Young

I was forty-four, had two daughters, and a recent divorce when the girl from across the street looked at me differently and said what I didn’t dare think.

When I ran into him on that beach after three years without seeing each other, he was no longer the boy who used to throw sand in my hair. Something in his look told me this wasn’t going to end well.

Her post on the book app said “looking for a baby.” I answered without thinking, and for almost a year I learned to obey every word she said over video call.

My sister’s friends kept coming to my door with one excuse or another. What I never imagined was who would end up in front of me at three in the morning.

I needed company. Without thinking, I asked him if he wanted to get in with me. What happened next changed everything I thought I knew about myself and my friends.

Three days at the beach, five friends, and a phone that was never turned off. I thought I was among innocent laughs; others saw it as a show.

It was two in the morning, I was bored and horny, and I dropped into the game lobby expecting nothing. Then I saw her avatar lean toward mine.

I lowered my skirt’s zipper without knowing he was watching from the window across the street. What began as embarrassment became a game.

We both knew the other was bisexual, but we had never done anything about it. That afternoon, a beer and an old game changed everything.

She wore a dress she’d never have worn in front of my son, and after the second glass of wine she told me she preferred mature men in bed.

That September morning I saw the shyest girl in class walk in. It took me two weeks to realize the shy one wasn’t her, it was me.

I never thought an avatar in a video game would make me want another woman again—or that desire would stay with me long after I turned off the console.

When my mother and her friend showed up unannounced, my boyfriend was still naked in the pool and I was topless. What happened next still makes me smile.

I’d known Esteban for years, but that stifling afternoon I discovered his house held a secret that would change our friendship forever.

The gym showers have no doors. That morning I discovered the detail wasn’t a problem, but exactly what I’d been looking for without knowing it for years.

I walked in looking for a corner where no one would look at me. I looked up from my book when I heard her laugh, and I knew I wouldn’t leave there the same.

Catalina came out onto the terrace in a white nightgown, sat beside me without a word, and that night we stopped being just siblings in the house by the sea.

When the other students left and the evening light came through the windows, she locked the door and asked me to play for her—just for her.

The office door was left ajar, and without meaning to, I became a witness to something I shouldn’t have seen or heard, but couldn’t look away from.

I'd spent a month watching her nipples show beneath her blouse and pretending to think about equations. That afternoon she complained about her neck, and I knew I had my excuse.