The first time Amy kisses a boy it rocks her world.

It's not really the first time, not if you count Jason Standish in the fourth grade during library time. That was a dare (thank you, Shane) and it didn't end well, at least not for Jason. During the kiss (which was as short and as unpleasant as he was) he put his tiny fourth grade hand on her fourth grade butt so Amy put her fourth grade shoe in his fourth grade balls.

So she really doesn't count that one.

The one she does count happens five months, three weeks, two days, and some odd number of hours after she ends things with Reagan, officially.

And by 'officially' she totally means having Shane and Karma and Lauren (and briefly Liam, though probably not briefly enough for either of their tastes) pack up all the things Reagan left at the apartment and drive them away. It left her apartment surprisingly (frighteningly) empty and she's never been quite sure if Shane actually returned everything or gave it all to Goodwill or sold it all out of the back of his mom's station wagon.

Reagan's never called looking for it, so Amy figured it didn't matter. Five months later and Reagan's never called at all, so now Amy knows it doesn't. And she's fine with that. Really, she is. So fine she tells everyone she's fine with it at least once a week and they all (almost all) believe her because they want her to be fine and that's good enough for them.

She wasn't fine, not at first. At first she wasn't OK with anything or anyone, but mostly herself. She spent most of the first two months, three weeks, and three days being anything but OK. Most of that time (read: all of that time) she spent staying as busy as she could which mostly meant avoiding anywhere she and Reagan went together (which was a depressingly large hunk of town) and studiously avoiding Leah.

Amy did her part of the project and stood in front of the rest of the American Cinema class next to the blonde (who wasn't as pretty or as interesting or as sexy as Amy remembers and somehow that only makes it worse) presenting their work. But then she moved quickly back to her seat, avoided eye contact, and set something close to a land speed record bolting from the classroom.

Leah didn't call either and when Amy saw her on campus (month three, week three, day six) at a Cinema Club event holding hands with one of the guys from Liam's frat (and of course he's in a frat), she kinda figured out why.

Shane, to his credit, didn't say much when he found her just outside the library, crying into a plastic cup of some overly fruity punch. Amy's never quite sure if he knows her well enough or just has a rare (for him) moment of insight and knows she's not really crying over Leah.

"A straight girl, she sobbed. "I ruined it all for a straight girl."

And though they both know Leah really had little or nothing (so nothing) to do with Amy ruining anything (she was, as Lauren put it, "lips of convenience") or even with the tears she was crying, Shane sat next to her and rubbed her back and let her cry.

"You never know," he said. "She could be bi."

In the moments after that first kiss with a boy (the first one she counts) it'll be those words Amy remembers. She could be bi.

In all honesty? It's those words that ring in Amy's head for most of the next two months. She could be bi, she could be bi, she could be bi, over and over and over, until it finally hits her that she doesn't hear she.

She hears I. I could be bi. She hears 'I' because, well, she could. And she's done so well with girls (Karma and (ugh) Rachel and Reagan) that maybe, Amy thinks, it's a sign. Maybe it's someone or something trying to steer her.

"Just because I've only been with girls doesn't mean I can only be with girls," she says, to him of all people, on their once a month forced group outing. Shane's off eye fucking some guy at the bar and Karma and Lauren are in the bathroom and Amy blurts it out (she senses something of a pattern here) but only because she can't not anymore and because he's the only one there and she feels oddly safe telling him.

Because, really, what's he gonna do?

"It's possible," she says, defending herself against the objections he hasn't raised. "There's nothing to say it's not."

"There's nothing to say what's not?" Karma asks, sliding back into her chair which is, if you ask Amy, way too close to his (like in his lap close and yes, they've been together almost a year and a half and he's been nothing but good to her but he's still him).

"Amy thinks she's bi," Liam says and, clearly, that's what he's gonna do.

Karma eyes her across the table and Amy knows that look. She knows Karma has a huge test in Psychology on Monday and she knows her best friend is just itching to play Dr. Phyllis for a bit.

"You've never even looked at a guy," she says.

Amy considers mentioning Jason Standish but fourth grade was fourth grade and there was the whole shoe in the balls bit and that kinda makes it less than the best defense.

"That's not the point," she says (even though, she knows, it kinda is). "There's no percentage rule," she argues. "There's no requirements or schedules. I can be bi without liking girls on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and only liking guys on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every other Saturday."

"You forgot Sundays," he says and then flinches as Karma kicks him under the table. "What?" he asks, rolling his eyes. "She did."

"She did what?" Lauren asks and, seriously, did they plan this?

"Amy's decided she's bi," Karma says (and Amy resists the urge to point out that it's not a decision and she never said she was just that she might be). "Even though she's never so much as looked at a guy and every time she sees Liam kiss me her face does that thing, yes, that thing," she says (pointing at Amy), "that thing you're doing right now."

"That thing," Lauren says, "has nothing to do with the hetero PDA and everything to do with the hetero doing the PDA." She glances over at Amy. "Bi?"

Amy shrugs. "Maybe," she says. "I could be."

"You've never even loo -"

Amy cuts Karma off. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't like it," she says. "And what's your problem? You thought you were bi when we met."

"That hasn't happened in ages," Karma says (and no, she's not counting how the one time she accidentally saw Reagan naked made her… feel… because that wasn't being bi. That was just having eyes.) "I think it's cleared up and not a fucking word, Lauren."

Lauren stays quiet and doesn't make a single Liam and rashes and they make ointments for that kinda thing joke (but her silence doesn't mean she isn't thinking it). She looks at Amy again and her sister braces herself for the inevitable lecture.

"Huh," Lauren says. "Bi."

Amy nods. "Maybe," she says.

"Well," Lauren says (and Karma's eyes grow wide and she grips Liam's knee under the table and Liam winces, again). "Maybe isn't definitely and the only way to know for sure is to try, right?"

"Try what?" Shane says, dropping down into his chair and really? Again?

"Amy thinks she's bi, or might be," Lauren says. "Karma is freaking out about it, probably because of her own residual bi issues, like that time she saw Reagan naked." Karma blushes and hides her head in her hands. "And Liam is…" Lauren waves her hand dismissively. "He's Liam."

Shane nods. "Makes sense," he says, pointedly ignoring the glare that Karma looks up to give him. "Everyone tries it. Even I kissed a girl once."

Every eye at the table turns his direction except Liam's. "She was your sister, Shane and it was on the cheek and I got further with her than you did and fuck, Karma, stop kicking me!"

Amy laughs and Karma fumes and Lauren and Shane talk quietly for a moment. "So," Lauren says, "there's this guy in my drama class." Shane holds up a hand, cutting off Karma's immediate protests and Lauren rolls on. "I think you'd like him. He's geeky as hell, a total introvert, and he spends most of class making these adorable, though oddly frightening, origami cranes."

"Sounds good," Amy says though it sounds, more than anything, fucking terrifying. But she didn't ruin things with Reagan for safe.

She had that.

"Amy -" Karma tries, but Amy shakes her head.

"If I'm going to try this, Karma, he sounds like a good match," she says. "He's interested in drama, I'm into film. He's a geek, I'm the Geek Queen. He's an introvert and they don't get much more introverted than me. He makes birds out of paper… I've… used paper."

She nods once, for emphasis (or to convince herself that wasn't the most ridiculous thing she's ever said, she's really not sure which).

"I'll set it up," Lauren says and she smiles and Liam (out of everyone) is the only one to recognize that smile and he could, if he felt like it, explain it to Karma but he's already going to spend the rest of the day walking with a limp so fuck that.

And when Karma corners Lauren on their way out of the bar and demands that she not do this because Amy is clearly not bi and this will clearly not end well, Lauren just smiles at her.

"Just wait," she says. "Just wait."

The first time Amy kisses a boy his name is Oliver and it changes everything.

All by not changing a thing.

Their first date (and it's been two-plus-years since Amy's had one of those) turns into a group hang (copyright Shane Harvey 2016) because, Amy reasons, it will make it easier on both of them.

"Less pressure," she says to Karma. "More comfortable," she says to Shane. "One on one is way more nerve wracking," she says to Lauren.

Do you have to be there she doesn't say to Liam but she totally thinks it.

Of course, he does have to be there and Shane brings his new fella (ironically, a bi guy from his Western Civilizations class who's about as bland as the course and Amy gives that about two weeks) and Lauren brings Theo (because nothing will put the introverted geek at ease like a giant hunk of six-packed sexual chocolate).

They go to (another) Cinema Club event, a special screening of Pulp Fiction and when Oliver shows up (right on time, so points for that) in a Reservoir Dogs tee shirt (and more points, totes points, all the fucking points for that), Amy thinks maybe, just maybe, Lauren did good.

Karma sees Amy and sees the shirt and sees the look in her best friend's eye and pulls Lauren aside but the tiny blonde shushes her. "Just wait," she says, again. "Just wait."

And so Karma does, and so does Amy.

She waits through the movie ( she and Oliver sit next to each other and whisper conspiratorially about camera angles and narrative devices and Lauren sits behind them with a tiny smile on her face).

She waits through the walk to the diner afterward (she and Oliver drift along behind the rest and he talks - surprisingly excitedly - about the movie and Tarantino and his appropriation of different movie genres for his own stylistic purposes and when his hand brushes against hers, Amy takes it and he only falters for a second).

Lauren's smile gets just a tiny bit bigger.

And she waits through the meal with its greasy burgers and cheese covered fries and the way Oliver clumsily drips hot cheese sauce down his chin and she wipes it away with a napkin and he smiles at her and she waits.

Waits for her heart to skip a beat. Waits for her breath to come in a rush. Waits for her pulse to quicken and her palms to sweat and for her mind to wander and wonder what it would be like to kiss him and hold him and feel him over her and under her and all around her.

Amy waits.

And when the check comes and Liam and Shane fight over it (and Theo slips it out from under both of them and pays it while they're arguing) and Karma looks between her and Oliver and even her eyes seem less judgmental and more (maybe) happy for her best friend and Lauren's smile is as big as it's been all night, Amy feels Oliver slip his hand over hers under the table and she lets him lace their fingers together and nods quickly when he asks if he can walk her home.

And she waits.

She waits as they all say their goodnights and all through the walk back to her place and right up until they're standing just outside her building. She waits as he fumbles through telling her what a good time he had and how much he'd like to do it again and how he hopes she had a good time too and how he -

She doesn't know what else he was going to say because that's the moment Amy can't wait anymore and she takes his face between her hands and kisses him.

And she waits.

And waits.

And waits.

And she'd probably still be standing there, her lips against his, his cheeks flushed and hot against her palms, the feel of his heart racing in his chest vibrating against hers. She'd probably still be waiting.

If she didn't know.

Amy pulls back, breaking the kiss and letting her hands fall to her sides, her eyes looking everywhere (everywhere but at him) and she knows, she so fucking knows.

"Woah," Oliver says.

"I know," Amy says. And he takes it so the wrong way but she's not worried about that, she's not even thinking about that. She's too busy reeling from the rocking her world just took, from the sudden and irrefutable proof that was that kiss.

Amy hears those words again. She could be bi. And, maybe, if 'she' is Leah and if 'she' is someone else (anyone else) and not her, then maybe. Because she (read: Amy) is so, without any doubt, not.

Not bi. Not into Oliver (that way). And not even remotely ready to kiss anyone because all she can think is how that kiss was so not the kiss and how the kiss was totally every one she ever shared with Reagan and suddenly she can't be there anymore.

She doesn't hear Oliver calling after her as she bolts up the stairs to her building, doesn't hear his worried 'everything OK?' as she races through the door and up the two flights to her apartment, doesn't hear the buzzing of her cell or the voicemail Karma leaves her ('So I was wrong and Oliver seems… nice… and if that's what you want…').

Amy makes it through the door before she crumples, sliding to the floor as the tears come and then Lauren's there (and that's why you always give your sister your spare key), holding her and rubbing her back.

"I'm not," Amy sputters. "I'm not bi."

"I know," Lauren says. She's kneeling next to her and Amy tucks her head under Lauren's chin and cries.

"I'm not…" she sobs. "I'm not… Reagan… I thought I was… I'm not…what am I gonna do?"

Lauren nods and holds her closer. "Just wait," she says softly. "That's all. Just wait."