Free Sheltered by Charlotte Stein

do?
    Somehow she’d become perpetually trapped at sixteen. Forever surrounded by virginal rings and projects with her shaky mother and handshakes with her father, who alternated between finding her stupid and too clever.
    By the time the end of her last class rolled around, she felt as though she’d been wrapped in clingfilm and left to suffocate. Janie Lawson’s face—so almost featureless and perfectly surrounded by blonde hair—made her want to punch, hard. Preferably something on Janie but she’d settle for something on anyone.
    A wall would have done. A tree.
    But of course if she did any of that, someone would notice. Always, someone would notice. They noticed when she sighed too heavily or wanted to talk about something other than wholesome books, and oh they would definitely notice if she kept jostling her leg up and down, like this.
    She did it on the bus ride home, and while at the kitchen counter, eating a neatly cut sandwich with a glass of milk. She did it until half past six rolled around and both of them departed, and then she tried not to do it in front of the glass doors.
    They’d kissed, and he’d said some glorious things about being crazy for her, but that didn’t mean she had to seem like an obsessed maniac. So she waited politely by the dining table instead. Thought random and sick-making things like, What if he decided not to come today ? What if he’s been in a bike crash, and the next thing I know about him will be his picture on the news—
    Evil Biker Thug Kills Twenty-Two in Massive Freeway Pile-Up.
    She swallowed too hard and tried to concentrate on something else. Her clothes, for example. She’d chosen another baggy sweater but something inside had whispered, Go with a tighter item of clothing until her stomach had started doing little flips and most of her had just wanted to crush that little voice under her thumb.
    He wouldn’t appreciate it if she went with something tighter. He’d just think she was being sluttish and obvious, and if it was her innocence he liked then the whole thing was just doomed.
    Though somehow, she suspected that wasn’t the case. It didn’t feel as if he enjoyed her being a naïve idiot at all. It felt as if her lack of surety made him nervous, awkward, not quite able to do whatever he might usually do. She could feel him holding back even during the simplest of things—like looking at pictures that may or may not be naked—and it was this thought that decided the matter.
    Plain white t-shirt with pink sleeves it was. And if it kind of made it obvious when her nipples were hard, well…that was okay, wasn’t it? He had to know by now that thinking about him and being around him caused certain things to happen.
    Though when she saw herself in the mirror—breasts clearly outlined through the material, two little stiff points poking right out—she almost had second thoughts. She even got as far as the bottom of the stairs, ready to change out of the flimsy thing and into something more decent.
    But then she heard his knock, slow and heavy on the glass. And when she turned she could see him through the kitchen archway, waiting and waiting for her to cut her way out of the clingfilm.
    She didn’t hesitate.
    The problem was, however, that he did . At first it didn’t even look as though he wanted to come in. He just stood on the threshold, eyes trained resolutely on her face. Of course she saw them slide downward the moment he thought she wasn’t looking, but seriously—did he think there was something bad about that?
    It made her shiver inside, to think of him staring at her breasts. It made her wonder a cavalcade of strange and arousing things, like, Does it make him hard, when he sees me like this ? Does he like it, does he like seeing my stiff nipples?
    Though naturally such thoughts were followed by less sure ones. After all, she had absolutely no idea if she looked like every other girl. She knew at least that her breasts were bigger than