Free Touch by Francine Prose

was too overwhelmed and depressed to want to look for trouble. And it wasn’t as if we were having sex or smoking or doing something illegal. One of her kids had been born handicapped, too, so maybe she secretly liked to see Shakes getting some low-level action.
    On those mornings, with my head next to Shakes’s, I felt less like a girl or a boy, and more like…well, more like a person . That’s how close it sometimes felt we were—like two halves of the same creature. Together we made up one normal human being: I was in pretty good physical shape, if you didn’t count the oversized boobs. Shakes had the physical problems, but he also had something I wanted and needed, which was a way of looking at the world that was cool and smart and courageous.
    I was glad to be his friend, and glad we made out on the bus, and glad for how good it felt when he touched my breasts and we stopped pretending it was accidental.
    And then all that ended in one day—one morning, to be exact. I can tell you exactly when. It’s all recorded in the papers Joan’s lawyer, Cynthia, filed. But even ifI forget it, I could just look up the date of the January senior class trip to Washington.
    It was a gray, sleepy morning. A frozen mist rose off the dirty snow, but it was jungly and hot on the bus. Shakes and I dozed off and kissed, dozed off and kissed some more.
    After a while, I began to notice that Maureen was driving past the houses where the seniors lived, and she wasn’t stopping. And then I remembered they were in Washington for the week, along with the junior honors group that was down in D.C. pretending to be the United Nations. Shakes and I had more time than usual, but even so, it was sad when the bus slowed down and we had to separate and sit up straight.
    When the ninth and tenth and eleventh graders got on, they seemed confused. How come the bus was so empty? Then they figured it out. Party time!
    Having the older kids off the bus changed the entire mood. All the seats were up for grabs, everyone just sat where they wanted. A seating free-for-all. It was anarchy, I guess you could say, and we liked it. Because for one day, that day, on that bus, we were free .
    Even though the normal rules were obviouslysuspended, the younger kids still couldn’t get up the nerve to go for the very last rows. So Shakes and I had the back to ourselves for a while. The seat in front of us stayed empty, and the seat in front of that.
    When Chris and Kevin got on the bus, Shakes and I waved and yelled out to them to come back and sit with us.
    What an idiot I was! When I think of it now, I feel like some fool saying something friendly and nice and then someone insults her, and she’s left standing there with a big friendly smile on her stupid, innocent face.
    Chris and Kevin took the seat in front of us. I was so happy, at first. All four of us were together again. It was as if they hadn’t decided I was a different person because I had breasts. As if they hadn’t made up their minds that they had to stop being friends with me because they’d seen me with my head on Shakes’s shoulder. I remembered how it felt in sixth grade when we were the kings of the grade-school bus! It had been so much fun. I was always sorry when the bus rides were over—first when we got to school, and then when we got home in the afternoon.
    But it wasn’t like that now. It couldn’t be. I wascrazy to think we could just travel back in time to the way things were before.
    Chris and Kevin sat down. They turned and lightly high-fived Shakes.
    Chris and Kevin said hi to me. Not warm or friendly in the least. They were just being polite.
    When Daria Wells got on, she runway-walked straight to the back and took the seat in front of them. Chris half stood and leaned over to talk to her. I don’t think he consciously knew that he was sort of squirming around, humping the back of the seat. I thought, He wouldn’t do that if he knew how he looked from behind.
    Big Maureen