Purity Read Online Free PDF

you crabs or ask you to pee on him. That sort of thing.”
    “That’s disgusting,” I say with a laugh, wiping water from the fountain’s spray out of my eyes.
    “Some dude asked my friend Marjorie to pee on him once. I’m just saying, choose your partner carefully. Hence,
the list
.”
    “You think you’re going to be able to just tell some guy, ‘Hey, man, you’re at the top of my list of People I Wanna Screw Before a Ball. Would you mind removing your pants?’ ” Jonas breaks in, holding out his arms for another fall.
    “Seriously, Jonas?” I ask. “You really think I won’t be able to find a single guy in Ridgebrook willing to have sex with me if I go through with this? Ouch. Way to cut deep.” I exhale and fall, trying to relax as per Ruby’s order.
    “That’s not what I meant,” Jonas says. “I’m just saying, despite what you see on television, I’d wager that most of the guys sans crabs and sans peeing fetishes aren’t the sort to want to, um…
make love
with you just so you can loophole out of a vow.”
    I laugh so hard Jonas has to put me down right away. The words
make love
have never sounded so awkward. Ruby kneels on the ground to control herself, tears forming in the corners of her eyes, while Jonas crosses his arms.
    “Okay… okay…” Ruby says through giggle outbursts as we attempt to contain ourselves. “First off, Jonas, hearing you say ‘make love’ is just all kinds of special. Secondly, making love is totally out of the question.” She turns to me. “Look, Shel, there’s getting laid, there’s dirty porno sex, there’s making love, there’s… well, I’m sure there are more.They’re not the same thing. You need to go into this knowing which one you’re shooting for. ’Cause if you’re trying to make love and you end up getting laid, you’ll be disappointed.”
    I climb back onto the edge of the fountain and pause for a moment, staring up toward the sun. The sky is a bright, nearly cloudless blue, and my vision blurs from water and light. I squeeze my eyes shut this time and fall backward into Jonas’s arms.
    “If I did this—and I’m not saying I will—which one do you think I should aim for?” I ask as he lets me down. “I mean, making love is out since, well, there’s no one I’m in love with.”
    “I recommend just getting laid. Nice, quick, and commitment-free,” Ruby says as Jonas takes my hand to help me back onto the fountain.
    I nod—“getting laid” seems the simplest of the three. The least big of a deal. I can handle that. Maybe. As a last resort, anyway, if I can’t find another loophole. I pitch backward toward Jonas again, locking my eyes on the sky. A weird, out-of-control-type feeling rushes through my chest, where my body is shouting “no!” It stops when Jonas’s arms catch me.
    I have to keep the Promises. They’re that important—more important than my virginity. I open my eyes as Jonas lets my legs down. Ruby stares at her camera, then begins to unscrew it from her tripod.
    “Awesome. I want to see what these look like on my computer before we spend too long out here. But if they suck, you have to come back with me,” she says. We trudge back to ourcars. Ruby ducks inside and turns the AC on in her hybrid before climbing in.
    “Let me know what you decide about the sexing, Shelby,” she calls over the roof as Jonas and I open Lucinda’s doors. The scent of heat and stale McDonald’s wafts out. “Or if you or Boy Genius there can think of something else, because I’d love to know if I overlooked an easier loophole.”
    “I will,” I say, nodding. Ruby grins and slides into her car, then eases out of the parking lot.
    Jonas and I sink into our seats, both frantically rolling the hand-crank windows down. I stare out over the park as Jonas backs Lucinda up, finally looking away when the field disappears behind the wall of trees that line the road.
    “Look, it’s just… I know you don’t want to take this vow and