Hurricane Days Read Free

coat with rain pelting my face inside an old black and white movie than dealing with my high school boyfriend, even by phone.
    Marc Tolland was a handsome drama major who was under the impression that he and I had been going together for the past year. He was a kind, good-hearted guy, someone who held open doors for me at the movies and probably carried groceries for old people, though I hadn’t actually seen him do that. But he was a good Christian boy. Mom and Dad approved of his family, and he went to our church. So as far as they were concerned, I could marry him right after I got out of college.
    He never did more than hold my hand or give me a quick goodnight kiss at the end of our dates. One night when we were sharing a slushy at the local Cheese ’n Freeze , he got this look in his eye. It was a look I knew but didn’t want to know.
    “Uh, Robin?” His voice quivered.
    I watched the Adam’s apple in his throat bob up and down. “Yes?”
    “You wanna still see each other after high school?” He knew I was planning to go to an out-of-state school, while he desperately wanted to be a University of Georgia bulldog.
    “Sure,” I said. “I guess.” I hadn’t really given it that much thought.
    He squeezed my hand. I liked the softness of his skin. He wasn’t one of those super hairy boys who had developed early and had full beards as seniors. Or one of those who were held back so many years they now looked like their fathers sitting at small high school desks. No, Marc was smooth all over; I’d once seen him without his shirt in the summer, swimming at a lake. He had a cleft in his chin and light brown hair and the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. Everything about him was something I liked. I imagined this was what girls felt when they liked a boy. He was cute. He was kind. What else was there?
    My answer had given Marc the idea that we would try to stay boyfriend and girlfriend forever. He lingered longer than usual at my front door that night, almost giddy, though I didn’t know why. As we stood on the porch, dodging the swarm of kamikaze moths that had gathered around the outside light, he laughed nervously. I still didn’t know why. Aside from ducking away from the flittering moths, I was never nervous around him. Just comfortable. I thought that was important in a relationship, that I be nothing but comfortable. I even told all of my friends how great it was that I could be myself with him.
    He leaned in like he always did for our quick goodnight kiss. I was ready to kiss him back. But as he held me tonight, he pressed me tighter to his pelvis and forced his tongue inside my mouth. I drew back, appalled, and wiped my wet lips. The exchange was so gross—even more gross than watching my brother slurp his food, and that was saying something.
    “What’re you doin’?” I cried.
    “C’mon, Robin. That’s how boyfriends and girlfriends kiss.”
    “Not me.”
    “But I love you!” he wailed.
    I stared wide-eyed at him. As a polite Southern girl, I felt it would be rude not to say it back. “I love you too.” I didn’t really consider if it was the truth. Whether or not I meant it didn’t matter.
    “Well? If you love me, you’d kiss me like that.” He was so certain. Where had he gotten this information?
    What if this was one of those things in that Your Body is Changing book that Mom was too shy to give me? She had stood in my bedroom doorway several years ago, holding this light blue book with a drawing of a woman’s uterus on the cover, at least I thought it was a uterus, and talked about how women and men make babies. But she was so nervous, with beads of sweat breaking out all over her face, and her skin turning deathly white—all of it happening so fast, like one of those diseases that kills you in forty-eight hours. I was worried for her. I had to make her calm down, so I told her I didn’t need the book. I knew about the birds and the bees from what Peggy Hoolihy said at school. And