Stolen Kiss (Sweet N' Sour Kisses: Episode 2)

By Cindy M. Hogan

Episode #2 of Confessions of a 16-Year-Old Virgin Lips
With my VL card gone, my flickering light of hope lay with Ryker, someone else who'd caught my eye. Only he could erase the memory of Luke, the boy who lip-raped me. Unfortunately, Luke was determined to keep me, or at the very least, ruin me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cindy M. Hogan
• Release date: Oct 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311435958

Cindy M. Hogan

Cindy M Hogan graduated from BYU with a B.A. in education. She is inspired by the unpredictable teenagers she teaches. She loves the outdoors and spending time with her husband and two daughters. Most of all, she loves to laugh.

Book preview

Stolen Kiss

Secrets are strange. They’re sort of in a gray area of morality, I think—somewhere between privacy and a lie. The night after my date with Luke, once I’d finished alternating between crying and gagging, I pondered that gray area a lot. Did wanting to keep secret what had happened on that mountain trail, that horrible moment when Luke had forced his tongue into my mouth, and the one after it when he acted like it was not only normal but that I should have been happy about it, wanting to bury that in some dark place never to be looked at again—did that count as a lie?

I knew lies were dangerous. Once you told one lie, you had to tell another one to cover the first, and then another and another, and before too long you were trapped in your own web. I think Shakespeare said that or something.

But this was different, wasn’t it? I’d made a mistake. I’d trusted Luke when I knew I shouldn’t, and something bad had happened—but that didn’t mean I had to tell the whole world, did it? I had a right to privacy; I had the right to protect myself and my reputation.

What I decided that night was that a secret is not a lie. Telling a lie is a sign of desperation, of wanting to hide the truth, or hide from it. Keeping a secret is a sign of discretion, even maturity maybe. I decided it was the right way—the only way—to handle this awful situation I’d gotten myself into.

Looking back, of course, I see that gray area a little more clearly. True, a secret is not a lie. The only problem with a secret is you have to tell a lot of lies to keep it. And like I said before, lies are dangerous.

Chapter 1

The day after my birthday, I woke up feeling groggy. My head ached and my eyes stung. I groaned, the memory of yesterday smacking me in the face again. I rolled my face into my pillow, wishing that I could just go back to sleep and forget about everything. The worst thing of all was that I’d have to see Luke practically first thing in the morning for swim practice.

Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to me. After all that thinking about secrets and lies the night before, I had never considered that Luke might not want to keep what had happened on our date private. What’s that saying about kissing and telling? Was he bragging about it already?

I dove out of bed, threw on some clothes without even looking, and ran to the bathroom to splash water on my face. I had to get to the pool early to catch Luke and get us both on the same page—a sealed lips page.

As I walked into the kitchen, my mom pressed the lever to the toaster down.

I don’t have time for breakfast today, Mom. I pressed the cancel button. I have to get to school early to talk to Luke. I don’t want him blabbing to anyone about what happened. I sighed. He better not have said anything already.

Got it, my mom said, snagging the untoasted bagel and smearing it with cream cheese. You still have to have breakfast.

I rocked from foot to foot. I’ll just eat it plain. No biggie. It was just my mom and me every morning there was swim practice. She always made me breakfast and got me to practice on time, and I appreciated that, but today, I needed to be there early.

She quickly spread strawberry jam over the top of the cheese.

I really need to go.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, as you know. She raised her eyebrows and handed me the bagel with a napkin.

I took it with a sigh and headed out to the garage. I picked at the bagel as I waited for my mom—it was several minutes before she finally climbed in the car and turned on the engine.

I pursed my lips and sighed.

She handed me a glass of orange juice along with my lunch. I downed the juice in a few quick gulps and shoved my lunch into my backpack.

Just think, she said. You have your driver’s license exam after school today, and you won’t have to worry about your slow-poke mom taking you anywhere.

I snorted. She backed out of the garage.

Like I want to drive that beater car to school. A flush crept across my neck and face, and I immediately started to sweat at the thought of what people would think when I drove up in that thing.

It’s better than nothing.

I’m not so sure about that. I was grateful, I just didn’t have it in me to make it seem cool.

You just have to own it.

This was a repeat lecture