I'm lying. Were you able to tell? My dad got a letter from my mom today. I'm not supposed to know that she and my dad keep in touch. Like I don't know how to open the mailbox, like I can't read, like I don't recognize my mom's handwriting. I was pretty young when she left, but I wasn't that young. Or that stupid, for that matter.

Also, my dad isn't the master detective he thinks he is. If you have a box marked private in your closet-you might as well just hand it to your kids and tell them to run free. But if my dad was all that brilliant, he would have figured out who the aliens in town are. Or he might have guessed that I know something; I've never been that good at lying to him.

But here's the thing. I'm not all that important to my dad, and he doesn't think about things like hiding letters in a place no one will look for them. He just figures that since he told me Mom is gone that I'm ok with it.

Not that I'm not ok with it. I'm not one of those sad sack tv-movie kids who runs around looking all weepy cause a parent left. After all, it's not like I'm the only person it's happened to. Still, it comes in handy once in a while. I usually tell girls about it on the third date or so. Not the whole story, of course-just an edited version of events. It works every single time. And if I pinch that little web of skin between my thumb and my first finger, I can even look all drippy-eyed. I save that for special occasions though. So that doesn't make me quite as much of an opportunist--at least that's what I figure.

Anyway, Mom moved to Philly about a year ago. I'm not supposed to know, but like I said, my dad's idea of keeping something private is pretty lame. I don't blame him for wanting to keep me from knowing, cause my mom is still pretty bitter. In the last letter she sent him, she told him that she didn't need to see me because she knew Dad was turning me into a junior version of him. And that she didn't need to see that, thank you very much. Besides, she has two kids with her new husband, and her new family doesn't know that she was married before.

I can't blame Mom, not really. I mean, I'm nothing special, and besides, I bet I'd be a really shitty stepbrother. In fact, I know I would be. Two days after I hurt my ankle, and one day after Liz had come by-which totally unnerved me, by the way-I thought Isabel had said something to her and Liz was coming to confront me-and then I was disappointed that she didn't (I blame it all on the painkillers the doctor gave me for my ankle), I got dead drunk when I came home from school. Then I called my mom's new house and one of her new kids answered the phone. It was a girl, and she answered the phone "Halloran residence, Brittany speaking." So I know I have a sister named Brittany. She sounds about four. I asked her if her mother was home and she said yes, but she couldn't come to the phone cause she was "out in the backyard playing in the snow with Timmy." Timmy is the other kid.

I got really mad when Brittany said that and I told her that she'd better go outside and make sure her mom was still there and that she hadn't left or anything. But the kid didn't cry (I kind of thought she would, but what do I know about little kids), she just laughed and said "Mommy hasn't left, she's outside." Like I was too stupid to know what outside is, for Christ's sake. But I was crying by then (stupid-ass painkillers) so I hung up instead of saying anything else.

Then I called Isabel. Thankfully, I was smart enough to hang up when she answered.

**

I try to regulate my thinking about her. Isabel, I mean. Right after all that, uh, stuff happened, I pretty much had her on the brain all the time. But after a while, I'd gotten it down to like once a day, then once every other day. Then just once in a while. Well, sort of.

Things with her really didn't turn out like how I'd thought they would. After everything that happened in her room, I was sure that there were some major changes in store. At the very least, I'd figured she'd tell Max that I knew or something.

I'd gone to school the day after I'd confronted her about who she is with a busted knee (from falling out of her window) and a bad case of nerves. I had no idea what to do. It's not like we were friends or anything, so it wasn't like I could just walk up to her and say "hi" or whatever.

I also felt bad about the whole thing. I'd pretty much been an ass for most of it, and... I don't know. Thinking about it was making me feel the way I felt every time I saw a letter from my mom in the mail, looked at her handwriting, knew there would never be a letter for me. My dad sent her a picture of me when I'd won Athlete of the Year at the sports awards banquet last June and she'd sent it back. No note or anything. Just sent it back.

So I'd gone into school feeling pretty bizarre. And Isabel was standing right where she always did, with that gang of girls that always followed her around. And there I was walking by her, and there she was not looking at me or anything. She ignored me.

Did you see that coming? I didn't. I was at least willing to talk about it or whatever. But I guess she wasn't interested in discussing what happened at all. So I did what any guy would do. I ignored her right back.

Actually, I was sort of pissed, so I thought about telling Dad. In fact, I'd waited for him to come home that night, ready to sell Evans and Guerin and Isabel down the river. Hey, I never claimed to be a nice guy. Anyway, Dad came home and I said "Dad, about Max Evans..."

And he cut me off. Jumped right into his "Kyle, I thought I told you to stay away from him" (like I wanted to be Max's best friend or something. Please) and then segued right into "...and if you don't keep your grades up, I'm going to have to take your car away. And why didn't you take out the trash like I asked?"

Ok, revenge is cool and all that. But my dad was pissing me off. And in that moment, I realized I sort of liked keeping the secret about Isabel and the others. It was like I was smarter than my dad. No, not like I was-I am smarter than my dad. Maybe that makes me a shitty kid, but after all, isn't that what my mom's pretty much decided anyway? I was just proving her right.

And I might have felt like I owed Isabel something. And maybe I realized that telling wouldn't make everything better, it would just make things more complicated. And I don't like complications. That might be what kept me from telling more than anything else. But I was trying to cut back on the Isabel thoughts, you see? So blaming it on Dad was way easier. Besides, he really was being a dick.

**

And that's how things stayed for ages. All through the rest of football season, through the fall, and into that freak-ass heat wave.

I started dating Vicki right when the heat wave began. I'd been "getting over Liz"-which was true to a certain extent (she did dump me and all that), but I'd also sort of, maybe, been almost thinking about possibly getting up the nerve to try and talk to Isabel. But then I'd seen her laughing with Alex Whitman one morning, and then Vicki came up and asked me what I was doing after school, and that settled that.

Vicki is very nice. She likes sports-she came to all the football games, and I've seen her at every basketball game. She watched horror movies with me and didn't make me rent two so-called "good" movies for every one I picked. She was also more than willing to do it in the back of my car, which was like a bonus.

But she had only two topics of conversation. Why fill-in-the-name (it changed every three days or so) was just her best friend ever, and wouldn't it be great if we doubled with Girl X's boyfriend (who was usually a boring loser). Then her second topic, which was even better: 'Do you love me? How much do you love me? Wouldn't it be great if you got me a ring/necklace/bracelet?' And she also signed all her e-mails with hearts and pictures of kittens or some shit like that.

And she also looks a little like Isabel.

I didn't realize that (I swear I didn't) until we were doing it in the back of my dad's truck the night of the rave. We'd gone inside for a while and the party was kind of boring, plus I'd seen Isabel with Alex and I wanted to leave after I saw that.

So Vicki and I were in the back of the truck. I was kissing her and I pulled back to take my coat off. The moon caught the top of her head and all I could see was her hair and the shape of her face and then I realized that in the right light, in low light (the only kind of light Vicki and I ever did it in)-she looked a little like Isabel.

Then Liz and Max kind of saw Vicki and me. And I'm sort of embarrassed by this part, but seeing Liz look at Max in a way she never looked at me, and remembering how Isabel was all over that shit Alex--it made me sad. So I drove Vicki to the lake and we did it there, in the dark. And I pretended she was Isabel.

I felt really bad about that. Despite all of her annoying habits, Vicki is an ok girl. And I was pretty much using her. But the sex got a lot better after I started thinking about Isabel during it, and what can I say? I'm weak. I didn't break up with Vicki till after Christmas. But I did break up with her. Like I said, I felt bad. It wasn't her fault that she wasn't Isabel.

**

I guess things would have stayed the same forever: Max and Michael glaring at me every time I walked by, Liz getting all jumpy, probably thinking 'Oh, no! Kyle might guess The Secret' and so on, Maria new-aging it through her current imagined crisis, Alex smiling like a doof or some sort of happy puppy, and Isabel never ever looking at me or acknowledging that I even existed.

But then Evans went and did something dumb. His mom set herself on fire or something like that (now I know where Max gets his brains from) and he saved her and then lied to my dad about it. Now, my dad isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he knows that water doesn't put out a grease fire. He was cackling about that one for days. I actually thought he might finally figure out what the Evans' big secret was, and I suppose I might have been the tiniest bit worried about it, about Isabel.

Liz thinks that she's why my ankle got hurt at the game. And I suppose she is, indirectly. If Liz hadn't dumped me for the alien wonder, I wouldn't have been all obsessed with grinding him into a little pile of dust, and I wouldn't have figured out what he was, and I wouldn't have confronted his sister about it and ended up rolling around on her bed with her. And then I wouldn't have been keeping a secret that no one knew that I knew except for Isabel, and I wouldn't have been worried that my dad might actually figure out what was going on. So in a way, it is sort of Liz's fault that I hurt my ankle. How's that for logic?

Actually what really happened the day I hurt my ankle was that I'd noticed Isabel and Max walking away from the bleachers. I started wondering what they were talking about (and I might have also noticed that Isabel was wearing another one of her little itty-bitty sweaters) and I wasn't paying attention to the game. And then I looked at Liz, wondering why Isabel hadn't told anyone about what she and I had done, and then I wondered if Isabel even ever thought about it, and then I was down on my ass with an ankle that hurt like hell, and Isabel wasn't even looking at me. Not my finest hour.

I already mentioned Liz's visit and my drunken telephone call to my mom's new family. Also not my finest hour.

But things with Liz have worked out ok. I went to see her at the Crashdown and I was very charming. I did the "I'm sorry" bit (which was sincere, at least on my part-I had been a jerk), and we're slowly becoming friends. Which is kind of nice in a way, because I really like Liz. She's really smart, and she's funny, and she's managed to cope with having feelings for an alien who doesn't want to have anything to do with her. Although Max seems to be doing a pretty sorry job of staying away from her. But I figure maybe I can learn a thing or two from Liz.

As for my mom, I don't think about her too much-what's the point? But I wonder what my sister looks like, and if she likes that irritating purple dinosaur thing that all little kids love. And if my brother likes sports and if Mom ever messes up and calls him Kyle by mistake. I bet you anything she doesn't.

**

Sometimes I think about the 'what-ifs.' You know, what-if I'd been in the Crashdown the day Liz got shot, what-if I'd seen Max the day I went to the Evans' house, what-if I called my mom's house and actually spoke to her? But what-ifs can drive you crazy. I got invited to Tara Jackson's party and I almost didn't go. What if I hadn't?

My ankle was bothering me something fierce in the afternoon, but I knew if I didn't go out, I'd be sitting home alone on a Friday night cause Dad was working like he always does. So I went to the party. I actually drove there. This should clue you in as to how much Dad notices what's going on. I'd hurt my ankle; I'm on crutches for God's sake. I shouldn't be driving, I know that. But I'd be stuck home otherwise, so I just drove anyway.

Tara's house was packed full of people. I was having a hard time moving around cause my crutches took up a lot of space. But I saw a couple of guys I knew and they cleared a spot for me over by the sofa and sent one of the j.v. basketball players to get me a beer. I drank a couple, which made my ankle feel a lot better.

As far as parties go, Tara's was pretty low-key. Vicki came over and started talking to me, and I was feeling sorry for myself, so I was thinking about trying to get her to go to one of the bedrooms with me. Then I noticed that Alex was at the party, which surprised me, because he's about as popular as the plague. He looked pretty mopey actually, and I saw him staring dejectedly into the living room where a bunch of people were dancing.

Vicki was still talking, but I was pretty much on autopilot conversation by that point. You know, the nod every three seconds and an occasional "Oh?" I looked over at Whitman again, and the poor kid looked like he was going to barf.

I looked around the living room again, wondering what was going on. I figured it must have had something to do with Isabel-who else would be at a party like this? Liz didn't go to parties, Michael and Maria would have never been invited, Max would have been too busy looking all angsty to go to a party...and there was Isabel, dancing. She was dancing with Doug Liman. No wonder Alex looked sick. There's a reason they call Doug "Hands," you know?

Vicki was still talking but I just got up and hobbled away. I'd never seen Isabel dance before; I didn't need to hang around and listen to Vicki talk.

I will be the first to admit that I know nothing about dancing. I don't do it; I had no real interest in it before tonight. When I got dragged to dances at school, I sat in the corner and either got drunk or tried to talk my date into leaving and going somewhere more private. However, I now know I would pay vast sums of money to watch Isabel Evans dance. I also wasn't feeling too fond of Doug at that moment either.

All I could do was stare at Isabel's ass. It was moving up and down, back and forth...it was making me dizzy with lust. And if I looked up, there was the rest of her moving around. Breasts, shoulders, hair. Someone moved in front of me and I couldn't see her anymore. I almost hit the guy so he'd move. Can you believe it? I would have started a fight so I could get a glimpse of Isabel Evans dancing with another guy. Pathetic.

However, I didn't start a fight. I merely swung one of my crutches out and clipped the guy on the back of the knee, and told him someone pushed me. He grunted and wandered off and I looked at Isabel some more. Then I looked over at Alex again. He looked like he was going to cry.

I figured she asked him to bring her to the party or whatever and then ditched him. I felt bad for him, which surprised me. I don't even like Alex Whitman.

I went and sat back down and drank another beer. I certainly wasn't going to help Alex or anything like that. And what Isabel did was none of my business.

**

Maybe an hour went by. Isabel had stopped dancing, thank god. But she was still acting very un-Isabel like, which was making me sort of worried, which in turn made me sort of mad. I was supposed to be on the not-thinking-about-her program, but it wasn't working, and how could it work if she kept making me worried and mad?

She was letting Doug rub her arms. You know what I mean-they were sitting down, and he had his arm around her, running his hand up and down her arm. Doug was touching her. Doug, whose favorite thing is farting to the National Anthem. Doug, whose second favorite thing is watching professional wrestling and practicing the moves on his little brother. Isabel deserved better.

I stood up again, which was hard, because my crutches had gotten wedged under the coffee table, and hobbled over to them. Doug nodded at me and said, "What's up?" Isabel just looked at me real fast and then looked away.

I told Doug that someone from Hillcrest High had shown up and was calling the basketball team a bunch of pussies. It worked like a charm. He jumped up and ran off, ready to find anyone who didn't go to our school and beat them up. He's such an idiot.

Isabel was looking everywhere except at me. I almost said, "Gee, watch out, I might turn you to stone," but I just told her that Alex was looking for her.

I figured she liked Whitman cause I'd seen them together at school and stuff, but all she said was "So?" And then she stood up and started walking away from me. But she wasn't heading towards Alex, she was walking off in the direction that Doug had gone.

"Hey!" I grabbed her arm. It was the first time I'd touched her since that day.

She glared at me and said, "Let go of me, you jackass"

I ignored her and started walking in Alex's direction, keeping my hand wrapped around her arm. The sad thing is I was mostly wondering if I could somehow maneuver it so I could end up touching her hand. Her hand! Next think you know, I'll be writing mushy poetry and trying to learn how to play the guitar so I can sing love songs or some shit like that.

She kicked me. She was on a tear about something, that's for sure, cause she kicked me right square on my aching ankle. It fucking hurt, and I stumbled to one side and caught my shoulder on a door jam. Then I tripped over my cast and fell down. Something about being around Isabel seems to make me prone to accidents.

I started cursing a blue streak and pulled myself through the open bedroom door, away from the party and anyone who could see my amazing falling down routine. Isabel was grabbing my arm and asking if I was ok. I was mad enough to push her hands away (I'm such a moron; hadn't I been doing pretty much nothing but thinking about her touching me?) and stand up using my crutches. Then I slammed the door shut and turned to glare at her.

"I can't believe it." My voice sounded really harsh and choked but I was so angry that I could hardly talk. "You've got Whitman out there panting over you, totally in love with you, and you're treating him like shit. Not to mention the fact that you just fucking kicked me in my bad ankle, and I've probably dislocated my shoulder. And all this for Doug? Doug Liman? Have you even ever talked to Doug before tonight?"

Her eyes widened, and she glared at me. "You don't know what you're talking about. Now move, I want to go back to the party."

I shook my head at her. "I don't know why you're so pissed, but that doesn't mean you get to act stupid. Alex really cares about you. "

"Alex, huh?" She smirked at me. "God, Kyle! You are so sad. Do you think I'm blind?"

I got a little nervous here. Had she noticed me staring at her? Or worse, had she guessed that I had been thinking about her-or even worse yet, had she guessed how much I thought about her?

But she continued with "I am so tired of all of it! Did you see everyone staring at me tonight? Wondering what I was doing? At least Doug is willing to believe that I can be something other than a bitchy ice queen."

I rolled my eyes at her and she smacked my arm. "See! That's what I mean! It's always 'Don't worry, Isabel will clean up everyone's messes, make sure that nothing bad will happen. She'll calm everyone down. She wouldn't do anything that would make people think that she could be different. She certainly doesn't need to tell anyone that she's an alien!' " She almost screamed the last bit and for the life of me, I couldn't understand what she was blathering about - but I was glad the door was shut and the music was so loud.

I shifted on my crutches and tried to think of something to say. She was really upset. She looked like she was going to cry, and I still didn't understand what she was talking about. I, for one, was staring at her because I was remembering what she looked like without clothes. Not for any of the other reasons she'd talked about. But I wasn't about to tell her that.

"Look," I said-and I know I sounded nervous " let me go get Alex and he can take you home."

She started to cry, and I desperately wanted to go get Whitman. He knew Isabel; he could make her feel better. All I could do was stand there like an idiot, feeling very unhelpful, and making her cry.

"I wanted to tell my mom the truth, but Max wouldn't let me."

"Max is an asshole." I said that without thinking. The sudden subject change had surprised me.

She laughed. "He can be. He thinks Liz is going out with you again."

Now it was my turn to laugh. "Really?"

She nodded. "Max doesn't want me to tell Mom about who I am because he's worried about your daddy." She drawled the last word: daaaaaaaaaaady. "I guess you heard about the fire."

"Yeah." I said this cautiously. Was whatever was wrong with her somehow my fault?

"I almost told Max that the sheriff could find out about us anytime if he just talked to his son." She sent me a sideways look from under her lashes. "How come you figured it out and your dad hasn't?"

I shrugged. "Don't know."

"Do you ever think about telling him?"

"Maybe."

Her eyes widened a little bit. "Really?"

"Yeah. Stay here while I go and get Alex."

"Wait!" She put her hand on my chest. "How come you never mention what happened between us? How come you don't want to be near me? Don't you think that I should be able to tell my mother who I am?"

"Huh?" Yes, I know. I blame my utter inability to understand women on living with my father. His idea of witty repartee is arresting someone and then asking them for a date. No wonder he spends every Saturday night watching 'America's Most Wanted.' And no wonder I'm usually sitting next to him. Besides, she'd asked a lot of questions that I didn't want to answer.

She looked away from me. "Never mind. Just go get Alex."

"Ok." I was feeling pretty confused. Wasn't she the one who'd ignored me? Wasn't she the one who never mentioned what we'd done in her room? And wasn't it pretty obvious that she shouldn't tell her mother?

"Alex is pretty great, isn't he?" She actually sighed when she said it. Like Alex was some sort of hero or saint or something. Uh, who'd pointed out that she was being stupid over Doug? Did Whitman let her bash his ankle in? Who had to live with Jim Valenti every day, who had to see the hurt look on their father's face when he lost information or couldn't figure out what was going on?

"Alex is a little shit." Note for the future: gotta remember to think before I speak.

She glared at me. "Alex would at least tell me that it was ok to tell my mom. He knows that my mom would love me no matter what, that she would love me even if I told her I was an alien."

"Alex is an idiot. Max is right." Do you have any idea how hard that was for me to say? Max Evans and right don't belong in the same sentence. It violates all the known rules of the English language. I deserve a medal or something. But Max had a point. "You shouldn't tell, and I don't think a parent's love is unconditional." I told her. " In fact, I know it's not."

Isabel was just looking at me with these sort of angrily uncomprehending eyes and I should have shut up, but I was actually kind of worried about her. I could tell she wanted to tell her mom that she wasn't human, and I knew that was a mistake. I stammered around for a way to tell her that and before I knew it, I ended up talking about my mom, and about how parents don't always love you no matter what.

You get up one day and your mom nags you to eat your cereal and hurry up so you don't miss the bus and says that she's making sloppy joes for dinner. You push her away when she tries to hug you cause you're too old to hug your mom and you go to school and when you get home she isn't there. But you don't worry about it cause she's 'Mom' and she's probably doing mom stuff. And there's an envelope on the kitchen table that says 'Jim' and you wonder about it, but not much because you can play video games and goof off cause your mom isn't there to holler at you.

Then your dad comes home and starts bitching about how dinner isn't ready and then he reads the letter that was on the table and he starts crying, starts crying hard, and then he goes and gets a bottle of something and locks himself in the bedroom and you sit frozen in the living room, listening to him cry and wondering when your mom is going to come home and make dinner.

And then the next day your dad is dry-eyed and he says that Mom is gone and she isn't coming back, and do you want hotdogs or mac and cheese for dinner. And you think he's kidding, so you tell him you want mac and cheese and he nods and goes to work, and your mother doesn't come home that day, even though you race home from school to check. And you eat the first of what is a million boxes of mac and cheese for dinner and your dad never makes it the right way, never makes it like your mom did. After a while, you can't even remember the way she used to make dinner, you just know your dad doesn't do it the right way.

Eventually, letters start to come for your dad and you aren't supposed to see them and even if you did you aren't supposed to care because that's what you tell people. "I don't care," you say, and after a while, you almost start to believe it. But then you read the latest letter she sent your dad and she talks about how happy she is with her new life and she says 'Please, Jim, stop writing to me. My therapist says it isn't healthy for me to stay in touch with you.' And you want to find the therapist and hit him until his face is a pulpy bloody mess and you want to show him the picture your dad sent of you when you made varsity football in ninth grade, the one she sent back with a post-it that says "Please don't send me any more pictures."

And you wonder about her new family, about her new kids that she seems to like better than you. And then you worry that maybe one day she'll wake up and she won't love them anymore and she'll leave and they won't know what to do, and you can't do anything anyway because you don't exist to them; she didn't think you were worth mentioning.

"So don't lie to yourself; parents don't always love you no matter what," I finished, and I was horrified to realize that I was actually crying. Not the wet-eyed look I get when I lie about what happened when mom left and pinch that little web of skin on my hand at the same time, but actual real tears accompanied by eyes that hurt and a nose was leaking snot. I felt like an idiot. Might as well cap it all off, I figured, so I also told her "And I thought about what happened between us. A lot. But you won't even look at me, so what good is thinking about it doing me?"

I waited for her to laugh. I would have laughed at me, or I would have made some excuse and left the room as quickly as possible and thought about what a freak I was, crying over someone who'd left a long time ago and someone who didn't give a goddamn about me.

Isabel didn't laugh at me. She kissed me. Not some little kiss, not like the kisses Liz gave me, all hesitant and shy. Not like any kiss I'd ever gotten actually. She stared at me for a second and then she was kissing me. I could feel her tongue in my mouth. I fell backwards and hit my head on the closed door with a resounding smack. It hurt, and I was pretty shocked that Isabel was kissing me-like I said, I would have a laughed or run away, but I recovered pretty quickly and kissed her back. I was still crying but she didn't seem to care.

You know how couples in the movies are making out and they just sort of end up on the floor all graceful like? I'm here to tell you that it is simply not possible.

Isabel and I staggered away from the door and sort of fell onto the dresser. I'd clamped her as close to me as I could by simply placing my hands on that delectable ass of hers. Then she'd wrapped her legs around me and slid off the dresser. And her actions, combined with the fact that I only had one working leg and a pair of crutches that were somewhere on the floor-I lost my balance.

We fell to the floor and I hit my head on the side of the dresser. She hit her head on the chest that was at the end of the bed. We stopped kissing at the same time and both of us gasped. She said "Ow!" and I said "Shit!"

Then we were kissing again. I wasn't crying by that point, although my ankle had gotten wedged under the dresser and was twisted funny and didn't really feel too great-but the rest of me felt so good, I didn't care. I touched the sweater she was wearing, tried to unbutton it with hands that felt like they'd been wrapped in gauze, gave up, and just started pulling at the buttons. I actually pulled two of them off-one of them hit me in the eye-and then I realized what I was doing and stopped, told her I was sorry.

She'd just stared at me, and her eyes were all glazed looking, and she just said "What?" and I saw that she didn't really care that I'd messed up her sweater. And then she ran her hand down the front of her sweater and it fell open, all the little buttons sliding out of the buttonholes one after the other. That made me smile. Then she turned her hand and passed it over the front of my shirt and I could feel the warmth of her hand; and then my shirt, the stupid shirt my dad got me last year, the one that looks like it belongs in a square dance competition, was unbuttoned. And then she shoved my shirt off and started tugging at my T-shirt, trying to push it up over my head, and I moved to help her and ended up kissing her again.

Somehow my T-shirt came off and her sweater was in a corner of the room. I don't remember how all that happened, but I did notice that the bra she was wearing was different. The last one was white and hooked in the back . (Yeah, I remember. So what?) This one was blue and hooked in the front. I opened it by pushing the clasp until it snapped and then I stared at her breasts.

See, I figured there was no way she could look as good as I'd remembered. But she did. I reacquainted myself with the little mole under her right breast, ran my fingers over her nipples, did all the things that I'd thought about since the first time I'd touched her.

I was kneeling between her legs, and even through I still had all my clothes on for the most part it still felt really good to rub against her. She put her knees up around my waist and I could hear our bodies pushing against each other. We were wedged on the floor at a really funny angle because my leg was still trapped under the dresser and her back was sort of bent funny because that stupid cedar chest at the end of the bed was in the way but I didn't really think anything of it because it all felt so amazing.

They never mention that sort of stuff in sex education. You get a lot of bullshit about being responsible and all that, and it really doesn't take a genius to figure out that sex can feel good, but being with Isabel is different. I mean, when I'm having sex I think about the fact that I'm having sex--I don't think about what it feels like, except for right at the end. I'm too busy thinking about getting to the end, you know? And I don't think about what the girl is feeling, which I know makes me an ass, but what do you expect?

But it's different with Isabel. I don't know if it's better, because it's sort of weird to care about what another person is thinking, kind of worrisome to wonder if everything is ok for them.

I'd managed to get her jeans open and she did something to my chest with her tongue that nearly gave me a heart attack. I was having a hard time breathing because of that, and because I'd gotten the rest of her underwear out of the way and she was naked. Plus she was fumbling with my belt and then she'd shoved my jeans down and stuck her hands inside my boxer shorts. Who could possibly think straight when Isabel Evans was letting you touch her and shoving a hand inside your pants?

I slipped a finger inside her and she was so wet and hot that my teeth hurt. I could feel her body tighten around my finger and her hand clamped down on my dick and she made this little muffled shriek and I thought 'ohgod' and said "ohfuckfuckfuckfuck" or something equally profane and came all over her stomach.

When I was able to think again, I thought 'oh shit.' I was as embarrassed as I'd ever been-what was I, 14? But she didn't seem to care. In fact, she looked a little surprised by all of it. I figured maybe whatever was going on between us had freaked her out too, so I was able to pick up my T-shirt and take a quick swipe at her stomach without wanting to die too much.

Then I turned away, which was stupid, cause she'd already pretty much seen everything there was to see, and who would think that I could be shy? Anyway, I cleaned up as best I could and stuffed the T-shirt under the bed. Where else was I going to put it?

She was smirking at me when I looked back at her and I said "What?"

She giggled and said something about there being a trash can in the corner, but then she kissed me, which made me feel much better about the whole thing. I put on my shirt, swore to myself that I would tell my dad to stop buying clothes for me, and got my crutches while she fixed her sweater.

And then we both stood up and sort of stood there. I searched for something to say. "Hey, that was fun" sounded lame, and "Isabel, I think about you all the time and I really like you" was way too honest and even more lame. I finally settled for "Can I drive you home?"

Then I remembered that she'd come to the party with Whitman and I waited for the "No" or the "No, I'll see you around."

"Ok," she said.

"I'll meet you at the car" I told her. And I even managed to open the door and walk back out to the party without falling down. I am pretty sure I was smiling like an idiot but that couldn't be helped. I was happy.

I went back to get my coat and a couple of the guys asked me where I was. I didn't even mention Isabel, which should show you how much she messes with my head. I just told them I'd talked to Doug for a while, which was true to a certain extent.

On my way to the door, I noticed that Isabel was talking to Alex. I turned around and went the other way, headed back into the party. I should have known.

I couldn't even drink. I was that miserable. I just sat there, pretending to listen to everyone talk, and in reality waiting for ten minutes to go by so that when I went outside Isabel and Alex would be gone. And I promised myself that as soon as I went back to school on Monday I was going to find a nice girl with dark hair and ask her out and not think about Isabel at all. Again. Ever.

Ten minutes finally went by and I left the party. Alex's car was gone and I looked at the spot where it'd been for a minute, wondering if Alex would ever be able to guess how fucking jealous I was of him.

I got to my car and the door was unlocked. I got in, cursing as loudly as I could. On top of everything else, I'd forgotten to lock the car, and I was sure all my CD's had been stolen and maybe even the CD player that I'd had installed last winter.

"Where have you been?"

I was right in the middle of a "goddamnstupidshit" rant and she startled me so much that I choked and started coughing. "Jesus! What are you doing here?"

She looked surprised. "Didn't you say you'd take me home?"

"Yeah, but I thought...I thought...Alex...you'd left with him." I was still coughing.

She smiled at me and I could feel myself blush. "You thought I left with Alex?"

"You waited out here for me?"

Now it was her turn to blush. In the end, she just said, "Are you going to drive me home or what?" and I muttered "I don't know, are you going to talk the whole time?" and my hands were shaking when I started the car.

I thought about parking a few houses down from hers, but decided against it. I was just driving her home; I didn't need to keep that a secret. Plus I wanted to see if she'd tell me to move the car so her parents and Max wouldn't see that I'd driven her home.

She didn't say anything like that. In fact, she just sat in the car after I stopped it and turned the engine off. She was looking out the window at her house.

I wanted to ask her if I could see her again. I wanted to ask her out on a date. I thought about how incredibly stupid I was being. And I spoke anyway. "Do you want to go out some time?"

She didn't say anything. I could feel my face, my neck, hell, my whole body, turn bright red. The front door of her house opened and I could see that Max was standing there, watching my car. Probably wondering what I was doing there. I remembered why I hated Max so much, and I wasn't too fond of Isabel in that moment either.

"Never mind," I told her, and she looked over at me. She was biting her lip and she looked worried.

"I have to go," she told me and she got out of the car.

I just sat there, stunned. I'd just totally been shot down by a girl who'd been sticking her tongue down my throat not an hour ago. My eyes felt all hot and I knew I had to leave before I did something stupid like get out of the car and go to her house and ask her what was so awful about me.

The passenger door opened. I figured it would be Max, all worried about his sister and full of empty threats.

But it was Isabel. She opened the door and leaned in a little. I could see Max standing out on the lawn; I could almost hear him wondering what was going on.

"I'll be at the reservoir at four tomorrow afternoon," she told me. "Can you meet me there?"

I nodded because I wasn't capable of speech and she said very loudly, "Thanks for the ride home Kyle. I'll see you around." Then she slammed the car door and walked away without looking back.

I drove home very slowly cause I was sure I was in shock and I didn't want to wreck the car. Dad wasn't home when I got there, and he'd left the mail on the kitchen table. He still hadn't looked at it yet. I pulled the letter from mom out of the pile and looked at it. I looked at it for a long time and I thought about all the things I'd told Isabel.

I thought about how sometimes things just don't work out like you thought they would, and how sometimes that can be bad and it can hurt, and you can be hurt. But sometimes it's good when things don't happen like you thought they would. Sometimes it's better than good.

And then I wrote "Refused: Return to Sender" on Mom's letter, walked outside, and put it in the mailbox.

Then I went back inside and figured out how many hours until four o'clock tomorrow afternoon.