SAGE

It was my turn on Friday. Mine and John's.

I don't really know how to say this. I shouldn't even be writing it down.

I do this to myself. I hate the doors. I know I hate the doors. I swear to myself over and over I won't do it again. I'll never go down again. I'll leave the group. I'll leave town. I'll go to college. I'll get the fuck out of this town and I'll go so far away, they'll never find me. They probably wouldn't even look, who am I kidding. Shit, I'm crying.

Damn it. I'm crying all over the paper. It's gonna rip. I'll probably throw this out anyway. Might as well say it.

I went down with John on Friday.

We'd never done it together, the two of us. He always arranges it so it's him and Rain. Or him and Jenny. A couple times, it was him and Dave, and I think he likes it that way because Dave will do whatever John tells him to. He loves lording his power over people. That's the truth. That's why he hangs out with Dave. George is too smart for him. George doesn't fall for his shit, not the way Dave does. Not the way I do.

Because he knows the truth about me. He's always known it. I've tried so hard to hide it. I swear, I never even look at John. Like, at lunch, I just look at George, or at Jenny. Or I look at my food. And then one of them, usually Dave, cracks a joke about how I'm obsessed with my food, and Jenny stands up for me, and I get so embarrassed I don't say anything.

It's so unfair, I don't even eat in front of them, but Dave makes the jokes anyway. I swear sometimes I kind of hate Dave. I wish he would just go away. It's the truth: I wish he would go into a portal and never come back. Make my life easier.

But the point is, I don't look at John. I barely talk to him. And yet somehow, he knew. I think he's always known.

Look, it's just a crush, okay? I was never gonna do anything about it. I'm not an idiot. I know he's with Rain, and why wouldn't he be? He could have anyone, of course he chose the queen. I would choose her, too, if I was him. Everybody wants Rain. And everybody wants to be her.

How did he know about me? Was it because I didn't talk to him at lunch? Because I didn't look at him? Yeah, that's it. Of course he knew.

He waited until we were through the door. We went into a Yesterday portal. I asked him if he had a token, and he said don't worry about it. "I've got something planned for us," he said. When we got to the other side, it was raining and we were in a parking lot. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into a building, a motel. He was smiling at me the whole time. One of his secret smiles, when he's up to something.

He went to the front desk and paid for a room, then nodded to me.

My heart was beating so fast. I was afraid I would pass out. I followed him down a hall that smelled like cigarettes and beer. It was dark, and an older couple passed us, laughing and drunk. The woman had a huge bouffant hairstyle. She smelled like an old department store.

"What year is it?" I asked John after they had passed.

He held up a coin that he'd put in his pocket—the token. "1971," he said, reading the date on the coin.

Then he smiled and used the key to open the door to our room. I shook my head, confused. "What are we doing?"

"Come on," he said. And once we were inside, we just sat on the bed. I didn't say anything. I stared at the dirty mauve carpet.

"You like me, don't you?" he said. I tried so hard not to blush, but I could feel it. In my cheeks, my nose, my whole body. I laughed. I couldn't stop laughing.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

And he said, "It's okay. I like you too."

I got mad. I just kept shaking my head. "You don't. Let's get back."

But he put his hand over mine. And he started saying a bunch of stuff, about how Rain was hard to talk to, but he could talk to me. He felt like he could trust me. And then he said—I'll remember this as long as I live—he said, "Sometimes I wonder if I should have chosen you."

I shook my head. I still couldn't look at him, and I felt myself start to cry.

The craziest thing happened. He kissed my tear. Like, kissed it right off my face.

"Lie down," he said. And I know I should have run. I know I should have left. I know it, you don't have to tell me. Rain is my friend. I just...

Oh God, this is terrible. The thought that kept going through my head was just, "If you don't do it now, he'll never ask again. This is your only chance."

And I did it. I did what he said.

And the worst part is, the whole time he was taking off my shirt, the whole time he was kissing me, the whole time when we got under the covers, and he asked me if I was ready, and I asked him if he had a condom, and he smiled and took it out of his pocket—which is when I knew that he had been planning this since before it happened, that he knew, he KNEW, I would say yes—the whole damn time, all I could think was: I'm so happy.

This is the happiest moment of my life.

That's what I thought as I was having sex with my friend's boyfriend. That's what I thought when I felt him break into me for the first time. I wasn't thinking about how it hurt, even though it did. I was thinking about how happy I was.

John was so tender the whole time. I never would have thought that about him. Even when we first started, I think a part of me was waiting for him to start laughing at me. For him to tell me it was just a joke.

But he didn't. He kissed me again when he was on top of me. He told me I was doing great, and that he was happy we were together. And he looked down at me with those big brown eyes like maybe he even...even loved me.

Afterwards we got dressed and we came back home.

He didn't say anything the whole time. He didn't say anything when we left the science lab and made our way back to the boiler room, when we got on our bikes outside the school. But before I started pedaling away, he said one thing.

"You'll be a good girl, right? You won't tell Rain."

I nodded, and he biked away.

That was Friday. Now it's Monday.

The guilt is crushing me. And I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do.

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XO, Rebecca