by Sophia Ryan
"Alright," he said and slowly removed his arms from around me. I felt the cold immediately rush in around me, though the night air was warm.
Our eyes met and held. He reached out and ever so lightly stroked a thick strand of my hair between his finger and thumb, brushing the side of my face with his thumb. I grabbed his hand and nuzzled my cheek against it, then pressed a kiss into his palm. It smelled like our sex.
"See you, Angel." He removed his hand from mine and climbed onto his bike. With a quick touch of his fingers and flick of his wrist, the cycle kicked to life, and he rocked the bike to move up the kickstand.
At the loud grumble of the bike, the front door opened and my parents, both dressed in their robes and slippers, marched like soldiers out to the end of the driveway where Nick and I had parked. The stretched looks on their faces told me they were not happy; their words confirmed it.
"Angela, where the hell have you been?"
"We've been worried to death."
"Are you OK?"
"Why didn't you call?"
The questions came at me so rapid-fire fast I couldn't respond to any of them. Every time I tried, the other parent would fire a new question at me. I shot a "kill me now" glance at Nick, who wore a little grin on his face and seemed to be enjoying the scene.
"Mom, Dad. Please . . . . one question at a time."
Dad, ever the aggressive, take-charge lawyer, spoke first. "Sean called us, frantic, saying that you jumped out of the car and ran off, and he hadn't been able to find you."
Mom, standing slightly behind Dad, arms crossed, chimed in. "What would possess you to do something like that, Angela? We raised you to have better sense."
I found an open spot and charged in. "Sean was drunk and being a jerk. Did he mention that when he called to tattle on me?"
Silence fell over our odd little group, and I could see my parents struggling with how to process the information I had given them. I couldn't tell whether that meant they were having trouble believing that the prince they had chosen for their princess was really a warty toad, or just having trouble believing my version of the night's events. They stared at me, then at Nick, then at each other.
"Let's take this discussion inside." Dad took my one arm, Mom the other, and they ushered me toward the house.
I broke free and went back to Nick, despite their quick protests.
"Thanks for everything. Sorry about the parents," I whispered.
"Bet you wish you'd gone home with me," he whispered back in a teasing voice.
I nodded.
"Ask me nice and you can still come."
We stared into each other's eyes, saying our final goodbye. Then he shifted the bike into gear and, with a tip of his chin, rode off into the night. I stood on the sidewalk and watched the darkness swallow him.
"Take me with you, Nick," I whispered, but it was too late. He was gone.
Despite the warmth of the late summer night, I shivered, feeling suddenly cold without his arms and kisses to warm me. My heart was as silent and deserted as the empty street.
"Angela . . . I said now!" Dad's voice was firm as if he'd been insistent for some time.
After Nick disappeared around the corner, I sighed and turned toward the firing squad. I walked past my parents and into the house. It didn't take them long to start the questioning again, and this time it was about Nick.
"Who was that boy and why were you riding on his motorcycle?" Dad asked.
"Did he do that to your dress?" Mom asked, her eyes wide with worry as they swept over my ripped dress.
"His name is Nick Donnelly. We go to school together. He gave me a ride home after Sean stranded me at the river. Because of Nick, I wasn't walking the dark streets alone. I'd think you'd be a little more grateful to him instead of assuming he had attacked me and ripped my dress."
Mom's face went ghostly pale. She tightened the belt at her silk robe and pulled the collar more firmly in place over her chest. "Did you say, Nick Donnelly?"
At my nod, she touched her hand to her face and slumped against Dad as if she were feeling faint. Dad put his arm around her but continued his tirade as if it were a normal occurrence for her to faint against him, like women in old movies always did.
"If you were in trouble, you should have called us to come pick you up instead of going off with some strange boy."
The tone in his last two words enraged me for some reason. "First of all, he's not some strange boy," I insisted, "and second, my phone was in my bag in Sean's car, so I couldn't call anyone."
"Donnelly. Donnelly. I don't recognize the name, and I certainly don't recall you ever mentioning him to us." Dad wore his pensive scowl – eyebrows furrowed, index finger pressing his lips—and I was sure he was mentally going over the country club membership roster to place the name.
"Why are we even discussing Nick?" I said. "Why aren't you more concerned with how Sean treated me tonight? Do you know what he did?"
"Sean told us what happened, and frankly, I'm surprised by your lack of good judgment."
"What? What load of shit did he shovel at you and Mom?"
"Load of shit? Is that the way you talk in front of your mother? Look how upset she is. If this is an example of that Nick's influence on you, I won't have it. I simply won't have it!"
Dad was right about one thing: Mom did look upset. She looked as if she were going to be sick.
"What did Sean tell you?" I asked.
Though my question was directed to Mom, Dad answered for her. "He said you were upset because he had a beer at the dance, you two argued, then you jumped out of the car and ran off. He said he searched everywhere for you but couldn't find you in the dark, so he left and called us. That was two hours ago. What the hell have you been doing for two hours?"
"Having the best sex of my life!"
OK. No, I didn't say it. But I thought it.
"Sean didn't have 'a' beer; he had at least three. I asked him to take me home but instead he stopped at the river. When I refused to make out with him, he hit me. I jumped out of the car to get away from him. He pulled my dress to stop me, and that's when it ripped. I was walking home when I ran into Nick. Unlike Sean, Nick gave me a ride so I wouldn't have to risk my life walking home alone."
"What was this Nick doing at the river this late at night, Angela? Think about that while you're jumping to his defense."
"I can't believe you two are so in love with Sean—or the idea of Sean and me as a couple—that you're willing to ignore the truth. Well, I'm not . . . Sean is a jerk and I'm never going to see him again!"
With that, I stormed up the stairs to my room and slammed the door on the sound of Dad calling my name. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror hanging on the door.
My hair looked like a tornado had touched down in it. My feet were dirty from walking barefoot across dirt, mud, leaves, and grass at the river. My new dress was ripped and dirty, thanks to Sean.
Other than swollen red lips, my face carried no evidence of Sean's punch or the kisses and caresses Nick had bandaged it with.
Thinking about Nick and what we had done sent tingles across my entire body. My nipples hardened and strained against the silky material. Tentatively, my hand moved to tease one point as Nick had done. The look on my face was one of pure pleasure. The look turned to sadness when I realized I would never again feel that with him again.
I pulled the ruined dress over my head, tossed it into the trashcan, and climbed into the shower.
Minutes later, as I was snuggled in bed writing about my first and only night with Nick in my journal, a soft knock sounded on my door. Mom walked in and sat down on the side of my bed.
"Angela, I . . . ." She paused, hesitant, for some reason, to complete her sentence.
"Mom, what is it?" I said impatiently. "You're acting so weird tonight."
My sarcasm steeled her. "Angela, you know that your father and I love you very much, and we only want the very best for you."
I tried not to r
oll my eyes. I'd heard this preamble a million time. It usually came before their insistence that I do something I didn't want to do. "I know that."
"I . . . You know I don't usually pry into your life . . . ."
Yeah, right!
". . . but after tonight, I . . . ."
"Mom, what is it you're trying so hard not to say?"
"Did you use . . . protection?"
"Protection?" The word caught in my throat and came out sounding rough and ugly.
"When you and Nick . . . had . . . sex tonight."
I felt a burning in my stomach like I'd been stabbed, and I wanted to heave from the sheer embarrassment of it all.
"Mom! Why would you think that?" I felt a massive twinge of guilt lying to my mom, but there was no way I was having a sex talk with her tonight, right after I had sex.
That was just way too creepy!
She placed her hand on my journal and kept her eyes downcast to its colorful cover.
"You read my journal?" Now I realized why she was acting so weird earlier. She had read my vow to "be with Nick Donnelly if I ever got the chance" and was sure I had kept that vow tonight. Feeling betrayed and violated, I grabbed my journal and held it to my chest in a protective clutch. "How could you!"
"My only excuse is that you're my daughter and I love you. These days, your journal is the only way I can find out what's happening in your life, what you're thinking and feeling, whether you're happy, when you might be in trouble."
"Have you ever thought about just asking me?" Sarcasm gave my words a bite.
"I do, but you just shut me out. You used to come to me to talk about your life, your friends, but you haven't done that since you turned fourteen. You've grown so secretive, and I don't know what's going on with you." Her voice wavered, and the cherry red flush that had appeared at the tip of her surgically enhanced nose told me she was fighting tears. "I'm worried."
A pocket of grief erupted in my heart and I softened my tone. "I'm not trying to shut you out of my life, Mom. I just need some privacy."
"When you love someone, and you've spent years protecting that person, it's hard to let go. It's one of the lessons I'm trying to learn. But, Angela, if I see you headed down a path that I know will only bring you pain, my job as a parent, as someone who loves you, is to do or say whatever it takes to help you steer clear of it."
"I'm not a little girl who needs her parents to decide everything for her. I'm making my own choices, my own mistakes, and learning the lessons I need to learn. You can't do it for me. You have to trust that I'll do the right thing . . . and come to you if I can't make that decision on my own."
Mom paused for a moment, her watery blue eyes holding my steely brown ones.
"When you came home with that boy tonight, and you said his name, I nearly passed out from fear that you had done something you couldn't undo, something that would ruin your life. I know how you feel about him; you were very clear about it in your journal."
"Mom, we had the sex talk years ago," I said, my eyes avoiding hers. "Please, let's not rehash it."
"OK. But if you didn't use protection, and you need to go to the gynecologist, I'd be happy to take you and get things . . . taken care of."
"I have no desire to be a teenage mother . . . or to make you a 40-year-old grandmother."
Mom's left eye twitched at the thought of having someone call her grandma, but she quickly hid it by reaching out to push a strand of wet hair away from my face and tuck it behind my ear.
"I love you, my brilliant, beautiful daughter." She hugged me.
Although I was still mad about her invasion of my privacy, I hugged her back.
"I love you, too, but you'll understand if I move to an electronic, password- and alarm-protected journal."
Mom shook her head. "I swear you'll be the death of me yet." She squeezed my hand then left my room, closing the door quietly behind her.
I turned off the lamp, rolled onto my side, my journal clutched tightly against me, and fell asleep thinking about Nick, feeling his warmth running throughout my body. I would deal with the repercussions of my imprudent behavior another day, but now I would replay the scenes of our joining in my mind again and again and enjoy every second.
Chapter Three
I worried all weekend about what I would say to Nick, what he would say to me, when we saw each other in school. I was half worried he'd say something to me and embarrass me in front of my friends, and half worried he'd ignore me, making it clear that I had been nothing but a one-night stand. I wasn't sure which would hurt more.
By lunchtime on Monday, I thought maybe I had lucked out of seeing him that day.
My stomach was too tied up in knots to eat, but I joined up with my best friend, Gena, and another friend, Zoe, as they headed to the cafeteria.
My nose wrinkled in distaste. We usually went off campus, to where the food was palatable. "What are we doing here?"
"We needed a change of scenery," Zoe said, a smile on her poreless face.
"She means the soccer team," Gena added.
"Scenery is about all you're going to get in here," I mumbled as we got in line with the rest of the cattle. Gena and Zoe got their trays and moved down the line choosing their lunch. I, however, had to wait for a clean stack of trays, since my friends got the last two.
The new stack finally arrived, hot and wet, and I grabbed one and slid it down the metal shelf toward the main entrees. I was looking between the greasy, cold pizza and greasy cold burgers and trying to decide which was worse, when hands grasped my hips and a hard body curled itself against my backside. Before I could spin around to see who was handling me so freely, a familiar voice whispered next to my ear.
"It would be a shame to ruin such a perfect stomach with this garbage." As he spoke, his hands slid from my hips and moved forward and down to fan across my lower abdomen. The tips of his long fingers brushed the top of my mound through my skirt, and chills skated the length of my body.
I pushed back against him to break free and I spun around, my face hot.
"Don't do that," I said in a hushed tone, my eyes darting left and right to see who had witnessed the display of intimacy.
"Don't do what?" he asked, the smile on his face going all the way to his eyes.
"Touch me like that. People will think we're . . . ." My face grew hotter at my unfortunate choice of words, remembering that any thoughts "people" got would be right on target. Nick had no qualms about putting words to my thought.
". . . having sex?"
I felt like I'd swallowed my tongue. "Nick!"
He smiled, clearly amused by my outrage. "Oh, hell, Angel, they're going to talk no matter what we do or don't do. Just being seen together is scandalous. Imagine what your friends are thinking now."
I refused to look at them, afraid they would be watching. Nodding his head in their direction, he again prompted me to look.
I sneaked a peek as he continued. "They'll look over at us, then turn away and start talking, then they'll look at us again."
Sure enough, they did just as he bad predicted. I didn't think my face could get any hotter, but it did.
"Have you told them about us, Angel?" He leaned in to whisper the sentence into my ear, the very ear he had nibbled a few nights earlier. The feel of his warm breath against my skin sent shivers of desire up and down my spine. "Did you tell them what we did to each other?"
I turned toward my tray, silent and refusing to meet his eyes.
"Nah, I didn't think so," he continued. "Well, how 'bout we really give them something to talk about." He turned me around to face him and meant to take me in his arms. I stepped, almost jumped, back.
"No!" I said, a bit too loudly, making nearby lunchers turn to stare at us.
I turned back toward my tray and realized I was at the end of the line by the cashier with absolutely nothing on my tray. The cashier looked at me with more than a hint of annoyance in her small, heavily lined eyes.
"No, what," she
asked, her pinched red mouth chewing a wad of gum.
I was hungry but I couldn't go back through the line without further embarrassing myself. My eyes fell to Nick's tray. Somehow along the line, he had chosen a burger and the pizza, two cartons of milk, and two apples. He had multiple hands, I decided.
"No," I repeated, "I am not paying for his lunch." I grabbed one of the apples on his tray. "But he's paying for mine."
Leaving my tray in line, I crunched into the apple and stormed away from Nick toward my friends, the sound of his laughter in my ears and the burning touch of his eyes on my backside.
The deluge of questions started the minute I sat down.
"What was that about?" Gena began.
"Yeah, he's, like, not your type at all," Zoe chirped in.
"Oh, he was just being a jerk."
Shame washed over me and I immediately wanted to retract the lie. I felt like I had betrayed Nick by adding to the already huge pile of rumors going around about him.
Gina eyed me like I'd sprouted another nose on my face, but I quickly switched the subject to how horrible the food was. In truth, the apple I'd bitten into tasted like ash in my mouth. Thankfully, neither said anything else about Nick.
* * * * *
The library was all but deserted when I went in during lunch the following day to find a book for my history report. My concentration was on the row of books in front of me, so I didn't see Nick until he stood before me.
Our eyes met, saying everything our words couldn't. Things like I want your hands on me. I want to kiss you. I want your body on mine.
He moved toward me, slowly, backing me up until I reached the wall at the end of the aisle. Then he moved even closer, pressed against me. His breath was as soft and erotic as a feather brushing against my cheek. My body became electrified at his nearness, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would burst through my rib cage.
"We're going to make love again, Angel." He whispered the promise against my lips, and then kissed them.
The thought of resisting him evaporated in seconds as I melted into the kiss. His tongue plunged into my mouth, tasting me. My arms fastened around his neck, pulled him closer, and my moans of delight encouraged him to do more.
