Sloppy Firsts_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [4]
The Clueless Crew continued flipping through the magazine, taking swigs from their Diet Cokes and passing one-word judgments on the images on each page.
"Nasty."
"Foul."
"Hideola."
Suddenly, Bridget slapped her hand down on a page.
"Now that girl has like, a totally kickin’ bod!"
"Totally!" agreed Manda and Sara.
She was a stick figure with balloon boobs—a body that rarely, if ever, occurs in nature.
They complained about how they could do toning exercises until Y3K and they would never, ever look like she did. They discussed their so-called flaws with enthusiasm. Bridget has a covergirl face, but her "huge ass" is holding back her career. (I’d kill for a less bony butt.) Manda "hates" her infamous DD-cup rack. (Yet she continues to show it off in tiny tees and tight sweaters, much to the delight of Pineville’s male population.) And let’s not forget Sara, whose self-deprecation stems from her belief that she looks like "a butchy softball player instead of a ballerina," an image reinforced by her nickname, "Bruiser." (Her self-esteem has been permanently trashed since her stepmom sent her to fat camp for her fourteenth birthday.)
Finally, Manda said, "Well, Jess would look like that if she got a boob job." And they all looked me up and down.
I would never get a boob job. It’s a disgusting procedure—I saw one performed on The Learning Channel. The surgeon went in through the belly button. The belly button! He stretched her skin like it was a wad of Bubble Yum and just pushed and shoved them into place. Ka-Boom: Va-va-va-voom.
"All we’re saying is that your abs, ass, and legs are like, totally perfect," Bridget said. "You should take it as a compliment."
I knew where this was headed: a calorie–fat analysis of my lunch followed by a How-can-you-eat-so-much-and-stay-so-skinny? interrogation.
"That pepperoni pizza has at least five hundred calories.…"
"And twenty-five grams of fat.…"
"Not to mention like, two hundred fifty calories’ worth of non-diet soda.…"
I have pointed out numerous times that while they are doing whatever it is they do after school once cheerleading season is over, I am at track practice. And there, I spend two and a half hours not sitting on my ass, daydreaming about how perfect it looks in my bun-hugger uniform, but hauling it around the track. But they refuse to see how all the food I pack in makes it possible for me to do that. So instead of repeating that useless argument, I made a false confession.
"All right. You got me. I’m bulimic."
Manda was unfazed. "Puh-leeze. You’re no bulimic. Binge-and-purgers are usually on the chunky side," she paused. "Right, Bruiser?" Manda winked. Sara winced—almost imperceptibly—before flipping Manda the bird.
These are supposed to be my friends. But more often than not, I can’t stand them.
Well, if I’m not bulimic, why do I have the urge to puke right now?
That’s what I should have said. But I didn’t. Instead, I just grabbed my backpack and left, without saying a word.
I stood alone in the bathroom until the bell rang. I pressed my forehead against the cool mirror, fogging it up with bursts of hot breath. I drew a smiley face on the mirror with my finger, then wiped it away. Finally, I looked at my reflection and thought, If Hope had been there, I wouldn’t be here.
the tenth
Earlier tonight Scotty came over to snap me out of my pissy mood at the request of the Clueless Crew. An interwenchion, so to speak. It had taken less than two weeks for them to come to the conclusion that I’m (in their words, via Scotty) "milking the whole Hope-is-gone misery for way too long." This was hilarious, considering how much I’ve been holding back. They had no idea how much worse I could be.
"They think you need to stop acting like a gee dee bee and get over it."
Scotty is the most self-censoring foulmouth I know. Like every other Jock, he worships Opie and