Clarissa’S Choice

By MS Weinman

High school junior Clarissa Thomas has always made good choices. She studies hard to get good grades. She trains hard in swimming so she can be a city champion. She understands that these choices will have the desired consequence, which is getting into the college of her dreams. But what choices does she make when she falls in love?

In this novel, Fifty Shades of Grey meets Encyclopedia Brown. When it comes to love and her body, Clarissa needs your help understanding choices and consequences. What will happen when you make Clarissas Choice?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543410013

MS Weinman

Motherhood inspired the author to create, not just an amazing child, but a young adult novel as well. When faced with the question, “how do you teach your daughter about the emotional element of sex”, this was the answer. MS Weinman is a Physical Therapist divinely inspired to be a writer. She was raised on the beaches of Southern California, but currently resides in Davis, California with her rescue Pit Bull, Ross.

Book preview

Clarissa’s Choice

MS Weinman

Copyright © 2017 by MS Weinman.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017904416

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-9999-7

      Softcover      978-1-5434-1000-6

      eBook         978-1-5434-1001-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/10/2017

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

This novel is dedicated to my Loyal Leo Sandwich.

To my mother: I miss you every day. You made me feel completely loved and supported. You reminded me that nobody’s perfect. You made me laugh. You told me to go for it. Luckily, I still hear your voice.

To my daughter: You inspire me. You are the strongest and smartest woman I know. Everything I do is for and because of you. I love you.

March 21

First day of spring. Still no boyfriend. How’s a girl supposed to catch a case of spring fever if she doesn’t have anyone to kiss? What do I have to do to get a boyfriend anyway?

Michelle has a boyfriend. Seems like Michelle has always had a boyfriend. Of course, he treats her like crap.

I never should have broken up with Brian.

This is all my mother’s fault.

Chapter 1

Clarissa walked the same path she had followed for the last one and a half years. It was as if she was stepping on her own invisible footprints along the cement walkway. Two-story, red brick buildings formed a horseshoe around the grassy quad of Ocean City High School. The sun warmed Clarissa’s face as it rose over the structure before her. A cool sea breeze caressed her back. It was another run-of-the-mill Ocean City day.

As she climbed the stairs to room D21, Clarissa scrutinized her fellow students, mainly comparing herself to the other girls. Twirling one of her chestnut curls around a finger, she thought, Why wasn’t I born with straight blond hair? Guys don’t like girls with muscles. Khaki isn’t really an eye color. My clothes are so boring.

She entered the classroom, put down her black backpack, and took her assigned seat at the first desk closest to the door. Homeroom. The same faces, in the same order, occupied the same space since the beginning of tenth grade.

Jay Thompson ambled into the classroom, took Clarissa’s left hand, and kissed it tenderly as he folded his towering frame into the desk behind her.

Good morning, beautiful, Jay said.

Good morning, handsome, she replied, completing the daily ritual as she stared into his brilliant blue eyes. In her mind, Clarissa began her mantra: We’re just friends, we’re just friends.

Their teacher wandered in, and everyone faced forward to hear the mundane announcements of the day. Clarissa rested her chin in her hand. She watched the second hand on the clock above the teacher’s head tick steadily from one short black line to the next, wondering if this day would bring anything new or interesting. Lately, it seemed as if there was a certain consistency to her life.

I sure wouldn’t mind if things got shaken up a bit.

Clarissa and Michelle settled in their uncomfortable plastic seats, a lump of reddish-brown clay deposited before them. Clarissa began squeezing and shaping the amorphous mass into a small bowl. The damp clay felt good in her hands.

Clarissa averted her eyes from her clay to her friend. For reasons she just didn’t get, people were always mistaking Clarissa and Michelle for sisters. They were about the same height, and both had wavy brown hair. But the similarities ended there. Michelle’s body was curvy and very sexy, an attribute that Michelle referred to as fat. She had soulful brown eyes that appeared to turn amber when she grew angry. Since Michelle was covered with freckles from head to toe, guys were always offering to connect the dots.

Michelle smiled a knowing smile. I saw you looking at Brian during lunch.

I know. I miss him, Clarissa replied, looking down at her bowl and pinching the clay between her fingers.

Clarissa could still feel Brian’s lips touching hers. Before him, she was pretty much sweet sixteen and never been kissed, except for a game of spin the bottle in sixth grade. They had intense make-out sessions, frequently steaming up the windows of his white Toyota Corolla. It was because of Brian that she knew what it felt like to be really turned on.

Her mother made the first comment to her sometime in August. I know you and Brian are fairly intimate. I think he might want to move ahead a bit faster than you do. The words lodged in Clarissa’s mind.

The