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His arms slid around me and I shivered because no one ever put their ar Like I reallyet to hold est prize he ever could have won in his whole life

He backed off with the kiss and we just kind of breathed into each other while he gave me ti, close but not holding tight It was hard for me to make myself stay put I never let anybody touch me Too personal Too much risk involved

So it tookclose to really let o fluid like I do when I meditate It was the hardest kind of meditation I’ve ever done because there was another person in it with es, and I kept craving my walls and personal space back

But I wanted this, too, and had started to think it was possible, if I never let anyone touch et easier and easier to keep everyone at arth and harder and harder to let anyone in I think we get afor intimacy And it can close I’d be Jada forever, and if Jada had sex, it would be a one-night stand, and the color of the rainbow I’d never get to knoas love

Eventually, I slid my arms around his neck and, with enorainst his shoulder, absorbing the sensation of leaning into a man This wasdown the street, exploding out of freeze-frauts in my hair, and liked me instantly And while I’d talked a"dudes" and "fecks," he’d stared at me as if I was so, brilliant thing he’d ever seen

I e, th, refusing to think about that great, deceitful inner ood Safe harbor Port in a stor in me relaxed, a part of me that maybe never even once relaxed in ed Why intias station and fueling yourself up

It was as if ti wasyourself could never replicate I wasn’t alone in life anyround with ether It was thesensation I’d ever known

Then ere kissing deep and hot and hungry, that kiss he’d promised me, the sexy nineteen-year-old one, and my hands were in his hair and I started to feel drearown up norone to school like other kids, h school dance, and I was slow dancing with a boy for the first time But he was a man

And I was definitely a woainst me and I wanted to touch him and taste him and feel him inside me And I wanted to tear myself fro back Me, asn’t afraid of anything, stared down any foe, fought any war, killed without hesitation, now quailed, waging a battle I’d avoided allet out of here?"

I drew back and looked at him My lips were swollen and sensitive and wanted to keep kissing I felt wary that wanted to go so deal to me I’d always proht it would be with a superhero, like ht I’d already done it Or worried that I had anyway But it wasn’t as if I’d ever gotten to stay in one place long, and although there had been huet back hoood at everything I did I’d watched a lot of porn reat deal about sex I had a brilliant iaton of that I knehen I finally did have sex, I was going to be epic

But this was the one thing I’d kept The single big decision about the way I wanted to live inity was a door you only got to bang once

I didn’t kno to take offI didn’t kno to live like other people I was a Tin Man with no oil

"You said you had so you wanted to show me?" I evaded

He took rin was instant, the disappoint inverted, Mega It’s totally different the way she hears it! And I have a video you’ve got to see You’re never going to bloody believe it"

Then he was sitting at his desk, the ain

Then he was playing a song for me and it was thewe sat there, listening to a brain around, but I had a sudden thought that buoyedit was supposed to heal things, maybe it would heal Dancer’s heart If it could heal holes in the fabric of the world, why not a sis had happened I was surprised at how uncharacteristically pessimistic I’d been about his condition But it’d been so unexpected and I’d recently suffered a traumatic loss Combined, they’d sublimated my usual optimism and determination to rewire the world the way I wanted it to be