“Personally, I wear a bunch of perfume so the smell gets on the guys I’m with. That way the other girls know those guys are mine.”

“So it’s like how dogs mark their territory?”

“Ew. I never thought of it that way. This is totally different. My scent is a combination of peach, cherry blossom, and pina colada.”

“So you smell like peaches, cherries, and pineapple? Are you sure the other girls won’t just think the guys ate fruit salad?”

***

In high school I had several female friends who, when cheated on, would blame "the other woman" more than the guys they were dating. It never made any sense to me. You should blame the person who was unfaithful. 

I never understood it in high school, but now I do. It took meeting Layla to make me see how somebody could blame the mistress.

My husband Jeff and I considered ourselves very lucky. After the chaotic jungle that is high school dating, we met each other within our first few weeks of college. Four years later we were married. Neither of us had ever cheated or been cheated on, but only a year into our marriage that all changed.

Layla entered our lives. 

Admittedly, the instant I saw Layla I knew she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen in real life. My husband and I were out at a bar celebrating his birthday with a few of his friends. He had went to the bathroom, and when he returned, Layla was with him. Jeff explained that he stopped at the bar on the way back and, hearing it was his birthday, she bought him a drink. Being she seemed so nice, he invited her to join our group for a bit.

A sensation I hadn't felt in years started boiling inside of me. Jealousy. 

Surprisingly, the boys weren't drooling over her. They played it cool and pretended she wasn't the most breathtaking person they had ever seen. Through polite conversation, I found out that she was a social worker who loved dogs. Could she be any more perfect?

Layla became part of the gang. Jeff and I quickly began to know her better and better and spend more and more time with her. Then came the fated day of the cheating. Can you imagine walking in on your spouse in bed with a beautiful, naked woman wrapped around them?

That's what my poor husband walked in on. Neither of us had ever expected I would fall for Layla, or any woman for that matter. The conversation later that night was crushing. No, it wasn't a one time experiment. I didn't want it to be. I loved her.

So I can see why my husband doesn't blame me and instead blames the other woman. If I hadn't met that particular woman, it's possible we would still be married now. I understand why he blames her. Jeff thinks that she changed me. She didn't though. Layla just helped me discover myself.

As Science woke up, she yawned. Stretching, her arm hit a vase and it fell, smashing on the ground. She swore under her breath as she stared at the ashes. Hearing the sound, her mother came into the room.

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

"I accidentally knocked over one of my vases. Now this poor person is all over my floor," Science explained, "It's all your fault. You had to name me Science and doom me to a life of getting dead body donations."

This was an argument they had often and her mother didn't feel like having it again, so she silently left the room. Science sighed and looked around at all her vases. She didn't even know where she would have space to put the next one that arrived. Too young (and grossed out) to know how to productively study a body, Science always sent them to get cremated. Not knowing how else to honor them, they were in vases in her room. After cleaning up, Science did what she did every day -studied the human body with countless books and internet searches. She was determined to one day make good use of the bodies.

Eventually a break was needed, so Science took a walk to the park. She sat on a bench and felt sorry for herself. She still felt bad about the broken vase from that morning. Somebody came and sat next to her. A stranger approached her. He seemed around her age, so she wasn't frightened.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Something about the boy made her want to tell all her secrets. Being named Science, the body donations, the vase breaking this morning -she told him everything. Then she made a few more complaints about her name before quieting down.

"You think your name is weird?" the boy asked, "My parents named me GOD."

"They did not!"

"Oh yes they did," he said, pulling out his driver's license, "They're atheists and thought it would be funny."

"Oh my God!"

"Yes my child?" he said and they both laughed.

"I guess that name would suck too," Science admitted.

"No, it's fun. You just have to take advantage of it. I'm sure you could have a lot of fun with the name Science too. For example, if that was my name, I would never do my science homework. You ARE science -isn't that enough? And those bodies you get -sell them to real scientists. You could make a nice profit."

She laughed, "I never thought of doing those things."

Science's friend Amanda walked over.

"Hey, Amanda, I want you to meet my new friend, God."

"Getting religious these days? Is somebody named Science even allowed to believe in God?"

"Not like that. This is God," she turned her head, "Show her your driver's-"

Science cut herself off. She didn't see God anywhere anymore.

"He was right here," Science told her.

"Are you sure you didn't just make him up to comfort yourself?"

God silently chuckled to himself behind some bushes. Hiding suddenly was one of his favorite ways to mess with people. He loved his name. In life, you have to take advantage of the things granted to you. In death, you might as well donate your body to Science.

Why do people freak out so much about sex? As long as you use protection, it’s no big deal. I lost my virginity at 14. I lost the guy at 14 ½. Did this devastate me? No. Physically, I was slightly changed. Mentally? Barely a dent. Rinse and repeat getting guys, having sex, and then “losing” said guys several more times over the years. Having sex is something you do out of lust, or a feeling of obligation, or, honestly, sometimes pure boredom. It happens. It ends (sometimes more quickly than you hope) and you move on. It doesn’t really affect your day to day life.

That’s why I was so “heartlessly” annoyed when one of my college roommates made a huge deal about the first time she had sex. When I arrived back at our dorm after a late night study session, I was ready to crash right away. Unluckily for me, I found Kelsey sitting at the edge of her bed, looking distraught. Her eyes pleading for me to talk to her before her lips did.

“Jen, I need to talk to you, but please promise you won’t judge me.”

Suppressing my sigh, I agreed to talk and assured her I wasn’t the judging type. She then went on to describe how the night before she got really drunk at some party. Clearly exaggerating, she made it sound like she drank as much as six men. Afterwards, Kelsey let some guy she had a crush on for weeks take her to his apartment. They fucked. Or as she put it they “you know...did it.”

I think she wanted me to be sympathetic and tell her that this one decision didn’t define her. But I’m not good at that type of thing. Because, to me, I can’t even see why this would be a remotely interesting conversation to have. Of course it didn’t define her. Had she confessed instead that she had coffee for the first time last night, I would have felt the same. Bored. Rather than assure her things were fine, I asked a few questions to see if I were missing something important. Nope. When I asked her if there was anything else she wanted to talk about before I went to bed, and saw the look in her eyes, I realized we would never be friends.

To her, she had lost her innocence. She knew nothing about how that felt. But I did. I had lost my innocence just the summer before. His name was Jordan. We both had the same summer temp job working at a burger stand. It would have been the worst job ever, considering I’m a vegetarian and all, but since Jordan was there, it was the best job possible. At first, we just casually flirted. But then things became more serious.

You see, this burger stand was in a pretty bad neighborhood. One day as Jordan and I were flipping burgers as usual, this punk kid comes up to the stand and tries to rob it. Boy doesn’t look a day over 17 and he’s pretty scrawny, so I think he’s bluffing. I walk out of the stand, get right in his face, and tell him to get the hell away from us. That’s when he pulls out a knife and slashes me across the arm. I stand there dumbly. When Jordan rushes out, holding a knife himself, the kid scrams.

Jordan rushes me to a hospital and makes sure I get all cleaned up. He convinces me to go to his place so he can order us some pizza to unwind after the craziness. But first we have to go grab my stuff from the dumb burger stand. When we get there, our boss is standing around pissed. When somebody from the next shift arrived and nobody was there, he was called. Jordan calmly explains what happened. Our boss doesn’t care and says we aren’t getting paid for that day at all and maybe not the week. My hero, still calm, talks about lawsuits and poor training and I forget what else, but I remember the result. I got a raise. I was really starting to like this boy.

Back at his place, I expected some of the second kind of sex I mentioned to you before -the kind you have when you feel obligated. But Jordan didn’t try to have sex with me at all. We started going on dates and sex didn’t seem to be on his mind. When I finally seduced him one night, I expected it to all be over. It wasn’t. We kept dating, it just now included sex on some of those dates. I really really liked this guy.

Finally the day came when I lost my innocence. That day, I was scheduled to work, but Jordan wasn’t. We agreed that I would meet him at his place after I got off. When I showed up, his mouth dropped as I came in. He couldn’t understand why I had worn long sleeves, flipping burgers, on a day that I knew would be 90 something degrees out. I sat on his couch. Suddenly shy, I slowly pulled up one of my sleeves.

“When that kid cut my arm, it left a big scar. I don’t want people staring at it.”

Jordan came and sat next to me. Very gently, he traced my scar with his finger. He lightly kissed my arm and then my forehead. I remember exactly what he said.

“Our bodies are our life’s timelines. Freckles show time in the sun. Stretch marks show the birth of a child. Your scar shows a time when you were brave. You should be proud of it.”

That was the moment I fell in love and lost my innocence. You see, when you fall in love, it changes how you see the entire world. You realize everything isn’t about you. It shows how amazing a person can be, and in contrast, how awful others have been. People are right when they say you can’t be truly happy without being sad. Love brings the greatest happiness, but it also exposes you to the greatest pain. So don’t worry about sex. You lose your innocence when you experience love in all its contrasts.

Chloe's Facebook is acting strange. Yesterday, she woke up to find a status typed in, but not sent, saying she was "hanging with the besties" with her location tagged at the nearby mall. Confused, she deleted it as she heard her phone ring. It was one of her best friends telling her to come hang out at the mall.

Today, the same thing happened. Only now her unsent status states "saving Shayla" and the location tagged is three states away. Chloe doesn't know who Shayla is, what she needs to be saved from, or how it involves her. But she plans to find out. 

This year was the first time I didn't have Thanksgiving with my family. This year I had it with my boyfriend Noah's family. Well, ex-boyfriend. Let me explain. His family is extremely religious. I was petrified to attend because Noah and I recently found out that I'm pregnant. We hadn't decided if we wanted it or not yet. Somehow, I thought, his family will be able to just look at me and know. 

As I mingled before dinner, my fears increased. While my boyfriend's parents were acting normally, both his sister Mary and brother Joseph were behaving strangely. I was convinced they knew our secret and just weren't sure what to say. We all sat down to eat and his father said grace. Before eating, we had to complete their family tradition of everybody going about the table and saying something they were grateful for. That's when everything took an unexpected turn. It went something like this.

Noah's mother: I'm very grateful that Noah's girlfriend Elizabeth was able to join us this year. It's great to see him with such a kind, intelligent woman. What are you grateful for this year, Elizabeth?

Me: I'm pregnant! I mean, that's not what I'm grateful for, I'm actually terrified about that. But, um, yeah.

Noah's father: Then I guess we're grateful for the new life that will be coming into our world soon?

Noah: We're so sorry.

Joseph: At least you can give them grandchildren.

Noah: What?

Joseph: I'm gay. There I said it.

Me: I don't think I want to keep it.

Noah: What?

Me: Don't hate me!

Joseph: Nobody's going to hate you. They're all going to hate me!

Mary: I don't hate any of you.

Joseph & Me: Really?

Mary: Well, I'm an Atheist, so being gay or deciding what to do with your own body doesn't break any religious rules for me.

Noah's father: You're Atheist?

Mary: Yeah. Don't hate me.

Noah's mother: We don't hate you, Sweetie. We love all of our children no matter what.

Noah's father: I can't guarantee that the government agrees with us right now, but we support you.

Me: You mean you guys didn't vote for Trump and Pence?

Noah's mother: Well, goodness no. Did you?

Me: Well, yeah. 

Noah's father: Get out of our house.

Me: What?

Noah's father: GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE!

I looked over at my boyfriend who had his head hung.

Noah: Just go.

So now I'm pretty sure that I don't have a boyfriend. I guess I'm thankful that re-election is only four years away?

They say when you like somebody that hurts you they "broke your heart." But that's not how I see it at all. We are all broken. We start as puzzles not yet put together. These incredible people come into our lives and begin to put our pieces in place. Once they've completed as much as they can, we become frustrated with them, for they gave up just as we started to feel whole. It can start to feel like some of our pieces are missing. They aren't. We all have the ability to love and be loved. Figuring out how is the greatest puzzle of all, but I promise it's worth it. 

Under different circumstances,

this would have been paradise.

But when it comes to living people,

"finders keepers" doesn't apply.

Do I love or hate you?

There are few things better than being snuggled up with a good book by the fireplace as the snow rages outside. Few things worse than your dog pleading for you to take it outside in that snow. One winter night, just as I was delving into a juicy section in the book I was reading, my dog Sprinkles begged for us to journey into the tundra. One cannot say no to her big puppy eyes, so I conceded.

Outside, I glanced around as Sprinkles took her sweet time finding a good spot to do her business. We lived alone in the country, far away from any other people, in the house my parents left me when they passed. I took mini jumps as I tried to stay warm. Finally, my puppy was ready to head back inside, just before I felt like I was going to lose all feeling in my limbs. We started towards to house and then stopped suddenly. Somebody was standing my the window inside the house. Slowly, they walked past it.

My icy hands felt around my coat pockets, but there was no phone there. It was upstairs in my bedroom on the nightstand, along with my car keys. Two options came to mind: stay outside and freeze to death or sneak in (to my own house) and grab my cell and keys to attempt an escape. As unappealing as the second option seemed, it was the only one that gave me a chance. 

Carefully, I opened the door and started to walk in with Sprinkles. Moving only a few centimeters at a time, I headed towards the stairs, constantly swinging my head in every direction to make sure the unwanted visitor wasn't around. Sprinkles suddenly sprinted towards the kitchen and I dropped the leash. I heard hurried footsteps and frantically hid in a hallway closet. Pushing myself to a far back corner, I prayed whoever was in my house wouldn't find me.

A bit later, after a squeal, the barking stopped. There was only the sound of heavy footsteps treading around. Why would somebody else be in my house? It was out in the middle of nowhere -this was no random break-in. There wasn't even anything much anybody would find worth stealing. I realized that, whoever it was, they must have come for me. I had no desire to find out why. At one point, the person stood right next to the door, I saw the shadow underneath, but then walked away. Even after I no longer heard the footsteps, I refused to leave that closet.

That was where I was discovered, two days later. My dog was nowhere to be found. This was three months ago and I still haven't seen any sign of Sprinkles. Everybody tells me that I imagined the entire thing, but I didn't. I know what I saw. They're the ones that can't explain men's boots that I found.  

"A salad? Really? You can have anything in the world you want for your final meal and you chose a salad?" the guard asked me incredulously.

I nodded silently as he set it down in front of me. Shaking his head, he left me and my salad alone. Slowly, I took a small bite. My mind struggled between the past and the future. Well, what little future was left anyway. Finally, it decided to reminisce about the past. What if that whole "your entire life flashes in front of you before you die" thing doesn't exist? I could do it myself -at least the major events.

Most people would envy the path my life took. I was an internationally famous supermodel after all. However, like everything else, it came with a price. A college roommate of mine was a model. Just local -nothing too high-scale. She didn't have a car, so I would often drop her off and pick her up at shoots. Because of my freakishly high cheekbones and naturally indigo eyes, the photographers and make-up artists began to take notice. With a little dieting, I could be a very successful model, they assured me.

They were right. Decreasing my food intake and increasing my workout time and suddenly I could call myself a model. 

A few of my pictures made it to the eyes of some prominent New York agencies who contacted me. They were interested in trying me out, but their weight requirements were even stricter. No matter how little I ate and how much I exercised, that level couldn't be achieved. That's when I turned to some dieting pills a friend hesitantly recommended. Popping a few in the morning and, eventually, a few more in the afternoon did the trick. Suddenly, I wasn't just a model. I was a very successful one who could make a living off of her work.

There was an avalanche effect. The more shoots I did, the more people became interested, the skinnier I would be required to become, the more pills I would consume. Sometimes it felt like I was made of pills. Always adventurous, I started to experiment with other kinds -not all of which were legal. But, it was my life, and I would do what I wanted with it. It was nobody else's business what I did.

Until it started to affect somebody else's life. In between shoots one day I checked my phone and saw some messages from my old roommate. Her modeling career had never gone as well as mine, but she hadn't given up. She begged for some advice on how to get to the next level. We met up and I gave her some of my diet pills -illegal ones.

People's body's react differently to things. She died. When people found out it was because of illegal "drugs" I gave her, I was charged with her death. My sentence was execution. But I didn't kill her. The industry did.

There are going to be reporters at my execution soon. I'm sure they'll take pictures. I'm not going to eat the whole salad -I want look good for the cameras. I hope that my entire life does flash in front of my eyes. I'll look amazing in the flashes.