SEVENTEEN years to Live

3 ●○► CANDIES AND LOLLIPOPS

CHAPTER THREE

●○► CANDIES AND LOLLIPOPS

I feel as if my body is being torn into pieces. I don’t know if I can still breathe out the air that is trapped in my lungs from what I am seeing. It hurts, like there are a thousand pins pinching at your heart.

My jaw drops, and the next thing I want to do is to run back. I don’t want to see Kevin with another girl kissing him. Certainly not. I want to be in that position, kissing Kevin and tasting his lips like there’s no tomorrow.

Heather lets go of my wrist and speaks. “Woah. That’s not happening. It can’t be.”

It can, I think, gritting my teeth. Suddenly the anger rises up into my heart. If Kevin is with another girl, so be it. Let him be with her and live with her. Besides, Kevin has no taste. Kevin is a big slut!

“We should go,” Heather suggests. “I think that’s already freaking you out. We should go home.”

I nod in reply to Heather, then she grabs my hand and we turn our backs to the lake. We walk back home silently with heads bowed down. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now. Will I still have a child? Or will I just die a virgin? I wish I do not.

As we reach the house, the girls are already there. Janine is laughing with Kate while Beth bits her lip as if she had just tasted a boy.

“Oh, hi, Mary. Hi, Heather,” says Kate, as if shocked when she catches sight of me and Heather. “Where’ve you been?”

Tiredly, I admit, “The lake.”

Kate must have recognized the worry in my tone. “What’s wrong?” she says. “Did your boyfriend back out from having sex with you?”

I look at her, the kind of look you give when you’re disappointed, and say, “No. There’s no one who backed out. And I don’t have a boyfriend yet.”

“Oh,” ejaculates Janine, “you don’t have? Well, Beth has just had sex with Ryan.”

“‘Ryan’ who?” asks Heather.

“Kevin’s friend,” says Kate. “I believe, Mary, that he’s your crush. Is he? Did you ask him out already?”

“Did,” I say, my lips regretting that the word leaves them, “but—”

I just shake my head. Maybe the girls know what it means. The answer is no. But it’s worse than no. Kevin has a girlfriend, and I bet something has already happened between them.

“That’s sad,” comments Beth. “Having sex to someone is good. It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had in my life. Try it. You’ll get what I mean. And, oh, Janine, did you ask Oren already?”

Janine smirks and raises one eyebrow at us. “Secret,” she says, rolling her eyes, laughing.

“Aw,” says Heather. “I’m sure you already have. You’re blushing, don’t you know?”

I did not notice that. I cannot focus at the things that are happening around me. I don’t even know what Beth is doing with her tongue. Like she’s licking something. But I do not know what it means and what it is. I cannot focus. The kiss still bothers me.

“I’m not.” Janine laughs, and Heather teases her more that she is.

Before I go to sleep, I take my diary with me and place it on my lap. I uncap my pen and start scribbling something on the first page. I write: February 2, 2113.