"I don't want them in the house," I said to my step-sister. She wasn't living with us anymore, but she spent the night as often as she could that summer we were 14. My cousin, L., was staying at my dad's too. She was 13. The three of us were talking about boys. We were …
Continue reading Sometimes it is hard to find a good hiding place.
"Let's call your mother," my grandma said. It was a sunny summer day. I was home from college. Mom asked me how things were going. "Nothing earth shattering," I said. "Here, grandma wants to talk you." Grandma asked me to stay in the room and I sat on the floor looking at the squares of …
We said goodbye in the U-Haul parking lot the tactophobe and I. I didn't think he really cared about kissing me goodbye, but we'd taken that turn and it seemed required. Perhaps he'd finally kissed me in first place to prove something. I didn't know if he thought we ought to wait for each other …
"I rented a billboard to ask her to marry me," he said. We were sitting on his couch. It was our third date. "Really?" I said, not wanting it to be true. He looked matter-of-fact, as if he'd just said he'd run out of ice. "She said no." Well, obviously, I thought, though I did …
"You are the third princess," the teacher said. We were putting on the 2nd grade play and the princess would be played by three of us. I got to be the princess chased by the witch, rescued by the prince, and reunited with her father. I loved the part until I found out I had …
"He's tried to kill himself," Kelly said. "Did you know that?" She was talking about R. who liked poetry and jokes about death and who she was dating. Until she started dating another R. who liked football and jokes about his classmates. But I didn't know this news about the first R. I also didn't …
Our teacher told us show-and-tell would be outside that day, and so into the parking lot traipsed, a weaving, skipping, and lollygagging pack of Catholic third graders. A pale blue truck pulled up and in the bed were sheep. Sheep! Paul, the tallest, skinniest boy in our class, strutted over, set his foot on the …
"I don't want you to talk to me. I don't want you to look at me. I don't even want you to think about me. Got it?" R. said to me. He stood at my desk, not caring that the entire class could hear. He'd just gotten back from the principal's office. It was Monday …
"You always reading," the boy said. "You ever have any fun?" My Terry Brooks novel was next to the keyboard. We were in computer class. Knowing what he was going to say next, I kept my eyes on the screen. I was getting better at pretending he wasn't there. He scooted his chair an inch …
"I got you a present," S. said. I stopped digging for books in my locker and looked at him. "What?" We were in the tenth grade and he sat behind me in algebra. He'd drawn a button in the corner of his desk. We joked that if we pushed it, we'd start a nuclear war. …
Marta Bacon 