Flashback: High School Junior Year, the Boy (2021)

Richard Waters sat next to her in AP Bio.

Safe. Politically, socially, emotionally safe. Kind eyes behind glasses. Quiet listener. He asked if she wanted to go to the winter formal.

She said yes. She wasn't sure why at first. Then she was sure: she liked him. Maybe not the way storybooks described, but her body responded when he was near. That counted for something.

They dated for several months. It started innocent—movies, hand-holding, study dates that turned into actual dates. The chemistry built gradually, not lightning but steady warmth. Richard was gentle, careful, respectful. He was also nervous. She could tell he'd never done this before. Neither had she.

They had sex. In his basement one afternoon when his parents were out. Both of them awkward, both of them unsure. He was clumsy with her body; she wasn't sure what she wanted him to do. It was tender in a fumbling way—real affection underneath the uncertainty. Afterward they lay there, and neither of them quite knew what to say.

What stuck with her was the way Richard looked at her after, like she'd answered a question he'd been asking his whole life. Like she meant something specific, definable. Like this—the two of them, this moment—proved something about both of them.

She panicked.

Not because the sex was bad or because she didn't care about him. Because she cared and she didn't know if it was real. Because her body had responded and her heart had warmed and she'd enjoyed the closeness, but underneath it all was a question that wouldn't stop: Is this what I actually want, or am I just performing what I'm supposed to want?

She thought about Sandy. Pushed it away. Sandy was sophomore year. This is now. This is real. This is normal.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that she was lying to Richard. Not intentionally. But lying about what she felt, what she knew, what she could promise.

Richard said he loved her a week later. Said it casually, like it was obvious, like the word had been sitting there waiting to escape. Said it like a promise.

And she froze. Because she did care about him. Because the thought of losing him made her sad. But because she didn't know if what she felt was love or relief. Relief at being able to do what normal girls do. Relief at having a reason to stop asking herself questions she didn't want to know the answers to.

She broke up with him. Not because she lacked feelings—she did, and that terrified her. Staying with him felt like lying to him about who she was. She couldn't keep promising something she wasn't sure she could deliver.

She told him the distance between them was too much, that it was unfair to expect him to wait, that maybe college would change things. All true enough. But not the real reason.

She was scared. That was the real reason. Scared of hurting him. Scared of being found out—not for anything she'd done, but for who she might actually be. Scared of discovering something about herself that couldn't be un-known.

She left him confused and hurt. She couldn't afford to explain. Explaining meant looking at herself honestly, and she wasn't ready for that yet.

The guilt settled into her bones. Years later, at college, when she finally had the language and the safety to think about it, she understood: she'd hurt him to protect herself. She'd made his confusion and pain bearable by keeping him in the dark.

Cowardice dressed up as kindness.