Little Children by Tom Perrotta

talked to her all night. You didn’t talk to me.”
    “I didn’t even know you were there.”
    “See?” she said. “If you liked me, you would have known. I was watching you all night. I didn’t dance, I didn’t do anything. I was just waiting for you to look at me.”
    Arthur seemed startled, and even moved, by this declaration.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, and to her amazement, he hugged her, right there on Summer Street (no one was around, but still). It was all she could do to keep from bursting into sobs.
    “Let me make it up to you,” he said.
    He made it up to her on a cold metal bench inside a Plexiglas shelter at the commuter rail station, which was closed for the night. The intimacy of their first kiss—she could taste the broccoli he’d eaten for dinner—was one of the few genuinely shocking revelations of her life. My God , she thought, I’m sucking on Arthur Maloney’s tongue … And I like it! It was disgusting and thrilling at the same time, a combination so overwhelming that it didn’t even occur to her to object when he slipped an icy hand inside her sweater and squeezed her right breast, a little less tenderly than she would have liked.
    “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
    “For what?”
    “They’re so small. Beth’s are so much bigger.”
    “Would you shut up about Beth?”
    When he got tired of examining her breasts, he tried to reach up her skirt. She stopped him, not because she didn’t want him to—she wasn’t sure what she wanted in that respect—but because it was all starting to feel like so much so soon, more than either of them really needed.
    “Sorry,” she said again.
    “It’s okay.” He sighed. “I better get going anyway. Gotta rest up for the SATs.”
    “Oh my God,” said Sarah. “I forgot all about them.”
    “It’s the most important test of our lives,” he said. “How could you forget?”
    “You made me,” she told him.
    Arthur looked troubled by this statement, as if it were a dubious honor at best to distract someone from the Scholastic Aptitude Test. But he walked her home, holding her hand all the way, and kissed her good night at the edge of her lawn.
    Of course she couldn’t sleep after that, couldn’t even look at her breakfast in the morning. She felt weak, nearly delirious in the car with her father, who kept rattling off test-taking advice she’d heard a thousand times—answer the easy ones first, eliminate the obviously wrong answers, never leave anything blank—while she had to restrain herself from sticking her head out the window and screaming her new boyfriend’s name to the sleeping town.
    Dozens of her classmates were lined up outside the main entrance to the high school, but her eyes went straight to Arthur without even trying, the connection between them was that strong. He was standing near the front of the line, involved in what looked like a serious conversation with his best friend, Matt. He’s talking about me , Sarah thought proudly, and she walked right up to them without having to ask permission, the way a girlfriend could.
    “Lugubrious,” said Matt.
    “Mournful,” replied Arthur. “Melancholy.”
    She chose that moment to tap him on the shoulder blade.
    “I’m so happy,” she announced. “I can’t stop smiling.”
    Arthur stared at her for a few seconds, as if he were having trouble remembering her name. He had shaved that morning, and his skin was freckled with blood.
    “Can we talk about it later?” he asked. “I’m kinda busy right now.”
    He turned his back on her—he was wearing the same jean jacket as last night—and she understood, as clearly as if he’d punched her in the stomach, that she didn’t have a new boyfriend anymore.
    The doors opened, and Sarah followed the rest of the sheep inside. But all she could think about as she filled in the blanks with her Number 2 pencil was what had gone wrong. Wasn’t I pretty enough? Was I a bad kisser? Should I have let him touch me down there? All