He was with her. Them. The menagerie.
There were a bunch of guys from the team tossing a ball around.
They didn’t see me. If they had I’m sure they would have pointed me out. Even when they’re trying to be inconspicuous, they stare and snicker.
I’m different. I get it. Half black. Half white. I fit in nowhere. They don’t need to point it out all the time. Maybe I should just get brown contacts, so I’ll fit in better.
David gasped, shattering the quiet in his living room. Brown contacts? Fit in? Sabrina Duncan was born to stand out.
I shouldn’t have listened. Nothing good ever comes from eavesdropping. I’ve learned my lesson.
Leslie was pouting about why David hadn’t called her last night. They wouldn’t leave him alone. He said he’d taken me to the fair.
She said it was so sweet that he was still friends with me, but he shouldn’t string me along.
I froze behind a clump of tall grass.
David insisted it wasn’t like that.
So how is it? He sounded so different on the phone earlier. Like he liked me. Finally. After all this time. He flirted with me.
But maybe it’s all a lie. Maybe he was just being nice and I’m reading into things.
I didn’t stick around. I was kind of worried I was going to puke and give myself away.
David barely remembered that day. He’d remembered hanging out with friends, anxious to see Sabrina again. He’d even driven to her house, but her mom had been camped out on the porch and he hadn’t wanted to deal with her. She’d been suspicious of him ever since he’d moved.
Taking a deep breath, he kept reading. The next entry was from a few days later.
I hate them. I hate them so much.
I hate them for all the mean things they’ve said. Leslie and her posse won’t leave me alone. I don’t understand what I did to them.
I wanted to die today.
David sucked in a sharp breath and his fingers traced the words.
They all fell out when I opened my locker. A dozen photocopies all over the hall of me naked in gym. As I was on my knees grabbing them before anyone could see, Leslie walked up.
I’m so fat in it. Why am I so fat? Why can’t I be thin like her?
She had a thousand copies of the photo. A thousand. She had the whole stack right there in her arms. I almost puked on her fancy ass shoes.
If I don’t stay away from David she’s going to tape one to every locker at school and give him a copy herself. I burned all the copies I could but what am I going to do if she posts my picture? I’ll be laughed out of school.
Maybe I was silly to even hope he’d like me like that. I mean, I know I was stupid to think that. I got fatter and he got taller and now it feels like my life is just over. The mean girls win. I hate them. I hate my hips, but I hate Leslie more.
Frowning, he tossed the journal onto the couch and stepped down into the kitchen where he could pace without having to duck.
Why hadn’t she told him?
How had he not known?
Why hadn’t he pressed harder?
Curiosity ate at him, and he took the stairs in a single step. The next entry was from a year later.
David frowned.
That was it?
He put the journal down again, leaving it cracked to the page. Disappointment assaulted him. He burned with it, knowing how painful her life had become only made him ache more.
Closing his eyes didn’t stop the memories. It didn’t stop the visions swimming before his eyes.
And then the rage began to bloom. Twice he’d been in the wrong place, the wrong space, too wrapped up in his own universe to save the woman he loved.
Vanessa hadn’t been able to forgive herself. She hadn’t been strong enough to overcome the excruciating pain. She hadn’t wanted to. She hadn’t wanted him.
And Sabrina…
What was her next chapter?
How had she become the gorgeous, confident woman he now knew?
The answer had to be in there.
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he picked up her journal again.
I tried to do it today. I had the pills out, the bottle of vodka open. I even wrote the note. Finally decided that anyone who cared should at least have an explanation. I hate a cliffhanger. An unsolved mystery.
David’s breath left in a whoosh.
I was holding the bottle and this guy knocked on my door. I don’t know why I left the door open. It’s not like me. But he stepped into my dorm room as if I’d invited him. I’ve seen him around. He’s chubby like me. White as a snowflake. He asked me to go to the movies with him.
Just like that. A movie. He didn’t even tell me his name or anything, just asked me out.
I told him I couldn’t. He glanced at the pill bottle in my hand and I swear he just knew. I don’t know how he knew. But he glanced over at my desk. I don’t think he could read the note, but he saw the vodka.
He didn’t even ask how I’d gotten it.
He just said I shouldn’t drink alone. And then he left. A second later he popped back in. He’s super cheerful in that annoying kind of way.
He wouldn’t take no for an answer. We saw the movie. Morgan Freeman has always been one of my favorite actors so that was no hardship.
We’re going to walk the track in the morning. His name is Ethan and he’s on some exercise kick. Says he’s lost 24 pounds and he wants to lose another one by the end of the week. I think my eyebrows hit the ceiling.
The idea of exercising makes me nauseous. I don’t want people looking at me and I don’t have anything to wear but Ethan says that doesn’t matter. They’ll all be looking at his
