The House of Wood by Anthony Price

Author:Anthony Price
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Chelsea led the way up the long narrow staircase with me close behind. Even though my fear of the house had abated, I still didn’t want to find myself alone anytime soon. I was walking so close, that Chelsea’s feathery red hair kept tickling my face. Not that she had noticed how close I was. She was too busy nattering away about how cool Tim was and how he was such a good kisser, at which point I switched off and began to think about my own love life.

I had never really had a proper boyfriend. I’d had boyfriends, but none of the relationships had lasted long. I thought I had loved them, but there was one fundamental problem; I couldn’t bring myself to sleep with them. It wasn’t that I was shy. I had done other stuff. I was afraid the guys would hurt me. Physically and emotionally. So many times Chelsea had come to me in floods of tears after a guy had dumped her, and each time it was the sex that had made it more complicated. The first time, I even had to help her get the morning after pill. Chelsea’s attitude towards sex had become very cavalier and I secretly envied her for that, as I’d finally met a decent guy and I didn’t want to lose him.

The upstairs of the house was the same dank and dreary as below. In places, the wallpaper had rotted away revealing termite infested walls. There was very little light coming through the dirt encrusted windows, but what little that did manage to fight its way through the stains, cast sinister shadows across the floorboards. When the last rays of light dipped behind the horizon, I realised we would need torches to see. Chelsea led me in to the first bedroom. There were three in all, two on this floor and one on the top floor, with one bathroom and what would have been a study downstairs with the living room and kitchen.

Chelsea suddenly spun around, making me jump. “Did you bring condoms?” Her face was serious.

“No I did not,” I replied, taken aback by the suddenness of the question. “And if I did, who’s to say I wouldn’t want to use them myself?” That was my way of broaching the subject.

“You?” Chelsea returned, raising her eyebrows and crossing her arms.

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t do sex. You never have.”

“Well…Maybe things have changed.” They had, but I wanted to ease in to the subject.

“You’re serious aren’t you? Ooo, you have to tell me more.”

“I like Justin. A lot. I haven’t told you, but we’ve been spending time together, just the two of us. And now…I think I love him.”

“You love him?”

It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. No fire balls flew from her eyes. No rivers of blood. The apocalypse I had envisioned at my secret revelation never came.

“He’s a nice guy,” she continued. “But you barely know him, Rach. Even I don’t know him that well.”

“I know, but there’s something about him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.