April North Read Free

nothing on earth could stop It.
    It got better, and even better, and she felt his hot breath on her face and the heavy pressure of his strong young body upon her.
    Then passion reached its peak. Then the tide of pleasure reached its crest and broke, and she held him in her arms and wept quietly into the night.
    She was almost home. She thought about that night, about the way neither of them could speak when they had finished, about the way they sat together in the car and smoked two more cigarettes apiece before he drove her home. They did not stop for a soda at the Pink Pig as they usually did. And when he kissed her goodnight at her door there was something awkward about his kiss.
    She had been unable to fall asleep for hours. She tossed and turned in her bed, worrying and frightened that she had done something wrong. Then she decided that everything would be all right. She would keep going out with Danny, and It would not happen again, and finally some day they would get married and live together and do It all the time. To do It when they were married would be all right. She did not know why this was, but that was the way things were supposed to be.
    So they would be married, and everything would be all right.
    But things were not working out that way. She had not seen him or heard from him on Sunday, and Monday in school he had passed her without speaking as if there were something wrong with her. She failed to understand and wanted to catch his arm and ask him what was the matter, but she realized dimly that it was his place to speak, and that she should wait for him to say something.
    He said nothing.
    He seemed to avoid her purposefully. There was nothing she could put her finger on but somehow he never spoke to her, never again met her in the hallway, and never called her on the phone.
    Now it was Thursday afternoon. She did not even know if they were supposed to be going out Saturday night, and she did not see how she could ask him. She felt that she must have done something terribly wrong but could not figure out what her apparent error had been. She had only let him do what he wanted to do. Why should he be mad at her for that?
    She reached her house. The lawn was still smooth and green, the leaves raked into a neat pile in the gutter. Soon the grass would turn brown and die for the winter, but for the time being it was fresh and green and beautiful. She walked up the flagstone path to the front door, opened it and went inside.
    She studied until it was time for dinner. She did her advanced algebra homework, started the required reading for French III. When her mother called her for dinner, she went downstairs to the dining room for the evening meal. Her father talked about politics, and her brother talked about the football team, and her mother talked about a hand of bridge that had been badly misplayed by her partner that afternoon. April listened without hearing and ate in silence without tasting her food. She finished a piece of pie and a glass of milk for dessert and left the table.
    At seven-thirty the phone rang.
    Link answered. April barely heard the phone, concentrating at the time upon the remainder of the French, and she was surprised when her brother called her name.
    “For you, April”
    She left her room and walked to the phone. “It’s a boy,” Link added.
    Was it Danny?
    She took the receiver and held it to her ear. She said hello and waited.
    “April?”
    “This is April.”
    “Yeah. Well, this is Bill Piersall”
    He was a tall, thin boy with a blond crew-cut. She did not know him too well.
    “I was wondering if we could take in a show Saturday night. You and me.”
    That was a surprise. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d like to go but I’m going steady. With Dan Duncan.”
    There was a pause.
    “That’s funny,” Bill Piersall said.
    “It is?”
    “Yeah.”
    She waited.
    “Danny told me to call you,” the voice went on. “He said he isn’t goin’ steady with you any more.