Curvy Girls Can’t Date Quarterbacks
Chapter One
Why was I taking a pregnancy test as a virgin? Oh yeah, my mom was literally insane.
I brought the stick with the words flashing not pregnant to the dining room where my mom, dad, and brother sat with their ridiculous grapefruit breakfasts. It landed with a satisfying clack next to the pile of papers my mom was grading.
“Can we please move on?” I asked, hands on hips. “I’ve already told you I’m not dating anyone.”
She pushed her reading glasses up her nose and held the out so the results could come into focus before sighing and setting it on the table. “Rory, you’ve missed three periods in a row and you don’t want to go on birth control. And you’ve gained ten pounds in the last three months. You can’t blame me for being suspicious.”
Dad nearly choked on his grapefruit and swallowed a big gulp of water, choking more.
My brother looked way too pleased at all of this. As a boy, a junior in high school, and ridiculously fit runner, he usually got off easy from all of Mom’s “self-improvement” rampages. From college plans to weight loss, I’d heard it all.
Sometimes, having a mom who was also a health teacher sucked. Hard. “Glad to know you’re keeping track of my cycles, Mom.”
“Someone needs to.” She drew a big red smiley face on a paper next to a fifty percent. For Mom’s class, that was a pretty good grade.
“Mom,” I said. “Look at me.” I gestured at my size 1X school uniform and the required navy blue socks that strained at my calves. “I’m a virgin. I’ve told you that. So unless an angel shows up tonight and tells me I’m carrying the second son of God, you can give the pregnancy stuff a rest.”
Dad nearly choked again, but Mom ignored him and gave me an almost abashed smile as she held the stick back out to me. “Okay, but I made you an appointment at the doctor to get checked out. They may want to do a blood test to make extra sure you’re not pregnant.”
I turned my eyes toward the ceiling, contemplating my next move. Knowing arguing would be futile, just as it had been when she’d presented me with the test this morning, I gave in. “When is the appointment?”
“How do you know I already scheduled it?”
My dad, brother, and I each gave her a look, and she glanced up from her papers to show a sheepish smile. “This morning, at eight.”
“So, I’m missing first period,” I complained. Not that I was super into math, but I could have aced any test on the back of Beckett Langley’s head. “I thought you were worried about me missing periods?”
She ignored my comment completely. “I’ll talk to Mr. Aris, and Dr. Edmonson will have you done in time for you to be back for health class!” She flashed me a grin, standing up with her plate. “Now, hurry up and eat your breakfast. You’re going to be late.”
Keeping my grumblings to myself, I sat in front of half a grapefruit and thought of all the things I could do with this stupid spoon that didn’t involve shoving the bitter pink flesh down my throat. Smashing this pregnancy test was high on the list. As was wiping the smirk from my brother’s face.
I glared at him. “Don’t you have a jock convention to be at?”
His smirk grew wider as he came and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Love you, sis. Glad you’re not pregnant. But then again, I would have made a great uncle.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, stabbing my spoon into the grapefruit. “Love you, too.” At least if I was driving myself to the doctor’s appointment, I could make a quick fast food stop on the way and be rid of the evidence before I made it to school.
Dad wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I better get going too.” He stood and kissed my cheek. “Let me know how the appointment goes.”
“Sure,” I said, toying with the pulp at the end of my spoon. I tried a bite, but I just couldn’t stomach it. Giving up on “breakfast,” I got up from the table. After slipping on my dress-code-compliant loafers, I grabbed my keys from the hooks by the door. Usually, I rode with Mom and Aiden, so I at least this appointment gave me the chance to get my car out on the road. A mix between sensible and sporty, my Audi was the coolest thing about me.
I hit the road and stopped at my favorite drive thru before going to my mandated appointment at RWE Medical.
I walked through the sliding doors and gave Betty, the receptionist a pained smile.
“Mom sent you in again?” she asked.
“Yup,” I said, switching my paper bag to the other hand so I could sign in.
“An eight-a-m-er, no less. Nice.” She pushed some curly hair over her shoulder and typed in my name and date of birth without having to ask for it. “Sign this, and the nurse will be out to grab ya soon.”
I scribbled my name on the scuffed digital pad and sat down in one of the plush leather chairs. Hints of breakfast wafted from the paper bag in my hand made my mouth water. The only other thing that made me drool this much was Beckett’s perfectly messy hair and his muscled shoulders. How he managed to look like a prep school god in his uniform while I looked like an overweight Mia Thermopolis—pre-princess makeover—I had no idea.
I got the breakfast sandwich out of my bag and took a bite, savoring the sausage. My eyes slid closed. So much better than a grapefruit.
So much better.
“Hey Aurora,” a voice said beside me.
A sexy voice.
I gulped down my bite and brushing biscuit crumbs from my lips turned to see the deepest hazel eyes.
Beckett Langley knew my name?
“Beckett,” I breathed. Then coughed and said his name at a normal tone like I wasn’t a complete lovestruck psychopath. “Beckett. What—um, what are you doing here?”
Okay, not a perfect second attempt, but closer.
He sank back in the leather chair next to mine and held up his arm sporting a black wrist brace. “Fell wrong in practice. Coach wants an x-ray before he’ll let me play again.”
“Oh,” I said, completely distracted by him. Now that I had looked away from his eyes, I couldn’t stop taking in the rest of him. The tight Emerson Academy t-shirt and mesh shorts that hung on his muscular legs. The dampness of his hair that made it look almost black.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Oh, um.” God, could I stop saying um? But then again, it was better than the whole pregnancy-test-missing-periods-virgin conversation we could be having...
“Rory?” Chloe said by the door. She was wearing Winnie the Pooh scrubs today, and I’d never been more grateful to see Pooh.
“That’s me,” I said, half to her and half to Beckett.
He gave me a two-finger salute. “See you in math tomorrow, Rory.”
I nearly choked on my saliva. He knew my name and that we were in math together? “I—um—yeah.”
I bunched up the paper bag with my food and stood up, straightening my shirt—and checking for stray crumbs.
As I walked to meet Chloe and go back for my appointment, I felt Beckett’s eyes on my back, and my heart in my throat.
CHASING SKYE
Chapter One
KELLUM WATTS BURST through the door, parting his lips in an apologetic grin. “Sorry I’m late!”
“The first day, Kell?” the teacher asked. “Not a good way to start out.”
“I know,” he smiled again, shaking his damp brown hair around his face, and Mrs. Valor practically melted into a pile of blushing, Kellum-loving goo. “It won’t happen again.”
Every line that formed around his eyes when he smiled etched itself permanently into my memory.
No dimple left behind.
He slid into an empty seat reserved especially for him between Safron and Zack. Safron reached out and scratched Kellum’s shoulder with her French-tipped nails. Kellum matched her adoring smile with one of his own and hooked the strap of his backpack over his chair, then scanned the room.
His brown eyes met mine.
I looked down at my notebook.
“Well, now that everyone’s here, we can get back to class,” Mrs. Valor said.
She continued with the first-day speech teachers gave every year, which usually included a syllabus and the word “respect.” Between wondering if Safron could smell his cologne and fretting about volleyball tryouts, I barely caught a word.
The bell rang, and I retreated to the hallway, not wanting to see if Kellum would carry Safron’s books.
“Hey, Skye!” Kylie appeared beside me.
I jumped, putting my hand over my heart. “You scared the crap out of me.”
She laughed and shrugged. “How was A&P?”
“It was okay,” I replied without asking how she already knew my class schedule. In two years of knowing her, I’d learned to just go with it and enjoy her uncanny knowledge of everybody’s business.
“What classes do you have?”
“Oh, this and that. We have English and history together.”
The warning bell rang, and she waved goodbye before veering of down a different hallway. I took my time walking to Spanish where I found Señora Luna standing in front of a full classroom wearing a gaudy sombrero.
For the next hour, she gave us the cultured version of Syllabus Day (“¡Respeto!”) and then I made my way to the free reading period. I suffered through Mr. Winkel’s nasally reminder to read a book and write a report every quarter before the bell finally rang and I could go to weights class.
The gym lights were of as I walked down the sideline to the girls’ locker room, but light from the windows shined on the volleyball net. Excitement crackled through my muscles and danced over my skin. New year, new volleyball season, new position, new me.
I stepped down the stone stairs to the dingy locker room and saw Rachel and Shelby were the only other girls there. Both of them were on the volleyball team with me the year before, so I figured we’d be a good group.
We talked about our summers and volleyball tryouts, then headed back to the gym.
Coach Rokey waited for us in the corner by the door. About fifteen guys already circled around him, and I hoped Kellum would be in the group. When we got closer, I heard his laugh before I saw him. It brought a smile to my lips.
Rokey used his finger to count everyone out. “Okay, follow me.”
We walked through halls, giving me a better view of Kellum. His shirt sleeves were cut of so low I could see the muscles work in his shoulders as he walked.
Coach Rokey led us to an open area in the weight room, and Kellum stopped in front of me. He must have grown over the summer because he stood several inches taller than my 5-foot-six frame.
“You’ll be in groups of three according to ability,” Rokey told us. “Girls, you’ll go together. Kellum, Bryant, Kaiser, you’re a group...”
After sorting us into groups, Rokey had us bench press. Shelby barely managed 75 pounds. Rachel followed at 105. When my turn came, Coach joined our group to spot me. I’d been nearing the record of 120 pounds all summer, but I was about to press 125.
Laying on the bench, I stared up at the bar, wrapping my hands around the cold metal. Feeling every bit of the weight, I lifted it from the rack, lowered it to my chest, and started the slow push up. My arms froze, elbows bent, and I struggled to get past the stall in my lift.
“Come on!” Rokey urged.
Grunting out a breath, I broke past the invisible stop and pushed the bar all the way up for one rep. I racked the weights, making a satisfying clang of metal on metal.
Coach grinned down at me. “This is what you get for coming to summer weights!”
I’m sure my face was all sorts of red and unattractive as I sat back up, grinning.
Zack slapped me a high five. “Nice!”
I blushed, thankful for the cover of exertion.
Sure, I wanted Kellum’s best friend to recognize me, but not especially for bench press.
“Embrace it,” Rokey said. He must have caught the blush.
Shrugging, I tried to make my face normal.
Thankfully, Rokey released us to go change, and I didn’t have to stand around the rest of the boys much longer. I caught Kellum looking at me on the way back to the gym, but he was probably just surprised about the record.
The guys and girls split at the gym entrance, and we made our way toward the locker room. My arms ached as I struggled to change out of my gym clothes. “I’m gonna be sore tomorrow,” I said, groaning.
“Man, I wish I could lift like that,” Rachel said.
“Yeah,” Shelby said, “but too much muscle slows you down in volleyball anyway.”
I jerked my head back, shocked. Was she being serious?
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked, reading my mind.
“The college coach I talked to this summer at camp said he’d trade speed for power any day.” Shelby cast me a sideways glance. “Bulky girls are just slower.”
I could practically feel the cold cement floor on the underside of my jaw. She had to be kidding. “You have to have power to hit,” Rachel shut her locker. “And serve.”
“That’s just what the coach told me.” Shelby sat down and started knotting up her shoelaces. I remembered the college where she went to the camp. A division two, nobody school.
“What was their record last season?” I asked, trying not to let her comment make me regret all the hours I spent in the weight room over the summer.
Shelby looked at me finally, her eyes narrowing once she realized what I meant. “This coach came from Upton, 32-1 last season. But don’t worry, Skye. There are lots of bigger girls on community college teams.”
Shelby shut her locker, smiled at me, and flounced away.
I ground my teeth, mad at what Shelby said and madder I let Shelby have the last word.
Rachel opened her mouth, “I—”
I shook my head.
“But—”
I raised my hand. “That doesn’t even deserve a response.”
I tried to believe that lie, but I couldn’t. The truth was, it stung, especially coming from a senior. Rachel and I made small talk while we finished changing and then headed to the cafeteria. We were lucky enough to fall in line a few people behind Kellum and Zack.
Kellum looked straight at me. “Hey, what was the record before, Skye?”
It took me a minute for my brain to connect with my mouth. “Um, 120, I think.”
“Cool. Good job,” he said and turned back to Zack.
An insuppressible smile stretched my lips, and it lasted for a full five minutes until I saw Shelby at the table. Most of last year’s volleyball team sat together, and I took a seat as far away from her as I could. Volleyball tryouts dominated the conversation.
Tryouts at McClellan weren’t really tryouts. Since it was a smaller school, everyone got to be on the team, but we did have to fight for playing time in the positions we wanted.
Kylie waved her carrot stick around as she talked. “You know me. Middle hitter, all the way.”
“Same,” Rachel said, shrugging. She’d played the spot for the last three years. Trying out was just a formality for her at this point.
Just as I opened my mouth to talk, Shelby told everyone she wanted to be libero, meaning she’d get to wear a special jersey and play back row the entire game. She thought it would give her a better chance at playing in college the next year.
A few of the girls told her she would be great for the position.
I kept my mouth shut. The second half of the day passed much the same as the first half.
English, “r-e-s-p-e-c-t.”
American History, “Remember the Alamo?” Calculus, “The limit on a bad attitude does exist.”
Journalism, “Being a good journalist is about more than the quality of your work.”
Of course, everyone would forget the whole good-attitude thing less than a week in—including the teachers—and school would be back to normal. What I’d been looking forward to all day finally came: the final bell. I threaded my way through the throng of students rushing to get home and made it to the locker room, changing in record time.
I had on my favorite kneepads along with spandex, a cutoff T-shirt, and a pair of broken-in volley‐ball shoes. Within fifteen minutes, I had stretched and was practicing my serve.
“Ladies!” Coach Umber’s voice rang throughout the gym. “Take a seat at center court.”
The rest of the girls and I jogged over and sat in a semicircle under the net facing Coach and Tasha Wilkens, the assistant coach. For the first ten minutes, Coach took roll and asked us which positions we would like to try out for, jotting notes on a clipboard.
When she called my name, I tried to sound conf‐dent. “Libero.”
I didn’t dare check Shelby’s expression. The other girls’ poorly hidden looks of surprise said all I needed to know.
Shelby’d already said she wanted the position at lunch, and since she was a senior, I was supposed to back down and say “defensive specialist” or “outside hitter” and wait for next year to have my turn.
I just couldn’t do it. If Coach thought Shelby was better than me, I’d take a different spot, but I knew what I wanted, and I wanted to be varsity libero.
Coach nodded like nothing potentially disruptive to the accepted social order had happened and called on the last of the girls. After that, she had us do some warm ups and then ran us through several drills. The practice wasn’t overly difficult and wasn’t anything compared to what regular season practices would be like, but I still worked up a sweat.
Being back on the court felt like heaven. On the court was the only place I could let my mind go and let the rhythm of the game take over. Volleyball made sense in a way the rest of life never did, and I liked the way I ft into the game.
I wasn’t sure where I stood compared to Shelby, but I out-hustled her every chance I got, and I was sure Coach would notice that.
In the locker room after practice, the atmosphere was different than other year’s post-tryouts scene.
Usually a couple of girls were frustrated with their performances and complained, best friends reassured each other, and most of the upperclassmen, like me, just smiled and changed. This time, when I walked into the locker room, everything got quiet.
ABI AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR
Chapter One
Nothing spelled misery like trying to find a seat on the school bus the first day at a new school.
I scanned the rows, and kids started stretching out so there wouldn’t be room for me. I didn’t want to sit by them either, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.
As I walked down the dirty rubber aisle, I took note of who was riding—only a handful of people my age sat amongst the crowd of younger kids. Would a grade schooler or someone my age give me less grief?
“Don’t sit by me!” a little kid squeaked. He leaned over the seat in front of him and whispered, “I’m afraid she might crush me.”
Of course, he was as good at whispering as he was at not being a jerk.
Tears burned my eyes, I hurried to wipe them. So much for a fresh start.
“You can sit here.”
I twisted to see a guy—a good looking guy, the kind who never talked to girls like me—and said, “What?”
He pulled his backpack onto his lap. “This seat’s open.”
I eyed him wearily and was about to turn down his offer when the old bat driving the bus told me to “quit the pomp and circumstance and sit down already.”
I took the seat, and in an effort to give the guy some space, half of my butt hung off the edge. I hugged my backpack to my chest, wishing I’d just taken Grandma up on her offer to drive me.
“Are you new here?” he asked softly.
Glancing at him sideways, I huffed, “Yeah.”
He smiled so warmly it caught me off guard. No one ever looked at me like that, much less guys my age. Especially not ones who looked like him.
“I’m Jon.” He stuck out his hand over his backpack. “Jonathan, but Jon.”
Praying my hand wasn’t too sweaty, I took his grip. “Abi.”
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“McClellan,” I said, and I hoped he would leave it at that.
“That’s pretty close.” He leaned forward on his backpack. “Have I seen you at a game or something?”
Was that a joke? I definitely didn’t look like the kind of girl who hung out anywhere near a sporting event, except maybe at the concession stands.
“Doubt it,” I finally muttered.
He seemed at a loss for words, and I turned my head toward the front of the bus. Were we there yet?
“Your parents got a new job or something?”
“Not exactly.” I hoped my thick foundation still covered the yellowing bruise on my cheek. This wasn’t the kind of move caused by a promotion.
The bus pulled in front of a school twice the size of McClellan, and I took a deep breath. This was it.
“Well, let me know if you need help finding anything, Abi.” He patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
For the first time in a long time, I smiled. “Thanks.”
I could feel the ghost of where he touched me, even as I made my way back down the aisle. Maybe this would be a good new start for me, like Grandma said.
The shadow of a smile was still on my lips as I walked up the steps to the school. I already had a locker and books, but Mrs. Moscavits, the principal, wanted me to come by her office on my first day for my schedule.
A receptionist desk positioned in front of Mrs. Moscavits’s office made the plump woman with spiky hair sitting behind it look more like a guard dog than a secretary.
She lifted a red-penciled eyebrow, revealing more blue eyeshadow. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mrs. Moscavits,” I said.
“Sandra!” she called to the closed door. “There’s a student.”
Overpaid doorbell.
“Hold on,” a voice called from behind the door.
I glanced my watch. We still had fifteen minutes until school started, so I took my backpack off and rifled through it until I found a granola bar I’d stashed there earlier.
The door to the principal’s office opened, and Mrs. Moscavits came out, tucking her glasses into her hairline like a horn-rimmed headband. “Abigail, good to see you again.”
She offered her square hand in greeting.
I wiped the leftover melted chocolate on my jeans, gulped down the un-chewed oats, and put my hand in her firm grasp.
“Follow me,” she said.
Matching her long stride without panting was a challenge, but I managed.
“Okay,” she began, “we gave you most of the same classes you had at McClellan, but if you have trouble catching up, we can arrange help.” She handed me the paper, and I glanced down at the classes on my schedule. “Your first class is biology.”
One word glared at me, more menacing than any I’d ever seen. “Gym?”
She pulled her glasses from her hairline to her nose and scanned the paper. “Yes, right before lunch.”
“Can I change it?”
“We have a physical education requirement here at Woodman, Abigail. If you’re not going to play a sport, you have to take this.”
She came to a door with a sign that said Room 139, Mr. Pelosi, and gestured that I should go ahead of her. I went to open the door, and she said, “Stop!” Her hand brushed my back, making the sound of crackling paper.
I turned to see a crumpled sticky note peeping through her fisted fingers. “What was that?”
She cleared her expression. “Nothing.”
“What did it say?”
“Nothing,” she said again, her voice firm. “Let’s go into your class.”
“I think I have a right to know.” I folded my arms over my chest.
She gave me a glare that could have rivaled my mother’s, then pulled open the classroom door, cutting the teacher off mid-sentence. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, and if not for his dressy shirt and tie, I might have mistaken him for a victory-lap senior giving a class presentation.
“Hi, Mr. Pelosi. This is your new student, Abigail Johnson. I hope you’ll all give her a warm Woodman welcome.”
“Hi, Abigail.” Mr. Pelosi grinned at me. “Go ahead and take that seat there.”
He pointed at an empty desk next to a Hispanic girl in glasses. I had to squeeze between the rows, and my backside knocked over a water bottle on someone’s desk, but I made it to the seat.
Mrs. Moscavits switched the orange paper to her other hand. “Well then, if you don’t need me here, I’ll leave you to it.”
“I think we’ve got it,” Mr. Pelosi said and waved her off.
She dropped the crumpled note in the wastebasket on her way out of the room.
After the door shut, Mr. Pelosi leaned against the front of his desk. “So why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, Abigail?”
I closed my eyes. “Like what?”
There wasn’t really anything good to tell. If I was in a newspaper, my headline would be “Girl with weight problem and abusive parents moves to new town seven months before graduation.” Not exactly above the fold material.
“Hmm.” He scratched his chin. “Okay, why don’t you tell us where you’re from, what you like to do in your free time, and why don’t we throw in your favorite animal since it’s biology?”
At least he didn’t ask me why I was there.
“I’m from McClellan. I like to watch movies, and I guess a fish?”
One of the boys in the row ahead of me whispered,
“More like a whale,” to his friend, and they both burst out laughing.
Mr. Pelosi pursed his lips. “Care to let us in on the joke?”
They both shook their heads. Apparently, my new classmates weren’t into sharing.
“Well, it’s great to meet you, Abigail,” he said, standing up from the desk. “I’m sure we’ll get to know each other a lot better as the semester goes on.”
He continued for the rest of the hour with a lesson about the circulatory system, and for the most part, the class was quiet. He called on me once to answer a question, and since I’d scanned the same section in the book about five times, I got it right.
Finally, the bell rang. On my way out of the room, I bent over and picked up the crumpled sticky note from earlier. WIDE LOAD.
“Don’t worry about them.”
I crushed the note in my fist and shoved it in my pocket. “What?”
The girl who sat next to me in class was now at my side in the hall. She was a few inches shorter than me, but she had to weigh at least eighty pounds less.
“Those guys in class. They pick on your life because they don’t have one.”
Instead of telling her I was the last person who had a “life,” I said, “Thanks.”
She readjusted her messenger bag, balancing the load on her slim shoulder. “I’m Stormy.”
“Abi.”
“So just don’t worry about them. Okay?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “I’ll catch you at lunch.”
Stormy gave me a parting glance, and then tossed herself into the sea of kids in the hallway.
I stared down at the schedule in my hand. One class down. Seven to go.
English was fine, math was math, and gym was hell.
I’d arrived on FTD, “fitness test day,” aka all-students-run-a-mile-and-I-mean-every-student day. At Woodman, all freshmen took PE, which met their requirement, so the only people in gym class now were scrubs, transfers like me, or kids who were in PE to get an easy A. Well, easy for them.
Wearing an old pair of track sweats the PE teacher scrounged up when I said I didn’t have any gym clothes, I stood at the starting line with fifteen other students. Seventeen minutes and eight seconds later, I crossed the finish line, nauseous, gasping for air, drenched in sweat, and red in the face.
Choking back tears, I walked to the locker room and sat in a bathroom stall until everyone else left. I used wet paper towels to wipe under my arms and cool my face.
When my breathing slowed and the lump in my throat dissolved into the usual feelings of inadequacy and shame, I left for the lunchroom, bringing the sweats with me. The PE teacher’s office came up on my left, and I stepped in.
“Hey,” he said.
I mumbled a greeting, then wadded up the sweats and tossed them to him.
“It’ll get better,” he said. “Just wait and see.”
I grunted. “We’ll be waiting a long time.” Seventeen minutes and eight seconds, to be exact.
Before he could reply, I walked away and made my way to lunch where I was practically accosted by Stormy, who insisted I sit by her and her friends.
“Are you okay?” she asked in between lunch ladies. “Your face is really red.”
“FTDs,” I huffed.
She sucked in a breath and made a face. “Ew.”
“Yeah.”
Once I’d filled my plate with a mass of gravy-covered meat and fruit cocktail, she led me to a round table surrounded by the oddest mixture of students I’d seen before. Two girls with brightly colored hair and gauges, a Hispanic guy with heavy gold chains around his neck, a scrawny guy with more freckles than pounds on the scale, one guy with a buzz cut and a letterman’s jacket, and another boy who looked like a Campbell’s soup kid.
“This is Abigail,” Stormy said.
“I know,” gold chain guy said. “I’m with her in English.” But he didn’t make an effort to introduce himself.
Stormy sat down and stared at me. “Well, sit down,” she said.
I wasn’t about to argue with the one girl who was trying to get to know me, so I took the chair between her and Campbell soup kid.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Andrew.”
“Abi,” I returned and sipped at my water.
No one else went out of their way to talk to me, but Stormy was adamant I took part in the conversation. When the girl with purple hair brought up math, Stormy said, “Aren’t you in college algebra?”
When Andrew brought up a ski trip his parents were going on, Stormy said, “I really like snowboarding, how about you, Abigail?”
Then, gold chain guy, who was actually named Roberto, said he was planning a party.
“Have you ever drank before?” Stormy asked, like it was her last-ditch effort to include me.
I shook my head. My parents had done enough of that for all of us.
Roberto ignored us. “Yeah, well, it starts at nine on Friday.” He grinned. “My brother’s bringing the beer.”
“Cool!” Stormy said. “You’re coming, right, Abigail?”
Before I even knew if I could, I said okay.
***
Jonathan-but-Jon was in all three of my afternoon classes, but I didn’t get to talk to him in any of them. Not that I would know what to say to him. Something along the lines of “I thought you were a decent guy, but you put a WIDE LOAD sign on my back. That was a real Richard move.”
He wasn’t on the bus after school. Thankfully, that meant I had a seat to myself.
The driver let me off outside my grandma’s house and I walked down the sidewalk, practicing what I could tell my grandma so she’d let me spend time in my room. Alone.
I opened the door and was instantly greeted by the TV blaring a news station.
“Is that you, Abi?” Grandma called from the living room.
“Yeah.”
“Come in here!”
Time for my practiced line. “I need to go take a shower!”
“Just for a second!”
Just for a second. I dropped my backpack in the doorway. That was ten minutes in Grandma’s world. I walked over orange shag carpet to the living room where Grandma rested in her recliner. She lifted the remote and muted the TV. On the screen, I saw winds and rain ripping through palm trees. Trouble in Florida. Again.
“How was your first day?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“Did you make any friends?” She looked so hopeful.
“Kind of… I got invited to hang out with some people after the game on Friday.”
“Oh, that’s great, honey! I hoped this would be a good start for you, after everything.”
“Thanks.” I turned to go to the spare bedroom—my bedroom.
“Hold on,” she said.
I turned around and waited. “Yeah?”
She pushed down the footrest on the recliner. I could practically see the plans brewing behind her bright eyes. She needed something.
“Well,” Grandma said, “I have a neighbor down the street, Marta Scoller, and she has a son in school that’s your age. She invited us over for supper tonight. Wasn’t that nice of her?”
I remembered the boys in biology who’d called me a whale. Pass. Hard pass. “I’m really tired. I had to run a mile in gym today and—”
“They made you run a mile?” Her eyebrows raised, deepening the wrinkles on her forehead.
“It was awful.”
“Well”—she put her hand under her chin, in thought—“I could call and cancel, but I think it would be good for you to meet more people from your school.”
The last thing I needed or wanted to do was meet people from Woodman. Half of them seemed to have a fat-girl-bullying hole I was perfectly sized for, and the other half—with the exception of Stormy, who I considered an anomaly on par with girls who could eat anything they wanted and not gain weight—seemed to find me slightly inconvenient. Like I was a scuff on the floor people walked by every day, thinking “I should clean that up.” My whole goal for the seven months until graduation was to fade into obscurity.
But I gave Grandma the condensed version. “I don’t really feel up to it.”
“Just for tonight, Abi, and you can rest all day tomorrow if you want to.” She sweetened the tone of her voice, and her soft blue eyes looked so hopeful.
“Well, I guess—”
“Great. You can go ahead and shower. I told her we’d be over at 5:45, sharp.”
She unmuted the TV, and I looked at the screen. A guy in soaking wet, tattered clothes was kneeling in front of a flooding building. A proposal. Great. I hoped for the girl’s sake he wasn’t as forceful as my grandma was.
I walked to the bathroom and undressed for a shower. When I tossed my jeans into the hamper, the orange sticky note spiraled to the ground.
Wide load.
Between the vanity and the bathtub was my grandma’s old spin dial scale. The last time I’d been weighed was at the doctor’s office, and it had been quite a while since then.
I lifted it up and moved it to the center of the bathroom. The yellowed sticker at the bottom read, Evenly distribute weight on scale.
With a deep breath, I lifted one foot then the other and watched the black numbers whir behind the red needle.
That couldn’t be right.
Frozen, I stared at the little tick marks and counted right from 210.
212 pounds.
The familiar sting of tears burned my eyelids. Why had I done this to myself?
I walked over to the sink and braced myself on the counter as I examined myself in the mirror.
What I saw was ugly. I saw my father’s round, pudgy face with dishwater blue eyes. I saw my mother’s thick, light brown hair, but without highlights. Stretchmarks rippled across my arms, hips, stomach, and legs. I saw my pale face, splotchy with heat. I hated myself. Absolutely hated everything about me.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that I never wanted to see those numbers on the scale again.
I stepped into the shower and let the hot water pour over my body. It relieved some of the kinks I’d acquired running, and I sat down in the shower, letting the heat work its magic. When steam filled the air and most of the hot water was gone, I got out and reached for a towel.
The towels at my grandma’s house all matched. They were dark blue and embroidered with creamy, smiling angels. All of the towels at my parents’ house were threadbare and different, faded colors.
I wrapped myself in a navy towel, making sure the angel faced away from my skin. With its big eyes staring at me, I sat down on the edge of the bathtub and cried.
DEAR ADAM
Chapter One
EMERICK
IF MRS. ARTHUR’S stupid bobbleheads kept nodding at me, I’d rip them in half.
Our guidance counselor had one from every college within a five-hundred-mile radius stacked in weird places—on top of papers, in the handles of her filing cabinets, on the ledge of the lone window in her office.
My mom hit my leg under the table. She didn’t have to say anything for me to know what she meant. Pay attention.
I shook my own bobblehead and looked at Mrs. Arthur and our principal sitting on the opposite side of the table.
Mrs. Arthur leaned forward. “Unfortunately, you’re a credit short, and all of our elective classes are full.”
I hung my head. Yet another way I’d failed my mom. But working thirty hours a week on top of school made it hard to finish homework. Especially for idiotic classes like consumer math. I could use my freaking phone to do that math.
Mom worked her hands in her lap. “There has to be something he can do.”
Mrs. Arthur exchanged glances with Principal Scott, and he nodded with his eyes closed like this was the least worthwhile thing he’d do all day. She took in a deep breath. “You know about the WAHS Ledger?”
Mom shook her head, the lines around her eyes looking deeper than ever.
“It’s the school’s newspaper—an award-winning publication at that. I’m on the faculty editing
board, and we believe there’s one thing keeping us from placing at a national competition.”
I raised my eyebrows. What did she think was missing? Actual news? Exposés on mystery meat weren’t exactly hard-hitting stories.
Mrs. Arthur paused for dramatic effect. “We’d like to start up the advice column again. And we want it to be written by a guy.”
Mom scoffed and sat back in her seat.
I didn’t need her to say anything to understand that either.
Emerick is the last person who should be giving anyone advice.
And I agreed.
Apparently, Mrs. Arthur did, too, because she nodded. “Typically, we’d privately select someone from our journalism class, but seeing Emerick’s predicament... Well, we’d like to give him a chance. Supervised, of course.”
Mom took her purse from her chair and situated it over her shoulder. “He’ll do it. What choice do we have?”
I looked from her to Mrs. Arthur. “Come on, there has to be something else. I wouldn’t even know what to say to these preppy kids worrying about their hamsters dying.”
Principal Scott leaned forward, the tips of his fingers tenting his hands on the table. “You will do it, and I think it would do you good to realize you’re not the only one with problems.”
I scowled at him. Yeah, other people might have to stress about what to wear or where to take a girl on a date, but I had real shit on my plate. Like basically a full time job. Helping my mom save so we could move out of my uncle’s house. A dad who couldn’t help, not because he ran off, but because cops came to our shitty apartment and took him away in handcuffs.
Mom stood up and straightened the hem of her scrub shirt. “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Scott. If it’s alright, will you sort the details with Emerick? I’m already late for my shift.”
Principal Scott nodded. “Thanks for coming in, Mrs. Turner.”
“Ms. Turner.” Mom flashed him a come-get-me grin, and I almost vomited on the Pistol Pete bobblehead next to me. Seriously, Ma?
He straightened. “Ms. Turner. I can show you out. Mrs. Arthur, you’ll get Emerick set up?” She nodded. “Sure thing.”
For the next hour, we talked about the advice column. Dear Adam—a spin on Dear Abby. She gave me a school laptop, an email address— dearadam.WAHS@gmail.com– and directions to select three entries a week with responses to put in the paper.
“You can reply to just those three, or more if you’d like, but we have to have three in the paper
each week.”
“Sure.” I folded my arms and leaned on the table. “There’s just one problem.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “What would that be?”
“I don’t want to.”
“At this point, it’s this or drop out.” She stood up and walked back to her desk. “The choice is up to you.”
I shoved the laptop in my messenger bag and picked up my leather jacket from where it rested over my chair.
“Good choice,” she said.
I gave her a final look and walked out of that office. And right into my worst nightmare.
