Misty by V.C. Andrews Page A

told my mother he had come over to help me study and we didn’t have all that much time because he had to be home early. She looked like we had told her she had two days to live or something.
    â€œ ‘Oh,’ she said, reluctantly releasing his arm and stepping back. ‘Of course. I know how important all that is. I just wanted to make Charlie feel at home,’ she said.
    â€œFor one small second, I felt sorry for her. I actually thought she was suffering loneliness and I felt bad about cutting it all short like that, but Charles Allen was very grateful for my rescue.
    â€œWe went up to my room and I apologized for my mother’s behavior. He fell back on my bed with his arms out and stared up at the ceiling for a moment.
    â€œ ‘I hate to be fawned over like that,’ he finally said. ‘I have an aunt who always does that. As soon as she comes into the house, she always finds me and hugs me so tightly, I nearly suffocate. She wears this heavy perfume, too, the kind that you continue to smell for hoursafter she leaves a room. She loves messing my hair and keeping me trapped on her lap, wrapping her long, thin bony arms around me like some sort of octopus.’
    â€œHe sat up with a big smile on his face.
    â€œ ‘What?’ I asked.
    â€œ ‘Whenever I complain about her now, my mother always reminds me that once when I was about three, I urinated on her, right through my clothes. It didn’t stop her from scooping me up the next time, though. She’s my mother’s older sister, a spinster. She took care of my grandmother for years after my grandmother’s stroke so we have to put up with all of my aunt’s eccentricities, and believe me, there are plenty of them.’
    â€œHe paused and looked around my room, nodding as he gazed at the armoire, the vanity table, the computer, and my closets and mirrors, as well as my posters, wall of family photos and doll collection.
    â€œ ‘Your room is just as I had imagined it would be,’ he told me.
    â€œ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. If he had said it’s cute, I would have thrown him out the window right then and there.”
    â€œWhat did he say?” Jade asked.
    â€œHe said, ‘It’s cozy and warm.’ Charles Allen knew all the buttons to push,” I said with a tight smirk.
    â€œYou sound like you really hate him now,” Star said.
    I glanced at Doctor Marlowe. Her eyes softened.
    â€œI don’t hate him. Actually, I pity him. He’s even more confused by life than. . . than I am,” I replied.
    â€œAnyway, it got pretty hot and heavy that afternoon. We came very close,” I said quickly for Star’s benefit.She looked disappointed that we only came close. “We just started kissing again and he asked me to do what I had done at his house and take off my blouse and bra. There was something exciting about doing all this in my own house with my mother right downstairs filing her nails or something.”
    I paused in describing the scene, recalling that afternoon in my own mind first: his eyes, my own thumping heart, the cloud that had turned my room mysterious and dark for a few moments, the way his tongue glided over his lower lip.
    My reverie was too long for Star.
    â€œIf you’re telling it, tell it,” she said with a little smile.
    I looked at her with an expression that clearly said, you better be just as honest about yourself as I am about myself. I had told Doctor Marlowe most of it before, so it wasn’t hard to describe things in front of her now.
    â€œWe got into my bed and kissed for a while. I kept my eyes closed and held onto him as if I would drown if I didn’t, and then he unbuttoned my jeans and put his hand in them. No one had ever touched me where he touched me. Then he really surprised me by taking down his own pants. He squirmed out of them like a snake. I thought that was funny, but after he had done it and I