I wondered for a long time what the difference was between being a virgin and being innocent. Because, surely, those who had given up the former were not the latter?
I believed that until I was fourteen years old. I lost my innocence at fourteen, when the only father-like figure I'd ever known was murdered in a country thousands of miles away. I was so shocked, so hurt, because he'd promised he'd come home. He promised us; Near, Matt, and I. He always came home, always, and it was very hard to accept that that timeā¦. he wasn't going to come home. We weren't going to see him ever again.
I ran away, after that. I just packed my bags and ran off, purchased a plane ticket to LA and never looked back. I joined the Mafia a year later, after buying a gun and redoing my entire wardrobe and attitude.
While I was with the Mafia, a lot of girls tried to take something I had always believed was worth something. They wanted sex- my virginity. I never gave in, though, because even though I knew, logically, I wasn't anywhere near innocent at that point, I held onto what my mother always told me- that I should save it for someone that I loved- give it up when I was certain it was what I wanted. And I had no desire for any of the girls.
Matt found me a while later, when I was seventeen. He was a welcome sight at that point, because I really hated everything else about my life. I welcomed him with open arms, and I was happy, for a while. Really happy, actually, because we fell right into our old routine, and he didn't judge me for anything I did.
He told me that he'd already given his virginity up a while ago- to some whore just outside of Sacramento in return for money and information. I knew that his virginity wasn't something Matt had ever found value in, but it still shocked me. My first thought was about how he'd lost his innocence to that bitch- but I knew that wasn't true. He'd lost it, sure, but not because of sex. Because of what he'd seen, and done.
I was twenty, and had already blown up a building, been scarred, killed, and nearly been killed, stolen, cheated, and lied before I lost my virginity. I was, by no means, innocent.
But when I was lying on the bed and Matt pressed kisses to my neck as I worked through the pain, I couldn't help but think about how much of a child I felt- doing it for the first time. How innocent.
What a joke.
Neither of us were innocent. Neither of us were virgins. But I knew Matt had lost his innocence after me, even though he'd been fifteen when he lost his virginity, and I twenty. In the end, it didn't matter. What mattered was that Matt and I were together, and we made it through-
Innocence and virginity be damned.
