Chapter 19

I stretched my legs out, and leaned back on my left elbow, picking at the grass with my other hand. Susan was doing the same, except she sat erect, looking down at her fingers while they plucked blades of grass. We were on the patch of lawn that separated our driveways, in plain sight, so nobody would suspect us of anything. I was hoping we could sneak off someplace and finish what my mother interrupted, but Susan had something else on her mind. She had called this meeting, but I was still waiting for her to tell me why I was there.

“Joe, I want to talk about something. I thought I would be able to just say it, but I’m having a hard time. Everything I planned to say is stuck in my throat now that you’re right here in front of me. If you don’t mind, I’d like to just read what I wrote in my diary last night. Don’t worry, I hide it, nobody will ever see it. Except, Jasmine already knows what it says, I told her.”

I had only one concern now, and that was when we could do it again. “Go ahead, read it. You can tell me anything, you know that, right?”

“Of course I do. This is hard for me to say.” Susan opened her little blue notebook.

Dear Diary,

I promised myself I wasn’t going to do it for a long time. Jasmine made me promise at Aunt Jane’s house. I don’t want to end up like Jasmine. I don’t want to end up like my parents. Why did I do it? I don’t want Joe to think I’m like that. But I am! Why would I have done that at Mary’s house if I wasn’t already like that? Now Joe knows I’m easy. Why will he want me now? What if that’s all he wanted from me?

Susan closed the book as a tear dripped onto the paper. She looked up at me. Her bottom lip was puffed out and quivering. Two drops raced down her cheeks, closely followed by two more.

I thought I was going to cry myself. Not so much because of what she said, but because she was crying and I couldn’t take her into my arms and hold her. “Susan, I love you. Does it say that in there anywhere?”

She opened the book again and read: “Why did it have to make me feel so good if it’s so wrong? Why do I love Joe a million times more? Joe loves me too. He wouldn’t say that if he didn’t. Would he?”

“I’m sorry I pushed you into it. I am, but I do love you. I don’t know why I wanted it so much, but that’s all I could think about. I wanted to finish what we started, and it was the best thing I have ever done. If you don’t want to do it again, I promise I’m all right with that. I still love you.”

I wasn’t sure as I spoke the words if I could really not make love to her. I wanted to do it right then. I wanted to feel her body against mine. I wanted to wrap her around me and keep her there every second. I felt like I was going to burst out in tears, or just burst if I didn’t grab hold of her right then.

“I have got to hug you. If we don’t go somewhere so I can, I’m going to do it right here.” Before Susan had a chance to respond, I jumped on her and rolled her around on the grass. I felt like a little boy trying to express his feelings by hitting the girl I liked. We rolled around wrestling for a minute, until Susan ended up on top of me. She hesitated for a second, then kissed me square on the mouth.

“Joe, I love you.” She jumped up and looked around.

I laid there as if I had been slain. I mouthed the words back but didn’t move. Susan went home and I stayed there looking up at the evening sky, wishing I understood more.

The next few math lessons were very telling about my promise and Susan’s resolve. We mostly looked at each other with stars in our eyes, made out behind my mother’s back, and did it on the bathroom floor. The bathroom door had a lock, so we made love on the floor in there, as soon as my mother went more than five minutes away.

My promise was that I wouldn’t pressure Susan, and would wait until we had the proper place and amount of time. We still hadn’t had time for any foreplay. We always stripped quickly, and I worked carefully to get inside her, without hurting her, but I could never last long. Maybe it was the newness of it, or how tight Susan was, or how nervous I was? I didn’t know, but by the time half my dick was working in and out, I had to pull out. Poor girl probably hadn’t even had an orgasm yet.

I hope Susan doesn’t fail math like I was failing to properly make love to her.

“Ring, Ring, Ring”

The phone broke my concentration for a second, but I didn’t move. I went back to thinking about the next time I was going to make love to Susan. We were so restricted on alone time, it was almost impossible to do it. That’s what Susan told me it was. She said, “You can’t say you fuck me, that’s not what we do. We make love.”

“Joe, your dream girl is on the phone.” My mother’s words surprised me. Not that she had figured out that I loved Susan, but that Susan could be on the phone. She wasn’t home, I knew that.

“Mom, what are you talking about? She’s not my dream girl!”

I spoke before my mother had a chance to add her two cents, “Hello.”