Angel of Mercy Read Free Page A

offered to drive, but John assured her that he was okay. Since Chelsea had matched him glass for glass, and carrying a much smaller frame at that, Chelsea decided that John driving was likely the better choice.
    They only had a half dozen miles to go and on a lightly traveled highway. Halfway home John pulled off the road. Chelsea assumed that he needed to either get some air or relieve himself, though it seemed odd that he would stop on a six mile drive to do that. John surprised her by pulling her to him when the car stopped. He surprised her more by kissing her.
    Chelsea wasn’t repulsed by John’s wine-fueled amorous attentions. In fact, she kissed him back the first couple of times. But she wasn’t turned on by them either. She had suspected that John had developed an attraction to her, but he had seemed like a perfect gentleman at dinner. Now he was muttering how “beautiful” she was and how “gorgeous” her eyes were. All the while he was sliding a hand up underneath her left breast. He was initially foiled by the underwire on her bra but seemed bent on successfully circumventing it.
    Chelsea gently moved John’s hand away. Then when he took another run at glory, she moved his hand away slightly less gently. “John!” she said as he opened his mouth to kiss her. “John! Stop!”
    John pulled away from her with a startled look. In seconds the startled look gave way to embarrassment. He quickly rubbed his hand through his short hair; a gesture that Chelsea had learned meant that he was frustrated. He avoided Chelsea’s eyes as he spoke to her.
    “I’m sorry Chelsea. I just care a lot about you. And I thought…I mean, we went out, and you kissed me and stuff…”
    His voice trailed away. He was giving every indication of being totally fascinated by the flora and fauna out of the driver’s side window of his car. Though there was nothing to see, it being dark, looking into nothing was preferable to looking at his friend, the date that had just rejected his advances.
    Chelsea felt bad. She liked John a lot but not the way that he wanted her to like him. She shouldn’t have let him kiss her, but she missed the closeness of being with a man. She hadn’t had sex since just before her life had come crashing down two years earlier. She remembered the way that Chauncey McMillan had touched her with his hands, and then with his lips. She remembered throwing her hips into the air to meet him when he was inside her.
    She also remembered how he hadn’t been able to make time for her when the news of her father’s (and by extension her) societal collapse had occurred. As if the change and destruction, of her family fortune hadn’t been enough, Chelsea had to absorb the knowledge that the boy who had been her first love was also the boy who believed that she wasn’t worth it poor. Now it was Chelsea’s turn to be embarrassed. She had given herself willingly to Chauncey McMillan, who had been as sincere as a snake oil salesman. Now she had made her genuinely good friend feel bad. She touched John’s hand.
    “I know it doesn’t make it okay, but I’m sorry, John. I would hate for tonight to make it so you don’t want to be friends with me. And you’re a great guy. We have such a good time together that I wish I did like you…that way.”
    John nodded and started the car. Time, emotion, and fresh air had sobered both John and Chelsea to the point that they were walking freely by the time that they got back to campus. John walked Chelsea to the front door of Moffat Hall, where he received a warm hug.
    The air was a little thick between John and Chelsea for a while, but to their credit the friendship that they had forged was not irreparably damaged by the incident on Highway 11. They looked at one another across the table at Guy Harris’ party and smiled.
    Six months later the same group of friends, sans Guy, was at the same table in the same pizza parlor. Winter break was afoot, and the classmate’s spirits