“Let’s see what those guns do for you if Raheem bust up in here and see you and Cinny all cozy,” Mina said. Her eyes gleamed playfully.
“Ay, no disrespect to your man, Cinny, but you know I can handle mine if he start tripping,” JZ said.
“Mina, why you starting stuff?” Jacinta’s rolled her eyes. “Y’all know me and JZ…”
The entire table chorused, “Just friends,” breaking them all up again, even Jacinta.
Lizzie rode the energy of her friends, feeding off their banter and dissing. She loved the nights they all hung out.
Nights that she and Todd hooked up with Mina and Brian to watch movies or play games at one of their homes were great, too, except inevitably they turned into make-out sessions—either Mina and Brian off in one corner, or if they were home alone, them in the family room, she and Todd in the living room, or sometimes, Mina and Brian left and went to his house. As much as Lizzie enjoyed it, preventing the make-outs from going twenty minutes or beyond was exhausting. It was the group outings she truly loved.
By the time the pizzas arrived, the Ria was on full blast, and the clique’s banter mixed in with the general chaos of the restaurant. Soon, the musical chairs began, everyone hopping from their own table to their classmates’, catching up on life, talking about the upcoming prom and summer plans. By ten-thirty, Lizzie had forgotten about Mina’s red-rimmed eyes. And if Mina had been mad at Brian earlier, she wasn’t by then. Whenever the two of them were at the table together, they were touching, holding hands, and smiling at one another.
Watching them, Lizzie knew this was the weekend she’d better bring up the pact, before it was too late.
But she didn’t think about it again until the next morning as she and the girls lounged in Mina’s room.
Kelly and Lizzie lay stretched out on Mina’s bed. Mina sat atop her desk, cross-legged, staring at the posters on her wall, and Jacinta was stretched out on the floor reading a magazine. Having exhausted the topic of last night, they lazily debated if they wanted breakfast as music buzzed quietly in the background. No one was motivated to move beyond the bedroom, except Jacinta, who had gone to the bathroom a record four times since they’d woken up a half hour before.
With a lull in the debate, Lizzie popped up abruptly, the bed bouncing her like a trampoline. The girls eyed her sudden movement with idle curiosity.
Lizzie held up two fingers. “Okay, two words, guys…virginity pact.” She beamed, smiling into her friends’ confused faces as if she’d just invented the cure for cancer.
Mina’s eyebrows jumped as if startled before settling back down. She picked up a blue and gold stress ball and stretched and pulled at its rubbery, dangling tentacles. She glanced at Lizzie before gazing over her head at the wall, the tentacles expanding as her fingers worked it overtime.
Jacinta looked up from the floor, her face caught between amusement and boredom, dropped the magazine she was flipping through, and pushed herself to a standing position. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But obviously, I’m out.” Before ducking out of the room she said, “Talk amongst yourselves about this new wild idea Lizzie has.”
Kelly and Mina teetered. No one had to ask Jacinta what she meant. She and Raheem were going on nearly four years together, if you didn’t count the time off during breakups, two and counting since the December of their freshman year. It was no secret their relationship was well past any sort of pact of abstinence.
“I’ll bite,” Kelly said. Her usual caramel complexion had a tawny glow from a recent trip to Hawaii with her mom, step-dad, and younger brother. With her thick chestnut hair, newly highlighted with dirty blond streaks, pulled back, she looked like she’d just stepped off a Seventeen mag photo shoot. She sat up, too, pushing her back against the wall, pressing Liz for more details. “I mean, I know what a virginity pact is but…”
“Okay, before you guys shoot me down, listen,” Lizzie interrupted. She hugged Mina’s body pillow to her, crushing it as she squeezed. Her eyes went a brilliant green, something that happened whenever she was excited. “Now that Mina and I have officially been able to date…”
“You want to take half the fun out of it by pledging to not have sex?” Cinny deadpanned, popping back into the room.
“I thought you were in the bathroom.” Lizzie scowled, not hiding her annoyance with Jacinta’s flippant attitude toward her idea.
“False alarm.” Jacinta took a seat in the chair next to the desk. “But my bad…go ahead, Liz. This sounds like a fascinating idea,” she said in a voice that sounded as thrilled as someone doing a play-by-play of paint drying.
Mina swatted at her to hush.
“No harm, Mina, but this is Brian’s senior year. Y’all have what…” Jacinta furrowed her brows in concentration as she calculated. “Four months before he goes off to school? I can’t see you wanting to make this pact right when he’s ready to have even more chicks to choose from…college girls at that.”
Lizzie cut her eyes at Jacinta. She wasn’t going to let Jacinta win this one with her “I’m the relationship expert” bravado. This time last year, the girls were on collective lockdown, thanks to a secret road trip to O.C. to watch Mina and the Select Varsity team compete at Nationals. Not that she was blaming Jacinta for it. Lizzie had gone along willingly enough. But the trip, one part thrill, two parts disaster, had made Lizzie realize that she wasn’t ready to go from zero to sixty with her relationship with Todd—no matter how good it felt to spend time with him.
“Cinny, are you saying that Mina’s going to have to have sex with Brian just because he’s ready to leave?” Lizzie rolled her eyes. The pillow caved in more as she dug into it. “That’s crazy…and if anything, the fact that he’s leaving is all the more reason she may as well not.” She made sympathetic eyes at Mina. “Don’t take this wrong, Mina, but…look, you’re already down about him leaving. I think if you guys get any closer, it will be even harder in August.” She took the challenge back to Jacinta. “Besides, they’ve held off all this long. What’s the big deal?”
“Shoot, you just made my point for me. They’ve been together a year and a half.” Jacinta’s eyebrow rose to a skeptical steeple. “I can’t believe Brian’s been so patient. But I know he’s expecting some sort of early graduation present on prom night.”
She nudged Mina, smiling.
Mina’s brown sugar face remained expressionless. Lizzie took her lack of smile or laughter at Jacinta’s sarcastic hint as a small victory. She broke out in a toothy grin. But the poor rubber ball’s tentacles were stretched to their limits as Mina stretched and pulled, stretched and pulled them methodically. Lizzie knew something was bothering her. She silently chastised herself. In her excitement about the pact, she’d broken an unspoken friend rule. She and Mina were the alpha friends of the quartet—she should have talked this over with Mina before presenting it to the whole group.
Having been best friends since fourth grade, by all rights, they could discuss serious friend stuff outside of the group without it being sneaky. They should have been presenting this as, “Hey, look what me and Mina are going to do.”
But friend protocol was Mina’s department, not Lizzie’s. The pact had been on her mind so much lately, she’d been excited about finally sharing it.
Before she had a chance to analyze it further, Mina’s voice, heavy with distraction, prompted her on. “Go ahead, Liz. Tell us about the pact.”
Relieved, Lizzie threw a pillow at Jacinta’s head to signal her annoyance had passed and that they were cool again. This wasn’t the first time they’d been on the extreme ends of this topic. Truth be told, Lizzie always felt there was a silent tug-of-war between them for Mina’s