“Do you want to?” he asked. He kept his eyes on the road, didn’t look at me.

I was dizzy; I couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t happening. True, I had often imagined him saying more or less these exact words. It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“We could go to my place,” he said, “or I could find some place to pull over?”

I could smell him. The AC was on at full blast, but we were both sweating like crazy. The car reeked of us. Of him. Of the boy who I had quietly been reaching out to for over a year.

“It’s no big deal,” he said.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He wasn’t supposed to reach back. I had no vocabulary to describe the sensation of discovering my interest was returned.

I was struck by lightning, every cell electrified. I had never wanted anything more. Never been so fucking hard, full of desire to my very limit, ready to burst at the slightest touch.

“No big deal,” he said, mostly to himself, “It won’t mean anything.”

And then I burst into tears.