Crush

A girl was painting the kitvhen cupboards on a very hot summer day. She gets the job because of her father in the house. His name is Allen, the broad man and the father of the children she babysits. She has flashbacks of him throwing his children around in the water at the beach, teaching them how to swim. It is too hot so she unbuttons her blouse and takes it off. She wants to take of her bra, but she doesn't. Her mother tells her to be careful that Allen does not see her. The girl thinks maybe she wants him to see, but does not share this thought with her mother. Her mother decides to go downtown to get meat. She tells her to put on her blouse before leaving the house. Her mother tells her that Allen will be here soon with the bread. After the mother leaves, the girl takes out a tray of ice cubes. She takes the ice cubes from the glass and starts rubbing it on her skin, over her back and in between her breasts. She undoes the top button of her blouse and then the next and the next. She unfastens her bra, and slips it down over her arms. She sees the broad man coming closer to the house and runs to the front door. When she opens the door, there is no sound but the pace of his breathing, no movement but the startled rhythm of his eyes moving from her face to her warm bare skin and back again. Her mother’s voice hits the girl like an iceberg. She stands frozen knowing that she will be caught and will be punished. She picks up her bra, and the man runs to his truck, and safely gets in. Allen is worried that the girl’s mother thinks that he was on her too and is embarrassed and frightened that she will tell his wife. They talk and the girl has never given his one small clue that she was thinking in those terms. She's a good kid. He tries to hide that they would ever do anything in saying that she always hides herself behind a huge pile of books help up tight against her sweater. This was so that they don't get in trouble. He says that kids are just sometimes crazy. She was crazy. But he remembers her eyes and whatever it was they were saying, it had nothing to do with being crazy. She tells her that if she doesn't control it she will waste it bit by bit and there will be nothing left. There will be no young man, not to marry. They'll take it all from you, all of them, any of them because they can’t stop themselves from taking it. It’s their responsibly and their responsibility to not offer it.