Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Oh, look at that sunset. It’s pure gold.”
“Spinach is so good for you! It’s full of calcium.”
You get the picture.
Anyway, moving on. I’d been averse to being touched before Mr. Patches, but now, even though a couple of years had gone by, I still recoiled at human contact. The problem was that I wanted to like it. I noticed the girls in my school. My mouth went dry at the sight of bare legs and tight shirts. I liked it when they walked past me close enough so that I could smell the scent of their hair, but not so close they brushed against me. So when the girl in my English class who sat next to me, the one who I’d first started calling Smiles not only because she did it often but because she turned them in my direction, began chatting with me before and after class, I was happy and filled with the hope that maybe I could be normal in at least some way.
Maybe my father hadn’t ruined me completely. Maybe Mr. Patches hadn’t either.
No one had to know what was in my past. I’d hide it. Mother would have no reason to hurt or kill anyone on my behalf. The things she’d done could stay hidden, only between her and me. I trusted Mother implicitly. Plus, I was bigger and stronger now—no one was going to victimize me again. No one was going to threaten or trick me.
Smiles asked if I wanted to go see a movie that had been adapted from a book we’d read in English class. I didn’t know if she was asking me on a date or if she just wanted to go as friends. And I wasn’t sure which one I hoped for. No, that’s a lie, and I’m trying my best not to lie. Are we always aware of our lies? I wonder. Don’t we all lie constantly, whether meaning to or not? Whether acknowledging it or not? I see me in a certain light, and so, even here, even now, I’m presenting myself to you as the person I perceive myself to be. But perhaps that perception is inaccurate. Perhaps your perception of me would not be the same? Is a false perception the same as a lie? I think not. What if you hold tight to that false perception because the truth would be unbearable? These are questions I’d have liked to explore with someone. Perhaps it would have mattered. Perhaps it would have changed things.
But I digress.
I hoped Smiles liked me as more than a friend. I was just incredibly nervous. How would I know what to do? How would I know what to say? I’d never had a man in my life to teach me the things I needed to know. And I couldn’t ask Mother. Boys didn’t ask their mothers about such things.
The year before, I had gotten a job stocking shelves at a local grocery store, so I had my own money to spend. When the day of our movie date arrived, I met Smiles outside the theater, sporting a new pair of jeans and a crisply ironed shirt. Smiles told me I looked nice and accepted when I offered popcorn and a drink. She chatted easily, and I thought I nodded in all the right places. When we took our seats in the darkened theater, I was more relaxed. Hopeful. As the movie commenced, Smiles drew closer to me, so close that our shoulders touched and then our knees. My breath quickened, my nerves strung tight in a new way that was both pleasure and pain. She reached out and took my hand, the cool touch of her fingers startling me so that I almost jumped out of my chair, and she gave a soft giggle, squeezing my hand in hers. We sat like that for many long minutes that felt like centuries. Eons.
I was hyperaware of every breath, every movement, every soft gurgle of my stomach. I swore I could feel the molecules of my body rearranging themselves into the new person I might be knowing a girl like this wanted to hold my hand and rest her sweet-smelling head on my shoulder. I felt myself growing hard, the zipper of my new jeans pressing painfully into my swollen penis. It reminded me of the terrible pain and the confusing pleasure I’d felt in that region before. No, no, no, no. I tried desperately to dispel my thoughts but was unsuccessful. It reminded me of Mr. Patches, and I began to sweat, a buzzing sound taking up in my head. I didn’t want to think of Mr. Patches. Oh God. I didn’t want to think of him ever again, but especially not here, with Smiles’s curls tickling against my cheek and her smooth fingers laced in mine.