21
“Everybody knows,” she said, “you didn’t really think you could sneak out of here on Christmas Eve and walk three blocks in this town without us knowing about it did you?”
“Everybody knows? Even Anne?” The need to move to a new state, maybe a new planet, flashed through his mind.
“I don’t think so. Miss Dawn says that she and Mr. Mike think the mystery is romantic, and Anne loves opening them. But all of this makes me wonder why you were so quiet tonight.”
“She doesn’t like me, that’s all,” while thinking she could never like him, not like that anyway.
“Well, I’m sure you’re wrong about that, but I have no doubt about what’s wrong with you,” she said with a smile.
“What?” he asked.
“You are smitten!” she said smiling, and turned around to leave. “Absolutely smitten,” she added as she walked out the door and closed it behind her.
Tommy walked over to his bed, lay down with his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. He felt like the whole world had been reading his mind. He realized that in trying his hardest to not embarrass himself he had managed to hurt the one person in the whole world, besides his family, who he wanted to protect. Except for Julie, he wasn’t very interested in protecting her. Well, maybe if it was really dangerous.
He didn’t understand what made Anne so special. When his mind roamed to kissing girls, it never let him kiss her, no matter how bad he wanted to. Even when he thought about being with a girl in the back seat of the car he would own one day and sliding his hand under her shirt or sweater it never included Anne. When he did imagine her there she just stared at him and said, “You’re boring me.” When his questions had finally forced his father to tell him the complete story of the birds and the bees, he knew that Anne would never be a mother. He thought that was sad, because naturally she would make the best mother ever, but there was no way that was ever