She Poured Out Her Heart Read Online Free

and you. See, people say, ‘in the eyes of God’ meaning, an alternative to state-sanctioned, as in, ‘married in the eyes of God.’” He gave Jane a cunning, sideways look.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œBut if we don’t want to go all religious, we can just say we’re married ‘in the eyes of the universe.’ I think it’s a reasonable alternative.”
    â€œMarried? Who said we’re married?” It didn’t seem like the kind ofthing you had to argue about with somebody. “That’s crazy. Anyway, you didn’t even ask me!”
    â€œI guess I just figured . . .” Allen began. “I mean, we’ve been hanging out for more than a year.”
    â€œHanging out,” Jane repeated. She supposed that was what you called it. She and Allen didn’t do a lot of boyfriend-girlfriend activities, besides the kissing stuff. No date things, like football games or parties. They studied together, they watched movies on video, and sometimes they accompanied Allen’s grandparents to performances of the symphony, where the grandparents were patrons. These did not feel like dates either, even though Jane dressed up and Allen arrived at her front door with the corsage his grandmother had made him buy. They climbed into the vast backseat of the grandparents’ Lincoln and Jane answered the grandparents’ questions about what she had been studying in school while Allen, inspired to friskiness, attempted to work his hand or foot across the chilly expanse of upholstered seat that separated them and burrow undetected between her knees.
    â€œI’m not getting married, or pretend married, what a stupid idea. Why do you even want to?”
    â€œSo everything would be all settled.” Allen was sulky now. Clearly he had expected her to go along with it. He gave her a peevish look. Maybe he was not as smart as everybody thought.
    â€œYou want to, like, do it, but you don’t want to have to bother with talking me into it or anything.”
    â€œYou’re a very conventional person, you know that?”
    As always when somebody told her she was one or another thing, Jane kept silent. She never thought of herself as conventional, or whatever other label was placed on her, but other people seemed to view her so much more clearly than she did herself. Allen grabbed her hand and shoved it into his crotch. Jane yelped and pulled away. She thought she had felt his penis squirming around beneath his clothes, ready to break loose, attack.
    â€œYou’re just afraid nobody else is ever going to come along,” Jane said, meaning it to be scornful and sarcastic, but then she realized she was right.
    And for a long time after Allen, nobody else came along for her. She got excellent grades and was admitted to the state university as a general education major in the humanities. She didn’t have clear vocational plans; she figured she could find some way to support herself if she had to. Meanwhile, she signed up for classes in art history and political science and American literature, meant to enrich her being with knowledge much as a layer of fertilizer might be spread over a field.
    Her roommate was going through sorority rush and spent a lot of time on the phone with other rushees, comparing their prospects. There were good houses and less good ones. Which house had a reputation for being sluts, which had the best parties, or partnered with the hottest fraternities. Which one was for joyless dreary types going for high grade point averages, like Jane over there on her side of the room, writing a paper on Walt Whitman. Most of the time she and the roommate politely ignored each other, but on this night the roommate said, “Do you want to go to a mixer? There’s a guy somebody knows who needs a date. You wouldn’t have to dress up or anything. Just don’t wear your glasses.”
    She could have said no. She was so clearly one scant