Story of a Girl

Forgetting isn't enough. You can paddle away from the memories and think they are gone. But they will keep floating back, again and again and agian. They circle you, like sharks. Until, unless, something, someone? Can do more than just cover the wound.

That's how you know you really trust someone, I think; when you don't have to talk all the time to make sure they still like you or prove that you have interesting stuff to say.

Sometimes rescue comes to you. It just shows up, and you do nothing. Maybe you deserve it, maybe you don't. But be ready, when it comes, to decide if you will take the outstretched hand and let it pull you ashore.

Sometimes I still stare into space and think about Cameron. I think about how there are certain people who come into your life and leave a mark. I don't mean the usual faint impression: He was cute, she was nice, they made me laugh, I wish I'd known her better, I remember the time she threw up in class. And I don't just mean they change you. A lot of people can change you - the first kid who called you a name, the first teacher who said you were smart, the first person who crowned you their best friend. It's the change you remember, the firsts and what they meant, not really the people.

We'd walk home together in the foggy summer night and I'd tell her about sex; the good stuff, like how it could be warm and exciting--it took you away--and the not-so-good things, like how once you showed someone that part of yourself, you had to trust them one thousand percent and anything could happen. Someone you thought you knew could change and suddenly not want you, suddenly decide you made a better story than a girlfriend. Or how sometimes you might think you wanted to do it and then halfway through or afterward realize no, you just wanted the company, really; you wanted someone to choose you, and the sex part itself was like a trade-off, something you felt like you had to give to get the other part. I'd tell her that and help her decide. I'd be a friend.

It came down to the smallest things, really, that a person could do to say I’m sorry, to say it’s okay, to say I forgive you. The tiniest of declarations that built, one on top of the other, until there was something solid beneath your feet. And then… and then. Who knew?

don’t mistake a new place for a new you.

Was it only because he happened to be the one who came along when he did? Could it have been anyone? Or was there something about him, that I liked and cared at?

This is the last time, the girl thought, that she would remember these things. If they floated back to her again, she would paddle away. When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.

Apparently, the world was perfect in 1958.

I, Deanna Lambert, belong to no one and no one belongs to me. I don't know what to do.

I got this strong feeling of missing him, like he was someone who I loved who had died and gone away, someone who was mostly a memory. I wanted to grab him and say okay, I was sorry about Tommy, it was just a stupid mistake and I knew I’d hurt him and I wish I hadn’t. Because I did love him. I did.

What did it feel like, I wondered, to be kissed like that right out in public? Not like some passionate tongue-wrestling thing, just a kiss to declare: We are each other’s. I’d never been kissed like that, not by him or anyone else. No one had declared me his, not for the whole world to see, anyway.

His voice just shot through me. It’s amazing, the things your body will do just when you don’t want them to: heart speeding up, fingers aching. I’d always liked his voice, low and laid-back, the kind of voice that made you listen, a voice that still caused me to teeter when I heard it saying my old nickname.

It happened right then; he looked at me and it was the thing I’d been waiting for but didn’t know it. I don’t mean anything corny like I fell in love or even into a crush or anything like that. It was more a feeling like when I’d get picked first for volleyball or find one of those stupid school candygrams in my locker. It was knowing someone else thought about me for more than one second, maybe even about me when I wasn’t there.

*Story of a Girl By:Sara Zarr *Lexile:760 SRC:12 pts. *Personal Issues *Choice of getting a job to move out *Major Choice *In Process of making it happen *It effects her bother his girlfriend and their baby, because they will move out with her too. *Sometimes we need to take choices that will make your life easier and also others.

I didn`t say it didn`t feel good..." They never tell you this part in sex ed, how to talk about what you did and why you did it and what you thought about it, before, during, and after.

Only, don`t mistake a new place for a new you. I`ve done that more than once. You asked me before why I stay here. Maybe that`s why," he said, "now that I think about it. Might as well deal with myself right here. It`s as good a place as any.