Free The Stone Girl by Alyssa B. Sheinmel Page B

finally.
“Listen, I know it’s silly, but I think I really like her.”
Sethie wonders why he keeps beginning sentences with the word listen. She’s listening as hard as she can.
“So, listen, I think we have to stop that part of our friendship for now.”
Sethie wishes she weren’t stoned. She stands up.
“There’s no reason to get upset,” Shaw says.
“I’m not upset.”
Shaw reaches up for her hand, and pulls her down into his lap. “I didn’t think things were going to get serious with her. I thought it would be like us, but she’s not that kind of girl.”
Sethie settles into Shaw’s lap. She’s wondering what kind of girl that means she is. Shaw is kissing her neck.
“How about one last time?”
“Hmmm?” Sethie asks, but he kisses her again, and seems to have interpreted her “Hmmm” for “Mmmm.” His cold fingers are reaching under her tights, and somehow that sensation seems louder than anything he’s said. She lies down underneath him and closes her eyes. She thinks he said something about this being the last time. She thinks that she will finally be cool now, with Shaw’s torso pressed against hers. She thinks that she will miss this. She’s not sure when she begins to cry, but Shaw doesn’t know, because he can’t see her face. Shaw’s head is to the left of hers, his chin hovering over her shoulder.
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    When it’s over, he kisses her face where she’s been crying, and she doesn’t understand why he’s being so tender. She doesn’t understand anything, least of all why she’s naked on the floor. Her hips are sore from where Shaw’s hip bones pressed into them, but she doesn’t mind, because that means she’s skinny today.
    “I better get dressed,” Shaw says. Sethie looks up at him. He’s not really undressed, she thinks. His shirt is still on and his pants are down around his ankles. Only one of his shoes is off.
    “I’m glad we did this. Kinda like saying good-bye to the physical part of our friendship.”
Sethie nods.
“Anna could tell when she saw you at the frat house the other night. She said enough was enough. She wants to really be together.”
Sethie nods. She thinks that Shaw is the only high school boy she knows who could get a college girl.
“So I thought, okay, this chick is worth it. I mean,” he says, buckling his belt, “she’s the kind of girl that you fall in love with, right?”
“I only met her for a second,” Sethie says. She remembers having met Anna now; she’d thought Anna was with Jeff Cooper. Anna had long brown hair with just a little bit of a wave to it, and had been wearing a red top that showed off her flat stomach.
“Just wait. You’ll see—she’s really special.”
More special than I am, apparently, Sethie thinks but does not say. Sethie wonders if he uses condoms with Anna.
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    “I’m going home with her over the break. Her family lives in Palm Beach.”
Shaw kisses her on the cheek to say good-bye, just like he says good-bye to Janey, when she’s standing up and fully dressed. When he closes the door, Sethie thinks, well, I guess they rented this place at the perfect time.
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16.
    S
    ethi e spends the weekend studying. These are her senior year finals, after all, the grades that colleges will look at. She stays up late to reread What Maisie Knew cover to cover for her English exam, even
    though really she’s just procrastinating having to study calculus. She stops reading when she notices the picture frames on her windowsill are crooked, and she has to getup to straighten them. She takes Valium to sleep, because it’s perfectly sensible to take Valium to sleep, perfectly sensible to need help relaxing when finals are coming. It’s perfectly normal to be so busy that you don’t have time to eat. Perfectly normal that her phone never rings, not because she’s let the battery die, but because, of course, all of her friends are busy studying too. Perfectly normal that she keeps her bedroom door tightly closed and comes