'Cause when you're fifteen,
Fifteen and feeling behind. Packing my bag for school, I stuff a red Brandy Melville tube top into my dark grey Kanken, zipping it carefully into the pouch that also holds my computer, an extra precaution. Tired of wasting minutes arguing as I attempted to sneak out of the house in an outfit my mother would deem either “entirely inappropriate” for school or simply slutty. I’d adopted the habit of changing into my real outfit in the bathroom of Lenny’s, the New York City breakfast chain where I stopped after getting off the subway in Times Square on the way to school. Crop tops were fashionable! I liked the way I looked at them, and the way I thought the boys at my high school would see me if I wore them. I wasn’t dressing for them, but I wanted them to see me.
You take a deep breath
And you walk through the doors
The halls of my public New York City high school held a daily talent show. Students adorning their best put-together outfits, performing their most gleeful giggles, and giving their best casual speeches. High-toed boot-clad seniors with their Dickies-wearing boyfriends holding hands while sharing an iced coffee. Groups of athletic sophomore boys, eyes turned towards their phones while a group of junior girls’ eyes lit up and let outbursts of laughter as the younger boys answered their Snapchats from across the hall. Sneaking eye contact across the 20-foot space.
Count to ten
Take it in
This is life before you know who you're gonna be
As freshmen, we hung out in the basement. Friend groups hadn’t solidified and between large group chats and mass exoduses, girls cuddled in corners gossiping and boys slid bananas across the floor trying to knock over water bottles bowling pin style. The few couples who’d formed the past weekend at a party I wasn’t invited to walked laps around those of us sitting on the floor. I wondered what it was like to kiss a boy. To kiss a boy and come to school the next day holding hands. To kiss a boy and come to school the next day holding hands, walking around the basement in front of everyone else displaying our love and affection.
And your first kiss makes your head spin around
I obsessed over the idea of my first kiss. Clutching the secret of my virgin lips close to my heart, imagining every girl had spent hours with their tongues tied to their brace-faced boyfriends. The anticipation was overwhelming, carrying mint gum and lip gloss on Fridays for the afterschool plans of hanging out in empty children’s playgrounds in the dark or the occasional party. I had dreams of water parks filled with boys but woke up each time the moment before a particular boy and I would leap down a slide and touch tongues on the way down.
When all you wanted
Was to be wanted
He was older than me and his mouth tasted like morning and sweat and kind of like hotdogs, but I pretended to like the way he tasted. I wanted his hands, I thought. I wanted the story they write for me to tell my friends, to write in my head and playback, analyze, and experience. I ran my hands through his hair and nibbled his ear like I was told to by TigerBeat magazine I had read in a store because my mom never let me buy them. Entirely out of my body this was someone else. I was sure I was behind, everyone was doing this. Our bodies separated by nothing but years and context, and the inch I re-created as he crept closer as we slept. I liked the way his arms looked around me but I hated the way they felt. I wanted to be wanted, I thought, but I didn’t want this. We drove, he clutched my leg, I pretended to laugh at his jokes and felt sick when I got home.
'Cause when you're fifteen,