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A CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED HORMONES

Hugh

AUGUST 28, 1999

E VERYTHING CHANGED FOR ME AFTER THE TRIP TO THE COAST . I KNEW THE EXACT moment it happened. Deep inside the fairies’ sea cave, when she wrapped her arms around my neck and I pressed my lips to hers, it hit me like a wrecking ball that I loved the girl sitting on my lap and wanted to be with her in none of the ways I used to.

That realization was solidified even further when we kissed again during spin the bottle.

Yeah, that kiss wrecked me.

I never tried to hide the fact that I held a flame for Lizzie Young, but said innocent flame exploded that day, igniting into a blazing fire that hadn’t stopped spreading through me since.

With the fire came feelings—deep, powerful, fervid feelings, all directed toward Lizzie, that were as intense as they were complicated.

Even more confusing were the dreams that accompanied these newfound feelings. Dreams I was not supposed to have about my best friend.

The most embarrassing part of the whole ordeal was my body’s sudden reaction to her, which made it even harder to spend time with my best friend.

Meanwhile, Liz had no such problems and continued to be as cuddly and affectionate with me as she always was, which wouldn’t have been a problem if I’d had a single iota of a clue about how to make it stop .

I didn’t know how to act around her now, because every time she was near me, all I could think about was grabbing her and doing it all over again.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

How her lips felt on mine.

How her tongue tasted.

How good it felt.

How she did crazy things to my body.

I wanted to kiss her so fucking bad again, but I didn’t have the balls. I wanted to ask her to be my girlfriend, but every time I tried to broach the subject, I panicked.

So I kept it to myself and waited, promising myself that I would do it the next time I saw her. Problem was, I’d been putting it off all summer and I felt beyond agitated.

I just wanted her to be mine . More than I ever wanted anything in my life. Including my PlayStation. Honestly, if I could put her on my Christmas list this year, I’d retire from asking for gifts for the rest of my life. If I could just have Liz .

Just her .

Plenty of other lads liked her, too, and it made me feel fucking sick thinking about what would happen if one of them worked up the courage to ask her out before I did.

Would she say yes?

If she did, how would I handle it?

Would I die?

I thought I might die.

I truly felt like my heart would stop beating if that happened.

“Did you hear a word I said?” Feely’s voice infiltrated my thoughts, and I blinked in confusion. “Hugh,” he continued, smirking at me from the other side of the tent we were attempting to erect in my back garden for our upcoming sleepover later tonight. “You completely dazed out there, lad.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, refocusing on the pole I was supposed to be threading through the tent loops. “Hey, Feely?”

“Yes, Hugh?”

“Can I ask ya something?”

“Fire away, lad.”

“I was just wondering,” I mumbled, feeling my face redden as I tried to broach the subject. “Are you still a frigit?”

“Unfortunately not,” Feely replied, attention trained on the peg he was hammering into the grass. “Maura McGuinness saw to that back during a game of spin the bottle while you were on holiday.”

“No shit.” I cocked a brow. “You never said.”

“Not exactly something I wanted to publicize, lad.”

“Fair enough,” I mused, giving him my full attention. “How was it?”

“It was like putting my tongue in a washing machine,” he replied, reaching up to adjust the collar of his T-shirt. “With teeth.”

“Jesus.” Swallowing down a gag, I covered my mouth with a hand. Lizzie didn’t have a tongue like a washing machine. While we had only kissed twice and used tongues during one of those kisses, I was quietly confident that no one could kiss as well as Lizzie Young. “Unlucky, lad.”

“Yep.” Feely finished hammering the peg into place before craning his head back to look at me. “What’s on your mind, Hugh?”

“You don’t want to know.”

He smirked. “Try me.”

“Seriously, lad.” I shook my head in warning. “The only place the thoughts in my head should be spoken about is in a confession box at mass.”

“Okay, now you have to tell me,” Feely chuckled, abandoning the tent. “Come on, lad.” He stretched out on the lawn and grinned. “Out with it.”

Knowing I had only two potential candidates to talk about this with—Feely or Gibs—had me thinking fuck it .

Sitting my ass down on the lawn, I spilled my guts to my friend, all the while renewing my resentment toward the man I once called Dad.

I was three months shy of twelve and puberty had kicked in with a vengeance, bringing with it body hair, hormones, a voice that deepened daily, and a momentous growth spurt. Everywhere .

I was far from uninformed when it came to the birds and the bees. I knew how everything worked like sex, periods, puberty, ejaculation, masturbation. You name it, I knew it. But there was a monumental gap between knowing what to expect from your body and understanding that something when it arrived.

I couldn’t go to my mother for reassurance about the things happening to my body, and I shouldn’t have had to go to my friends, either.

I should have been able to go to my father.

Twenty minutes into our conversation, it became blatantly evident that, while Feely was the oldest of us and the resident expert on farm animal reproduction methods, he didn’t have a bull’s clue about his own species. This resulted in me explaining his reproductive organs to him .

To be fair, I thought Feely had even less luck than I had in the paternal department. He had Paddy Feely to turn to, the poor, misfortunate bastard. Even the closed door my father hid behind was more understanding than Feely’s dad.

By happenstance, it turned out that erecting the tent in my back garden became an invaluable teaching tool, and by the end of our talk, I was quietly confident that, should Feely be given a surprise test on the matter, he would pass with flying colors. Meanwhile, I found myself just as emotionally ill-equipped to handle my raging hormones as I had been when I woke up that morning.