Squeezed into tight jeans, we left the sliding-glass door ajar to avoid triggering the alarm and slipped through the backyard gate. The DeVille’s lights glowed in the hushed night. Our only witness: the neighbor’s broken-down Cutlass. Your garage apartment felt safe, like our bedroom, shielded from Mom yelling at Dad, who wasn’t really there. MySpace said you were eighteen. Your knee-length leather jacket said you were older. You said we were perfect without makeup—experienced kissers. We begged you to fuck us. You said we were too young. We spent the next decade begging to be chosen.
Emily Hoover is the author of My Mother as a Serrano Pepper (Zeitgeist Press) and Sinners to the Back of the House (Bull City Press). Instagram and X: @em1lywho