Free Unbreak My Heart: A Memoir by Toni Braxton Page A

grades up and their dresses down, and of course, we didn’t talk about physical intimacy. Of all the sins you could commit, I was somehow convinced that sex was the ultimate one. So at 18, I was still a virgin. But as my romance with Trevor progressed—and as I started suspecting that I might be one of the few among my classmates who hadn’t yet experienced sex—I began thinking about what it would feel like to do it with my boyfriend. At long last, I wanted to know what I’d been missing out on. What was everybody talking about? Trevor seemed like a nice enough guy to show me—and in the summer before I enrolled in college, I decided he was a safe bet. I still wasn’t sure when it would happen—but one summer evening as our kisses grew deeper, it finally did. I concluded that sex was overrated. Highly.
    Afterward, Trevor was a perfect gentleman—he called and even gave me flowers the next day. We waited a few weeks before we tried it again, and with each attempt, I became more comfortable with physical intimacy and even began to enjoy it. But that pleasure came at a price. First of all, I felt as guilty as I thought I would—and then some. I thought, Will God send me straight to hell for sleeping with a man who wasn’t my husband? And that leads me to the second point: Since I’d been taught that sex and marriage go hand in hand, I really believed that I should at least consider marrying Trevor simply because we were having sex. Don’t get me wrong: I liked him as a boyfriend. Yet I wasn’t even close to wanting to exchange vows with him. So when he brought up the topic of a lifelong commitment, I was pretty torn. “What do you think about us getting married?” he asked. I paused. “Well,” I said, “I really want to be a singer. How can I be a singer with a husband and kids?” That wasn’t exactly the response he was hoping to hear—but it was the only way I could think of to hold him off. Part of me was flattered that he was even asking: Many girls dream of getting such a proposal. And though I’d once fantasized about marrying and settling down, by this point, I was very focused on one thing—finding my way to the stage.
    Meanwhile, I suspected that Mom had figured out that Trevor and I were sleeping together. “You can always tell when two people is having sex because they got a darn attitude,” she’d often say when I was in earshot. That was as close as Mom ever came to directly addressing what I’m sure she knew was happening.
    One Sunday after church, my parents, Trevor, his parents, and I all went out to eat together at a buffet restaurant in Glen Burnie. Toward the end of dinner, just as I was about to raise a spoonful of rice to my mouth, Trevor looked over in the direction of my parents and said something in passing like, “Because you know, I was thinking that Toni and I would get married.” My parents froze. “Toni’s too young for marriage,” Mommy finally said. I shifted a bit in my seat and eventually excused myself to go to the ladies’ room. I couldn’t believe he’d actually broached the topic with my family. Talk about an awkward way to end dinner.
    That evening, I chose to ride back to Severn with my parents rather than with Trevor. In the car on the way home, Dad didn’t talk much. Mom, on the other hand, said plenty. “I don’t understand why people think that just because you’re having sex, you’ve gotta get married,” she muttered. That’s when I had my big Aha moment: I don’t have to get married to him—even my mother doesn’t think so . That settled the topic in my mind.
    After that night, Trevor never again brought up the subject of marriage. And the more I talked about making it as a professional singer, the further we seemed to drift apart. Our relationship eventually ended, and I can’t exactly say I was heartbroken because I was never really in love with him in the first place. But if you’re just going to lose your virginity to someone, you