Sloppy Firsts_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [90]
He held out his hand. "Deal?"
I hesitated. He reached for my hand. We shook on it, skin on skin. Yes.
Then a lightning bolt shot straight through my skivvies. Sha-ZAM!
December 2nd
Hope,
No charts necessary this month.
Bridget and I are talking again. And Manda and Sara are talking again, I assume in response to the fact that Bridget and I are talking again. Very, very lame.
Without Burke, Bridget isn’t so brainless. In fact, their breakup has brought on a sort of metamorphosis. Bridget actually quit the cheerleading squad and is trying out for the school play. She wants to take acting seriously. Rah-rah for her. Seriously.
Now if only I could get a boyfriend to break up with me so I could go through a similar life makeover …
I’m kidding.
All of this is just a way for me to avoid writing about what’s really on my mind right now anyway.
Could you really be here on New Year’s Day?
I can’t think of a better way to make up for last year’s suckfest.
Here’s the thing: Don’t say it unless you mean it. I don’t think I could handle another psych-up and letdown. I know it wasn’t your fault that we had to cancel my summer trip. I don’t blame you, but it was really hard to get over anyway.
So please don’t say you’re coming unless you know you’re coming. And don’t visit unless you really want to visit. Coming back when you really don’t want to would be even suckier than spending New Year’s alone. For me, anyway.
Brutally but honestly yours, J.
december
the fourth
Today is the one-year anniversary of the first day of my last period.
I’m not exactly celebrating.
When I lied to my mom about getting my period, it was just the easiest escape route at the time. I didn’t think much of it because I was sure that sooner or later, it would turn out to be true. So every twenty-eight days I take tampons out of the box under the sink and flush them down the toilet to make her think that I’m cycling as I should.
But I can’t tell her now that my ovaries still aren’t back from vacation. She’ll not only freak out and ground me for lying, but she’ll force me to go to the gyno. And the very thought of getting into the stirrups and letting a total stranger go elbow-deep and up to my uterus … Jesus Christ! I can’t handle it. I just can’t. I’d puke all over the exam table. I swear.
What is wrong with me? Will it ever come back? Why would my female equipment break before I even got a chance to use it? Why was my womanhood revoked? Why am I back to prepubescence?
Oh, the irony. I’m decades ahead of my classmates psychologically. Physically, however, I’m a goddamn kindergartner.
the sixth
PAUL PARLIPIANO IS GAY.
Jesus Christ O’Mighty.
Our whole school is buzzing about it. He came out to his family over Thanksgiving. His family tried to be supportive, but they didn’t want the news spread all over town. They wanted to keep it secret. But yesterday Mrs. Parlipiano ran into a neighbor at Super-Foodtown and broke down right in front of the deli counter. "My son is gay!"
Apparently, Paul Parlipiano had suspected his gayness for a very long time. But it wasn’t until he moved to NYC that he got in touch with his inner George Michael and was ready to be seen as the rainbow-flag-waving fag he is.
I know. Shame on me. How Slim Shady. I know I should be happy for Paul Parlipiano. He’s not lying to himself anymore. Yet I can’t help but be pissed. Not because I don’t have a chance with him now, because God knows I never had a chance with him, even when he was "straight." No. I’m pissed because I can’t fantasize about him anymore. I’ve created this stellar little imaginary world around him and now he’s ruined it. It’s one thing to get all torqued up over a guy who doesn’t know you exist. It’s quite another to get all torqued up over a guy who doesn’t know you exist and likes to take it where the sun don’t shine. One is fantasy. The other is just plain masochistic.
You only think you love me, he said.