The First Girl

by Rachel Weinhaus

Casey Horner

The first girl to kiss a boy was my best friend, Lauren. She was a full year younger than me, only in fourth grade when she kissed that floppy-haired teenager behind our cabin. She said his lips tasted like vanilla Chapstick. The first girl to lose her virginity was Sara, a girl I went to high school with. The tattooed man said he loved her. She wanted to believe him. Sara never loved the tattooed man, but I don’t think he meant his promise either. The first person I knew who died young was Sara’s older brother. He was eighteen, killed in a car accident. The first time I played the game Chicken, I was thirteen, in my dank basement, with lights dimmed. I remember how smooth the boy’s hands looked sliding up my jean-covered thighs. I think he wanted me to say chicken, chicken, chicken, but I never did. He stopped anyway and sat on his hands the rest of the night, not meeting my eyes. I think of all the firsts hurtling towards girls everywhere — no chance to brace for impact. Explosions of sweet vanilla, shards of glass.

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Rachel Weinhaus is a screenwriter, memoirist and flash fiction writer. Her work has appeared in Necessary Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Micro Fiction Monday Magazine, Five Minutes, MoonPark, and is forthcoming in Moon City Press and Does It Have Pockets. Rachel is the author of “The Claimant: A Memoir of an Historic Sexual Abuse Lawsuit and a Woman’s Life Made Whole.”