I helped my most sheltered friend discover sex before she had to go back to her old life and I don't regret a single second.

I want to say upfront that this comes entirely from a good place.

My friend came from the most conservative upbringing I have ever encountered up close. small town, very religious family, the kind of household where sex before marriage doesn't exist as a concept, where you save yourself completely and marry whoever the community approves of and that's just the trajectory. she had never been kissed. she'd barely been alone with a boy. she was sweet and curious and quietly overwhelmed by basically everything about college.

We were in the same building freshman year and got close fast. she was funny in this dry unexpected way and asked genuine questions about everything, wanted to actually understand how other people lived. I liked her immediately.

I told her about my life. she was equal parts horrified and fascinated.

When she found out I had a boyfriend at the time she had about forty follow up questions. when she found out we were open she had to take a full minute.

Junior year we got an apartment together, all three of us. her in the spare room, me and my boyfriend at the time in ours.

We barely wore clothes around the apartment. that's just how we are. she adjusted faster than I expected — within a week she'd stopped leaving the room when I ended up in his lap on the couch. within two weeks she was on the other end of the same couch on her phone while we made out, not going anywhere.

I didn't push anything. I let her get comfortable at her own pace.

The first time she chose to stay in the room while we had sex she sat in the chair across from the bed with her book and pretended very hard to be reading it. I didn't say anything.

The first time I noticed her touching herself from across the room I didn't say anything about that either. some things you just let happen.

a couple months in I asked if she wanted to join us. she said no. I said okay.

she came to me one night and said she had a question. the question was whether my offer still stood.

it did.

she joined me going down on him first, hesitant and then considerably less hesitant, and afterward she sat on the edge of the bed looking like she was processing something large.

"I think I've been missing out," she said.

I told her she had been.

Things moved from there at her pace. I went down on her and she grabbed the sheets and made sounds I don't think she'd ever made before. she let him do the same. she started going down on me with an enthusiasm that honestly surprised me. somewhere in the next few weeks she stopped asking permission for things and just reached for them, which I found genuinely beautiful to watch in someone who a few months ago couldn't be in the same room as a couple holding hands.

she lost her virginity in our bed on a quiet Wednesday afternoon with me right there holding her hand and she cried a little after — not from pain, just from the weight of something she'd spent her whole life building up finally being done and being completely fine.

"that's it?" she said.

"that's it," I said.

She laughed and I laughed and he lay there looking very pleased with himself and I told him to wipe that look off his face.

she went home at the end of the year. back to the town, back to the family, back to whatever life they'd mapped out for her. she made peace with it in a way I genuinely never did on her behalf.

she told me the week before she left that she was grateful. that she got to find out who she actually was before she had to be who they needed her to be.

I told her she had nothing to thank me for.

She disagreed. I let her.

My boyfriend and I broke up a while after. different reasons, nothing dramatic. but I think about that year a lot regardless.

I still miss her.