Read Online My Lost and Found Life by Melodie Bowsher - Free Book Online

whole thing, and I didn’t want to lose my nerve. I sniffed his neck and inhaled his scent. If everything I’d heard about Webb was true, he would know what to do and what to put where.
    He did know. The whole thing was fine, honestly—much better than I expected. For one thing, I discovered that when you’re the one wanting it and pushing for it, you don’t feel as if you’re losing control or relinquishing your power. I loved having him stroke my skin and suck my breasts, and the quick, sharp pain when he entered me wasn’t too bad. When he pulled me on top, I really got into it, and unrecognizable sounds started to come out of me. Then I felt a tiny, warm explosion inside. It wasn’t a big shuddering lollapalooza like you see in the movies or one of those multiorgasmic things you hear about. Still, it felt good. Maybe it was a mini-orgasm, but it was my first involving a partner, and I felt very proud. The whole thing wasn’t nearly the ordeal I had expected.
    • • •
    I woke up the next morning with the inside of my mouth as dry as sawdust, and a sore head. Webb had stuck around, hogging my twin bed, and I gave him a small kick and told him I felt awful.
    “That’s the price of tripping on E—you have a sore jaw in the morning.”
    “Why didn’t anyone tell me there was a price?” I groaned.
    “Come on, it’s no worse than a hangover, and the trip was a whole lot better than drinking booze, admit it. At least on E, you don’t stumble around, get mean, or throw up.”
    He got up and went into the bathroom. When he came back, he handed me a glass of tap water. I watched him pull on his jeans and black T-shirt. He had a great body, no doubt about it.
    “I wish I could hang around, but I have to split.”
    I nodded. I didn’t feel like conversation anyway.
    “Listen, don’t be like Tattie. Don’t start mixing E with acid or doing drugs every day. It takes a couple of days before it’s totally out of your system,” he cautioned me. “You need to wait and see what happens.”
    “What does that mean?” I said sharply, sitting up with the comforter pulled around me.
    “It’s just that some people get really down afterward. Not everyone. But someone I know did. If you start to feel depressed, that’s what’s going on. It’ll pass.”
    “Great,” I mumbled. “As if I’m not depressed already.”
    “It probably won’t happen. I’ve never felt down afterward. Lately, I haven’t felt much of anything. The first time is always the best, and I’ve never had the high that I got the first time. I had more fun watching you last night than tripping on it myself.”
    I smiled weakly and flopped back on the bed.
    Webb took off after saying he’d call me, and it was all I could do to keep from saying “Don’t bother.” I was just relieved to have done the deed at last. And I was miserable enough these days without getting involved with bad-boy Webb.
    • • •
    I hung out with Stella for what was left of the day, waiting to feel better. The tightness in my jaw started to go away, but my depression didn’t. I stayed on the sofa, mindlessly channel surfing and unable to get interested in anything.
    As the sky darkened, so did my mood. I couldn’t stopthinking about my mother and my situation, and everything seemed hopeless. Last night’s revelations had stuck with me, and I couldn’t forgive myself for the contemptuous way I had treated her. All the thoughts I had been struggling to keep at bay were on the top of my mind now, and I felt a dull, aching pain as if I had a splinter in my heart.
    It started to rain, one of those quick spring showers that douses everything and then is over. Sprawled on the sofa, I stared out at the rain and remembered what I had been avoiding for days—the memory of my mother on that lawn, sobbing and drenched, the night before she disappeared.
    • • •
    The argument had started when I came home from a night out with Scott and the gang. I was in a bad mood