Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [14]
I kept these details to myself when I called Hope to tell her that I lost my virginity. I was only peripherally aware at the time that this secret-keeping would intensify as my relationship with Marcus deepened. Women will always choose the man over the best friend. This is a sad but true fact of life, and it's only this certitude that makes me unashamed to admit it.
I have yet to get a reciprocal phone call from Hope because she still hasn't done it. Sometimes I admire her for holding out. But more often I pity her for not finding someone who makes the preservation of her virginity seem utterly pointless.
the twenty-second
Oh, thank God. Mr. Flutie got off the couch. And Marcus and I finally fucked.
Would you prefer a prettier phrase, like made sweet love? Well, that's not what we did. Marcus might argue that we're in love, so we're always making love—even when we're just plain ol'-fashioned fucking. Yes, even with my limited experience, I know there's a difference. And if you don't know what it is, well, I feel sorry for you.
Semantics aside, any sexual activity is a miracle considering the neutering effect of the run-in with Sierra. And the state of my hair. Not to mention that the Accutane is failing and I had a throbbing bubo on the tip of my nose. Buboes are the red, raging, open sores that marked the Black Death, my favorite of all the medieval plagues. When the bubo turned black, you were doomed (hence the name), and no one would dare come close to the infected corpse, not even for a burial. You were lucky if someone even bothered to throw a sheet over you.
I babbled about all this as Marcus recovered from coming because it was better than a conversation comprised of apologies. (His for fucking Sierra, mine for retroactively punishing him for it.) He didn't react to my rambling, so I didn't think he was listening. Or rather, I was hoping that he wasn't capable of listening after being laid so powerfully by the love of his life. But then he sat up in the twisted sheets and put his lips to my nose, lightly kissing my cyst.
“I'd bury you,” he said.
I looked at him. In postcoital calm, his heavy-lidded eyes were even deeper, sleepier than usual. His arms and legs were so long that there seemed to be no end to them in the sheets. I crushed my body against his so intensely that I squashed his internal organs and he yelped in pain. I didn't want to injure him, but I couldn't help myself.
Why am I leaving him for a month? I'm insane! Insane!
the twenty-seventh
So I didn't write anything in my journal during the school year because Marcus was gone. And now I haven't written because he's here.
I prefer the latter excuse.
Similarly, I've been spending so much time with Marcus that I haven't hung out with anyone else. (And maybe I'm in hair-related hiding, too.)
Today Bridget showed up in my bedroom all shrieky and annoyed. Even when she's pissed off, she radiates a golden aura that is soothing to the senses.
“Jess! I'm only, like, your oldest friend! Where have you been?”
She extended me the courtesy of not gawking at the brunette horror that protrudes in all directions from my scalp. I, of course, totally checked out her tits.
They looked the same to me, in all their perky, slightly bigger than B-cup splendor. I was so relieved that I gave her a huge hug, one that would not have been possible if her boobs had been upgraded to LA proportions. The rest of Bridget was as blond, blue-eyed, teeny-nosed, clear-skinned, and impossibly, if unimaginatively, pretty as ever. In a flirty, light-as-air floral sundress and flip-flops, she had perfected the sloppy-sunny-sexy style preferred by starlets-in-training, those whose greatest wish is not to win an Oscar but to be voted into the Winners' Circle by the Fashion Police in the pages of US Weekly.
“I'm so sorry that I haven't called you, Bridget!” And seeing