Ian and I were poly before it was popular. We were thirteen and after a few months of some hand holding and hugs behind the baseball dugout, Ian opened our relationship. Sitting on the bench waiting for his mom to pick him up he told me.

“I want an open relationship.”

“I do too.” I said.

“Really?”

“Of course I do. I want us to always be open and honest with our feelings. I’m so glad you want that.” I was practically giddy.

“No, no. I… I want to have more than one girlfriend.”

“What?”

“And you’d be one of them.”

“What?”

“I want to date all of you.”

“All of who?”

“All my girlfriends.”

“But I’m your girlfriend.”

“Well you wouldn’t be the only one.”

After his mom laid on her horn for the second time he got up and told me to think about it. At home that night I laid in bed reading all the diary entries I wrote the week before Ian’s twin brother asked me out for him.

When Ian leaves class to go to the bathroom I have to clench my legs to keep from getting up and following him. I want to be everywhere he is just in case he realizes he’s thinking of me.

I was just coming out of a three year relationship when I met Ian and it was so nice to have a crush. I never had a crush on Casey, ,my ex, he had one on me and I thought that was nice. Thought it was even nicer when he would call the landline every night after dinner to sing Johnny Cash’s greatest hits. He had a speech impediment so it was ‘folsom pwison bwues’. We didn’t kiss except for him on my cheek, never me on his because his skin condition made his lips the same color as his face so I was scared I’d go for one red cheek and end up smack on his mouth. But still we’d argue about why he didn’t hold my hand in front of his friends and how much better I was at the multiplication tables than him. Our first week of junior high I called his house and asked his dad to put me on like I always did. Then I cut the cord tied to us since the fourth grade. He cried and asked me what he was supposed to do. I said I thought he was supposed to be sad for three weeks then get a new girlfriend. He asked if I would be jealous and I said I wouldn’t bet on it.

Then because of a schedule change Ian ended up in my fourth period science class, the seat next to mine the only empty one in the room. Hadn’t known it was waiting for him just like me. During popcorn reading he never pronounced any words wrong and he was the only boy in class who looked cute in the dissection goggles. I was smitten and thrilled the day he asked his brother to ask me out. Finally I liked a boy. This was it, what every song was written about. The real deal. The deep shit. When we had our daily hugs in the dugout I would whisper things in his ear like nothing had ever mattered before.

I wondered that night if our thing, the spark, was dying slowly and if he was getting others lit in the case of our breakup. Or if our spark was so well lit he wanted smaller, but just as bright, fires. If he wanted more of me and felt I was giving him the most I could. And I was. He had it all and I had none of me left. But I didn’t mind enough that I thought he needed a spare me in the trunk to put on when I was weak and popped.

“I thought about it. And I have questions.” I said while we sat on the sidelines watching our gym class play dodgeball.

“Why do you want more than one girlfriend?”

“I’ve got a lot of free time during the offseason before soccer.”

“So when the season starts do we all get broken up with or just them?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Could I have another boyfriend if I wanted?”

“Well it’s not the off-season for you.”

“So?”

We agreed that I too could date other people so long as neither of us did anything we hadn’t yet done with each other with our other partners. Since Ian and I hadn’t kissed we couldn’t kiss anyone else. Quickly we started our searches. Stephanie H.  was his first pick but she wasn’t into it unless he broke up with me. So he moved on to Sara and her friend Alison.

“You want us to date each other and you, or just you?” Sara asked.

“Just me. I don’t date lesbos.” He said.

They both agreed but a little less excited than they were before he answered.

When Ian talked to Sean for me he was hesitant. It took convincing, to date me or to date someone who was dating someone else I’m not sure. Probably a bit of both as the last interaction we had was when a friend of mine corrected the name I had let him call me for an entire year.

But now he was one of my two boyfriends and I was over the moon. I pitied my parents and their infantile monogamy. Over dinners of hamburger helper I would tell them both their closed minds killed any chance they had. A chance at what I don’t know. Probably happiness. I started talking like a retired showgirl in a ruined by cigarettes raspy voice and asking my mom things like ‘what good is Tom without some of Dick and Harry on the side?’

“Do I get to have other girlfriends?” Sean asked me in the library.

It had been three weeks since our relationship started. I ran my boyfriend schedule rigid. Mornings before school with Sean while Ian and I waited together for our moms to pick us up in the afternoon.

“Do you want other girlfriends?” I asked.

“If Ian has them.”

No one wanted to date Sean as they thought he was dating Ian too. This pissed him off and he started asking me questions I didn’t know how to answer.

“What makes Ian more special than me?”

“He’s not more special, he was just first.”

Of course I knew Sean was mad because I was making a cuck of him because he knew I couldn’t kiss him until I kissed Ian. All I could say was that Ian and I were getting closer.

“Why do you get to be kissed twice?” He asked me one morning.

After school that day I sat with Ian and told him about Sean. He told me Sara asked him the same thing. So we agreed it would be best to kiss each other to be able to kiss other people. Decided on the next day as I didn’t want my mom to drive up right as our lips touched or I knew she would tell me to stop acting French for the thousandth time that week.

“American girls don’t have two boyfriends.” She would say.

Ian and I pecked, his lips were chapped and mine were wet from the vaseline I lathered them with in preparation.  But it was done and I decided to kiss Sean the next morning as a token of love for my second boyfriend.

I didn’t feel Sean’s lips on mine, all I felt was his tongue.

“You have to open your mouth so my tongue can go inside.”

I did and my tongue laid there while his licked my teeth.

After a month of three girlfriends Ian dumped me rather unceremoniously for Alison the day before the soccer season started. And I was livid. I fancied myself a two boyfriend kind of girl now I was supposed to go back to only one or none. He left me on the path he made me start driving on in the first place. I stuck with Sean and to my mother’s delight became an American girl again.