You can hold my hand." She laughed quietly, as if to herself. "Do you really want to be that close to me?" "Of course." I was surprised to find myself getting aroused. "I suppose you want to use your dick as a lolly-stick." "Not at all. It's not like that. I want to touch you. It turns me on when you touch me." "You're so sweet." I looked at her with more of a glare. "You don't even know me." "I'm glad I have the opportunity to know you a little bit." "Stop. You're not saying that because you've been thinking about fucking my brains out all night. You're not even sure if you'll sleep with me again." "Oh, I'll definitely sleep with you again," she said with that slow, sexy smile. "We still need to get dinner first." "Why didn't you eat that sandwich?" I asked her. "I never liked my mom's cooking, but it was the only thing she knew how to cook. I couldn't eat anything unless it was fried." "Eddie will love that. It's really all he eats." "Are you friends with Eddie? Is he a student here?" "Eddie is one of my friends. We were in the same grade, even though he was in seventh grade and I was in eighth. Eddie is the reason I dropped out. He started giving me shit at first. I was only fifteen, and I didn't really know what I was doing. But I knew what he was doing. He made sure I was never late for school. He even came to my house after school a couple of times to make sure I got there on time, like it was my responsibility. Then he got in the habit of fucking with me and making me look stupid in front of other people. So I quit school. He wouldn't even speak to me. He was one of those guys who didn't want me to leave, but he also didn't want me to have anything to do with him. We were enemies at first. He knew that I was gonna beat his ass if he fucked with me, though. That's one of the reasons why I stayed outta school and started hanging out with the guys from the block. We became friends, but I wasn't getting in the way of him having his own friends, though. You got to know Eddie. There was no fucking with him." "So Eddie saved you from your problems?" "Kind of. It wasn't because he liked me or anything. He helped me see the light." "Oh. How?" "He showed me how to survive in the streets. He showed me that I had to be myself, that I couldn't let people push me around. He made sure that I went to school. He would beat up anybody that fucked with me or wanted to be my friend. The first time he beat up somebody for me, I was glad, to be honest. I felt like my old man at home. I liked feeling powerful and respected, even though I wasn't anybody. I felt like I was somebody with Eddie. But he wouldn't let me take the credit. He didn't tell me how he felt until we were alone at his mom's place. You shoulda seen the little house she had out in Queens. It was real cheap, but it was small. It was as small as a small apartment." "What did he say when you told him you were going to be a writer?" "It just seemed like something I should do. I wasn't even thinking about the business end of it until the writing thing just started to happen by itself. I stopped going to school, and I did all kinds of stuff until my dad caught me. I thought I could stay away from him that easily, but he tracked me down. He was the first guy to know about the writing shit. He told me that I was going to be a writer even before I knew what it was." "How old were you?" "Twelve. I was twelve years old when I decided I was going to be a writer." "Where do you get the ideas for your stories?" "I don't have any. That's the strange part. I go into writing a blank page. I don't know why. I didn't even think about being a writer until the day I quit school. Even then, it was just something that was floating around inside of me. But it's not as strange as it sounds. I wasn't interested in becoming a writer. I was interested in being popular and being well respected." "What did he do?" "I think he cried a little." "That's what he did, all right." "Did you ever wonder why you were so interested in me? Are you disappointed?" "No." "If you ever are, you can tell me. You can't imagine what my father did to me. What he said about my mother. What he did to my mom. When he heard I was seeing you, that's when he really went crazy. I would come home after being at your house, and he would look like he was looking into a microscope. I could smell the rage coming off him when he saw me." "What did he do?" I asked. "He wanted to kill me. I was lucky that it was me and not you. I couldn't kill him. He's much stronger than I am. It would have just been two of us fighting. But I wouldn't even try to fight him because I knew that he could beat me." "He doesn't know about me. He's too crazy." "Why does he act like he is? Because he sees you as a threat. He's tried to kill me before." "Do you live with him? I mean, you never went back to school, right?" "He wouldn't let me stay at his place. So I had to move out and stay with my grandma. But then he started coming to the neighborhood to look for me. He would sit outside the building where we lived, just watching all the doors." "What did you do?" "I went back to school. I was afraid that he'd kill me if I didn't. I was hoping that my mom would be with me." "Have you seen her?" "No. But she called me yesterday. She said she was dying. She told me to tell you that she loves you." "She still loves me?" I said, surprised by her comment. "You know that, don't you?" "Yeah. Thanks." "Hey, don't be so serious. It's been a long time since I met a guy who I could have a conversation with like we're having now. I don't usually meet that many men at all." "What happened to all the men you used to run around with?" "They found something else to do. This is something different." "And we can talk like this. I don't have to be Mr. Dufresne." "Why not?" "I had no choice but to be Mr. Dufresne. You can be yourself with me." "I never want to be me with any other man but you." "So you want to be alone with me?" I asked her. I couldn't help but smile at myself. She was the most innocent person that I'd ever met. It was really easy to get a head start in the bedroom with her. It made me wonder how easy it was for her to be with guys, knowing what they wanted. "Why is that funny?" "No, it's not funny. I don't know anything about you." "I am pretty ordinary." "No, you're not. You're beautiful and very nice, and you deserve to be treated better." "How do you know how to be this nice?" "I'm not nice. You just feel it when I talk to you." "I don't think that's normal." "I don't think there's any such thing as normal." I held her hand, still looking at her as she slept. "What are you thinking?" I asked her. "I'm thinking about the story I told you earlier. What was that book called?" " _The Grapes of Wrath._ " "I should read it again. I keep thinking about the family that lived out in the country, and the children that were starving. Do you think they are okay?" "I don't know if I would want to read about starving children, even if they didn't have parents. It seems like something that would happen in a book. It doesn't happen in real life." "You don't mean that, do you?" "What?" "Do you really think that you can help everyone that needs help? How can you keep from being overwhelmed? You're already so tired, and I know it's only been a few days. Can you really help me? Can you really help everyone else?" "I know it's crazy, but I can help. I know that I have a voice. I