Somebody Love Me (Journeys) by Michelle Sutton Page A

on me the whole time with a girl from another school.
    He never confessed, though. I found out from a mutual friend that the reason he'd lost a front tooth was he took a girl to a party and they left drunk. He hit a phone pole and lost a tooth. She'd had a few ribs broken because she'd climbed on his lap while he was driving. Someone's dad worked as an EMT and had arrived on the scene, and the story people shared about the wreck told me all I needed to know. Tim was history now, too.
    After finishing my sophomore year of high school, I dated so many other guys I lost count. I didn't sleep with many of them, though. Just a few guys. My friend Shari Gecko kept telling me which guys to avoid and which ones to date. Come to find out she was sleeping with some of my dates behind my back, so we didn't last long as friends.
    One night I went to a party with Mary and ran into that cute guy from last fall named Andy. He looked as dreamy as ever. Now I was sixteen going on seventeen so there was no reason we couldn't have sex. If he was still interested in me.
    The coolest thing was he actually remembered me. Of all the girls in the world who liked him, he remembered my face and my name. Of course he called me jail bait at first. Then he smiled and said, "Hey, Missy, I'm thinking you're old enough now, right?"
    "I sure am. What do you say we get together some time?"
    He paused a moment and wrote his address on a piece of paper. "My parents will be gone this weekend. Stop by and we'll get reacquainted."
    "Do I have to wait until then to get a kiss from a hot guy like you?" Good grief, I even sounded like a slut. Oh well.
    He winked. "I think I can oblige you now."
    We kissed and it reminded me of the first time we met. He was a skilled kisser, but not a man handler when it came to my body. I liked that about Andy. Plus, the look of intense desire in his eyes told me I had the same effect on him that I had the first time. The weekend couldn't come soon enough for me.
    I asked almost as an afterthought, "Do you have a girlfriend?"
    A rogue grin tugged at his mouth and he said, "Now I do."
    Be still my racing heart. What girl didn't want to hear that, right? And from a sexy guy like Andy? I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven.
    You think I would've worried about stuff like VD since my morals had become so loose, but that happened to other people who messed around. Not me. At least I hoped not. How would I explain that to my parents? At least with condoms I had some protection. Not many guys I knew wanted to wear them.
    When Saturday arrived, I grabbed the bus across town. Andy lived about as far on the other side of the city as he could get, but I figured it was worth transferring on two busses to get to his place. His house was average, like mine, and painted a bright shade of green with white trim.
    Come to find out Andy had a Slavic background, and according to Mary, those guys were pretty intense lovers. Mary said they even made Italian guys seem lame.
    With all that imagery floating around in my head, I was expecting the time of my life in Andy's bed. What I didn't expect was how much it would hurt with a guy that huge. Maybe it scared me when I first saw him naked. I don't know what happened, but it was nothing like I thought it would be. It seemed to go on forever and I prayed he would finish and get off me.
    The moment he did, I excused myself and went to the bathroom. It hurt to walk. Did all girls feel that way with him, or was there something different about me? I thought about asking, but decided against it. Andy seemed to have lost interest in talking once he'd gotten what I came to his house for. It grieved me to think our date was little more than a free "call girl" like myself coming over to climb into the sack with a guy I barely knew. When had my life gotten so out of control?
    I even thought about praying, but figured God wouldn't hear a sinner like me. Regardless, I started to feel like I was looking for love in all