Bleed by Laurie Faria Stolarz Read Free Book Online Page A

demi-cups, with scalloped pink sheering that borders the top, and a tiny plastic clasp in between. I hope it’s the kind he meant.
    I wore a bra kind of like this on my date with Derik LaPointe last year. Derik was this guy my mother fixed me up with, the son of some friend of hers. And while I never meant for him to see it, I kind of knew he would. And then he did.
    My date with Robby will be different.
    I manage to get the dress on, despite my fumbling fingers at the back zipper, make my way over to the mirror, and take a peek. And suddenly—even though I’ve come this far, or maybe because I’ve come this far—I feel sick. Like I can’t possibly go through with it.
    I yank the hot rollers from my hair and flop back onto the bed, pull the covers up to my middle. I think back to how this whole thing started, with just one innocent letter.
    But then there were more letters. Five and a half years’ worth. Five and a half years of him constantly asking me for my phone number. Me, forever ignoring the question. Both of us feeding into each other’s idea of fantasy and sharing our deepest secrets—how we’d meet when he got out; all of our plans for when and where; how my father lives in Santa Cruz, and isn’t that so close?
    And I never really intended any of it. Mostly.

    It’s almost ten. A lump forms in my chest. I swallow to try and dissolve it, but it feels like it’s only getting bigger.
    What if I’m not what he expects? Or … what if I’m exactly what he expects? I know he says he loves me, but will he love me in person? And could he possibly love me as much as Melanie?
    I move over to the dresser and take out the last ingredient of my outfit, the last stitch I’ve promised to wear.
    Even more important than the bra, the panties are pink and silk and two sizes too small. They’re the bikini kind that dip low in the front and have accordion-like straps on the sides. I wouldn’t normally buy a pair like this, especially because they cost nineteen dollars and give me permanent wedge, but they’re the kind he wanted. I just hope the color’s right—that the pink is pale enough, but not too light. That he doesn’t tear them the way Derik did.
    I haven’t told anyone about Robby, even though sometimes it’s practically killed me. Like when I came up with the idea for our Tuesday night smell-my-perfume-and-we’ll-think-of-each-other date. I so wanted to tell Nicole. It just seemed like the romantic kind of thing she’d have thought up. Or when I needed advice about whether or not I should even come to California.
    But keeping him a secret, all mine, where no one else can touch or ruin him for me, makes it better. More romantic.
    Plus, I can just imagine what Nicole would say about me pen-paling with a convicted murderer. She just wouldn’t understand. No one would understand. I even say the words aloud to myself sometimes, only to find that it sounds different in the air, out my mouth, so far from my heart.
    I unpin the price tag and slip the panties on. The seams cut into my cheeks and thighs, as do the accordion straps at my hips. I wonder if maybe Melanie might have had a pair just like them; if she was ever scared of Robby, or just drawn to his excitement. Or maybe it was a little of both.
    I try to imagine what she was thinking that day, her fifteenth birthday, just after the family party, when he suggested they take a walk up that dirt path behind the school to talk. If she played the whole breakup speech over in her head before she actually said it.
    If she even saw the rock coming.
    Standing at the mirror, I try to concentrate on my face, on putting on my makeup. My lipstick—Fuzzy Peach #9. But there are other faces I can’t seem to blot out of my mind. Faces of the jury when the lawyers showed the rock, still stained with Melanie’s blood. When the pictures of her head were flipped in front of them. This one woman, sitting to the right. Her cheeks, bubbling up and then exploding into a