Girl Meets Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

to help me or not?”
    “Oh, I’m going to help you,” I said, picturing him breathless for a much better reason. “I’m definitely going to show you the way.”
    I had him eating out of my hand a couple of weeks later. You’d think no one ever listened to him babbling on about howhis father ignored his mother and how tough it was to be such a babe. He certainly got that part right. He was incredibly hot. And I was the attentive little friend, complete with visible cleavage and electric “accidents.” When my chest brushed his arm as I reached for a menu or my thigh pressed against his when we sat together in a booth, Johnny wanted Wanda Wickham’s physical therapy instead of Rita. So I decided it was time to set the hook.
    “I can’t do this anymore,” I said the next time we met. “I mean, what’s in this for me? You’re getting the chance to build a great relationship. All I’m gonna get is left behind. It hurts to be invisible, Johnny.” I worked up a few tears for dramatic effect. “But it’s not your fault. You didn’t ask me to fall in love.”
    Ding! Ding! Ding! Johnny’s puppy-dog eyes said it all. I’d hit the perfect combination of hurt and lonely. We were horizontal in his father’s pickup before he had time to start the engine. That’s when things got a little twisted.
    I decided to stack on the guilt while I put my bra back on, just like his mommy. “That’s okay, Johnny,” she’d say. “Run along and play with your friends. I’ll just sit alone in the dark until the rum makes me cross-eyed.” Should work for me, too.
    “Oh, Johnny,” I said. “What have I done? I didn’t want to do that again unless the guy loved me. And you could never love a girl like me.” Then I pumped up a few more tears. But here’s the weird part. Once they started, I couldn’t make them stop. It was like the floodgates had opened and we were being washed away.
    “Well, uh … “ he stumbled. But I couldn’t stop blubbering long enough to listen.
    “Don’t,” I said. “I don’t want you to lie.” I bolted for my car. For the first time since my eleventh birthday and my second foster father, I couldn’t tell what was real.
    The waters receded two hours after I drove home and locked myself in my bedroom, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Johnny. As he’d peeled my shirt back, it had hit me. This wasn’t some old pothead slipping a finger into my Sesame Street panties. This was a guy that lied to protect his girlfriend. He was trying to do what was right, even if he didn’t have a clue about how to do it. His lips savored every inch of my skin, like a toddler with his first taste of ice cream.
    Johnny was the real thing. And I wasn’t even a reasonable facsimile. For the first time in my life, that wasn’t how I wanted it to be.
    For six days, I couldn’t look at him without going premenstrual. None of my normal scams—the sassy mouth, the sexual innuendo—got me past it. He’d smile and say he was sorry, and I’d puddle. I’d smell how much he wanted to touch me and hate myself for wanting it too. “That’s no way to stay in control,” I’d tell myself. But I guess I wasn’t listening.
    “Meet me at the Frosty Freeze,” he said, when I gave up on not answering the phone. “I need to see you.”
    I told him I didn’t trust myself not to touch him, so he promised to be strong enough for us both, but that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted him to lie to me, the way he lied to the girls that really mattered. I wanted him to tell me he loved me so I could hate him when I found out it wasn’t true. I wanted the emotional power to play him. But things weren’t going my way.
    “I’m really sorry,” he said, almost before the booth seat was warm. I sat across from him, trying to harness the reach of my legs. I didn’t want to accidentally brush against his jock shoes, or his ankle or his leg. That was virgin territory for me—trying NOT to touch a guy that was