Any Red-Blooded Girl by Maggie Bloom

dinner. And that’s when, out
of the corner of my eye, I spotted Mick striding toward me with a
dazzling, clueless smile.
    Shit. I should have warned him about my
parents. I should have told him that they’re way overprotective. That they don’t think anybody’s good enough for me.
That they think I’m too impressionable. All at once, a million
things I should have said raced through my mind, causing a thought
meltdown of epic proportions.
    The second Mick stepped off the dirt road
onto Tupelo-9, everything around me went fuzzy. It was sort of like
a car accident we were in when I was eleven. My mother was driving
me and Jessie home from the fifth grade ice cream social, when the
pavement got really slick. And as the road curved in front of us,
the cars up ahead slid into the ditch. But for some strange reason,
I thought we would avoid the growing heap of metal on the
side of the road. When we hit the turn, though, I felt our tires
lose contact with the ground. Then everything spun out of control,
and all I could do was stare in frozen horror. That’s how I felt
watching Mick strut toward me: utterly helpless. It was too late
for all the things I should have said.
    But at the very last moment, a shred of an
idea occurred to me. If only I could get to Mick before my parents
did, maybe I could whisper a quick warning in his ear. On a
kamikaze mission, I tossed my half-eaten plate of pasta into the
trash and bolted toward the road.
    And maybe if I hadn’t been in such a
god-awful hurry, I might have actually noticed the stupid air pump
my father had left on the ground in front of the Maroon
Monstrosity. But unfortunately I didn’t notice it until its
hard, fat cord caught between my toes and hurled me to the ground.
Of course, before anyone else could respond, my sweet, sweet Mick
dashed to my rescue.
    I had a limited window to act. “I don’t like
you,” I blurted over his shoulder, as he hoisted me to my feet.
    Shit. That hadn’t come out exactly right.
What I’d meant to say was that I was pretending not to like
him. But with my mother advancing on us at breakneck speed, there
was no time to explain. Play along, I tried to mouth. But I
could tell by the hurt look in Mick’s eyes that he hadn’t
understood.
    “Are you all right?!” my mother shrieked,
rocketing to my side. She tugged me by the arm to the picnic table.
“Sit down, so I can get a good look at you.”
    Here we go again. Just because my mother
works in a dental office, she’s under the delusion she’s also
qualified to be a nurse. Honest to God, whenever anyone gets hurt,
she springs into action like she just can’t wait to try out her
hidden talents on the poor sucker.
    “I’m fine, Mom. Really,” I assured her.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
    “I’ll be the judge of that.”
    The Mental Hygienist had fixated on a sizable
scrape on my left calf, which she was running her fingers over in
some sort of voodoo maneuver.
    And, of course, that’s when my father decided
to butt into the middle of a situation that already had one parent
too many. “Ooh, Flowbee. That looks painful,” he said with a wince.
“Better let Moo-Ma clean that up for you.”
    Mr. Tightwad winked at the Mental Hygienist,
which made me wonder if they were conspiring against me. But, more
importantly, had Mick just heard my father refer to me by that
ridiculous nickname? I cranked my head around to check his
reaction, only to discover—to my absolute anguish—that he was
gone.
    Now, I swear, I’m not usually the crybaby
type, but seeing that wounded look in Mick’s eyes—and knowing he’d
been upset enough to disappear—got the best of me. Luckily, though,
the waterworks kicked in just as my mother sloshed an alcohol pad
over my scraped leg, so at least the blubbering made sense
anyway.
    “It’ll be okay,” my mother said, briefly
patting me on the head before she reached back into her handy-dandy
medical kit for some Neosporin. “It’s not as bad as