Headline: Anger Management

"I've decided that you can't have your party tonight." My mom stuck her head in the doorway of my room and gave me this pathetic look.1

"WHAT?! What do you mean, 'you can’t have a party tonight?!'" I was outraged. 2

"I. do not. want. you. to have. a party. This is hard to understand?" God! She was all freaked out now. This is why I didn’t tell her. 3

"Oh. And your grades came today."4

"WHAT!! Where are they? What did I get? Did I fail anything? Oh. My. God!"5

I ran to the home theater room and grabbed the sheet of paper that told me how the rest of my life was going to go. 6

Math - B+7

Spanish 4 - B8

AP US History - C9

Physics - B-10

Flute Choir - A11

Art of Writing - B+12

"YES! I got a C in history!!! Alright!!" I practically jumped up and down because I was so happy that I didn’t fail history. I was borderline failing all semester and it was really bothering me. 13

"Well... maybe next semester, you can try to work a little harder and bring that C up to a B-." My mom was disappointed, I could tell. And now I was pissed off at her. 14

"Well... if you think you can do better, YOU take the fucking class!" I said, then got up and walked away. She didn’t say anything, just stood there and didn’t move.15

A little while later, I was sitting at my computer, randomly clicking on things to make it look like I was doing something, when my mom came up behind me.16

“No matter what I said, I’m still proud of you.”17

“You sure got a funny way of showing it. Nothing I do is ever good enough is it? Every time I get my grades it’s always, ‘you can do better Alexandra’ or ‘try harder next time Alexandra.’”18

“I never said that!”19

“Yeah… but you didn’t have to.”20

My mother didn’t say anything; she just stood there, behind the computer chair, not moving. I had to tell her to move when I wanted to get up. 21

The music blared, hard and loud in my ears. I had my stereo cranked as loud as it would go, with the door wide open (I know it bothers my dad when I play my music that loud) and all the lights on. I was lying on my bed in my pajamas, which consisted of a pair of boxers and a large T-shirt and my pump. Nothing else… well, my underwear, but that doesn’t count. I was fumbling around on the nightstand, looking for my remote to my stereo without actually “looking” for it when Adam walked in. 22

I looked up at him, and turned the music down, but didn’t say anything. 23

“The least you could do is say hi to me.” He said.24

“Hi. There, I said it, now will you leave me alone?” I snapped. 25

“No. I’m gonna sit here until you feel better. I hate it when you’re pissed off. It makes me sad to see you so unhappy.”26

“Yeah, well… take it up with my mother.”27

“I’d much rather talk to you.”28

“I don’t feel like talking.”29

“We don’t have to talk. We can just lie here and listen to the music.”30

My only response was to turn the music back up. He laid down next to me and I lifted my head so he could slide his arm under it. He made a very comfortable pillow. I snuggled up against his side, just lying there and breathing, trying not to cry again. 31

It must have been at least ten minutes before either one of us did anything but lie there in each others arms. I’d had the CD on repeat for at least two hours, so it would continue to repeat the whole disk until the world ended. Which it was bound to when my parents decided what to do about my little outburst. But after a while, Adam started rubbing my back gently. It was so much what I needed that I almost cried again. But I willed it away. I would not cry in front of him. Never. Well… maybe just this once. A single tear escaped my control and rolled down my cheek. He saw it and I made no move to hide it. 32

“No! No, don’t cry. It’s not your fault!”33

“I just feel like it is though! I feel like she’s gonna hate me now! But she makes me feel insignificant.”34

“You are not insignificant! In everything you do, you are wonderful, amazing, and beautiful. Never let anyone tell you any different. Especially your mother!”35

“Ha. Right. Like I’m supposed to be able to tell my mother that what she thinks of me is wrong?”36

“I thought that’s what you did.”37

“Yeah… well… I still hate her when she does this!” Now I was mad again. I had just been feeling pitiful before, but the full force of my anger came back in one giant rush. 38

I leaned over and kissed Adam hard. 39

“You are so wonderful.”40

He kissed me back with a hunger that scared me. We still hadn’t done IT. We had talked about it, agonized about it, joked about it, and almost done it. But we had never quite gotten all the way there yet. But now, with the music blasting loud and hard in our ears, I knew that this time it would happen. This time would be different, and this time would be special. 41

I pulled away from him gently. He tried to pull me back down on top of him, but I wouldn’t let him.42

“I’ll be right back.”43

“Where are you going?”44

“You’ll see…” I got up and walked over to my bedroom door, closed it, and then proceeded to turn off all the lights. The light from the display on my stereo and my alarm clock was enough to dimly see by, and the shadows on the walls and ceiling from the odd light added to the effect.45

“Where are you? I can’t see a damn thing!” Adam said.46

“Gimme a minute, will ya?” I was trying, unsuccessfully, to find the condom that my mom had so graciously given me. Aha! It was in the drawer to my nightstand. I pulled it out and placed it next to my water glass, within easy reach. Then I climbed back into my bed. 47

“Better?” I asked.48

“Much.” Adam replied.49

He reached for me, trying to kiss me again, but I wouldn’t let him. I pulled away, and pushed his hands away and made him more and more frustrated with me, until he finally grabbed me, straddled me and pinned me down.50

“Ooo… yeah, I like it rough.” I grinned. He knew all about my fantasies. 51

“Try this on for size.” He said as he drew my arms above my head and kissed me again. When we finally came up for air, I gasped, “Oh, damn! Screw this, let’s fuck!”52

He laughed at this and kissed me once more. I wriggled my hands out from his grasp and groped for the bottom of his T-shirt. When I found it, I pulled it up and over his head and tossed it on the floor. My T-shirt received the same treatment, but as I was on the bottom, I had to arch my back to get it off. His eyes got wider (if that was possible in the dark) and he stopped everything to look at me.53

“You’re so beautiful.” He breathed. 54

“Ha. Funny man.” I didn’t believe him. I’ve spent my whole like thinking I was pudgy and unappealing, but here was a flesh-and-blood boy who truly believed that I was beautiful. 55

“I’m serious!” He said.56

“Adam?” I asked.57

“Yeah?” He was still watching me with that shining look in his eyes.58

“Shut up and kiss me again!”59

He complied. But this time, it wasn’t my mouth that he kissed. His lips traveled over my body, starting with my throat, moving to my ear, and back down all the way to my left breast. It was an entirely new feeling, to have this boy that I loved so much, making me feel as if I was the only girl in the world, as if this was the only thing he wanted to be doing at that moment. And maybe I was. Maybe he did. 60

My breathing was getting shallower, and I couldn’t help but let out a moan every time his lips or hands touched me anywhere. Then I had the most horrifying thought you could possibly have at that moment in time. My parents are still home. I froze. 61

“What’s wrong?” Adam was concerned. Stopping dead in the middle of making out is not something that will make the other person feel secure. 62

“I just realized… my parents are still home.” I was scared now. What if they came in here while the two of us were… Oh, shit. 63

“Relax. They’re not going to come in here. And they’re not going to hear us. Besides, this music’s so loud that I can barely hear you, much less one of them being able to hear us.”64

“Oh. Ha ha. Maybe I’ll put something else on.”65

“Good idea.”66

I got up and turned the volume down on my stereo, pulled out my CD collection and began thumbing through it to find something to listen to. Nothing looked good, so I handed it to Adam and said, “You find something. I can’t decide.”67

He flipped through all of them, and finally pulled out a CD and handed it to me. It was Start Static by Sugarcult. The very first CD that we ever listened to on our first date.68

“You remembered!” I breathed.69

“Of course! How could I forget? It was the first thing we ever listened to together.” He seemed surprised at my surprise. 70

“I don’t know… I just wouldn’t think that you’d remember something like that.”71

“But of course!” He said in a phony French accent.72

“Ooo, Mr. French Man!! Out to steal the hearts of women across the globe!”73

“Only yours.”  He reached his hands out to me, and I took them in my own. Then he pulled me to him and kissed me passionately. My heart fluttered and I felt my knees go weak. Just minutes before, we were making out, all hot and heavy, but I didn’t feel like this. This wasn’t lust. This was love. 74