I need to know

“It was good, right?” I asked, not even recognizing my own voice, which had gone reedy and uncertain, like I was a kid again, waiting for a teacher to correct me. The question hovered in the darkness, and I instantly hated myself for wanting an answer so badly.

Sarah shifted beside me, turning her face deeper into the pillow. “Mmm?” she offered, not quite awake, not quite present.

“You liked it?” I said it again, a little too loud, a little too ****. My mouth was so dry I could taste the static in the air.

She made a sound, a lazy purr at the back of her throat. “It was nice,” she said, the syllables dissolving on her tongue as she sank, almost immediately, into sleep.

Nice. Not “amazing,” not “oh my god,” not even “good.” Just nice, the same word she used for a sandwich at a work lunch or a sale on bedsheets. I lay there propped up on my elbow, staring at her profile, waiting for her to roll over and reassure me—tell me the word was a joke, that she was just tired, that she cared. But she didn’t. She was gone, breathing slow and even, a tiny line of drool forming between her lips.

For a while I just watched her, counting each inhale and exhale, hoping that if I stared hard enough I could conjure some evidence of satisfaction. I pictured what this scene was supposed to look like: the two of us tangled up, flushed and laughing, not a care in the world, smug in our shared secret. Instead, I was alone with the sound of her breathing and the low, persistent drum of insecurity in my chest.

I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. It was the first time. It was always awkward the first time, right? Maybe she just needed time to adjust. Maybe she was nervous. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it felt.

But the longer I lay there, the more the silence pressed in, suffocating. I checked my phone—12:42 AM. I scrolled through Reddit, looking for validation, but every thread on r/relationships just made me feel worse. I typed “first time sex disappointing” into the search bar and found pages of posts about mismatched expectations, bad communication, girls faking orgasms, men who came too soon, women who came not at all. None of it was helpful. Every word just stoked the pit in my stomach.

Finally, after what felt like an hour of obsessing, I couldn’t take it anymore. I reached over and shook her shoulder gently.

“Hey,” I whispered, “Hey, Sarah. Are you awake?”

She grunted, eyes still closed. “What is it?”

“I just…” I hesitated, then dove in, “How was it?” The question sounded pathetic in the air, but I had to know.

She rolled onto her back, blinking up at the ceiling. “How was what?”

My cheeks went hot. “You know. Sex.”

Sarah let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan. “It was good, babe. Really.”

But it didn’t sound like the truth. She said it the way you’d say, “I love your haircut” to a friend who’d clearly made a mistake. I looked at her face for some flicker of confirmation, some giveaway smile or the glint of honesty, but all I saw was tiredness.

I waited, counting the pause, and then blurted: “How was it compared to…like, with that pig?”

She groaned louder and rolled her eyes so hard I could hear it in her voice. “You know I hate when you call Wiley a pig.”

“Fine, I won’t call him that. Just tell me,” I said, my voice trembling now. I could feel myself unraveling, but I couldn’t stop. “Was it better with me? Or with him?”

Sarah winced, shoulders curling in. “Are we really having this conversation right now?”

“I just want to know,” I said. I was pleading, and I hated myself for it.

“I don’t want to talk about him. Especially not now.” She turned away, facing the wall.

“Sarah,” I said, voice small. “I need to know.”

This time her sigh was so deep it sounded like she might disappear into it. “Fine. It was better with you, okay?” But the words were brittle, like spun sugar about to shatter.

I stared at her, ****. “Then why didn’t you sound like you liked it?”

She flinched, and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. Goosebumps stippled her bare arm. “I don’t know. Maybe it was better with him, okay?”

The words hit me like a slap. But I still wanted more. Needed it. “Why?” I demanded, and my voice cracked.

She was quiet for a long time. I thought maybe she’d fallen back asleep, or was pretending to. But then, so softly I had to strain to hear, she said, “Maybe because it was my first time with him. I was nervous, it felt intense, everything was new. It’s stupid. I don’t know.”

I thought of Wiley Henderson, which I hated to do, but his name had a way of creeping into every blank space in my mind. I pictured him in high school: acne-splotched, pale as glue, always sweating, always grinning that nervous, greedy grin. I remembered the way he’d stare at Sarah when she walked into chemistry, like he couldn’t believe she was real. And I remembered how, even when we started dating, she’d still talk to him, text him, sometimes even hang out. She said it didn’t mean anything, that Wiley was “harmless,” that I was overreacting, but I never believed her.

I could see him now in my mind’s eye, the way he must have looked the first time he got her alone, the way he must have touched her, the way she must have shivered. I felt sick with jealousy. Not just because she’d been with him, but because I could never unseat him, never scrub the memory of that first time from her body.

I thought about asking her if she ever thought about him when she was with me, but I knew if I did, she’d just say no, and I’d never be able to tell if it was true.

I tried to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face, blank and unblinking, and heard her voice saying, “It was nice.”

I lay awake until the numbers on my phone changed from 2:00 to 3:00 to 3:41, the blue glow of the screen burning into my retinas. At some point I must have drifted off.