hung up. I started looking for my clothes.

“Ethan,” I whispered. “Wake up. I need to go.”

He groaned and rolled over. “Can’t we stay a little longer? I’m holding myself back and I want more.”

“I wish we could. But my aunt is coming back.”

“All right.” He sat up, rubbed his eyes. “I’ll drop you off if you kiss me first.”

I leaned in. He moved faster than I expected, hand at my hip, pulling me onto his lap in one smooth, possessive motion that wasn’t quite a kiss. It was a claim.

I laughed it off. I told myself it was just a thing some men did. I told myself I’d liked it.

I’m not sure which of those was true.

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