After I’d extracted myself from there and found her with Carl and Sophie, May had admitted full culpability for knowingly dropping me into an excruciating sex-ethics lecture for my Sunday School class introduction. Seeing me so jittery afterwards she’d been full of remorse until I made her understand that it was over the attention and not the class content, but the rest of the day went about like I’d expected with veiled jokes over dinner from Aunt Sophie about sex and sixty-year-old virgins, male or otherwise (veiled because of the presence of Mrs. Thompson at the table), and amused sympathy from Carl. Afterward, I went up to my room to get some pre-study in with the textbooks I’d downloaded to prep for tomorrow, and May came up for our ritual a couple of hours later.

  “I have a theory,” she said, brush pausing mid-stroke. Now she wanted to talk about it, it being my half-panicked reaction to the simple social attention, not the lesson subject. “But I’m not sure you’ll like it.”

  “Really?” I muttered. “Because I’ve liked everything about my situation soooo much until now.”

  “Watch the sarcasm, missy!” she laughed and resumed brushing, brow furrowed in the mirror. “I think,” she said softly, eyes on my hair, “that you didn’t get much positive attention, back—well, the first time around. From things you’ve said, you were mostly socially invisible? As a boy? And when you were noticed you were . . .”

  “The Bulk?” I finished for her. It was true; outside of the small circle of geeks that had accepted me for my chess chops and my then-encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction and fantasy movies, I had been mostly invisible when I wasn’t being mocked.

  “Yes,” she said, voice hitching slightly. “That.” Stopping again, she spontaneously hugged me for a long moment before going back to brushing. “You know,” she said with forced lightness, “Sometimes I just want to travel back in time to give Teen You all the hugs you should have had. That and kick a lot of ignorant ass.”

  My eyes prickled and I ignored them. “Where’s a Delorian with a flux capacitor when you need one?”

  She laughed again. “I got that reference! So, my theory.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think, I think, that because you didn’t get it growing up, you don’t know how to handle positive social attention. Not when it’s aimed at you personally, not unless you’re directing it towards some goal like conducting an office meeting or closing a business deal or something. So you get flustered and then you get more flustered because you know it shows that you’re flustered, and on and on, a vicious loop.”

  I sighed. I’d been doing that a lot. “Do you think so? And it has nothing to do with the fact that they’re teenagers and I’m not? Not really?”

  She actually gave that some consideration, strokes steady. “You know, I keep forgetting that angle? Because the truth is that in important ways you’re younger than they are.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sweetheart,” she said gently, “you’ve got decades of adult experience on them but you just got your first period last month. And for all that you’ve ‘taken yourself in hand’ sexually, you’ve only experienced being a person of sexual interest for about as long. So you might have a lot more life experience, but you have no real social or romantic or sexual experience and less basic girl experience than any girl who’s made it to their sweet sixteen.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  She gave my hair a few silent strokes.

  “And if anything, all your ‘man experience’ is working against you, too. Their bodies have been gradually changing since puberty—they know themselves and how they fit in the changing physical and social environment around them better than you do. You’ve had a few weeks to adjust to a body radically different from before in virtually every way, and social interactions just as different.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t refute any of that. “Why doesn’t that sound any better?”

  “But it should sound better,” she protested. “Because it’s just inexperience and you’ll grow out of that. And meanwhile your used-to-be-an-adult perspective will sometimes come in handy. Sister Edwards texted that you handled yourself very well in class, she was very impressed with your serious thoughts. Also, a little worried that I should talk to you and see if you have anything you want to share?” She giggled at my sputter. “I’m pretty sure she thinks you may have experienced the bad intentions of a boy where you grew up in the back of beyond, and that’s why you’re with us now.”

  I groaned, Sister Edwards’ sympathetic looks taking on a whole new meaning.

  “And on that subject,” May said thoughtfully, “I’m going to make an appointment for you to go back to see Meredith—Dr. James—next week.”

  “Why?” I twisted around to look at her. Hands in my hair, she turned me back to face the mirror to continue brushing.

  “I wasn’t thinking ahead, last time. You’re going back to high school tomorrow, with a pretty face and a healthy sex drive. There are some things we can handle as they come up, but other things we should plan for in advance. I want you to get the HPV vaccine, an excellent shield against some common STDs and cancer, and an IUD implant that’ll take accidental pregnancy off the table. I’m going to teach you all about condoms, too, when the time comes. I’ll expect you to make use of them as necessary.”

  “I—I don’t—” I was gaping at her like a fish.

  She frowned at me in the mirror. “I know your head is in the strangest place right now, but you’ll be a teenage girl surrounded by teenage boys. That’s a fact, and we’ve already established that you do like boys. I’m not saying anything’s going to happen next week or next month or even this school year, I’m just saying that an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure, and for some things there is no cure, only consequences. So we’re going to be safe, and this is not negotiable. Understand?”

  Just implying I’d be having sex eventually gave me the heebie-jeebies—hilarious considering what I’d imagined for myself just last night, and I shuddered.

  “Hey,” May said, applying another quick hug. “I’m not throwing you to the boys. I’ll be happy if you keep your legs together until college at least, give yourself a few years to grow into being you before sharing yourself with someone else. I’m just saying, let’s be safe. Alright?”

  I nodded, feeling small (well, smaller), and she gave me a last squeeze before straightening and setting the brush aside.

  “When did you and Carl do it?”

  She giggled, pulling me up. “We were eighteen, but we’d been going together for a year and we were sure of our hearts. Now in you get.” When I crawled into bed she pulled up the blankets before sitting on them beside me. “It’s my big girl’s first day of school, tomorrow. Big day.” Dropping a kiss on my forehead, she played with my hair for a moment before getting up. “Goodnight, sweetheart. I love you.”

  “Love you too, Mom,” I said without thinking and almost blushed as she beamed. And then she was gone, turning off the lights and closing the door.

  Rolling over I stared at the wall. Our goodnight ritual had been late tonight, after going over everything for tomorrow morning. I had my uniform set out, I knew where my classes were, who my teachers would be, even where I would sit for lunch. I was prepared, with nothing left to freak out about other than how much I was probably going to freak out.

  A month. It only been a month and a handful of days ago I’d been a sixty-year-old man with the beginnings of arthritis and an impaired heart (but with real friends, even the best of friends, for the first time in my life). Now I was little April Seever, tucked into her huge bed by her mom and scared of her first day of high school. Playing with the locks of hair that May had sorted, I fell asleep.