Read Online Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern - Free Book Online Page B

place, we’d be lovers by now. As it is, we have to settle for an unspoken but mutual understanding.”
    Sarah’s response was a surprise. In Amy’s mind, Sarah always seemed older than her other peer helpers. More like an adult—which Amy assumed, early on, meant that Sarah would be easier for her to talk with, the way adults had always been. Instead it was the opposite. Sarah seemed overly interested sometimes, and distracted other times. She checked her phone constantly for messages that weren’t there. Amy asked Sarah if she’d ever been in love, because she’d asked the other two and she wanted to get as many opinions as she could. She had no idea what Sarah would say.
    “Are you asking if I’ve ever had sex, or if I’ve ever been in love?”
    Amy was surprised. No one else besides Connie had ever brought up the subject of sex with her. “I’M ASKING IF YOU’VE BEEN IN LOVE.”
    Sarah opened her phone and checked it. “I thought I was,” she said. “But it was last year and I was an idiot.”
    “WHO WAS IT?”
    “Just this guy. He’s twenty-three. He manages a cell phone kiosk.”
    Amy couldn’t contain her curiosity. “DID YOU HAVE SEX?”
    Sarah stared at her. “He’s twenty-three. What do you think?”
    “YES?”
    Sarah smiled. “Yes, Amy. We had sex.” She shrugged. “I knew I didn’t love him by then. I just wanted to get it over with. That’s the thing about sex, I’ve decided. There’s this mystique around it, and the truth is everyone should probably just do it once and get it over with.”
    Amy considered this for a minute. “IT WAS THAT BAD?”
    “Not bad, exactly,” Sarah said, turning her yogurt spoon over in her mouth. “I just don’t think it’s worth waiting forever, like it’s going to be so special.”
    “WHAT’S IT LIKE?”
    “Painful, mostly. I mean, I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’m glad I got it over with, though.”
    “WHY?”
    Sarah considered the question. “This way when I’m in college and really fall in love, I’ll know what I’m doing.”
    Afterward Amy had decided that if she never succeeded in telling Matthew how she felt, maybe it was okay. They were friends. Very good friends. They joked around a lot and made each other laugh, but they also talked honestly about hard topics, too. All of Sarah’s talk about sex made her wonder if maybe it wasn’t as great as everyone said and she should be grateful—really grateful—for what she had with Matthew.
    Over Christmas vacation, Amy IM’d with Matthew as they’d taken to doing a few nights a week. He told her about Christmas Eve with his father’s family, awkwardness made excruciating when two people accidentally bought him the same present.
    aimhigh: What present?
    mstheword: Don’t ask.
    aimhigh: Tell me.
    mstheword: A tenth-anniversary Calvin and Hobbes. Yes, I am a fan. I know this tells you too much about both my maturity and my reading level.
    aimhigh: It’s fine, Matthew.
    mstheword: I love Garfield, too.
    aimhigh: Are you serious?
    mstheword: My whole bookshelf at home is pretty much Garfield collections.
    aimhigh: See, that worries me a little.
    mstheword: I had a feeling it would. That’s why I’ve never mentioned it.
    aimhigh: You need someone to make some book suggestions.
    After she wrote this, she remembered him saying that reading made him anxious—that he always worried about making a mistake.
    mstheword: Maybe I do need that. Like who?
    aimhigh: I happen to have gotten the Librarian’s Summer Reading Award every year for ten years. I know that seems remarkable, but there’s a secret to winning.
    mstheword: What’s the secret?
    aimhigh: Short books count, too.
    mstheword: So maybe you know some short books you’d recommend?
    aimhigh: I know some very short books.
    On New Year’s Eve, she asked if he’d like to wait up online until midnight with her. “Sure,” he wrote back. “That’s probably better than sitting with my mother , who likes to spend New Year’s Eve