Read Now She's Gone: A Novel for Free Online Page B

sit next to you!’ I cried and crossed my arms.
    ‘I didn’t let her do anything! She just did it! She wasn’t there for a minute until you came in!’
    ‘It’s cause I won’t have sex with you, isn’t it?’
    Now that got a few looks.
    He was flabbergasted. ‘What!’
    ‘You want to have sex and you know I can’t so you want her!’
    ‘I don’t want her!’ he half-yelled.
    By this point I was sobbing. I just thought, for some reason, he didn’t like me anymore and my world was crashing down around me. It got worse. Before he could get any sense out of me, the speaker came on and informed me—and everyone else—that I was ‘needed in the office.’
    I was up shit creek.”
     
    I just sat there and stared at the wall for a long moment, feeling slightly stunned. Was this the same woman I was married to? Was this my Sandy, who went out of her way to be nice and kind to everyone she met? The Sandy who I thought didn’t have one jealous bone in her body and even scoffed at me when I got jealous of her?
    You just never know someone like you think you do. You just never know.
     
    “I got suspended. That damn Melinda didn’t get shit, but I got suspended. Three days vacation that I had to spend cleaning the trailer while Mom was at work.
    Oh, yeah, Mom.
    Mom was livid. She was just fit to be tied. She yelled at me for about an hour and I just sat there and let her, staring at the wall. It couldn’t get any worse, I figured, so I didn’t argue with her about how I was ‘Ruining my life!’ and about how I was ‘Just like your daddy!’
    Oh, well. She finally stopped her bitching and went to the store for something and the phone rang. It was Wayne, who told me, ‘I’m not going to school either.’
    ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
    ‘If you’re suspended, I’ll be suspended, too.’
    ‘You don’t have to do that.’
    ‘It’s not fair,’ he said. ‘She should have got suspended, too. She started it.’
    ‘Tell me about it,’ I said and looked around for a pack of Mom’s cigarettes. I’d been sneaking them for a while. She caught me once and yelled at me for an hour. Which made me want to do it even more. I lit one up and inhaled, staring at it. I liked smoking. I thought I was cool.
    ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said.
    ‘What?’ I asked and exhaled.
    ‘You think I’m going to let you sit alone in your house all day? No. I’ll pick you up in the morning as soon as your mom leaves.’
    ‘Wayne, my mom will kill me.’
    ‘She won’t find out.’
    ‘Why are you going to all this trouble for me? I’m not even sure if you like me anymore.’
    ‘I don’t like you. I love you.’
    A warm feeling spread through my body.
    ‘Really?’ I squealed. ‘You love me?’
    ‘I just said it, didn’t I?’
    He had. He had just said it.
    ‘Any girl that would do what you did for me, I have to love. It’s kinda like a compliment.’”
     
    This guy was smooth. A little hickish , but smooth. I didn’t like him much, but I admired his smoothness. I remembered one of the first girls I really, really liked. I met her in college and she was so hot, she was smoking. Her name was Amanda. She was older than me by a few months. She also had a boyfriend who would have beat the shit out of me if he knew.
    But she liked me and I liked her and we’d stare at each other in the class we had together and then look away quickly. This went on for a little while until one day she wrote me a note, “I have a boyfriend, but I can meet you after class as long as you don’t tell anyone. You want to?”
    Did I want to? Was she crazy? Of course I wanted to! I jumped at the chance. I almost thought she wouldn’t be there when I showed up at our designated make-out spot, her dorm room. Her roommate was out and we were alone.
    The first time we kissed, my knees almost buckled from under me. It was so different than I imagined. I had kissed a few girls, of course, but nothing felt like a kiss from