Read Online Heartbeat by Faith Sullivan - Free Book Online Page A

stationed in the living room for his all-night TV session. Grandma and I lived there, too, but we had to be seen and not heard. It wasn’t an inviting environment to grow up in, to say the least.
    And boys were out of the question. Any guy who showed the slightest inclination toward me was thoroughly dismissed before a first date could even be mentioned. No hormone-riddled, insecure teenage boy stood a chance of going up against such a determined prison warden. As far as Dad was concerned, no one was getting near me, as long as he had something to say about it.
    While it was nice to have someone who wanted to offer a sense of protection, the severity of it wasn’t exactly healthy. I knew he was a wild, high-strung rebel at my age. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he got some girl pregnant when he was in high school and used that to rationalize his treatment of me. Too bad he wasn’t there when it counted.
    Am I technically still a virgin? I didn’t have what is considered sexual intercourse, but I would say it came pretty darn close. I don’t know what makes me feel worse—that I’m still a virgin or I’m not. I’m glad my curiosity over the whole subject was slightly sated, but my emotions over the experience are all over the map. The arousal. The embarrassment. The exploration. The shock. But the one recurring thought I do have is—it would’ve been so good if I actually loved Patrick.
    Instead, it was a frustrating one-night stand that went nowhere. He never called me after that, and I never saw him again. That’s what hurt most of all—like I was discarded because I didn’t give him what he wanted.
    I’m not even sure if the whole thing was consensual. The only reason things went as far as they did is because I knew him—slightly, but I knew him. He wasn’t a complete stranger, and I didn’t feel like I was in danger. I didn’t want to have sex with him. I said no, and we didn’t. But he didn’t stop completely like I thought he would either. He kept going into a different territory.
    But what bugs me is that he kept asking me the whole time if I was a virgin. Was it blatantly obvious? What it that much of a turn-off?
    I try not to think about what happened too much. His rejection. My inexperience. The exposure. The girl with the high ideals reduced in a moment to a cheap thrill.
    I never really spoke to anyone about what happened that night. Sure, Jennifer prodded at first, but when she sobered up the next day she never asked about it again. I think she felt guilty. Things like that weren’t supposed to happen to me. But they did.

Chapter Twenty

Adam
    Ah, time to relax. For the first time in God knows how long, I have a day all to myself. I’m not going to worry about homework, housework, any kind of work. I’m just gonna chill.
    I hike a couple of miles into the woods behind my apartment. It is the first warm day in a while with the daytime temperature hovering in the fifties. The sun is melting the snow, so it’s a bit muddy, but I feel exhilarated. I love being out in nature. It makes me feel alive.
    After being cooped up all winter, this dose of freedom is just what I need to clear my head. As I climb to my favorite vantage point, I think about how radically my life changed in the last year and if I’m ready for more.
    I miss the beach. I really do. It was my escape, my refuge. The tourist-jammed resort areas where I worked didn’t appeal to me as much as the private nooks and crannies that the locals only shared with a select few. Those untouched places—where all that went on was the steady pounding of the surf—spoke to me.
    The hypnotic nature of those locations made me believe that what I experienced there with April was real. That she was a part of me and I was a part of her. Joined together as one, never to be separated. Our bodies moving together…breathless, euphoric…a union that seemed predestined.
    How wrong I was. I meant nothing to her. Well, next to nothing. I