“Maybe I will at first, but in my mind Lindsey’s been gone a long time,” Briella says. “We haven’t been close for” — she pretends to count on one hand — “years, I guess. We’re really different.”
That surprises me. I always sort of lumped Lindsey and Briella together. Yes, they look different, but they are both perfectly beautiful. And both perfectly oblivious to me. My hair is a wet mess of sweat stuck to my hot head. The sun is so hot that the air feels like it’s scalding the inside of my throat.
A group of boys rides by on their bikes. I can hear them coming. I glance back over my shoulder.
“Here it comes.”
One of them yells back over his shoulder, “Like that’s going to help, lardbutt!” Their laughter floats back to us.
Briella takes off, running after them. Rat and I stumble to a stop and watch in amazement. One of the laughing boys looks back over his shoulder then shouts an alarm to his friends. They start pedaling faster, all laughter gone. It’s too late. Briella reaches the one closest to her and kicks the back tire with a force that sends the bike wobbling off toward the curb.
“You big chicken,” she yells at him.
“You’re crazy!” the guy on the bike yells. He gets his balance back, and rushes to catch up with his friends, who are now laughing at him.
“Yeah, and you’re scared of me!” Briella shouts back. She stops in the middle of the street, with both hands on her hips, breathing hard for the first time since we started. When Rat and I catch up, she grins at us in triumph.
“Why did you do that?” I ask in amazement.
“Wow,” Rat says. He looks at her like she’s Princess Leia or something.
Briella laughs. “They were idiots.” She slowly jogs around us in a circle, her cheeks flushed bright pink. “Come on, Ever. One more block to go.”
I’m confused. Did she do this for me or for that superhero-worship look on Rat’s face? Either way, all this drama means I can at least stagger my way to the end of the block at my own pace.
“It doesn’t matter what you do. It will never stop,” Skinny chuckles in my ear.
Chapter Eleven
What are you and Whitney doing today?” Dad asks Briella.
Whitney Stone, Briella’s newest BFF, leans against the kitchen counter in an ultra-fitted floral tank dress, tapping her French-manicured fingernails impatiently on the marble top.
At first, I was convinced she was hanging around Briella to get closer to Lindsey and the cheerleading squad, but now I’m not so sure. Evidently they bonded over a shared love of all things not Shakespeare in their freshman English class. Lucky me.
Dad looks like he’s drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper at the table. Really, he’s supervising me eating, or trying to eat, breakfast. I have a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me, and I’m taking tiny, careful bites. Chew. Chew. Chew. I don’t want it coming back up. Dad glances up every time I swallow, then quickly looks back at the paper to try and hide the fact that he’s watching.
“Going to the mall. I have some money for school clothes. You know, child support.” Briella grimaces. Her dad always gives her a lot of money right before school starts every fall.
Usually, he also makes a big date with her to take her out to lunch and give it to her in person. Then he cancels it and a big check arrives in the mail a couple of days later. I wouldn’t want to choose between my dad and a pair of colorful beaded sandals and a vintage studded bag, but it seems to work for Briella.
“We’ll definitely be gone all day,” says Whitney. I knew Whitney and Briella were friends, but having her in my kitchen on a Saturday morning is completely intimidating.
One of the popular crowd, she dates that cute, six-foot-tall basketball player, Matt Lucero. She’s never actually said more than a few sentences to me before, and then only when absolutely necessary. Mostly she just looks at me as though I’m one of those huge Texas tree roaches that scatter across the garage floor when you turn the lights on. So I just sit in silence, trying to fly under the popular-crowd radar, and concentrate on the dreaded food in front of me. Bite by bite by bite.
“You want some breakfast?” Dad asks Whitney.
I know what she’s going to say. Wait for it.
“No, thanks. I’m dieting.”
Bingo.
Whitney wears a size zero and I know because she tries to work it into every possible conversation. It’s the only time when being nothing is a really big deal.
“Hurry up. The mall is waiting.” Whitney rubs her hands together in anticipation and grins. “Thank God for guilty fathers. Briella is a very expensive child to support. It’s going to take at least a day to spend all that money.”