"Milestones" by Amy Allen

Content Warning: Sexual Assault

In bed with your eyes closed you’d run your right thumb across your left cheek, sweeping it gently under your eye out toward the temple, followed then by your fingertips, which would cradle your jawbone and pull it slowly forward, your lips parting. The boy you pictured would tilt his head, brown hair falling down over his eyes as he opened his mouth and met yours. Then you’d roll over and mush your face around into the pillow, but by that point, it all felt particularly desperate.  

You were the only one who hadn’t been kissed. You weren’t blonde and funny, or thin and sporty. You got zits each month before your period and you were pale, your flesh soft and mushy, your hair a boring, flat brown. You’d tried kissing Lisa Trimble once when you slept over at her house, but it didn’t feel much different than the pillow. She made you swear not to tell, which was an easy promise to keep because people calling you a lesbian was definitely not going to help your cause. 

By the time it finally happened, everyone else was already having sex, moving through life as though they were part of some glamorous club. You’d spent an entire summer throwing yourself at a guitar-playing boy who’d had sex with a lot of girls, and it was all pretty pathetic because he clearly wasn’t into you, but finally relented on a night when he was drunk and stoned and bored enough. You wanted to feel magic, but he just seemed bored. There was no tender cupping of your cheeks or pulling you in close, and there would be no phone calls or dates, but rather jokes with the guys about how he finally put you out of your misery—you were smart enough to know how all that worked. 

At least you were able to arrive at college a little less than completely chaste and be around people who were a little less judgy, all of which combined to make you begin to feel a little less unappealing. There was a boy who kissed you one Thursday night in your dorm hallway, telling you to tune in during his next DJ shift for the school's radio station, and you smiled when he dedicated “Ziggy Stardust” to “a certain special woman”. There was the art major you met in Shakespeare class who invited you to the brightly lit, high-ceilinged concrete studio to sit on a metal stool and watch him paint, pausing every 20 minutes or so to  stand between your legs and kiss your neck and collarbone as you inhaled the smell of acrylic and turpentine. It was all finally happening for you. 

And then on your birthday at a bar to which you’d gained entry by smiling like the girl on your fake ID, your roommate’s long-haired ex-boyfriend appeared with his ripped jeans, leather jacket, and shit-eating grin, buying you shot after shot until he must have decided you were good and ready, inviting you to come smoke weed in his apartment above the bar, and you thought that sounded like something a hot, fun girl would do, so you stumbled up the stairs behind him, laughing as you tripped over the landing, and he pulled you up and into the bathroom which was weird because there wasn’t any weed there and it was so small and tight and he was so tall and was moving his mouth all over your chest and saying how he’d always wished it was you he’d been dating and that felt bad because he was supposed to have loved your roommate, and then he was setting you up onto the tiny counter as though you were as light as a doll and that felt good because you’d never felt like someone who could be picked up, and then he was having sex with you and wait a minute you didn’t want to be doing that, and you were telling him no but he was laughing and just kept saying not to worry, but you weren’t looking for him to make you feel okay about it, you were looking for him to stop, and you were falling off the counter and being pressed up against the wall, and then he was telling you happy birthday and zipping up, pulling you by the hand back down to the bar where he moved away from you pretty quickly, and you stood watching while he smiled and laughed, patting people on the back as he sipped his beer, and that night in bed alone you curled into a ball, pushed your face into your pillow and thought about that little girl, tucked safely under her sheets, eyes closed and dreaming about finally getting to be a part of this world. 

Amy Allen has had poetry and fiction published in a variety of literary journals, and her poetry chapbook, Mountain Offerings, was released in April of 2024. She lives in Shelburne, Vermont, where she is thankful to be surrounded by mountains, water and wildlife, and she owns All of the Write Words, a freelance writing/editing business. Amy currently serves as her town’s Poet Laureate, a position that includes outreach work with local schools and organizations.