Of course, I thought about telling my mother immediately. But it’s a complicated situation. I have always been close to my mom, but never in a TV-sitcom-best-friends-tell-eachother-everything kind of way. She’s always felt like a figure of authority — a mother rather than a peer. She was more of a guiding force than a confidante — I’d never thought of us as equals, nor had I been treated like one. I still felt like a child in her eyes, and that was the dynamic we perpetuated: She was the grown-up and I was the baby. For that reason, I had recently been withholding more and more from her, for fear of shattering the “baby” mold she’d placed me in. Earlier that summer, I had told her when I’d lost my virginity, but we hadn’t addressed my sex life any further. I’d felt like maybe I’d crossed a line with her — that she didn’t want to know. I felt awkward, uncomfortable.