Becoming Me Read Online Free Page A

Nathan has been talking and joking around with me this week. Heather said he was asking her all about me—he actually thought I was a new girl who’d moved here from someplace else! Let me tell you, I wish I was from someplace else. It doesn’t seem to matter to him that I’ve only recently begun hanging with Jenny and Heather—he seems to be interested in me for who I am.
    The only thing that’s bothering me about all this now, is that I’m afraid he’ll ask me out, and (now this is really embarrassing) my parents have never let me go out on a date yet. After my dad went to this Christian men’s convention a few years ago, he got it into his head that I shouldn’t date until I turned EIGHTEEN! Well, at the time, I was only about thirteen and thought my dad was the next thing to God himself, and so I agreed with him (stupid, stupid, stupid!). So, is it fair for parents to hold their kids to some ridiculous promise they made when they were barely entering adolescence? I don’t think so!
    Anyway, this is not a conversation I’m looking forward to at all. But I intend to have it. I’ve already started (very subtly) working on my mom, and she seems sort of open to the whole thing. But my mom’s been acting kind of strange anyway lately—kind of checked-out or something. It’s almost like I can ask her anything and she’ll just say “okay, that sounds fine.” Not that I mind, but it does bother me a little. Just a little. Anyway, I asked my dad if he would take me to breakfast tomorrow morning—we used to do that a lot; it was our special time together. And heagreed. So tonight I’ll sleep with my fingers crossed. And maybe even say a prayer!
January 11, Thursday (get real, Dad!)
    Well, I will no longer be considering myself Daddy’s little girl. That man is the most narrow minded, suspicious, distrustful person on the entire planet. He sat there in the Denny’s booth and told me with a straight face that “high school boys are only looking for one thing!” And, of course, we all know what he means by that. But how ridiculous! Like every single high school guy wants to take out a girl just so he can have sex. I wish my dad would get real!
    I mean, I’m not stupid, I know there are a lot of kids doing it (maybe even most kids, the way they talk and all), but not everyone ! And why does he think that I would even consider having sex? Just because I’m going out on a date? I mean, think about it, if I wanted to have sex that bad, I could just duck out behind the gym the way I’ve heard some other girls do—disgusting as that sounds to me. But who does my dad think I am? What have I ever done to make him so distrustful of me that I couldn’t go out with a boy and not go to bed with him? Not only that, it really creeps me out to have my dad even thinking that way about me to begin with. I don’t know if I want to talk to him again about any of this stuff. And I used to think that Dad and I were so close—sympatico, you know. I think I’d better just talk to my mom instead. Maybe she can turn his paranoid thinking back towards reality. But I doubt that.
    Anyway, who am I trying to fool here? Nathan will probably never ask me out. I am planning to go to the basketball game tomorrow since it’s at home this week. And if I hang out with Jenny and Heather—well, who knows what might happen after the game? And the best part is, my parents won’t stop me from going to a basketball game.
    So now the biggest question is: What will I wear? It’s not fair that Heather and Jenny get to wear their cheerleader uniforms all the time—just think how many times they don’t have to worry about what they’re going to wear! Maybe I can get Mom to take me to the mall after school on Friday. I still have some Christmas money left, and besides, she and I haven’t done much together lately, not to mention she still needs some softening up just in case the dating question ever arises.
January 12, Friday (twists and