Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal Page B

fast enough. Will I always feel that way? What about marriage? And I don’t mean that craziness like with Mike McAllery. I still haven’t explained that to myself yet. Annulment closed the book as far as I’m concerned.
    I haven’t had a real relationship since I dumped my last boyfriend at the beginning of senior year. And now, with this faux one-night relationship, I’m getting a taste of it again.
    Though it can be a little confining, being part of a couple has its own advantages. How good is that, owning some great-looking guy who is obviously crazy about you? Elizabeth is so luckier than she knows. Too bad it has to be Todd.
    We are having like such a good time we practically have to drag ourselves away from the party, but it’s getting late and Elizabeth will be waiting.
    As soon as we get in the car, reality, like a jolt, shoots through the beer haze and wipes out all our easy pleasure. The very air in the car chills, and the front seat extends, like, two blocks; we are that disconnected.
    And silent.
    Then Todd breaks it. “That was fun. Incredible how nobody even questioned it at all.”
    “It’s like I’m just one double person, not really an individual. Sometimes I hate that. But it was fun tonight.”
    “Yeah, it was.”
    “I loved when that guy said how much I reminded him of someone. And you said … who’d you say?”
    “Jessica Simpson.”
    “Yeah. He said, ‘Jessica sounds right.’ ”
    As we warm to the subject, it becomes easier. At one point in a story, being funny, just as we stop at a light, I poke Todd in the chest and say, “Mr. Basketball!”
    Todd takes my hand and holds it for a second against his chest, a second too long. Everything stops. His hand is still covering mine against his chest. And it pulls me in closer, my face inches from his, my eyes on his. Both of us are barely breathing.
    That’s where everything gets cloudy, not just from the beer but from the excitement. The thrill. For me, the next few moments like don’t register in my mind, only in my body.
    I can feel Todd’s response, and then we’re out of control; our mouths furiously pressing, kissing, sucking, inhaling each other. All the while I feel the weight of his body crushing me and I want more, I want him still closer. I so want him to be part of me. To keep holding me.
    For the first time in my life, I don’t care about anything or anyone. I don’t even care about Elizabeth. All I care about is that he never lets go.
    “Come back to my room,” he says between breaths.
    “Winston,” I whisper.
    “San Diego.”
    “Right.”
    We pull apart. Neither of us looks at the other for the ten minutes it takes to get to Todd’s apartment in downtown Sweet Valley. When we get out of the car, we look straight ahead at the door to the house where Todd and Winston have a rented room.
    On the way up the stairs to the second floor, we stop. Todd pulls me to him and we kiss. The depths and longing of that kiss are like no other kiss has ever been for me. Neither of us can pull away. Other than our lips we stay joined together for the rest of the flight, Todd like half carrying me up to his room. Racing.
    He unlocks the door, pushes it open with his shoulder, and shoves it closed with his foot, all the while never letting go of me. We tumble onto the bed, ripping at our clothes, flinging them over our heads, kicking off our shoes, and not stopping until we’re both naked and locked in each other’s bodies.
    We make love with an otherworldly passion that is so powerful neither of us would hear a knock on the door if there were one. Or any sound when it cracks open a few inches, but I do catch a sliver of light shooting into the room; then it’s gone.
    The affair goes on for a month. Todd wants it as much as I do. It’s like a wild, out-of-control time, those thirty days that never touch the ground.
    We meet in the middle of the day at the same diner, a banged-up metal imitation bus in a sparsely populated