Obligatory “this happened years ago.”
I went to a small high school with a minimal sports program, so there thankfully weren’t too many big egos floating through the hallways the way there are in stereotypical American high school movies. But, being bored teenagers in a small town, we did have the occasional romantic drama as people started hooking up with each other. And, as one of the students who had an easy enough puberty and a lot of interest in getting validation about her new body, I was occasionally at the center of that drama. It isn’t super relevant to the events of this story, but I wanted to share that background to show I wasn’t some blushing virgin at the start of the events of this story.
My friend James, on the other hand, **was** a blushing virgin, and he was extremely self conscious about it. Although I’m sure the national average is higher, most people in our grade had started having sex by age 15 or 16, leaving James upset about his still intact virginity on the eve of his 18th birthday. I called him at midnight, sang him “Happy Birthday,” and then heard silence on the other end of the line. “James? Jimmy? Jimbo?”