Virgin Camp

Ryan's POV

Whoever said boys were stupid was stupid.

Boys are wonderful. And I’m not just saying that. They really are. What kind of girl wants to spend her teenage years pretending to be best friends with some bitch who’s just going to screw them over anyway? Not me. Not ever.

With boys, you know exactly where you stand. There’s no bullshit, although there’s a lot of cursing. They say it exactly how it is, and fights last a maximum of a few minutes. Boys don’t give a fuck. Boys do what they want. Boys walk around like they own the place, like they have the world at their feet. They smile like they don’t have a care in the world.

I was one of the guys.

Reed, Tristan and Shia were the only real friends I’d ever known, and the best friends I’d ever had. Reed was two years older than all of us, and at twenty-two, he wasn’t the type of boy my mother approved of. He was a weed-smoking, skateboarding, DVD-player-stealing pain in my ass. But I loved him anyway.

Girls hated me. I didn’t know why. What I did know was that I hated spending more time with them then was absolutely necessary. My mother hated the way I was. She wanted me to be a proper young lady to parade to her friends. She wanted me to wear pretty pink dresses and get a nice boyfriend and get married and have three sets of fucking twins.

No, thanks.

That was never part of my plans. I’d never be a proper young lady. I’d always be that girl who was friends with all the guys. That girl who could skateboard better than you. That girl who could belch louder than you and beat you at your favourite video game. That girl who smoked weed and crashed parties and talked too loudly and liked heavy metal music and didn’t give a fuck about you or your mother. That was me. And there wasn’t a thing my mother could do about it.

Have you heard about late bloomers? Or some bullshit term like that? Apparently that’s what I was. A late bloomer. I didn’t get my period until I was fifteen and I didn’t boobs until I was sixteen. So what? I didn’t want to look like a girl anyway. Fuck that. Because you know what sucks about being a girl? Expectations. So many fucking expectations.

I’d completely shattered all my mother’s expectations. Ruined her vision for the perfect daughter. Fucking enjoyed myself while I did it, too. She’d forbidden me from seeing Reed, Tristan and Shia too many times to count. Nothing much stopped me. Not even the fact that the only window out of my bedroom was on the 24th floor of our apartment block. They invented a fire escape for a reason.

I never thought I’d do anything great with my life. I never thought I’d be a nobel-prize winning scientist, a world-famous musician or a doctor that saved lives everyday. I didn’t have a set path to follow. And whilst everyone else in my graduating class had plans and futures and scholarships, I was happy to hang out in the abandoned shipping container near the beach with three guys who didn’t give a fuck just as much as me.

I never counted on those three guys being the ones to screw me over. I never even saw it coming. It had been a normal day. Reed had texted me the usual the hole, ten minutes. I’d climbed down the fire escape and was at the shipping container we affectionately called ‘the hole’ exactly seven minutes later.

Tristan and Shia were stretched out on the battered couch. Shia had his acoustic guitar in his lap, and seemed completely focused on it. Tristan was throwing darts at the wall, watching with disappointment as they rebounded off the steel and onto the floor.

Reed was sitting on the floor, rolling a joint on the coffee table between him and the other guys. I dumped my skateboard by the door and took a seat between Tristan and Shia. Reed finished rolling his joint and put it between his lips, lighting it before paying attention to me.

“Hey,” he said, looking straight at me. His eyes were bloodshot and his blonde hair was a mess, just like it always was. I smiled at him and reached for the joint, taking a hit before handing it back.

“What’s up, guys?” I asked them, sensing a weird sort of tension in the air.

Reed leant back on his hands and looked at me, a slight smile on his face. “We’ve done something,” he said.

“Please tell me it doesn’t involve arson this time,” I said. Tristan laughed loudly beside me. I turned my attention to him and raised my eyebrows. He held his hands up.

“This was your idea, Reed,” he said, looking over at the older boy. My eyes shifted to Reed, who was full-on grinning now, like he knew something that I didn’t. Which, of course, he did. But not for long.

“Just tell me.”

Shia stood up and pulled a couple of folded sheets of paper out of his back pocket. He threw them onto the coffee table before sitting back down and nodding towards them. I picked them up and unfolded them, my eyes landing on the title at the top of the page in typed print.

The Crowley & Mellin Camp for Virgins.

It was an application form. I was holding a fucking application from for Virgin Camp. I threw it back onto the table. Reed was smirking. “What the fuck!?” I screamed.

“Dude, we know you’re a virgin,” Tristan said. “It’s okay.”

I rolled my eyes. “Virgin camp? I mean, really?”

“Yup,” Reed said, smiling like the fucking Cheshire cat himself.

“You can wipe that stupid smile off your face because I’m not going,” I said. “I don’t need to lose my fucking virginity.”

“Yes you do,” Reed said. “Otherwise you never will.”

“Yeah,” Tristan added. “You’ll be an old spinster.”

“You’ll die a virgin,” Reed said.

“Fuck you.”

“Swear at me all you like, Ryan. You’re going. It’s for your own good,” Reed said.

“How can this be for my own good?” I asked him, my eyes wide.

“You’ve got to grow up one of these days,” Shia said.

“Pipe down, Shia!” I yelled, punching him in the arm.

“He’s right, man. Just do it,” Tristan added.

“Why do I have to go to some camp? Why don’t one of you just do it?” As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. All three boys erupted into fits of laughter. “What?” I demanded. “What would be so bad about having sex with me?"

“You’re hot, Ryan. It’s just that you’re like a little sister to me,” Reed said. The others nodded in agreement. I sighed and shook my head.

“What will my mother think?”

“Since when do you care?” Tristan said. I rolled my eyes. It was obvious I was looking for an excuse to get out of it.

“She loves the idea,” Shia said now. I raised my eyebrows at him. He smiled and turned to page three of the stapled documents. My mother had already signed.

“What the fuck?” I said, staring at her complicated signature. There was no way the guys could’ve forged it.

“She thinks you’ll finally become a proper girl if you go to this camp,” Tristan laughed. I pushed him off the couch and he fell to the floor, still laughing. I stared at the papers before looking up at Reed.

“Oh, fuck it,” I said. “Give me a motherfucking pen.”