Sam, however, had no intention of allowing me to brush him off. Managing to keep his hand out of Mrs. Leverson’s line of vision, he snagged my shirt and bra strap with a pinch grip and pulled me back toward him.

“C’mon, Ellie. You know you’re as bored as I am.” Sam skimmed his fingertips over the spot where my bra’s back clasp bulged beneath the cotton fabric. “Tell me your fantasy.”

As our teacher gestured with her chubby arms up in front of our suburban Chicago classroom and performed other antics to entice student participation, I thought of my fantasy: Surviving adolescence. Maybe kissing Sam someday. Being a totally cool, in control, woman of the world.

Yeah, right. But I was an optimist in the ’80s.

I did not, however, divulge these imaginings to the precocious dark-haired boy who, thanks to the eternal delights of alphabetical order, sat near me in five out of seven classes.

No.

I might lust after Sam. A lot. But I hadn’t yet become self-destructive. I knew S-A-M was shorthand for D-A-N-G-E-R.

“In your fantasy, are you groping a guy in the dark, passionately, maybe under the bleachers?” Sam suggested, his voice low. His fingers massaged my spine, channeling toward me all the vigor of a testosterone-driven teen male.

I felt chills — equal parts anxiety and longing — at his touch. I tried to lean away from him again, but he drew me back with one swift motion.

“And are you feeling that guy’s hands rubbing your body, too? First, over your clothes, and then” — he paused to stroke his thumb down my bare neck — “underneath them?”

“Cut it out, Sam,” I whispered over my shoulder, finally breaking away despite my absurd desire for more. Since kindergarten he’d poked me in the back with his pencil tip and badgered me with pesky comments, but this was the first time he’d ever really touched my skin. I didn’t know what to make of it.