Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity by Kerry Cohen

Author:Kerry Cohen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Family & Relationships, Adolescence, Life Stages, Women
ISBN: 9781401309923
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2008-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

T H E O T H E R S I D E

O F T H E

G L A S S WA L L

K

8

Where before I felt tentative with Eli, I’m now fervent. I cling to him like a lifeline, like the only solid thing in a sea of sand. I’ve allowed every other valuable thing to pass through my fingers. My friendships, my self-respect, my relationship with my sister. Maybe Tyler and I are too different to be friends, but we shared a childhood. We survived together. I could have at least had a comrade. When I was a little girl I used to love animals. I used to whimper over every smashed squirrel on the road, outraged at human carelessness. I used to run in front of strangers on sidewalks, stopping them so they wouldn’t step on an ant. “It’s alive and you’re alive,” I used to exclaim, adamant in my conviction. I wanted to be a veterinarian, or maybe a wildlife biologist. I imagined myself comforting a dog as I pulled sharp burrs from its paws, or in the wild somewhere, like Jane Goodall, coming to know some special animal the way she knew chimpanzees. But somewhere along the way I let that go too, lost to boys. Everything lost to boys. I won’t allow it again. Something has shifted inside me. Suddenly I see what I’ve done, the way I behaved with the Jennifers, all those boys who never cared about me.

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L o o s e G i r l

I’ve been grasping at nothing, running in circles, trying desperately to fill the emptiness inside with nothing but air. If I think about it too much, I feel shame, so much shame. So I don’t. I focus my thoughts on moving forward, with Eli.

I want to change, and I believe all I need to do is want that. I need only to love Eli. It never occurs to me that it’s not really about him, not really about the boys. All I can think to do is to resolve: No more boys, no more grasping onto them as they turn away from me. I can feel the restlessness inside, the wanting always fluttering just below the surface, but I decide to ignore it. I can choose to turn away from my need, like so many boys have before. I don’t want to own it anymore. Don’t want anything more to do with it. I move to Maine that summer to be with Eli, and to be away from the ruins I’ve left behind in New Jersey.

Eli’s house is small and simple, heated in the winter by a woodstove. Only in the past year, Eli tells me, did his father build stairs from the first floor to the second. Before that they climbed an old ladder to get to the bedrooms. Worn, knotted rugs cover rustic wood floors. The rooms smell like burning wood, even in the summer. I love the simplicity, the sparseness. I love the

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