Read Things I’ll Never Say for Free Online Page B

said. “It’s because I stay out too late.”
    â€œReally.”
    That had caught his attention. “Really,” I said. I smiled. He smiled back. And that’s when Mrs. Jefferson told me to get to work.
    I was there again the next afternoon, since my punishment was for the full week. I had dressed in my best-fitting jeans, and, yes, I admit that through Western Civ I kept shifting and opening and closing my legs in those jeans, and I was sure I saw Mr. P. looking.
    This time, after school, I stopped at his desk and said, “In case you’re curious, I go to Dorrian’s in the city.” I had been planning to tell him all day.
    â€œYou’re eighteen,” he said.
    â€œSo?” I said. I was seventeen, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.
    â€œSo eighteen-year-olds shouldn’t be going to bars.”
    I shrugged. “There are lots of things I probably shouldn’t be doing.”
    I sat down in the chair across from him and pressed my lips tight. I sounded like a child, and I hated myself for it. I tried something else. “You know about Dorrian’s?” I wondered if he went to bars and brought girls home to his place.
    â€œI know Dorrian’s,” he said. “So you’re a Dorrian’s girl.”
    I raised my eyebrows and kept my gaze even with his. I didn’t say what I was thinking — that if I didn’t go to this school and we met each other at that bar, I could totally be one of the girls he brought home. Maybe that’s what he meant by a Dorrian’s girl. Most of the girls who went there were beautiful. Way more beautiful than I would ever be. They were skinny from living off cocaine and vodka and cigarettes. They got the attention of the best-looking guys, the ones who strolled into the bar like they owned it. The ones whose eyes always passed over me and dropped hard on one of those Dorrian’s girls. Maybe, too, he mistook me for beautiful.
    â€œKerry!” Mrs. Jefferson called, and that was that for the day.
    But now Mr. P. was on my mind. When I dressed in the morning, I was thinking of him. When I walked through the halls, I kept my eyes peeled for him. When I drove in town, I peered into cars to see if it was him I passed. I sat in that same chair after school, even now that my punishment was over. Mr. P. didn’t seem to mind.
    â€œWhat exactly do you do at Dorrian’s?”
    â€œI drink.”
    â€œYou’re just a kid!”
    â€œStop saying that,” I said. I was wearing a tight-fitting shirt that accentuated my breasts. I pressed them out a little and added, “And I meet guys.”
    â€œReally,” he said.
    â€œReally.”
    He lowered his voice and leaned forward a little. He had an ankle on the opposite knee. Maybe he was hiding an erection. “And what is it that you do with these guys?”
    â€œWhat do you think I do with them?” I said, matching his voice.
    He laughed. He leaned toward me, and his feathered hair fell over his eye. There was a beat. Then another. Then he said, “Do you give them blow jobs?”
    I kept my expression steady, but beneath my skin the electricity zoomed around. “Yes.”
    Neither one of us moved. After a bit, he said, “You any good?”
    There was some activity at another desk, another student sitting down to talk with a teacher. Nobody knew what we were talking about. As far as they were concerned, we were talking about the fall of Rome or the Revolutionary War. “Yes,” I said again.
    He laughed and brushed his hair back. “I’ve had my fair share of blow jobs,” he said. He waited a beat while I processed that. I could see the slightest yearning in his eyes. And just like that, the power shifted a bit. “What makes you think you can give a good one?” he asked.
    â€œOh,” I said, “I have ways of knowing.”
    He smiled, but then the Spanish teacher walked by, her