So, Maddie, I've been using your laptop to write this...I don't even know what we would call it. This epistolary autobiography, shall we say? (Yeah I had to look that up.) And I have to admit that I am rereading your journal as I go, using your THEN entries as inspiration for my own. But your 9th, about how you read so many books...I have no parallel for that, even though I loved many of the same books. I don't feel they shaped me as they shaped you. So instead, I'm going to tell you about Abigail, and how that all came crashing down. It's been on my mind as I recounted what happened with Fern. It's funny, I didn't even see the correlation then, when it happened, but now it's so glaring that I can't believe I missed it.

So you know that Abigail and I kissed by the bridge leading to the meadow near my house. After that, we were official. We held hands at school, walked home together, spent some weekend days with each other. It was all pretty tame, as one would expect 12-year-olds' romance to be. Things didn't escalate until we were 14.

We'd gone to see a romantic comedy at the theatre. I don't even remember now what film it was, but the main characters kissed, passionately. Lustfully. And it was like my own lust was brought to life. I knew I'd been wanting more from her for awhile. It was all so sweet, so innocent. She was sweet and innocent. Not that those are bad traits, mind you. It was part of what I liked about her. But I was a teenage boy. I was filled with hormones, and the shyest smile from her drove me crazy.

I am starting to wonder if I should tell you all of this. If you don't want to know, skip the rest of this Maddie. I'll put it here for you in case you do want to read it.

Anyway, after that movie, when I kissed her goodnight, I slipped my tongue out, across her lips, and into her mouth. She erupted in a fit of giggles, and I stepped away, blushing. Apologizing. But she smiled shyly and stepped closer, tipping her head to the side. It's okay, she reassured me. I can't honestly recall exactly what was said by either of us, I just know she wanted the next step as much as I did in that moment. We tried to figure out this kissing thing together, laughing in sync when she breathed out into my mouth, and my cheeks filled awkwardly with air.

So, about as steamy as the first kiss...

"I love you," I told her as my laughter died down.

She looked surprised. "I love you, too," she said, giving me that shy smile.

We went to several "make out" parties after that, and kissing turned into touching, touching into wanting. I had a deep wanting ache for her, and my eager hands shook as they pawed at her small chest. She said we had to wait. I said okay. I didn't push her. But the next time she brought it up, her hips pressed close to mine, she said we had to wait until we were legal. I said okay. I didn't push her. But the next time she brought it up, her hand down the front of my pants, she said we had to wait until we were both 15. I said okay. I would have agreed to anything she said in that moment, to be honest.

I was already 15 by then, and it was just a few months for her to age up as well. As the weeks passed, we explored each other more and more. I remember the first time she took her shirt off. Even though she left her bra on, I felt like the luckiest guy. Her skin was smooth and pale, and she was long and lean, all spindly arms and legs.

Yeah, we didn't make it to her birthday.

A few weeks shy of it, we were making out in her parents' house. They were out to dinner or to the theatre, I'm not sure. We were naked above the waist, and she pulled my bare shoulders, muttering, "I don't want to wait anymore." I froze. I asked her if she was sure, shaking as I raised myself off of her. She said she was certain. And suddenly I wasn't. My whole body shook at the thought of what we were going to do. "Do you have the condoms from sex ed?" she whispered.

I fumbled, mumbling as I leaned over the edge of her bed to search through my school bag. Meanwhile she had slid under the covers, discarding her bottoms.

I asked her again, my voice trembling, "Abby, are you sure you want to do this?" She nodded, but I went on, "because we don't have to--"

She cut me off, pulling my face down to hers, pushing her body against mine.

My hands shook as I reached between us, fumbling the condom on quickly. I was utterly unsure where I was supposed to go. We'd done our share of heavy petting, but I'd never, like looked at her, ya know. I poked my tremulous fingers around blindly. I had no idea what I was doing, and the longer it took me to figure it out, the more embarrassed I got, my face filling with the heat of humiliation. She tugged on my shoulders again, urging me to get on with it. Finally, I just took my cock in hand and pressed it against her, rubbing. My body seemed to know what to do once I hit the right spot, my hips lurching forward. Her whole body tensed against me. I pressed my face into her neck and hair, overwhelmed. I was feeling far too many things at once--terrified, excited, concerned, just to articulate a few. I began to move, but I didn't last long. And as I came, I breathed adorations into her ear, "I love you, Abby. I love you so much."

She was crying. I raised up on my elbows and kissed her cheek. She turned her face away. I didn't understand.

"You should go," she said quietly, too quietly, "before my parents get home."

"I don't want to leave you like this."

"Like what?" Snot rolled down her lip.

"Crying, upset. I don't...I'm sorry. I don't know what I did. Please tell me, please..."

My voice trailed off as she turned her whole body away from me. I touched her back, and she flinched. That small physical reaction was like a boulder crushing my heart. She felt so far away. I didn't understand why. Why had she pulled so far away? Tears pooled in my eyes, and I brushed them away quickly.

"Abby, please talk to me. I love you," I tried once more, my voice shaky and too high.

She buried her face in her pillow, covering her head with her hands. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to cradle her and tell her that we would be all right. But I knew she didn't want me to touch her. She'd made that plain. And I knew she didn't want to talk to me. Shit, she didn't even want to look at me.

So I pulled my clothes on quietly, and I left. That is one of my few regrets in life. I should have stayed. And I should have held her even though she didn't want me to. I should have because she needed me to.

When I say I regret it, I don't mean I wish that Abby and I had worked out. That's not it at all. I regret that I wasn't there for her as I should have been. I regret that I left her alone, sobbing into her pillow when she needed someone to comfort her. That was my job, not just as her boyfriend but as her friend, and I failed her.

I walked home in the late dusk of spring, pulling my coat closer around me, my tears falling freely now. When I got home, I went straight upstairs and into Gemma's room. She was sitting on the floor painting her toenails. I flopped onto her bed.

"What's wrong with you?" She asked, not mean or snarky. Worried.

My answer came out a muted, garbled mess.

She rested her hand on the back of my calf. "Harry, what happened?"

I turned my face toward her. "Abby and I did it."

"Whoa." Gemma sat up straighter. "Were you safe?" I nodded. "Are you okay?"

"No," I felt my face twisting with all the anguish I was feeling. "I don't know." I told her everything, crying the whole way through. She rubbed my back in large, slow circles to help me calm down. When I was finally breathing normally, I asked, "Why do you think she was so upset? What did I do wrong?" Almost begging, imploring for Gemma to explain Abby's actions.

"I don't know, Harry. Maybe she wasn't really ready."

"She said she was."

"I know, but what people say and what people feel aren't the same sometimes. A lot of the time. She may have even thought she was and didn't realize until after that she wasn't."

"What do I do? How do I make this right?"

"I don't know, Hazza. Call her a little later on, make sure she's all right. Tell her how much she means to you. Let her know that this was a big deal for you, too."

It was good advice. It would have been good advice. If Abigail took my calls. But she didn't. Or if she opened my emails. But she didn't. Or even if she came to the door when I stopped by her house. But she didn't. With a pitying look on her face, her mother said that Abby didn't want to see me anymore. We were on spring holidays, so I couldn't even see her at school.

Once we were back to school the next week, though, I cornered her outside the main building. "Abby, come on. Please talk to me. Let's just work this out."

"Not here, Harry," she looked at her feet, not at me.

"Where then?"

"The bridge. Our bridge," she said, her voice so low I almost didn't hear her. "I'll come tonight."

"What time?"

"Seven."

I made a whole plan. I covered the path to the bridge in rose petals and little candles. I covered the railing of the bridge in candles. I picked her a bouquet of flowers from my mum's garden, and I waited there for her, anxious to show her I loved her.

The sun sank behind the horizon, and I glanced at my watch. It was half past seven already. I paced along edge of the water as a swirling breeze picked up, snuffing the flames of most of the candles I'd arranged. I knocked them off the rails into the water. At nine, I walked to her house. She was there, I could see, in her front room with her parents. And my mate, Jack.

She spotted me standing outside the window and stood in a rush. I met her at the front door, but instead of inviting me in, she came out, closing the door behind her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I couldn't get away."

"What's Jack doing here?" He was her friend too. It shouldn't have been a big deal. But it was.

"He...I..." She looked over her shoulder at him. "We're, um--"

"No," my voice was raspy. I shook my head.

"It's--"

"No, Abby. No. After we...I love you. Don't you know that?"

She finally looked me in the eye. "I do know it. I'm sorry. I tried to tell you so--"

"What? What do you mean, tried? When did you try to--what did you try to tell me?"

"It's been awhile, now," she shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Nothing happened when we were together."

Were? "But we...Abby, I don't understand. How can you do this? After everything, after all our firsts..."

She blinked, and the tears breached the edges, trickling down her flushed cheeks. "I shouldn't have done that with you. I just felt like I needed to, like I had to or you wouldn't stay with me. I thought it would fix everything."

I got mad. "What the hell does that even mean? I never pressured you, and you're stood here saying you're with Jack now anyway, so why would you care whether I stayed with you?"

"I'm sorry," was all she said before she retreated into the house.

We didn't speak again, not for a long time. Not until after my fling with Cassie was over. When we did, she told me that everything happened too fast with us. That she felt like she was on a speeding train that wasn't going to stop and she either had to jump off or keep riding. I asked her what I had done that made her feel that way, and why she never told me she did. She said she was scared. She cared about me and she didn't want to lose me. "It wasn't you, it was me," she said. "I felt suffocated. Trapped. I don't know how to explain it properly."

"And Jack?"

She sighed. "I didn't mean to fall for him, Harry. I just, I started talking to him about what was going on with us, and he was so understanding--"

"You should've talked to me,"

"I know. I'm sorry." She touched my hand. "Nothing happened until after...I mean, just, you should know we didn't kiss or anything until after you and I were over."

"Okay." I felt sort of numb. Did it even matter at that point when she kissed him?

"Can we still be friends?" She asked, her tone bright and sincere.

"I hope so," I said, meaning it.

And we are. Not like we ever were before, mind you. We don't talk much, but I hear from her on my birthday. And I send her a quick greeting on hers.

What surprises me is how I never really compared what she did to Fern until now. Maybe because she said there was no physical unfaithfulness. But she was cheating emotionally. She had moved on to someone else in her heart and didn't tell me. I was totally blindsided by it, by her.

I guess that's why I was so scared of losing you, Maddie. I never quite felt like I was on even footing because I've had it all torn away from me before. Every time you shut down or pushed me away, I relived those moments. But I know you aren't them. I know you love me. Thank you for loving me.

And I love you. So so much.

~~~~~

Okay, so Made in the AM!! God, it's so good. I can't wait to use these songs as inspiration.

I dedicate this chapter to hesinstripes  who I am meeting for the first time at Disneyland in about 9 hours. I should be asleep already. Oops. Liz, and the rest of our Smutty Sisterhood, thanks for inspiring me to write again. 💖

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