Ellen shrugged, not looking at her.

Chloe sighed. “Okay, I don’t get you guys. Maybe I’m, like, a bad example of the female race or something, but what is so wrong with thinking about sex? So the fuck what? Guys do it.”

“That’s because they’re guys,” Ellen said. “It’s normal for them.”

“So if it’s okay for them, why do girls have to feel dirty when they think about it?” Chloe demanded. She looked over at me for help, but all I could do was shrug. Clearly, I was just as much in the dark as the others. Only Chloe seemed to know what she was doing here.

“Look. This is stupid,” she said. “We live in a supposedly equal society, so what’s the big deal? I’m not ashamed to think about sex. Or talk about it. Or have it.”

“Yeah, and look at the way people talk about you.” Kelsey was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, arms crossed over her chest. I hadn’t even heard her come back upstairs.

“I’m not sorry for who I am,” Chloe said flatly.

Kelsey’s arms dropped to her sides, and she stepped into the room. “Then you’re lucky, because not all of us can say that.”

We locked eyes for a second before she looked at the other girls.

“I don’t like sex,” Kelsey said, shrugging. “I used to think that made me weird. Or that if I told anyone, they’d make fun of me or call me a lesbian or something. I’m not; I just don’t enjoy it. But if we’re being all open and honest… Chloe’s comfortable with who she is, and Mary and Lissa came clean, so it’s my turn.”

Chloe stared at Kelsey in awe. I wondered if she was in shock, hearing from someone who didn’t enjoy sex. But she said, “Did you just kind of give me a compliment?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“I refuse to go down on Luther,” Susan said. Everyone turned to look at her, but she just tossed her dark braids over one shoulder. “What? Something about it just freaks me out. There are some places mouths just aren’t meant to go, you know?”

“That’s the only thing I’ll do with my boyfriend,” someone said from the back of the room. “To me, that’s less scary than going all the way.”

I smiled to myself. Mary and I weren’t the only virgins in the room—and I hadn’t been the only one keeping my lack of experience quiet. It made me feel better, knowing I wasn’t alone, but realizing this also made me kind of sad. Why had I been afraid to admit I was a virgin? Why was anyone?

“So, like, do you hate sex with everyone, or just with Terry?” Chloe asked Kelsey.

“I don’t hate it. I just don’t really enjoy it.”

“Okay, but that didn’t answer my question. Is it bad with everyone, or just Terry?”

Kelsey shifted uneasily. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve only ever been with Terry, so…”

“So he probably just sucks in bed.”

“Chloe,” I chided. “Be nice.”

“What?” she asked. “A lot of teenage boys suck. Believe me, I know. But Kelsey should be thrilled. This means there’s hope for her yet.”

“Unless I stay with Terry,” Kelsey replied pointedly.

Chloe scoffed. “Please. High school sweethearts don’t last forever—and if they do, they end up miserable and start having affairs early. Ask my dad.”

“Hey, Kelsey, do you fake it?” Ellen said, changing the subject. Thank God. “Like… orgasms?”

Kelsey turned even redder. “Yes. Why?”

“Because I have a few times, too,” Ellen admitted. “Not always, but Adam gets defensive if he thinks I’m not enjoying it, so… But anyway, I don’t think it’s that uncommon, actually. I learned how to fake it because of that Meg Ryan scene in When Harry Met Sally.”

“When Harry met who?”

“It’s an old eighties movie,” Ellen said, shrugging. “I saw it on VH1.”

“I can honestly say I have never faked it,” Chloe said, grinning. “Of course, I’m a bitch, so if I can’t get off, I just let the guy know how lame he is.”

“And that,” Susan chirped, “is why Rod Copland went from a stud to a cracked-out emo kid. Chloe salted his game.”

“Hey, honesty’s the best policy,” Chloe said.

Susan looked a little embarrassed. “Yeah… honesty. I kind of suck at that. I told Luther he was my first even though I hooked up with a guy in my brother’s frat last year, before we started dating.”

“So he thought you were a virgin?” I asked.

Susan nodded, looking a little ashamed.

“Couldn’t he, like, tell, though?” Kelsey asked.

“Not really,” Susan said sheepishly. “It was his first time, so he didn’t exactly know what he was looking for… if you know what I mean.”

“But why would you lie?” Mary asked.

“I didn’t want him to be embarrassed. Like, I didn’t want him to feel bad because I’d done it and he hadn’t. Besides, would you be very proud of hooking up with a skeezy frat boy at a costume party?”

“Depends,” Chloe said. “If he had a cool costume—”

“He was dressed as SpongeBob,” Susan admitted.

“Ugh. Okay, yeah. I’d lie, too.”

The chatter bubbled over as everyone began swapping experiences and theories and philosophies concerning sex. I was so fascinated by everyone’s different takes on the subject that I forgot to be embarrassed. Maybe if we’d discussed this sooner, I wouldn’t have been so afraid to admit I was a virgin. Maybe the others wouldn’t have given Mary such a hard time about it at our first meeting.

I turned and locked eyes with Mary. She was smiling at me, and I knew she was thinking the same thing. She wasn’t weird at all. None of us were.

“It’s so screwed up, the standards,” Kelsey said abruptly, tossing a pillow toward the ground. “You should like it, but you shouldn’t like it too much or talk about how much you like it. You should do it, but you shouldn’t do it with too many people or talk about how much you’re doing it. It’s like there are so many rules, but none of them make sense.”

“Then maybe we should make up our own rules?” Mary suggested nervously. “Like… change the game, you know?”

“I think that’s what we’re doing now,” Chloe said. “Just by having this conversation. The other rules can go screw themselves.”

“Wow, Chloe,” Ellen said. “That is so deep.”

“I know, right? I should be a freaking philosopher or something.”

I stretched out on my stomach, elbows pressed into the carpet and chin resting in my hands. “I like it. The rules can go screw themselves. It ought to be our group motto.”

“Oh my God.” Mary giggled. “We need T-shirts.”

As the room erupted into chatter again, I realized just how happy I was that I’d started the strike. Sure, it had started because of the sports feud, but now it was about so much more. It was about independence and confidence and breaking free of stereotypes and labels. Now, win or lose, I had these girls—these friends—who’d proven to me that there was no such thing as normal, and that I had nothing to be ashamed of. Even if the boys won, I’d gotten something out of this strike. Something important.

Not that the boys had a chance in hell of winning. I was personally going to make sure that didn’t happen.

chapter twenty-­three

“Nice job leading the girls the other night.”

I was crouched down on the floor of the Reference section, alphabetizing the encyclopedias, when I heard Cash’s voice behind me. Startled, I jumped and smacked the top of my head against the shelf with a loud thwack.

“Augh,” I groaned.

“Oh, shit. Lissa, are you okay?” He knelt down and turned me to face him, his eyebrows pinched over concerned green eyes that made me forget the throbbing pain in my skull—but only for a second. “Do you need me to get an ice pack or something?”

“No, it’s fine, but you have got to stop sneaking up on me,” I said through clenched teeth. “God, that hurt.”

“I’m so sorry,” Cash said. Before I could stop him, he’d reached out and cupped a hand over the back of my head, his fingers gently stroking the place where my skull had collided with the wooden shelf. “That was an accident.”