There was a long silence—which, considering there were so many girls in the room, was pretty impressive.

Kelsey took a deep breath, and we all waited to see what she’d do next. I was about to throw myself in front of Ellen to protect her from the pointed, clawlike fingernails I was sure Kelsey would be attacking her with when Kelsey spoke and made the moment even more bizarre.

“Yeah, you’re right, Ellen. I’m sorry.”

“Holy shit…. Is that… Did hell just freeze over?” Chloe asked, clasping a hand to her heart.

“Shut up,” Kelsey snapped. Then she looked at me. “I’m sorry, Lissa. For the way Randy treated you and for the way I acted. It wasn’t cool.”

“Um… thanks.” I took a deep breath. “And honestly, you may be right. It was wrong of me to keep that detail from you guys. I just didn’t want you to judge me. I felt like I was abnormal or whatever because I hadn’t done it. Then you guys freaked out about Mary waiting, and even after she’d been brave enough to admit it, I just couldn’t…. Still, I shouldn’t have lied, considering what I asked all of you to do. Not that it matters now. I think the strike is over.”

A rustle of surprised whispers ran around the room.

“What are you talking about?” Ellen asked. “The boys are still fighting, aren’t they? Adam’s car got vandalized last night, so the rivalry definitely isn’t over. We can’t end the strike.”

“One of the things you guys worried about was cheating,” I reminded the room. “That if we cut the boys off from sex, they’d cheat. Well, that’s what happened to me, so you were right. We should have never done this.”

“Oh hells no,” Chloe said. “Don’t go there. I said it at the first meeting and I’ll say it again—if any boy cheats on you just because you won’t fuck him, he’s the prick and you shouldn’t be with him, anyway. If anything, Lissa, this was a good plan. It showed you what an ass Randy really is, and at least you’re done with him now.”

I flinched. I knew she was right, but the idea that this was better—that having him chase other girls was best for me—still stung, and it probably would for a while.

“Let’s be fair about this,” Susan said, getting to her feet, which wasn’t easy since every inch of floor was filled by the bodies of teenage girls. “All in favor of ending the strike prematurely, raise your hand.”

No hands.

Not even Kelsey’s.

“Excellent. And all those in favor of continuing as planned with Lissa at the lead?”

All around the room, hands shot up.

“Seriously?” I asked, surprised.

“It actually might be better,” Ellen said. “You know, for you to be in charge without a boyfriend and all. It gives you a clearer perception, maybe. You aren’t biased by the pressure anyone is putting on you anymore.”

“Well, except me,” Chloe said, leaning against me and running a teasing hand up my thigh. “Can you resist me, Lissa? I don’t think you can.”

I bumped her hand off my leg, laughing. I was overcome with emotion, so awed by the girls’ support, that I forgot to be on edge. Even with twenty-one girls piled into my room, I found myself suddenly relaxing, trusting all of them more than I’d ever expected to.

“Wow, Chloe is getting desperate.” Mary giggled.

“No shit,” Susan said. “But we all knew she’d be dying inside without some booty.”

Chloe clutched a hand to her chest, made a few gagging noises, and then fell back onto the carpet, playing dead.

“So how about it, Lissa?” Ellen said, calling back my attention. “You still with us?”

“Yes,” I said, beaming. “I’m still with you. The strike continues.”

“Awesome,” Chloe said, using my shoulder to pull herself back into a sitting position, apparently no longer dead. “Now, where the fuck is my ice cream?”

“Can I tell you something?”

I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing a few of the bowls that had been used for ice cream, unable to stand the idea of letting them sit around for more than a few minutes. I could still hear the chaos upstairs, where the others waited. I was just trying to figure out the sleeping arrangements—there was no way they were all staying in my bedroom—when I heard Kelsey’s voice behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder and found her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking way more nervous than I’d ever seen her look before.

“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”

“The thing is, I…” She stopped and turned to look into the living room.

“My dad isn’t here,” I said, knowing instantly what she was doing. “My brother decided at the last minute that he wanted to drive to the lake and go fishing in the morning, and Dad wanted to go with him. It’s just us here. Which is a good thing, you know? It opens up some rooms for everyone to sleep in…. Sorry. What were you going to tell me?”

Kelsey stepped into the kitchen, easing up to the counter, her keen eyes watching as I put away the clean bowls. “Okay,” she said, “this is going to sound weird, but… I don’t like sex.”

I dried my hands on the dish towel and turned to face her, confused. “You… What?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” she insisted. “Please. It’s embarrassing. But I really don’t enjoy it. It’s just kind of… underwhelming. I only do it because it makes Terry happy, and I love him, but… I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s just, you felt like you had to lie about being a virgin and I feel like I have to lie about this, and… I’m so weird.”

I remembered standing in Susan’s kitchen with Mary and how she’d asked if she was weird for being a virgin. I’d almost told her the truth about me that night. That she wasn’t weird, because I was a virgin, too. Or, rather, that we were weird together. This moment with Kelsey felt like intense déjà vu. Only this time, I couldn’t relate quite as much. Still, I said the same thing.

“You’re not weird.”

“How would you know?”

“I guess I don’t,” I admitted. “I don’t know if I’ll like it or not once I do it. If I ever do it. Because I may not.” I shrugged. “But why does not liking it have to make you weird?”

“Because everyone else seems to like it so much.”

“Maybe some of them are just pretending,” I said. “So no one thinks they’re weird.”

“Maybe,” Kelsey murmured. “God, why am I even telling you this? It’s so weird.”

“Stop saying it’s weird.”

Kelsey shook her head, laughing slightly. “Don’t repeat this,” she said, “but that’s part of the reason I hate Chloe. I’m jealous. She obviously enjoys it. I wish I liked it that much.”

“Well, Chloe gets hell for liking it too much. From you and others.”

“So she’s the weird one for liking it,” Kelsey suggested.

“Or it could be that no one is weird,” I offered. “I mean, Mary and I thought we were weird because we hadn’t done it at all.”

“Maybe we’re all weird, then,” Kelsey said.

“If that’s the case, then why does it matter?”

“Because I want to know what’s normal.” She hesitated and then looked down at her bare feet on the tile. “I want to be normal, but no one talks about sex, so how should I know what normal is?”

I considered this for a second. She was asking the same questions that had been running through my head for weeks: What’s normal? What is expected of us?

“You know,” I said quietly, “I don’t think normal exists.”

chapter eighteen

The next day, after all the girls had left, I decided to spend the afternoon cleaning up. Dad and Logan wouldn’t be home until dinner, so there was no one to get in my way while I vacuumed and dusted and sanitized nearly everything in the house—my version of a relaxing Sunday. I was in the middle of reorganizing my closet by color—Chloe had decided to raid it during the sleepover—when the doorbell rang.

“Just a second,” I yelled down the stairs. I ran into the bathroom to check my reflection. Part of me expected it to be Randy, coming to grovel and beg for forgiveness, and while I had no intention of taking him back I still wanted to look good, to show him I wasn’t suffering without him.