Girl Meets Boy Read Online Free PDF

pressing my buttons.
    “It’s not your fault,” I said. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
    “I’m not sorry for that, ” he said, putting his hand on top of mine. “Touching you was incredible. I liked that. I’m just sorry it made you feel bad. I know you haven’t had an easy life.”
    Another floodgate opened. For the next couple of hours, I did something I never do. I told the truth. He’d seen the best of me, naked and orally fixated in his father’s Chevy. Now he’d seen my ugly parts too. He heard about every crack-blurred dealer my mother turned a blind eye to … every hand I let touch me after they were through. Every ache and sorrow I’d ever swallowed was on the table. When that was done, panic was all I had left.
    “Listen,” I said. “I’m gonna drive away now, but I want you to promise me that if something happens, you won’t blame yourself.”
    “Something happens?” Johnny said, worried sick. I hated him for being so sincere. “Something like what?”
    “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Just promise.”
    “Something like what?” he said again, more loudly.
    “It doesn’t matter,” I said, feeling the balance starting to return as I slid into my car. “Just know it won’t be your fault.”
    “I do love you, Wanda,” he said. “I mean, I think I really do. You haven’t been off my mind for five minutes since I saw you last.”
    I looked up at him, those warm brown eyes full of a tenderness I’d never understand. And for a fleeting moment, I almost believed him. Then I remembered all the dirt I’d unloaded five minutes earlier. Get serious, I told myself. There is no friggin’ way.
    I smiled weakly. “You couldn’t love me, Johnny,” I said, feeling naked to the soul. “Because there’s nothing about me good enough to love.”
    I gunned my engine and nearly ripped Johnny’s arm off in the process. If he’d been another guy, burning rubber wouldhave been strictly for show. But being that honest left me feeling uneasy.
    Johnny wasn’t having it. The guy drove like a NASCAR champion on acid. I tried to lose him. I drove past his house. I drove past mine. But he was relentless. I finally pulled over at the open spot by the river.
    The little prick got out of his car and started knocking on my window. Jesus, I thought, doesn’t this guy know when he’s been thrown clear of a runaway train? What could he possibly want from me now?
    “I do love you, Wanda,” he said when I finally rolled down my window. “And I can prove it.”
    I would have done Johnny Smith that night, even if he’d called me a worthless whore. But I couldn’t get enough of him when I let myself pretend we might be in love. I drove home in a daze. I drove home braced for a fall.
    It didn’t come right away. At first we spent every moment together. Love for Johnny meant driving me to school and helping me cheat in Pre-Calc. Love for me was what happened on the way to school, during lunch, and even every once in a while, during class.
    “What in the hell are you doing?” he’d said when I followed him into the boy’s room. “Did you miss the sign on the door?”
    “There’s no mistaking that sign,” I said, unbuttoning my sweater. “But what I’m looking for is a man.”
    Johnny zipped up his fly and bolted in about three seconds flat. Unfortunately, I was still refastening my top when Coach Bob Butler waltzed in for an R-rated view.
    “Miss Wickham,” he said, “care to explain what you’re doing half naked in the boy’s restroom?”
    “Looking for a real man?” I said, brushing against his PE teacher thighs. “Know any that might be interested?”
    “I know one about to give you a Friday detention for being in the wrong bathroom without a pass,” he said.
    “Oh, come on, Bobby,” I said, turning on the charm. “Aren’t you getting enough from your born-again wife?”
    “Praise the Lord,” he said smiling. “I get plenty. And I’ll see you for thirty extra minutes