This story is just stuck. I think I had figured out already yesterday that the problem is the opening line, but I couldn’t admit it, because I was so proud of the damned thing. I thought it was so clever. Now I think it’s whiny. I’m jettisoning it here in the hope that someone, Ashley or Christian or Adam or someone, will whap me on the nose with an umbrella should it appear anywhere else that has my byline.
If she loved me, that Thursday evening in my first month of college as I stared past her arched neck at the heat register and thought So this is what it feels like to lose your virginity, I never knew it.
The problem is, if the speaker is concerned about the lack of love in the world, why is he staring deadly across the room and thinking self-conscious thoughts during a sexual encounter? He seems to blame her for a problem they both share. Now, come to think of it, that might make a good story in itself, but it’s not the one I feel like telling at the moment. So out it goes.
There’s about three too many prepositions in there. (Or maybe some quotation marks would help, with apologies to Cormac McCarthy.) I hope you won’t hate me for saying that that sentence, as written, could be a Bulwer-Lytton entry. Arched neck, heat register, losing your virginity? Oy!
Also, why are there two separate thoughts occurring in parallel here? The thoughts “If she loved me, I never knew it” and “So this is what it feels like to lose your virginity” are going on simultaneously?