Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver Page A

the juniors and a couple of girls who I think might be sophomores. But still, it’s enough to make me freak out a little.
    I’m about to head over to Emma Howser—she’s super cheesy and normally I wouldn’t be caught dead talking to her, but I’m getting desperate—when I feel thick arms around me and smell lemon balm. Rob.
    He puts a wet mouth against my ear. “Sexy Sammy. Where’ve you been all my life?”
    I turn around. His face is bright red. “You’re drunk,” I say, and it comes out more accusatory than I meant it to.
    “Sober enough,” he says, trying and failing to raise one eyebrow. “And you’re late.” His grin is lazy. Only one half of it curves upward. “We did a keg stand.”
    “It’s ten o’clock,” I point out. “We’re not late. I called you, anyway.”
    He pats his fleece and his pockets. “Must’ve put my phone down somewhere.”
    I roll my eyes. “You’re a delinquent.”
    “I like it when you use those big words.” The other half of his smile is creeping upward slowly and I know he’s going to kiss me. I turn partly away, searching the room for my friends, but they’re still MIA.
    In the corner I spot Kent, wearing a tie and a collared shirt about three sizes too big for him, which is half tucked into a pair of ratty khakis. At least he’s not wearing his bowler hat. He’s talking to Phoebe Rifer and they’re laughing about something. It annoys me that he hasn’t noticed me yet. I’m kind of hoping he’ll look up and come barreling over to me like he usually does, but he just bends closer toward Phoebe like he’s trying to hear her better.
    Rob pulls me into him. “We’ll only stay for an hour, okay? Then we’ll leave.” His breath smells like beer and a little like cigarettes when he kisses me. I close my eyes and think about how in sixth grade I saw him kissing Gabby Haynes and was so jealous I couldn’t eat for two days. I wonder if I look like I’m enjoying it. Gabby did, in sixth grade.
    It relaxes me to think about things like that: how funny life is.
    I haven’t even taken off my jacket, but Rob unzips it and moves his hands along my waist and then under my tank top. His palms are sweaty and big.
    I pull away long enough to say, “Not right here , in the middle of everyone.”
    “Nobody’s watching,” he says, and clamps down on me again.This is a lie. He knows everyone watches us. He can see it. He doesn’t even close his eyes.
    His hands inch over my stomach and his fingers are pulling at the underwire of my bra. He’s not very good with bras. He’s not that good with breasts in general, actually. I mean, it’s not like I really know what it’s supposed to feel like, but every time he touches my boobs he kind of just massages them hard in a circle. My gyno does the same thing when I go in for an exam, so one of them has to be doing it wrong. And to be honest, I don’t think it’s my gyno.
    If you want to know my biggest secret, here it is: I know you’re supposed to wait to have sex with someone you love and all that, and I do love Rob—I mean, I’ve kind of been in love with him forever, so how could I not?—but that’s not why I decided to have sex with him tonight.
    I decided to have sex with him because I want to get it over with, and because sex has always scared me and I don’t want to be scared of it anymore.
    “I can’t wait to wake up next to you,” Rob says, his mouth against my ear.
    It’s a sweet thing to say, but I can’t concentrate while his hands are on me. And it occurs to me all of a sudden that I’d never thought about the waking-up part. I have no idea what you’re supposed to talk about the day after you’ve had sex, and I imagine us lying side by side, not touching, silent, while the sun rises. Rob doesn’t have any blinds in his room—heripped them down once when he was drunk—and during the day it’s like a spotlight has been turned on his bed, a spotlight or an eye.
    “Get a room!”
    I pull away