Chapter 2

Staring at my reflection in the bedroom mirror, at the medal hanging around my neck, reminded me of what I had just gone through. My mother had raised me to serve others without taking pride in anything I did. It was always about the other person, not me. I was simply an instrument of the Lord. So when the mayor and townsfolk had made such a big fuss about me, I had wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. I had been close to throwing up and even fainting from all the attention. The medal around my neck was a painful reminder of it all.

In order to alleviate the stress I had endured, I did what I usually did. I unloaded on the mirror, sharing my feelings about the award ceremony, how nervous I had been, how embarrassed, how I had forgotten my speech, how I had gotten laughed at. It was a safe way to vent.

When done, I took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. Now feeling more like myself, I removed the medal, neatly folded the red, white, and blue ribbon, and laid it on the dresser below the mirror. I wanted to bury it in a drawer out of sight, but knew my mother would want to keep looking at it. Maybe I should tell her to keep it in her bedroom. All it did was remind me of yet another embarrassing time in my life.

Then I soaked in a hot bath to drain whatever stress remained in my body. My boyfriend was taking me to dinner and a movie to celebrate what he thought was a great honor. Corbin hadn’t been able to attend the ceremony because he had to work. People needed their cars fixed and there was a backlog at the garage he worked at. To make up for missing the event, he was taking me out on a workday. Corbin was so sweet. He and I had been seeing each other exclusively since I was a junior in high school and he a senior. Actually, I couldn’t date before my junior year so he was my first and only boyfriend. I was lucky to have him. There weren’t many Catholic boys in my small town, not that I was settling.

Dinner was great. It wasn’t a fancy restaurant, basically a diner, but I loved the onion rings there and Corbin knew it. Afterward, in the movie theater, we sat with my right hand clasped in his left, fingers entwined, and our hooked arms on the armrest between us. I loved him so much and couldn’t wait until we were married. Waiting was hard, but he needed to save up money before we took that next step. We both still lived with our parents. As I often confessed to my mirror and no one else, I desired to love him in the physical sense, but of course that had to wait for our union to be blessed by God. Those feelings were stronger lately and I wondered if I needed to tell Father Nico about them in confession.

The movie had begun and the theater was dark when Corbin carried our hands to his mouth and kissed the back of mine. My heart skipped a beat. When he returned our arms to the armrest, he missed and our clasped hands ended up on my thigh. And not only on my thigh, but he had turned our hands so that the back of his was resting on my thigh. The contact was electrifying. I knew I should lift our hands back onto the armrest, but it felt too good. And what was the big deal? It was on top of my dress so it wasn’t as if he was touching skin. And it was no closer to my crotch than to my knee. Where had that thought come from? That was so unlike me. My heart beat quicker anyway.

As we watched the movie, Corbin’s hand nonchalantly moved, sliding back and forth on my thigh. Only an inch in each direction, but the contact sent shivers throughout my body. I knew I should carry his hand back onto the armrest. It would be the virtuous thing to do. However, another part of me, a part I didn’t understand, wanted to drag his hand between my legs and clamp my thighs around it. Those kinds of sinful thoughts and desires began this year and have been growing stronger lately. I knew I would never allow Corbin to touch me there before we were married, it would be a mortal sin, but I didn’t want to move his hand off my thigh either so I let it be. My eyes closed and my breaths deepened.

The contact of the back of his hand on my thigh heated my body and, when butterflies fluttered their wings in my tummy, my fingers tightened in his. Corbin’s hand became deathly still. I hadn’t meant for him to stop. It had been an automatic response of my body’s reaction to his touch. But the damage was done and Corbin didn’t move his hand again throughout the movie. I was disappointed and almost moved it for him, but that wasn’t me. I had been raised better than that. It still felt good resting on my thigh, but not as good as when it had been moving.

After the movie, when Corbin drove me home, we stood on the porch away from the front door where the illuminated light attracted flying bugs. Corbin again apologized for missing the ceremony. I kept telling him it was okay, but he carried on. To shut him up, I cupped his face in my hands, pulled it down, and pressed my lips to his. It was unlike me to initiate anything like that, but I knew I was going to get a goodnight kiss anyway so why not use it to stop him from talking about something that made me uncomfortable. What I didn’t expect was the passion it ignited in him.

Corbin’s arms flew around me, crushing me to his body like never before. And something else happened that I hadn’t expected. My reaction to him. I melted in his arms and the butterflies returned to my belly in force. I kissed him harder and, when the tip of his tongue touched my lips, I did something I had never done. I had always clamped my lips together, but tonight I allowed his tongue to slide between my lips. And when his tongue touched mine, I latched onto his body to keep from falling. My legs had turned to soft rubber. But when Corbin’s tongue became active inside my mouth, I panicked and jerked my head back and broke free of his hold. Both of us were panting as I turned and ran into the house, not stopping until I was gasping for air in my bedroom.