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“You lied to me.”

Helena scoffed. “I wasn’t meaning to… like… come on. Do you think I wouldn’t tell you eventually? I was working my way up to it. Mostly because I didn’t think this relationship would be anything more than sex and doing other stuff together. Now we’re talking about long-distance when my gap year ends next month. I don’t know where things go from here, but I never set out to fool you about my age.”

“Do you know how it looks?” Delia whispered across the island counter. “Do you know what people will think if it comes out that I am dating a teenager? Even if they know the truth, that you lied to me about your age, I will be the laughingstock of everyone who knows me. Or they’ll pity me for everyone laughing at me. You know what my father did! He cheated on my mom with a kid your age! People will think it runs in the family?”

Helena was not moved. “You seem to have similar tastes in women, this is true.”

“A real grown woman wouldn’t lie about these things. My God, it’s no wonder you were so immature in the weirdest ways. It’s because you’re not twenty! How did I not figure it out?”

“It’s almost like there isn’t much difference between nineteen and twenty-one!”

“There’s a ton of difference!”

“Not when you’re me!”

Helena slammed her hand on the counter for emphasis. She was tired of being patronized by every woman a few years older than her. Those are the worst. The ones who were shy of thirty and acting like that made them the know-it-alls of growing older and “maturation.” At least post-menopausal women had actual time to describe why they were the way they were. What excuse did Delia have? A shitty, philandering father and more frenemies than actual friends?

Who did she think she was? Why did she think she was so much better than Helena?

“How would you know?” Delia asked. “You haven’t experienced that yet.”

Helena’s other hand soon joined the first, albeit slower, less powerful. The pathetic sound eking out from her fingers when they hit the countertop would have been pathetic if she weren’t on the verge of screaming.

“You never treated me like a stupid kid who doesn’t know any better before tonight. Why would the truth make that any different?”

“Because a stupid kid lies about these things. They don’t realize the repercussions of getting caught. Those clubs could have lost their alcohol licenses, or worse, be closed if it got out that you were under twenty-one. Doesn’t matter if your fake ID is made by God himself. They’re supposed to sniff these things out. They’re supposed to be impenetrable, to protect their asses and yours. Do you know what kind of freaks would show up if they knew freshly graduated high schoolers were hanging out in the sex clubs? Come on.”

“Yes, I am well aware of what kind of ‘freaks’ are into that. Ask me how I know, Delia.”

Finally, Delia looked at Helena. Really looked at her. There it is. The sympathy. The sense of feeling sorry. The look that said Helena was a victim and was to be pitied. She didn’t know what she was doing. She thought it felt good now, but wait, in ten, twenty years she would regret all of it. She’d be in therapy lamenting her wasted youth. I’ll feel used, abused, and confused. That was always the judgment well-meaning women passed down to her as if she didn’t know her soul, mind, and body.

Was it any wonder Helena gravitated toward people who didn’t care?

“I think it’s for the best that we… end this.” Delia knocked back her drink and grimaced. “It was trending that way anyway.”

Helena wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t expected this tonight, but it had been coming. Delia got crap for being a bit of an ass, but ultimately, she was a decent person. She would come to her senses about stringing along someone ten years younger than her. She and Helena might make it a few months, but Christmas would be the breaking point – when they realized it was too hard, that they didn’t have enough in common to make this relationship work.

Then Helena was caught in a lie.

“I’m not going to try to change your mind.” Helena put her loose things back into her purse. “I find that most people are serious when they tell me to take a hike. But I thought you were different, you know. More open-minded without being a douche about it.”

“Explain to me how it’s more ‘open-minded’ to date someone barely out of high school? That’s the exact kind of person I roast on open fires. Like my father.”

Helena shook her head. “You’re nothing like your father.”

“You’ve never met him.”

“I don’t need to. Based on what you’ve said about him, he’s selfish. He thought of himself and his wants when he destroyed his marriage and made his children into jokes. It doesn’t matter how rich you are. People respect the guys who marry girls my age way less than the ones who cheat with age-appropriate women. It’s like an extra insult to their first wives.”

“You would know about this?”

“Delia, nobody’s caught them as far as I know, but I was definitely used as the twenty-year-old thrill in somebody’s marriage. Mr. Smith was married, too.”

“Of course he was.”

“You don’t get it. I don’t get wrapped up thinking about those things because there’s no point. What people do with me is their business. It’s between them and whoever they’re with. You were different. You weren’t cheating on anyone. You weren’t using me to spice up your marriage to someone else. You didn’t even treat me as your sex bunny you paraded in front of others so they could ogle me and be jealous that you had landed someone as young and hot as me. I mean, you did show me off, but I think that’s normal. Right?”

Delia shrugged. “I don’t know anymore. Never in a million years did I think we would date for longer than two weeks.”