Girls in Trouble by Caroline Leavitt

phone,” Sara said. She didn’t care that Judy was dogging her steps, that her curiosity was like a fierce little animal, nipping at her heels.
    This time, Danny answered, and as soon as she heard his voice, she gripped the receiver even harder. “Danny—” she blurted, and Judy folded her arms, frowning. Sara cupped the receiver closer. “My parents won’t let me see you. I can’t even call you from my house. I’m at Judy’s—”
    “They can’t do that,” he said. “I won’t let them do that.”
    “They can make it really hard for us to see each other. I don’t know what to do.”
    “I do,” he said. He told her not to worry. He told her he’d see her tomorrow, first thing at school, right by the wire fence where they always met. He’d see her at lunch, and last period and after school right up until she had to go home again. He knew just what to do, and she shouldn’t worry, not for a moment. “No one can separate us,” he told her. “We’re the same person.” Sara’s breathing slowed. The weight about her ribs lifted. She hung up the phone and Judy made a face. “Danny Slade?” Judy said evenly and Sara nodded.
    “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Judy asked.
    Preoccupied, Sara headed for the door. “I have to go.”
    “I’m trying to talk to you here! I’m trying to help!” Judy said, grabbing for Sara’s arm, but Sara was already out the door, out into the cool, clear night, and when she left Judy’s house that night, she left more than Judy behind. She left her old life, too.
    She learned quickly how to come up with excuses. The flush on herface was blush she was using. “Why do young girls think they need makeup?” Jack protested. She hid the new slinky dress she had bought under a baggy shirt so Abby wouldn’t ask questions, and any gift Danny bought her, she told her parents she had bought herself. She had a whole roster of excuses for stealing out of the house. Studying always worked. Sessions at the library.
    It was even easier in the summer, when she was taking special classes at Harvard, when she could blame the subways, the buses, for always coming home late. Maybe she couldn’t drive, but she went into the garage and dug out her old three-speed green Schwinn and rode to wherever he was. At the abandoned day camp. Behind the Thrift-T-Mart. “I’m glad you’re being smart about all this,” Abby told her one evening when Sara was doing her homework at the kitchen table, just waiting for her parents to go to sleep so she could sneak out her window and find Danny. “I’m glad you came to your senses,” Abby said, and all Sara could think was that because of Danny, her senses were all the more intense. Colors shimmered. Sound pulsed. Her heart grew in size.
    And then school started up again and they had a whole new routine. They’d see each other before classes. During lunch when she’d run outside to meet him. At odd times during the day. She was in calculus class one day, taking a pop quiz, when she sensed Danny’s presence, a charge in the air. The test was so easy she could do it in her sleep, but she couldn’t concentrate anymore. She heard Danny’s whisper, just behind her, making her turn around.
Sara. Sara. I’m here
, he whispered. She looked at the numbers and she smelled him—laundry soap and cigarettes, making her so dizzy she got up from her seat, as if she were sleepwalking. Drawn, she walked to the window, and there he was, like an apparition, and as soon as she saw him, she felt wings beating inside of her.
    “Miss Rothman!” the teacher said sharply, pointing to Sara’s seat. Sara turned from the teacher back to the window, and Danny was gone.
    The first time they made love she was in Danny’s room, getting ready to bolt out of there, because she had a paper due the next day that she hadn’teven started. “I’ve got to go,” she said, but she couldn’t move from his bed. He grinned at her and came so close his nose almost