Free A Deep Dark Secret by Kimberla Lawson Roby Page A

he needs.”
    “It’s not like we’re girlfriend and boyfriend, anyway, so I’m not even thinking about that.”
    “But you know it’s only a matter of time before he officially asks you to be his girl.”
    “We don’t know that.”
    “ I know it, because Marcus already gave me the four-one-one. He also told me that Kyle has wanted to ask you for a while but then you went through whatever it was you were going through and wouldn’t talk to him.”
    Jillian could barely contain herself. Kyle really wanted her to be his girl. She couldn’t have been happier, but there was one thing she hoped Nikki was dead wrong about: that he would soon want her to have sex with him. Even oral sex wasn’t something she was willing to do, because just the thought of letting Kyle put his thing in her mouth was enough to make her ill. Just the thought of oral sex, period, reminded her of her father and sent cold chills running through her. What she hoped was that Kyle would continue being the nice boy he seemed to be and not at all like Marcus.
    Nikki closed her polish bottle, but her face turned serious. “Can I ask you something, Jill?”
    “Yeah, go ahead.”
    “What was up with you last month? I mean, I know I’ve asked you this before, but why did you just cut me off the way you did? You wouldn’t talk to me at school, you wouldn’t talk to me on the phone, and if we’re supposed to be best friends, then I don’t understand why you can’t tell me. You cut everyone off, you stopped doing all our extracurricular stuff, and you seemed so sad.”
    Jillian wished Nikki would stop bringing this up and would just forget it ever happened. Life was finally good for Jillian at home now, and she didn’t want to think about all the times when it hadn’t been. What she wanted was to put every bit of that behind her and move on.
    “It was just some weird phase I went through. I’m not sure why, but it’s over now and I’m fine.”
    “Did I do something to cause it?”
    “No. Not at all.”
    “Did someone else do something to you?”
    “No.” Jillian’s tone was short. “I told you, it was just some phase that I can’t explain. It just happened, all right?”
    “Well, it’s not like you have to get so upset about it. I’m only asking because I was really worried about you, and I was afraid for you.”
    “Afraid of what?”
    “I don’t know. That maybe somebody was hurting you. At least that’s what Ashley and Shelly were worried about, anyway, and that made me worry, too.”
    Jillian tossed the magazine she’d been reading onto the bed. “Hurting me how?”
    Nikki hunched her shoulders. “How am I supposed to know? They were just worried, and right before you started talking to me again, we were gonna ask you about it. But then we saw that you were happy again and acting like your old self.”
    “Well, all three of you were worrying for nothing.”
    “I know that now, but when you wouldn’t talk to me, I didn’t know what to think.”
    Jillian picked up the magazine and ignored Nikki’s last comment. Now she wondered what everyone else at school had been thinking, too. She’d done a fabulous job of pretending to be happy whenever she was home, making sure her mother didn’t notice at all how depressed she was, and now she wished she’d put on the same facade at school. But she’d become so tired of putting on like everything was okay, all day long, and finally when her father had resorted to taking photos of her naked body and had continued forcing himself inside her mouth, she’d broken down emotionally, and school was the place she’d chosen to let her true feelings show.
    Nikki turned back around, facing her desk, and unscrewed a bottle of topcoat. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything else on the subject, and Jillian hoped that would be the case from now on, because what she wanted was to put that miserable chapter of her life behind her. It was over, and she didn’t want to dwell on it or think