Out of These Flames by B. Thompson John

Author:B. Thompson, John
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cutting Edge
Published: 2021-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Melisse rode her horse, erect and proud, conscious of her developing body, the breasts jutting out of her T-shirt. She paraded before Larry a number of times, hoping he would notice the change from the thin, scrawny child, to lovely, budding womanhood, but to no avail. To Larry, she was only someone to pinch and tease.

“Have you ever been in love?” she asked Eleanor, wistfully.

“Honey, I’ve been in love a number of times.”

“I mean—did it make you sick and miserable?”

“I guess some of them did, but I doubt that I was in love too much. I got over it too easily.” Eleanor’s eyes were whimsically reminiscent.

“I’ll never get over it,” Melisse said passionately.

“Melisse, what are you talking about?”

Tears sprang into the girl’s eyes. “You can laugh at me if you want to, but I’m in love with Larry. I have been for a long time.”

“Darling,” Eleanor put her arms around the younger girl’s shoulders. “I wouldn’t think of laughing at you. I’ve felt you were, but I didn’t know for sure.”

“I am … and he doesn’t care anything for me. I can tell. All I am is someone for him to tease and play with.”

“Melisse,” Eleanor’s voice was quiet, “will you listen to me for a while?”

“Yes.”

“Larry is young. You are young. Being a woman, you are a little older than he is, because you will mature both physically and emotionally before he will. I’m not one to tell you that love will conquer all, because sometimes it doesn’t. If Larry knew right now that you loved him, he’d be very uncomfortable, and probably avoid you. Oddly enough, he might fall in love with some older person, and because they were older, feel quite all right about it. You’ve waited this long—wait longer. Wait until you become so beautiful that you’ll simply knock his eyes out. Wait till he becomes a man. He’s just a kid now, much more of a kid than you. When he’s grown up, he’ll have the sense to realize that in you, at last, he has something.”

“Oh, Eleanor,” Melisse’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “You make such wonderful sense … but it goes right on hurting.”

“I know it does, and there isn’t any way I know to stop it. I suppose that is where strength comes. It is something we must bear with as well as we can. In your case you’ll have to, because it would not be to your interests to let him know now.”

“I wish I didn’t see him so much,” Melisse said bitterly. “I wish I could go off some place, and not come back till he and I were both grown.”

Eleanor laughed. “What if you went off, and fell in love with someone else?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

She was not vehement, not passionate in her denial. Her quiet, simple statement made Eleanor look at her sharply. Here is one time, she thought, when a girl is saying something she means.

Larry came charging back, his hair flying in the wind, his eyes flashing, and his teeth gleaming in his nut brown face.

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