Family Law by Gin Phillips (phonics reading books .txt) 📕

a man who could have been a murderer or worse and how she’d looked at me across the linoleum, of how something joyful flashed across her face like Watch this before she forced that man backward through his own kitchen. I didn’t think of how she’d slashed and burned at Oak Park, like I was the only thing that mattered, but how clearly I didn’t matter at all.

I didn’t think about any of it.

At first I had thought about it. I had thought, maybe, a phone call. I had thought, maybe, a letter. Some nice words for me to fold up and keep. For weeks I checked the mailbox before Mom got home, but after a while I stopped checking.

My cheek on the carpet, her hand on my head. I told myself that if she’d been killed, it would have been on the news.

“You okay?” said John, and I stood up, the blue purse in my hand. I sidestepped to the scarf, lining up my toes.

“You fouled,” he said. “You don’t get your second shot.”

“There are no fouls in bowling.”

“Well, there are in purse bowling, sweetheart,” he said, and I was sure he had never called me sweetheart.

We wound up sitting on the floor, backs against the wall, sweating. He sat close enough that our elbows touched. Then his knee fell toward me, landing against mine, teepee shaped.

I felt a sort of carbonation run through me. Happiness, I thought, and I had not felt much of that in a long while. I’d escaped my house—oh, the transformative power of lies—but the parties were not so much better, and everything still felt wrong, and I didn’t fit, quite.

But this.

It turned out I had been hoping for his knee against mine. I had hoped for some scene exactly like this, and now it was happening, so what I was feeling was surely excitement, only possibly it was nausea. Mom was always eager for me to procure a boyfriend, but she was emphatic that you did not let boys touch you, that if you did they would think the wrong thing, and what was he thinking and also what was I thinking?

John leaned toward me, and I had a moment to choose, but was I really choosing? I didn’t move. He put a hand on my thigh.

His face, close. Stubble I’d never noticed on the hard angles of his chin.

His hand on my thigh, tightening, and he would think I wanted sex, surely, he would think—he would think—I would have to tell him no, and would he expect it—would he hate me—was this the time to tell him no? Was there a right moment? Had I missed it, like missing that one beat where you can catch the double Dutch jump ropes just right?

I hadn’t said a word.

He smiled, and I didn’t even know this boy, did I? But dimples and purses and his hand on my thigh, moving higher, and this was not excitement, this was terror. Paralysis.

I lifted my hand and grabbed his head, too hard probably. I pulled him closer, and his lips smashed against mine. His mouth opened, so mine did, too. I was a thinking, moving part of this, whatever it was.

Too much thinking. I was expecting more lips and less tongue and teeth. His tongue felt like an oyster, room temperature, wet and thick. Sliding. He turned his head, and I turned my head, and his hand landed on my waist. I liked the heat of that hand, and best of all, it distracted me from his tongue. He leaned over me, pushing me sideways, my elbows digging into the carpet. My head tilted. John latched on to my lip, and then there was less tongue and the angle changed, and the kiss became less oysterish.

Good. It became good. He made a sound, and I liked it.

My thoughts turned off, for a while. I enjoyed the weight of him as he settled on me, one leg between mine. His hand slid down my naked back and over my butt, grabbing hold of it and pulling me against him, and I liked that, too. I could hear both of us breathing. I could feel his penis against my thigh. Penis. The word whirled me away into my head again, thinking of synonyms, of other girls who had talked in whispers, and I thought again that this was a language I didn’t know, that I might answer some question the wrong way. I had been led to believe that boys transformed once a penis got involved. They lost control. I imagined werewolves, fingers curving into claws and chins contorting into snouts. John’s hips shifted against me, and I worked my hands between us, pushing at his chest. It took two shoves, but he rolled off me partially, his hip settling on the floor.

“Okay?” he asked, smiling. He still looked like John.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t want to, you know, do a lot more than—”

“Bowl?” he asked.

I laughed. It made a difference.

“Maybe more bowling?” he said.

He was a nice boy, and I nodded. He pressed himself against me again, his lips on mine. His hand slid under my silky shirt, up and up, barely grazing the bare underside of my breast, because obviously I couldn’t wear a bra with this thing.

This was not terror. I pushed back against him. I felt his back flex under my hands, and I wanted my hands under his shirt.

The door banged open. I jerked away, and John moved, too, but much more slowly than I did. Tamara and Taylor stood in the doorway, a bottle of something clear between them. They had red Solo cups in their hand.

“At least you had your clothes on,” said Taylor, his arm around Tamara, squeezing. I could see her pale-blue bra strap, too tight, cutting into her skin.

I felt my face heat up, and the blush embarrassed me as much as being wrapped around John. And cutting through the embarrassment, I thought, Taylor Boatwright is making out