I meet Lucy at Solas Bar a couple of blocks away from my apartment and NYU. It's a narrow bar, with a lounge feel to it, sandwiched between a small restaurant and an apartment. The vibe is always good and no one bothers us when we just want a drink-and-catch-up session.

"I like your hair like that," I say when we sit down at the bar. The bartender slides two Mojitos in our direction, and I sip my drink.

Lisa had cut her blond hair into a long bob, and it's wavy at the edges when she doesn't straighten it. After Graham dumped her, she stopped trying to doll herself up. Raw, natural beauty shines through, now. I personally consider it an improvement.

She shrugs. "Thanks. Everyone says that. I don’t miss my long hair."

"How are you doing?" I ask.

She dated Graham for almost a year. It had been serious, at least for her. He’d told her he was serious, too. He’d been serious until the very moment he left her, telling her that he didn’t want what she wanted.

It's been brutal.

"I’m fine," she says. "As well as I can be. I don’t miss him or anything, if that’s what you’re asking."

I shake my head, sipping through the straw. "That’s not what I'm asking," I say after I swallow. "I just want to make sure you’re okay."

I feel for Lisa. I’ve never had a relationship that long or that serious, but I’ve seen how much she cared for him. In her opinion, he’d been the one. She’d known it right after their first date, when they’d slept together. I don't understand the logic behind giving it all away if you don't even know the person. I'm probably the only twenty-one-year-old virgin in New York City, but I don't want to just give it to anyone. I want to love, first. I want to know that it's all for something bigger than just … getting off.

"I’ll be fine," she says. Her drink level is sinking rapidly. She drinks fast. At this rate, I'll have to carry her home.

"You’re better off if he wasn’t that serious," I say. "You deserve someone who will put as much into the relationship as you do."

Lisa nods. "Damn right, I do. I just wish he would've told me earlier, you know? I wouldn’t have been upset if he’d told me, at any point in our relationship, that he wasn’t serious about me."

"I know what you mean," I sympathize, even though I don't really. I can imagine it, though.

"I mean, sure, it would've hurt. But not like this."

She waves at the bartender and orders shots. Tequila. She's planning on getting drunk.

"I met someone," I say. I glance up at her, waiting for a reaction. She blinks at me.

"Really? Where?" She stirs the last bit of her drink with a straw. When the tequila comes, she throws it back without the salt-and-lemon routine. She moves the other one across the bar to me.

I shake my head.

Lisa shrugs and drinks that one, too.

"Slow it down a bit," I say. She pulls a face at me. "And I met him at Starbucks."

Lisa snorts. "That’s romantic."

I shke my head. "It didn’t have to be. It’s not like anything happened. He’s a bit of an ass. He thinks a lot of himself."

"So, a real man, then?"

I shake my head, smiling. Lisa's bitter. Graham left only two weeks ago. I explain to her how it happened, and how he’d joined me without invitation.

"Is he hot?" Lisa asks.

"Oh, my God. He’s gorgeous. Blond hair. Dark eyes. Like an actor."

"Oh, that’s a good one."

I nod. "Same kind of fluid confidence."

Lisa grins. "Sounds like the kind of guy I would take to bed."

I shake my head, irritated. "I’m not going to sleep with him. I hardly know him."

"So?" Lisa asks, finishing her drink and waving for another. I'm barely halfway through my first one. "If that’s all you’re going to get from them, might as well enjoy it."

"You know how I feel about that," I say. "That’s not what this is about."

Lisa shrugs. "I know," she says. "I know how you see it. I don’t get it, but I know. You’re not doomed, though. You can still get out there and have fun. Forget about love. It’s overrated. Trust me. Just do what feels natural."

"Like sex?" I ask.

Lisa nods and grins at me. "Trust me, you’re missing out."

I drink more, refusing to address her statement. I don't think I'm missing out. If I'm missing out on anything, it's love. I want to guard my heart and save myself for the right person when he comes along. It's not even about saving it for marriage. I just respect myself, and I want whoever I end up giving it to, to respect me, too.

Thomas is not that guy.

"You should just go out with the guy. Did you give him your number?"

I nod. "He asked for it. He was so arrogant and full of himself, I should've said no. But there was something about him that made me say yes."

Lisa chuckles. "You see? That’s how it works. Just go with it. When he asks for more, just keep saying yes."

I roll my eyes.

"What were you talking about with him?" she asks.

I shrug. "Freedom. Freud."

Lisa groans. "God, Nicky. You talked psychology to the guy? You might not have to worry about casual sex, after all. If you keep doing that."

It's true. I speak to people about what interests me. Not everyone wants to hear about the makeup of our subconscious mind.

"He started it, though," I say. "It wasn’t me this time."

Lisa shakes her head. "You’re the corniest person I know."

I laugh. Maybe I am, but better that, than be pretentious and lose who I am. I look at Lisa. She'd sleep with Thomas in a heartbeat. He's hot and funny and clever, and she would jump his bones without thinking twice. I can't do that. I’ve never been able to just go with the flow. Who I am on the inside matters more than what I can offer with my body.

Lisa receives her next drink and sucks on the straw. She glances at me with big blue eyes.

"How do you do it?" I ask. "How do you just sleep with someone?"

Lisa shakes her head. "You don’t get it," she says. "You’re not supposed to think about it. You’re not even supposed to ask me that. Sex isn’t nearly that complicated. You just … do it."

It sounds a lot more complicated than that. Sex is vulnerable. Sex is naked. Sex is showing everything of myself to someone, whether I like it or not. At least, that's what I can deduce from seeing my friends do it. I can't do that. I don't love myself enough to be that comfortable with strangers.

I don't think Thomas would ever have that kind of problem.

"It’s really not that big a deal," Lisa says. "Once you do it, it’s easy to do it again. And once you get into your own rhythm, you don’t care about whom you’re doing it with. You’re doing it for you."

I frown. That doesn't make sense to me. It seems selfish. Selfish and out there and hard.

"I still think it should be built on love," I say. "I know you don’t agree."

I finally finish my first drink and push the glass in the bartender’s direction.

"Another one?" he asks.

I shake my head. I'm not here to get wasted.

"What are you going to do when he calls?" Lisa asks.

"I don’t know. Go out on a date, I guess, if that’s what he offers."

"And if he offers sex, not love?"

I raise my eyebrows at her.

"Okay, okay," she says. "I know. You believe in waiting for love. I think it’s silly. I don’t understand it, but I hear what you’re saying. I won’t keep making fun of you."

"I don’t want to get serious about someone only to have them leave and take that part that I gave them away with them. You know?"

Lisa nods. "I hear you on that one," she says. "It’s bad enough for him to take your heart, never mind your virginity. If he has both, though, and then he leaves? That’s going to be rough."

I nod and stare at the dark mint leaves at the bottom of my glass. That's true. There's always a chance of failure. If it doesn't work out, then my attempts to guard my heart will turn around and bite me in the ass.

I can't do that, though. I have to stay positive and believe that the choices I make are the right ones for me.

I watch Lisa drinking. She's a mess. She’s lost a lot of weight, and even though she's beautiful without makeup, her cheeks are sunken, and her smile doesn't always reach her eyes.

This is life, though. We love and we lose, right? She'll get over it. And if it turns out that I make a wrong decision, I'll be faced with the same thing.

By the time we finish at Solas, Lisa's plastered. She can't string two sentences together, and she keeps saying that we should charge the bill to Graham because it's his fault that she drank so much. I help her get home. She throws up in the taxi on the way to her apartment, and we have to walk the last couple of blocks.

"I need to apologize to the driver," she says, her arm over my shoulder. My hand is wrapped around her waist. The other holds her wrist on my shoulder.

"You already did that," I say.

"I’m sorry," she says to me, instead.

"Don’t be," I say. "You missed my shoes so I’m grateful about that."

We finally reach her building, and I help her up three flights of stairs.

"Do yourself a favor," Lisa says when I tuck her into bed. "Don’t fall in love. Just sleep with them. It’s so much better."

She closes her eyes, and I tuck the blankets under her chin. I leave her apartment and make my way home.

Is Lisa right? Is it really that simple? Maybe I have to lose my virginity and get it over with. Maybe I have to get rid of the one thing that I've been clinging onto and just do it.

When I unlock my own door and lock it again behind me, I know I'm not going to do that. It isn't who I am. I've believed in true love since I was young. Even when my degree taught me that love could just be an illusion. Even when everyone who knew my convictions told me that I was just being silly. I believe what I believe, and I'm not going to give that up.

Not because my best friend is hurting, and I fear getting hurt, too. Not because I'm in the minority, being a virgin at my age. And not because good-looking men offer to make one night the best night of my life.

Thomas had talked about freedom earlier today. Holding onto something that's mine, refusing to give it up no matter what, until I'm ready, is my own kind of freedom.

No one can tell me differently.