Bright Purple: Color Me Confused with Bonus Content Read Online Free PDF

recognize. So I decide to risk it.
    “Hello?”
    “Hey, Ramie,” says a guy’s voice. “This is Mitch.”
    “Hey, Mitch,” I reply as I fall backward onto my half-made bed with huge, enormous relief, not to mention a bunch of curiosity. “What’s up?”
    “I got your cell phone number from the youth-group directory at church,” he tells me. “Hope you don’t mind.”
    I laugh. “Not at all. It’s not like I’m trying to stay unlisted or anything.”
    “Well, I was just thinking about you today and I wondered if you’d like to see a movie or something?”
    I sit up straight now. Is this for real? Is Mitch really asking me out? Does he actually want to take
me
on a real date? No, I tell myself, it’s probably just a friendly kind of thing. He’s just being nice. Well, whatever!
    “Yeah, sure,” I tell him in a calm voice, trying to hold back my enthusiasm. No need to look too desperate. I mean it’s not like I’ve never gone out with a guy before. Even if it was only once.
    “Cool.” Then he tells me the title of the movie, and it turns out to be something I actually wanted to see. “Pick you up a little before seven then?”
    “Sounds good.” I’m doing the mental math now. My curfew on school nights is ten, and I think I’m safe.
    After I hang up, I do a happy dance! I turn up my music even louder and I totally get down in my nicely cleaned room. This is so cool!
So cool!
In some ways it almost makes up for this thing with Jess. Almost. Anyway, it will be a good distraction. Not just for me either, because I’m thinking that if by some miracle I can get Mitch seriously interested in me, as in dating regularly, well, maybe that will distract others from drawing any false conclusions about me and my
ex
–best friend. I can only hope.
    When Mom gets home, I’ll tell her the news. And here’s one of the benefits of having a liberal type of mom. She’ll be totally cool with it. She doesn’t have problems with me dating. Well, as long as I don’t get pregnant. Seriously, she’s not even too opposed to premarital sex. I know this for a fact since she’s given me her little sex talk enough times. “Just make sure that you always use protection,” she’s warned me more times than I care to recall. “And make sure that you save that first time for someone really special.”
    Of course, this just makes me laugh, and then I usually end up telling her something like, “Yeah, someone special—
like my husband on my wedding night!”
Of course, then she just gives me that patronizing smile of hers, like she knows everything about everything, and I am still so young and inexperienced. But I do plan to prove her wrong. Someday, she will be at my wedding, like ten or more years from now, and she will know that I remained a virgin, and she will know that I chose to wait, to save myself, and she will see that my husband is so glad that I did, and that God is going to bless our marriage . . .
    “Ramie,” calls my mom from downstairs.
    I go and stick my head out over the landing. “Did you have a good workout?” I ask in pleasant voice.
    She tosses me a slightly guilty smile. “Yes, we did. Although we probably overindulged afterward.” Then she confesses to getting the big-size sandwich at Schlotzky’s. “And chips! But I brought you a pastrami on rye,” she says, holding up a red-and-green bag.
    “Sounds good,” I tell her. “I’ve been cleaning my room all day and I’m starving!”
    “Wow.” She looks impressed. “Good for you, Ramie.”
    “And I’m going to the movies with Mitch Bryant tonight. He’ll be here in about half an hour,” I say as I run down the stairs to retrieve the food.
    She nods. “Have I met Mitch before?”
    I kind of laugh. Like has Mom met any guys that I know before? The only place where Mom ever meets my friends is at my games, which doesn’t happen all that often, since she doesn’t come to that many anymore. And then the friends she meets are