Free Sister of Silence by Daleen Berry Page B

tried to figure out how or where I fit in. I knew Neal’s friends lived to party, which was why the booze flowed freely, and Jackson had even had a brush with the law. No doubt, before the evening was over, the alcohol would be ditched for something stronger. What that was, I didn’t know.
    And I didn’t want to find out. Nor did I want to become one of those girls—the ones who got pregnant. Since I had gotten my period, I knew that was definitely possible. A baby was the last thing I wanted.
    Try as I might, I couldn’t sustain my initial excitement, for it wasn’t my type of fun. If I chose to become one of them, all I could see was a future with nothing in it. That wasn’t what I wanted for myself.
    I rode down the hill several times until everyone began pairing off, but when Neal brushed a strand of hair from my eyes and asked me to stay, I was no longer the rebel, happy to have broken out of her jail cell bedroom. The last ounce of defiance had drained away, and I headed home. I knew my irate mother was waiting, but I could handle that. Because I would also find in her those things I was most comfortable with, which had always sustained me and given me purpose.
     
    I had so much free time during Eddie’s absence I started hanging out with the girlfriends I had neglected. Looking back, I wasn’t sure how it happened. Somehow Eddie gradually took more and more, until there was none left for anyone else. But soon, I was having slumber parties where we stayed up half the night eating popcorn and watching movies, or having rowdy pillow fights.
    During the big snowfall, Dad returned from Martinsburg for a weekend visit, and taught me how to operate the snowmobile he used at remote job sites. Roaring through the white fields gave me a sense of control and power I craved. Little in my life was within my control, so those hours spent on the snowmobile, my hand on the throttle as the big machine went faster and faster, gave me that. Not only did I have complete control sitting astride it, I was the only teen in the neighborhood with a snowmobile, so I achieved immediate popularity, as neighbor kids waited for an invitation to join me. Which I gladly extended, happy to have friends join me for the night rides I loved, when the silver moonbeams bounced off the ice-encrusted snow, casting reflections in every direction.
     
    When school resumed that fall I was a sophomore—who was free of a boyfriend. Boys suddenly went out of their way to get my attention, and I instinctively raised my guard until they lost interest. But I didn’t give the cold shoulder to a new transfer student who began teasing me. The day I looked up to see Jay Alexander striding down the school bus aisle, a mischievous twinkle in those robin egg eyes , told me exactly what he had in mind.
    “Is this seat taken?” Jay’s smile was blinding, his teeth even and white.
    I gave him a nervous smile and a half-nod, and he sat down.
    “I didn’t think so,” Jay grinned. I couldn’t help but notice the way his blond hair waved and curled over the edge of his shirt collar.
    We began sitting together every day. If he had football practice after school I missed the way he made me laugh, so I began making excuses to stay after myself—just to watch him practice. When friends teased us about being a couple, we both denied it was anything other than platonic, but I knew Jay enjoyed seeing me squirm whenever someone said it. I began wondering if it was his way of hoping our relationship might become romantic.
    After I met Jay, I began wishing I had never known Eddie, and found myself hoping he never returned. Jay wasn’t just nice; he was sincerely interested in what I said, and teased me about being “a brain.” The best part, though, was how different the physical contact was with Jay, which only occurred during those daily bus rides, when our shoulders or maybe our legs would lightly touch.
    Jay could never know that after the first time in Eddie’s