Free Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

here,” the girl with the cell phone told him.
    “You’ve got to be kidding!” Jared said, and turned toward me. “That’s the thanks I get for a great afternoon?”
    “I thought a simple thank-you would be enough,” I said icily.
    “Get the hell out of my way!” he said, pushing through the two girls in the doorway and disappeared down the hall.
    “It’s okay. You know who he is, right?” one girl asked. I nodded. “Better get dressed,” she said.
    They stayed with me when two officers showed up and I told what had happened. The girls confirmed some of the details, and the men took down Jared’s name and where he lived.
    “Are you injured? Do you need to see a doctor?” one of the officers asked.
    “No, I was lucky,” I said.
    “And you were smart,” the second man said. “You did the right thing to report this. Many girls don’t, and it happens to someone else.”
    Dave heard about it the next day—the ruckus, but not the details—and we walked over to the bookstore together. Halfway through telling him, when I got to the part where Jared was on top of me, one hand over my mouth, I was startled to hear myself sob.
    Dave stopped walking and gathered me in his arms. “I wish I’d been there,” he said, stroking my hair. “He wouldn’t have got very far.”
    That night I dreamed of Dave.
    *  *  *
    I learned that Jared had been put on probation. Partly because I was a little afraid of him retaliating in some way, I began hanging out a lot more with Dave. I made sure that I was always around people on campus, that I always walked with someone at night. I heard that Jared was transferring to George Washington in the fall, but I found I really liked being with Dave.
    I guess it was about this time that I started feeling more serious about him. He wasn’t just my friend anymore; he was my protector. And it was a small step from seeing Dave as the muscular guy who would keep me safe to imagining him as my lover.
    I began thinking about him at night after I’d gone to bed. Dreamed about him sometimes. Dreamed that we were getting ready to make love . . . all the touching and kissing leading up to it, but—as in all my dreams, good or bad—I woke up at the critical moment. Darn!
    Our kisses became more passionate and his caresses made me crazy. The problem was that there was only one month of school left now, and finals were coming fast. I’d always said that when I had intercourse for the first time, I wanted it to be in a private place, with someone I really liked, with all the time in the world, and plenty of opportunities to see each other again. I wished it were back in January, starting a new semester, because Abby went home sometimes for the weekend and I could have had our room to myself. Myself and Dave. Now I was lucky tohave time enough to go back home and pick up a few summer clothes.
    “So, what’s happening with you these days?” Gwen asked, driving us back to the old neighborhood one Sunday in May.
    “I wish I knew,” I said. “I just feel unsettled.” Where had I heard that word before? “I honestly think I was more certain of my life when I started college than I am two years into it. Now, that’s scary. I was wondering . . . Do you ever think of giving up medicine—switching to something else?”
    “Only a couple times a day, and I’ve hardly even started yet,” she said as she exited the beltway.
    We had visited both our families, shamelessly doing our laundry at my place, and picking up some of Gwen’s summer skirts at hers. We’d taken time to cut her beloved Granny’s toenails, and—at my place—do the dishes for Sylvia.
    “Could I send some cherry pie back with you?” Sylvia had asked.
    “Do sharks have teeth?” Gwen had replied, and Dad chuckled as he packed some up for us.
    Now heading back to the U, we lowered the windows and drank in an occasional whiff of lilacs.
    Gwen looked over at me. “Why? You thinking of switching