A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone Page A

wolf.
    If I was in a comic strip,
there’d be a bubble coming out of my head
with the word “Gulp” in it.

FIRST (REAL) DATE: PART THREE
    We did
not
have parties
like this
in middle school.
    Kids are doing, I’m not even sure what,
in rooms that aren’t
really part of the party.
    Lindsey lives in Morningside
along the shoreline
where the seawall is made of giant slabs
of granite and quartz.
Some are slippery smooth and catch the moonligh
Some are rough with little crags and crevices
perfect for
wedging
the toe or heel of a sneaker in to keep from slipping
down the wall.
I spot couples
sprawled out in different spots
on the huge quilt made of stone.
Her parents must be
way
out of town.
    â€œCool party, huh?” he says.
“Uh, yeah.”
    Apparently, I wasn’t convincing.
    â€œRelax, Josie, people are just having fun.
You’re a big girl now,” he says.
    â€œGee, thanks for telling me,
otherwise I wouldn’t have known,” I say.
(Who the hell does this guy think he is?!)
    â€œOh, don’t be that way. I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean anything by it. Dance?”
    We move onto the dance floor,
if you can call a living room with all the furniture
pushed up against one wall
and plastic cups tipping stale beer
all over the place
a dance floor.
With every step
my shoes stick a little to the
spilled drinks coating the wood like slightly used tape.
    A lot of boys don’t dance,
they’re too cool.
Not this one.
He’s
way
too interested in getting his body
up against mine.
    As he pulls me into him,
full contact,
I feel like my brain’s going to explode
from all the fighting going on inside it.
I mean, this is the kind of guy
Caroline would fall for,
not
me.

I’d be the one to point out to her later
that this was the exact moment
she should have gotten the message
and walked.
But instead
I smile
wrap my arms around his neck
and sink into his chest.
Damn.
    Why does he have to
smell
so . . . so . . .
Yum.
    Now we’re basically just hugging to the music,
as opposed to
actual
dancing
and as he starts kissing me
I realize
I better get home
before things get out of hand
on our first (real) date.

FALLING
    This boy is slick.
For a few weeks now I’ve felt like part of me
is watching
a really stupid “teen” movie
thinking,
I can’t believe he actually said that!

while the other part of me is
totally soaking it up.
    Like when he told me I was so gorgeous
I could wear a burlap sack
and still be better looking than
any other girl in my class.
    I hate to admit this,
but I think my actual response was to giggle and blush.
    Or when he was waiting for me
at the main entrance one morning
and kissed me for five minutes
in front of the entire school.
    I can’t help it.
There’s just something about him.
    Like the way he seems so super confident
about sex,
always saying how good he wants to make me feel
and how his older brother (who’s in college)
told him all about how to make a girl really happy
in bed,
and when was I going to let him show me.
    So of course I’m wondering what he means by that,
it’s a turn-on because he’s got me really curious,
but really nervous at the same time,
and I keep hearing that expression in my head
“like a moth to a flame”
and wondering if that’s what it means
as I feel myself
totally
out-of-control
falling
for
him.

HOME
    How can I feel
so completely
connected
to someone
I practically just met?
    Where did this
Oh! There he is!

feeling come from?
    He smiles at me
and I’m home.
    He touches me
and I’m home.
    He kisses me
and I’m home.

BOOSTER SHOT
    It’s not just how he makes me feel
that’s so different.
    I mean, I’ve always been considered pretty cool,
but this is high school,
so my coolness factor was pretty much up for grabs
the second I entered the building.
    When I’m walking down the hall with him,
everybody
knows I’m somebody.
    Kim and Caroline