Free One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones, Ann Sullivan Page B

used to tell you when I was therapizing you? Worry is negative prayer. Besides, Ray isn’t the
slightest bit
interested in that smut tart. He never even seems to notice her, not even when she bats her lashes at him all during math class and keeps running her tongue over her lips like she’s doing a bad impression of Marilyn Monroe or something. I watch him the whole time, and trust me, he literally doesn’t even look in her direction. You rock his world, Ruby. So RELAX!!!
    Love,
    Liz
    P.S. Cameron and Whip sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g …

    We’ve in Dream Class
    In our usual circle,
when suddenly the gong starts sounding.
Bong. Bong! BONG!
BONG!
    All of the kids leap up
and rush across the room
to duck under their desks.
    They grab hold of a desk leg with one hand,
and cover their necks with the other.
So
I
do, too.
    But my heart’s beating faster
than the wings of a hummingbird.
What’s going
on
?
    Is that nonstop bonging
a signal that we’re about to be
attacked by a chemical weapon?
    I glance up and notice Wyatt
trying to catch my eye from underneath his desk.
How can he think about
flirting
at a time like this?
    Then
the gong stops ringing.
Just as suddenly as it began.
    Everyone crawls out
from under the desks
and comes back to sit in the circle.

    At which point, Feather commends us
for our quick response to “the crisis.”
The
crisis
?
    I nudge Colette and whisper,
“Do you mind if I ask you
what the heck just happened?”
    â€œOh, that?” she says,
blinking her lavender eyes at me.
“That was just an earthquake drill.”
    An
earthquake
drill?
Oh, Jesus … Give me a good
old-fashioned hurricane
any
day.
    At least you know when
they’re
coming.

    I’m Heading into the Cafeteria
    When for some unknown reason
Colette grabs my hand,
and leads me away from the throngs
to sit together on a bench by the pot garden.
Just the two of us.
Like I’m one of the inner circle or something.
    And in two seconds flat, we’re talking about sex.
She tells me that none of her friends are virgins.
“You’re considered a freak around here
if you haven’t lost your virginity
by the time you turn fifteen,” she says.
“They don’t call it El Lay for nothing.”
    She says she lost hers
with a mega-famous movie star’s son.
She tells me the name of his father,
but makes me swear not to tell a soul.
She says they did it in his pool house during a party.
“It only took about a minute,” she says.
“It was over so fast it wasn’t even funny.”
    â€œDid you love him?” I ask.
She looks startled. “Yeah. I guess.
Yeah. Sure. Why else?” she says with a shrug.
Then, suddenly, she asks me how far
I’ve
gone.
Can she be trusted
with such highly classified information?

    I take a deep breath.
Then I confess: “Only to second base.”
Her eyebrows shoot up.
“But when you did that improv,” she says,
“you seemed so … I don’t know …
so … experienced.”
    â€œWell, my boyfriend Ray wanted to go further,”
I tell her. “
Much
further.
But I guess I wasn’t ready.”
I feel my face turn three shades of pink.
“Oh God,” I moan. “I feel so backward,
so completely infantile telling you that.”
    But Colette just laughs.
“Don’t be silly.
You’re
not from El Lay.
Besides, take it from me:
You aren’t missing a thing.”
“You’re right,” I say. “I’m missing a
thingy
.”
And both of us crack up.
    I hope she’s wrong about sex, though.

    Because If and When I Decide to Go All the Way
    I don’t want it to be like it was for Colette.
With somebody that she didn’t even care about.
Just to get
rid
of her virginity.
Like it was dandruff, for chrissake,
and sex was
Head " Shoulders
.
    I know this sounds incredibly lame,
but I don’t want losing my virginity
to feel like