She Loves You, She Loves You Not... Read Online Free

Sarah would sneak up behind you at the meetings (though you knew she was there) and take your face, tilt it back, and kiss you. Everyone would go, “Ooh. Alyssa and Sarah sitting in a tree…”
    She’d plop on your lap and comb your hair with her fingers for an hour. Whatever went on at those meetings is a blur.
    Sarah was in gymnastics. You’d go to the gym after school and sit behind the uneven parallel bars against the wall and do homework. Or watch her. Watch her watching you. Showing off for you.
    “Do your parents know?” she asked one day as you walked her home—as far as the Starbucks.
    “No. Not unless they read the graphic sexts you send.”
    Sarah laughed. She’d trickle a finger up the bare skin of your arm and go, “You know you love it.”
    Who wouldn’t? You’re only human. Everyone wants to be loved and desired.
    So many times you wished you could just scream it out:
I love girls!
    You wanted to tell Dad, Tanith, Paulie. Maybe not Paulie. He was only ten. You hated keeping the secret from Dad, but you were afraid. Not so much about what he’d do to you. What could he do? Throw you out on the street?
    Yeah, that was supposed to be a joke.
    You asked Sarah—more like confirmed—“I guess your parents don’t know. Since you only let me walk you this far.”
    Sarah’s eyes dropped. “I’m sorry. I want to tell them, but they’d kill me. Right before they sent me to one of those Christian asylums to take the cure.”
    You both laughed about that.
    How can so much joy turn to so much pain?
    I’m hungry and hurting, so I go downstairs to find something to eat. I hear Carly in her exercise room, laughing with someone. I walk to the foyer and peek my head around the corner.
    “Are you Alyssa? Oh my God!” This crazy lady tears up the stairs from the exercise room and crushes me in a hug. I almost gag on her flowery perfume. She holds me back to look at me and says, “You’re gorgeous. Carly, she’s gorgeous.” Through her extra-thick eyeliner and mascara, her smile extends to her wild eyes. “I’m Geena,” she says. She doesn’t let me speak before smothering me again.
    “I heard you were in the Egg Drop talking to Arlo,” Carly calls up from the exercise room. She’s on the floor stretching, cooling down from her workout. “Why?”
    She knows already? It only happened an hour ago.
    I call down the short stairwell, “I was looking for a job. Someone told me Arlo was hiring.”
    “Ooh, Arlo,” Geena goes. “Bet he was all over you like gum on hot asphalt.” She cracks herself up.
    “You don’t need to work in Majestic,” Carly says. “There are probably lots of summer jobs in Breckenridge or Dillon. If you want a job, I’ll put out feelers.”
    “Me too,” Geena says.
    I don’t want them helping me, especially Carly. I don’t want to feel obligated to her in any way. “That’s okay. But thanks.”
    Geena says, “I’d better get going. I haven’t even been home yet, and God knows I need my beauty sleep.” She lifts my chin and gazes into my eyes. Sighing, she says, “Were we ever this young, Carly? Were we ever this naturally beautiful?”
    Carly doesn’t answer.
    “Later, sugar.” Geena blows Carly a kiss and exits through the front door.
    Carly seems entranced in her stretching, or yoga, so I lower myself to the top step and watch her. Her eyes are closed, and she steeples her hands together, takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a long stream. A slight smile curls the ends of her lips. She looks serene. I remove my right flip-flop and see I have a giant blister on my big toe. I wish I had a needle to pop it.
    Carly pulls her knees to her chest, opens her eyes, and rolls her head my way. “Who cuts your hair?”
    Both hands fly up to cover my head. I know it looks terrible. I cut it the night of prom, when Sarah…
    “It’ll grow out,” I say. It already has, a lot, although I’d really just like to shave it all off. That’d freak Dad out.
    Carly says,