“Cool,” Melissa responded.
They ran up the stairs and into Olive’s room where Olive closed the door. The uncomfortable silence that followed was disheartening. Olive trimmed the dead skin from Melissa’s cuticles, filed her nails into a curved shape, and painted the nails dark purple while Melissa continued to stare out the window. It took fifteen minutes for her to speak.
“I kissed Derek,” she blurted out.
“What? Where?” Olive asked.
“At school. We snuck to the far side of school after class before our parents came on Thursday.”
“Wow. Have you told your parents?”
“What? Of course not, they won’t even let me talk to Derek. I have to sneak around as if I’m doing something wrong, when I’m not. I like Derek and he likes me. We’re both Christian. There’s nothing in the Bible that says we
