Men, Women & Children Read Online Free PDF Page A

seriously ready to actually do it, and I’m going to before I get to high school so I’m not completely retarded when I do it with a high school boy for the first time.”
    Brooke said, “My opinion is that you should probably know who you’re going to do it with before you make that kind of decision.”
    Hannah said, “I was thinking Chris.”
    Brooke said, “Oh my god. That’s gross. He’s seriously repulsive. He showed me the grossest porn I have ever seen in my life today at lunch.”
    Hannah said, “So he showed you porn? Who cares? I just don’t want to get to high school without having done it. And he’s cute enough and I think he likes me so . . . whatever.”
    Hannah looked at her phone as it beeped to indicate a new text message and said, “My mom’s here. See you guys tomorrow.” Hannah picked up her purse and left the gymnasium.
    Brooke and Allison had a short discussion about the likelihood of Hannah and Chris having sex before their eighth-grade year came to a close. They both seemed to think it was unlikely that this event would come to pass, but neither was willing to rule it out completely. And if they did have sex, Hannah and Chris would be the first among their peers to have done so, which was significant to both Allison and Brooke. Despite not being ready to have sex, Brooke confided in Allison that she had always thought she and Danny would be the first couple to have sex among their peers. They had been together longer than any other couple at Goodrich. To allow Chris and Hannah to have the distinction of being the first of their peers to have sex seemed wrong somehow to Brooke. Allison agreed and added that all of her dedication to a strict diet over the summer was done to attract a boy this year and she hoped that it would pay off.
    Brooke did not discuss the fact that the competitive nature her father had instilled in both her and her little brother since birth made her incensed at the thought of Hannah beating her in anything, including being the first girl to be sexually active. It wasn’t that Brooke had any desire to become sexually active. The opposite was true. She knew she wasn’t ready to enter that phase of her life and even thought that doing it in the eighth grade was somewhat clichéd. She had seen enough episodes of Tyra , Dr. Phil , Oprah , and other talk shows dealing with teen pregnancy and prostitution to have developed an idea that sexual activity before the age of sixteen or seventeen was nothing she was interested in. But she could not ignore the desire to at least perform oral sex just to have done it at least once so that Hannah Clint would have nothing over her. Brooke had never received a grade below A-minus on any report card, test, or assignment. She was the captain of the Olympiannes and was determined to be the varsity cheerleading captain at North East High School by her junior year. That right was most normally reserved for a senior, but Brooke had resolved to achieve this rank as junior and was fairly certain that she would be able to attain her goal if she worked hard enough at it.
    This ultracompetitive mode of thinking led Brooke to believe that, as the captain of the Olympiannes and the best-looking girl in the school, she should be the best at anything that any of the Olympiannes did, including being sexually experienced.
    I n the south parking lot of Goodrich Junior High School, Hannah Clint emerged from the building and got into her mother’s fourteen-year-old Mercedes. Her mother, Dawn, said, “I bought you some underwear. We got a request from a subscriber so we have to do a quick shoot tonight.”
    As Dawn drove back to her mother’s house, where she and Hannah had been living since Hannah was born, she looked at the leather armrest where her initials were monogrammed. This car was the last piece of her old life, the last real reminder of what she had left behind.
    Dawn had once lived in Los Angeles. She had aspirations of becoming an