a good boy is hard to find

anna was a year above joe and she wasn't the prettiest girl, but she had a radiance about her. what she lacked in physical beauty she compensated with her charm and she was confident in her demeanor, but never felt as if she was above anyone. although she would be the first to strike up conversation she wasn't insistent or overbearing. she knew the right things to say; she knew how to respond to each kind of person learning different mannerisms and gestures to attract people especially boys. anna did not get along with the girls in her class because of this and she had few girl friends whose sole purupose in befriending anna was to learn her secret in attracting boys, but they did not realize that to anna it wasn't so much a secret than it was just knowing that all people were lonely in one way or another.

anna longed for friendship, for acceptance. many boys accepted her, but for her touch not her heart. anna's girl friends kept a distance from her because they did not fully understand her motives, so they kept close enough to study her interactions with boys and their conversations revolved around that subject, but they didn't care for her company. anna hated to be alone; she needed to be outside her house, to be with someone, and if it had to be a boy she did not mind as long as she could have his attention because attention was one of the symptoms of the love that she longed to catch. the love that anna desired was not a romantic love, but a pure love, something that would last and replace the desperation developing inside of her. she did not want to give up her physical purity, but felt as if she had no choice. for pure love she would sacrifice anything including her flesh.

anna would spend time with a few boys at a time testing to see who seemed most genuine. she didn't know that to them it was a test of endurance and of who wanted it the most. anna would wait until she saw something in one that she did not see in the others, an emptiness, a desperation like hers. she often mistaked a boy's fiery lust for emptiness and she would say, "i need you." and that was it. after the boy got what he wanted he would move on while anna, heartbroken, would mourn in silence until the next boy came along. she was left feeling more desperate than before and that loneliness would outweigh her shame, so much so that she would repeat this cycle of looking for boys and giving herself away.

one day anna was watching television and she turned to a news special about a man who had been crippled by a drunk driver. the man was testifying in court and the drunk driver was present. she watched footage from the court as the man limped up to the drunk driver he held out his hand and looking up to the Heavens he said to the drunk driver, "i forgive you." the drunk driver broke down and threw his arms around the man as the man embraced him back. anna could not contain herself and she broke out in tears uncontrollably. she sobbed and sobbed repeating the words to herself, "i forgive you, i forgive you." she thought about the story and the words every time she slept with a boy and sometimes would cry during or after scaring the boys. soon word spread about the "sob slut" and very few of the boys wanted anything to do with her.

that was until she met joe...