Read Online Blowback by Stephanie Summers - Free Book Online Page B

206, okay?”
    I turned on the television to entertain myself until Sophie and her roommate could get there, but it all faded into background noise. Memories of Jet played like a movie in my mind. Painful ones entwined with our relationship firsts. Not painful because they were of Jet, but because of the things he’d told me. Even though we shared some beautiful moments, they were often tainted by the darkness he lived in every day.
    Our first kiss was even tragic in a way.
    It was a Friday evening, and my parents had left for a weekend trip to visit my mother’s friend who’d just had a baby. She lived almost four hours away, so they’d always made a weekend out of it when they’d gone to visit her. I’d stayed by myself overnight a couple of other times when they went to visit her, but generally, I just holed up in my room and pretended to the outside world like I wasn’t really there. This one was supposed to be different.
    Jet and I would be completely alone and free to do as we pleased. Not that I planned on having sex with him. I’d thought about it more than once, but I wasn’t there yet. I just wanted to kiss him without the threat of my mother or stepdad catching me and either giving me hell or making fun of me. With my parents, I never could tell which way they’d go. Of course, they’d forbidden him from coming over while they were gone, but since I had no one to catch me breaking their rule, I invited him anyway. I hadn’t told him they’d be gone and had just let on like it would be like any other day.
    The sad part about it all was that I didn’t even know if Jet wanted to kiss me. I thought that was where we were headed, but I couldn’t be sure until he made a move. There were times when there was no doubt in my mind that he was eventually going to be my boyfriend. I figured we’d be getting to the kissing and holding each other and doing all those things teenagers do when they were in love soon enough, but sometimes, he seemed so indifferent and as far away as he could be from what I wanted.
    We were almost inseparable at school, especially when waiting for buses to go home in the afternoon. No matter what the weather was like, we always sat outside on this long, wooden bench that lined the one side of the canopy out front. You could sit on it like a normal bench, but kids often sat on the back of it with their feet resting on the seat because it was wide enough and there was plenty of space so you wouldn’t fall off. More than once, I’d found myself sitting between his legs because he’d come up and plop his ass down on the back part behind me after I’d sat down the normal way. He’d rest his forearms on my shoulders with his legs on either side of me, and I was in heaven. People even started to speculate about us. The rumor spread that we were together and doing it like bunnies every chance we got. If only they knew, I had never even been kissed.
    He came to my house more frequently, and I could usually tell by his mood at school if he was going to show or not. This particular day, I had a feeling he would, and I couldn’t keep myself from getting up every ten seconds to see if he was outside. After about forty-five minutes of that nonsense, I moved outside to the front stoop. Storm clouds dotted the sky, and I prayed like hell it wouldn’t rain. Not that it mattered either way. It wouldn’t ruin anything, except that I’d have to go back in and continue my staring-out-the-window routine.
    Everywhere I looked, I saw something I could relate to him and my growing infatuation. The gray clouds in the sky reminded me of his eyes. The grass was the same shade of green as a shirt he’d worn once. The chain-link fence reminded me of a design he’d doodled in my notebook. He was everywhere.
    The wind picked up a little a few minutes later. Maybe a skirt wasn’t the best idea, but at least it was long and flowy. There was only a slim chance that it’d fly up and expose my butt. I’d