Free Equilibrium (Marauders #4.5) by Lina Andersson Page B

hymen. Maybe you lose your virginity when you’ve had, as you called it, a sexual experience. And you haven’t had that. At least I assume you haven’t, considering you’re wondering if you’re still a virgin.”
    I thought about it while staring at the landscape in front of me. Dad had bought the house before he met Mom, so I’d lived there my entire life. It was a big house in the middle of nowhere, and I’d always liked the house even if it sometimes had annoyed me that it was so far away from everything. Since I was taken— raped , I corrected myself—I’d liked that it was in the middle of nowhere. I could walk right out of the house and into silence. It was nice.
    “I like that answer better than the one where they say virginity has to be given and can’t be taken,” I said. “I guess it’s silly thing to think about. I’m not one of those who thinks it’s important to be a virgin when I’m married, or anything. I wasn’t really looking for The One or to stay a virgin forever. I was kind of looking forward to getting rid of it, to be honest.”
    “It’s not silly,” Roach said.
    “I think the idea of virginity being important is kind of silly.”
    “Maybe, but that’s not the same as saying it’s not important how you lose it, or that it’s important that you get to decide when it happens. So to you it’s an issue because you don’t like that you have a feeling that your choice might have been taken from you.”
    That made sense, and it could be what had bothered me. The act, the rapes, was of course important, but however I felt (or had felt) about my virginity, it hurt to think it might have been taken from me. Because no matter what anyone said about it, it didn’t feel like I was a virgin, and I hadn’t had a say when I lost it.
    “Do you think I’ll ever want to have sex?” I asked.
    “Yes,” Roach answered without hesitation.
    “Because I’ll get over it? Everyone does?”
    “Not everyone, but I think you will.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you want to get better. You’re fighting for it.”
    I looked at him where he was sitting on one of the loungers. His hands were clasped over his stomach, and his eyes were closed behind the sunglasses. His coat was slung over a chair close by, so he was only wearing a t-shirt. He had unusually few tattoos for a biker, but then he was young, so he was probably just getting started. I was pretty sure he’d trimmed his hair and beard recently because it looked shorter than I remembered it being just a few days earlier.
    When he asked me questions about what I’d said, or when we were talking about everyday stuff while eating or something, he still made sure I looked at him. But when I brought it up like this, just kind of thinking out loud, he gave me free range. It was okay that I wasn’t looking at him, and I usually liked it, but right then I wished he was looking at me.
    “I want to get better, and I want to want sex, but I’m scared of it,” I said. “I’m not sure I’m making sense.”
    “You are. You’re scared of wanting sex, because it means you might have it, and you’re scared of the idea of you having sex.”
    “I… think that’s what I mean,” I said, and thought about what he’d said. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
    That was when he finally looked at me over the rim of his sunglasses. “It’s not the same. I know you know that, but I still want to say it. It’s not the same when you have actual sex.”
    “Way I’ve heard it, it can be pretty great.”
    “Yeah,” he laughed. “You’ll find out. One day it’ll feel right, and you’ll find out how awesome it is.”
    I always hesitated before asking private questions, but I always ended up asking them anyway, and he always answered them as if it wasn’t a big deal. I hesitated this time too, but I still asked.
    “Did it take you long? To like it, I mean.”
    “How I grew up,” he started, then hesitated, and then shrugged and continued. “Sex